What critically praised game is most mechanically broken?

Hello. What critically praised has the most broken mechanics IYO?

I think it's Resident evil 4 for number of reasons.

The game attempts to create tension, in the opening section it does this, effectively, but it soon becomes readily apparent regardless of difficulty, the player can just stun enemies and knife them to death over and over. Or kick a ladder over to create a endless looping animation. Or kick a door to create an endless stun.

The game attempts to mitigate resources by changing ammo deprivation on the fly, but when you can do this, it has practically no effect, you will almost always be overstocked and the only way to create challenge of any kind, is to ignore the glaring exploitations.

The looping and animation problem carried over to almost every boss.

Depending on your control scheme, as the game has been ported many times, difficulty, particularity the final boss, can be overcome in wrought 30 seconds with a wii, or mouse controller. The game difficulty should have been modified with each port it seems.

Overall, while a fun game, it feels very badly designed in a lot of respects, at least compared to something like Halflife or Portal.

I'd say that's a more op mechanic than broken, the knife was always meant to stun and there for people to take advantage of. Even on mercenaries.

My vote would go to Rockstar's shooting mecahnics in GTA4 and Red Dead, specifically when you turn the auto-lock on off. Egad the aiming in those games are awful, which promptly reminds you that those games are virtually unplayable without leaving on a zelda styled lock on, to a fucking shooting game.

Hi Cup,

What do you mean by broken? Do you mean overpowered mechanics or mechanics that are functionally broken or sub-par?

Pick a Bethesda game and you won't be far away from hitting the mark.

Whatever you want it to be my friend.

Oh, Akuma in Street Fighter 2? I know he got banned or some shit, don't specifically remember what made him so op though.

@uninspiredcup:

Oh okay. Hmmm. I guess I always felt that the gunplay of Bioshock left some to be desired.

It felt very lofty and uncomfortable compared to competing games in the genre.

@jumpaction: 1 or infinite?

@aigis:

The first one. I have only played Bioshock 1 and 2. :)

Bethesda RPG's.

Huh. I thought The Witcher 3 was tops in your book when it comes to a good example. ;)

The stamina bar in Skyrim is useless in melee combat when you can just spam the attack button and have no consequences because of it. It should take Stamina to swing an axe, sword or any melee weapon in Skyrim but it doesn't. Imagine in Fallout if the actions in lock on mode or whatever it's called didn't spend AP. It would be an inherently broken game. That is Skyrim.

There's a shit ton of reasons really, but I don't remember half of them.

The most basic reason is the air fireball. Safe jump ins, easy keep away, too much screen control. Most of the cast just didn't have the tools to deal with it. Red fireball corner traps were a thing. Of course other characters have tick-throw loop set ups in the corner, but obviously trapping with projectiles is less risky. He can shake out of stun like almost instantly, and on the flip side he can stun other characters with no effort. And I think he has a lot of invincible frames on moves where they really shouldn't be. Stack that on top of a teleport and crazy combo potential in a non-combo heavy game and he's pretty busted. Pretty sure combos don't even damage scale in ST, so you're eating 100% of every hit lol.

Anyways, that's mostly just stuff I've read over the years. As much as I've played SF2, (a fuckload) I was never good enough at it to enjoy the high level stuff. I ran a FT10 with a tournament level Chun once and didn't even take a round lol.

Any Valve game really. It is a good thing they are getting out of making console games. We have enough messed up games from Bethesda and Microsoft.

Nearly every Sony game, especially The Last Guardian as of late.

Bingo. GTA suffers from poor shooting mechanics, and just poor movement outside of vehicles.

Some open world games of the past like Assassin's Creed 2 and GTA. And some RPGs like Mass Effect 1 etc. Those games were celebrated for their worlds etc, but mechniaclly were so poor it was sad. But I think the mechanical gap between OW and linear action games has become a lot more narrow lately.

Grand Theft Auto IV.

As someone who has endlessly advocated for this game, the appreciation can only go so far before it stoops into delusion. GTA4 is easily among the most sluggish games I've ever played. Niko's movement feels generally unresponsive. The weight of his actions can literally lead to stumbles near objects that can easily mess you up when you're engaged in a mission. The cover system feels so slow and bloated that you're better off not using it, and whIle the vehicles felt more impactful and weighty than any other game in the series, driving them were the furthest thing from sharp regardless of the speed you're going at. Bikes are practically a death sentence.

I loved the game, but I don't see myself playing it again. It would feel sloppy to where my memory of the game would be tainted.

@jg4xchamp: ST akuma was not allowed in tourneys for good reason. He has multiple tiers of bs e.g. full screen knockdown on close fireball hits, air fireballs that many chars can't properly deal with in setups, tatsu hits going up etc.

In Japan, there's also shame in playing old sagat in ST. He also has lockdowns till death on characters.

Yeah, they opted for a shallow fighting system that didn't have any deep mechanics at all. It was just an all out hack fest until your opponent died. Luckily, some great mods like Smiledon and Wildcat fix this. It's actually fun to play when sword battles are more like Dark Souls.

@uninspiredcup: I can't think of a worse offender than RE4. That game is highly regarded by many, but I never bothered playing through the game because I couldn't get over the shit controls/shooting mechanics.

Bethesda games.

Combat: Recent bethesda games have the finishers so to speak. These while a good idea in theory had an execution that left a lot to be desired. And in current implementations can often lead to cheap deaths and hits. Executing a killing blow would hold you still for a second or 2 leaving you vulnerable to hits and opponents smacking you in. And enemy executions can happen regardless of your angle from the enemy or how easily you could have avoided that blow. Playing Requiem made this extremely frustrating fighting dragons as a melee character if not flat out impossible. Even if you stand behidn the dragon the dragon still executes you at full health. There are also further problems with HP bloat where enemies take a long time to die and destruction magic being poverty compared to melee and archery.

RPG elements: Skyrim still uses the worst implementation of raise by use I have seen. Ok, other than Tactics Ogre LUCT PSP.

In Rune Factory, just doing anything remotedly related to the skill raises it (Smithing improves your fire magic, watering plants improves oyur water magic). Likewise, the time you have every day is fairly limited and there is always something to do, so actual skill grinding is not that common.

In Dwarf Fortress, your focus is on survival. Dwarves get better the more they use a skill. But overall, you want your weaponsmith to make axes for your warrior dwarfs, not sit out there and train his shield skill.

Most roguelikes are the same, your goal is to survive. Later Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games have your offensive moves improve with usage. But in a game where most things kill you in 1-2 hits and both hunger and PP limiting how long you can stay in a dungeon. You are probably going to be exploring for those stairs and loot. ADOM, has plenty of skills, but you can improve your skills by levelling up as well. Not only that, but I usually find that to be the main way to train skills as well. Grinding for skills while it works, just isnt all that efficient as playing the game is. Comparively in Skyrim, grinding up your 3 crafting skills, then break the game with overpowered weapons, is the most efficient way to play the game.

This is really all that needs to be said about their games

any competitive multiplayer game that has some kind of kill streak reward system.

it seems insane to me to make players who are already doing well even more powerful, while putting players who are already struggling at even more of a disadvantage. MW2-era CoD games were the worst in this regard

Oh no, RE4 has some 2.5 exploits that i bet you won't even be able to reproduce with a map and a guide. Absolutely very broken, holy shit.

By comparison, Naughty Dog just loves breaking their own gameplay rules to make way for cinematic QTE bullshit.

Unstealthable stealth sections, unbeatable enemies - all because you GOTTA CHECK OUT THIS SETPIECE OVER 'ERE, BITCH.

That's what i call broken.

But even then, any Bethesda game takes the cake.

They're the only high profile devs for whom broken features and mechanics have become a feature.

Final Fantasy 7.

So, you haven't played it, have no clue, but decide to go ahead try dictate anyway.

I admire your rambunctiousness.

The Witcher 3 has garbage combat and movement.

Yeah, those are the absolute worst.

Even if you aren't a terrible player, sometimes you would come into an unbalanced match and there's literally nothing you can do because of spawn camping. CoD wasn't the only game where spawn point raping happens, but it was the only one where you had to deal with "killstreaks" on top of spawn raping (obviously depending on the mode and team balance, but I saw several games where there were MULTIPLE people with crazy 50:1 or even 100:1 ratios in the same game). Obviously if I see that I'm exiting and moving to the next server LOL. I have no idea what people get out of that on either side, but especially not if there are guys dying 25 or 50 times in a row.

Anything from Bethesda.

Most critically acclaimed games the last 10 years.

GTA4

bioshock infinite PS4 is unplayable, repetitive trash

witcher 3 on PS4 has a lot problems with it's animations mostly, like i'll be standing inside a tavern and a tree branches OUTSIDE will be poking through the walls as the wind blows them that direction. Stuff like that just makes the game look really cheap and dumb.

batman arkham knight PS4, you get like no health in that game. It's nearly impossible to take on a mob in that game without losing 80% of your health from punches and grabs from the lowest tier enemies. You're batman, you're not supposed to get hurt if a little henchman throws a coca-cola can at you ...

assasins creed black flag - the GPS for the ship sailing is so broken on the PS4, doesn't guide you in the right direction at all, sometimes it takes you to the opposite side of the map, broken game (all of them suck)

GTAIV

I know you're high on that game but I really doubt they intended the bosses to be beatable in seconds even with the knife. That makes it broken.

Deus Ex Human Revolution's (and Mankind Divided's) invisibility. Breaks the game every time thanks to recharging batteries.

I gotta go with Bethesda.

Metal Gear Solid 3

People look back fondly on that game with lots of reverence for its story and quirkiness. However, the actual game itself is just a fundamental failure when it comes to game design. The new survival mechanics don't increase tension or add a new interesting layer to the core gameplay. It's all just bullshit tedium that bogs down the experience. It forces the player out of the actually interesting tactical gameplay just so they can fiddle with bullshit menus. Not to mention, for a game that is trying to take Metal Gear and make it more grounded and realistic, the survival mechanics only make everything feel MORE gamey and fake. Also, the camera and controls are total horseshit, especially in the original 2004 release.

I'm saying all this, and it's still the best MGS game. It is a game that is saved solely by its presentation. Unfortunately, as an actual game, it is easily the worst in the series when it comes to simply playing it.

Nearly every Xbox game, especially Halo Wars 2 as of late.

@pdogg93: now you are catching on. Easy isn't it? To make up stuff that isn't true.

1xp point for you

Pretty much. The perk tree from Fallout 4 is a very good example of this.

On one hand, I was happy that attribute requirements were actually a thing again. On the other hand... they made the actual perks as boring and uninspired as possible. And that was the only character system the game had. What a sad and lol-worthy game.

Metal Gear Solid 4, it's broken in the sense it's not really a game but boring and seemingly endless movie with brief moments of gameplay intermissions. That's the largest gap of critical praise to what it actually deserves that I can think of.

But that wasn't really praised. Only 82 on MC, and apparently that's not good for cow standards...

Not that I disagree at all, but mechanically speaking, MGS4 is good. A bit stiff, 3rd person movement has come a long ways since then, but it's still good.

Though I agree that there's not nearly enough game to enjoy those mechanics. A 5 chapter game that might as well end in chapter 2 lol. And even those first two chapters had a bit too much down time. Yeah, it sucks.

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I'd be more inclined to agree with @JangoWuzHere's assessment of MGS3s mechanics, though I think he takes it a bit too far.

All the menu based systems are complete garbage, I agree. Cumbersome as can be and for no good reason. They take you out of the immediate experience and give you nothing worthwhile in return.

As for the immediate mechanics, the worst thing I can say is that things feel a bit unresponsive, especially when compared with MGS2 or MGSV. Controls though? Worst thing I can say is a bit convoluted with the corner peaking. And you could argue that the pressure sensitive stuff was unnecessary, though I actually enjoyed that aspect. Otherwise the controls were really just different, not straight up bad. They just don't conform to the homogenized modern take on the third person scheme.

Truly poor mechanics and controls are insurmountable. Hard wired into the game, not something the player can overcome through mastery. Thing is, you could watch anybody who was skilled at MGO1, and see just how slick those mechanics and controls really were. I actually felt other similar games were far more limited in my control over the character after playing MGS3/MGO so much.

I think boiling MGS3 down to nothing but presentation is underselling the game big time. The level design, at least in the natural environments that make up most of the game, was pretty excellent. Scenarios and encounters were well thought out and entertaining. The game provides great stealth puzzles for ghost runs, yet was still able to accommodate some decent action, and everything in between. Plenty of tools and freedom to make each area feel like a mini-sandbox. Meaningful difficulty changes. Solid boss fights, better than the majority of boss fights the series has given us since.

MGS3 doesn't play as slick as MGS2 or MGS4. None of these games play as slick as MGSV. But MGS3 still has some great qualities in its own right, beyond presentation.

Outside of the final portion of the fight with Krauser, this doesn't really apply. And even then you actually have to mow him down first because he can be too quick to kill with just the knife alone. It's really not as easy as the video above implies.

Besides, just about every single game ever made has an exploit you can take advantage of. RE4 is no exception, but they're not in clear, plain sight as the OP likes to claim.

That PS2 looking game with the fugly giant bird/dog/cow looking creature. If on X1 it wouldn't have got a review over 4.0 and we all know this to be true. :P

@uninspiredcup:

Silent Hill 2, 3

Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3

Looks like Konami is just bad at making games. They get great ideas though.

MGS2 is mechanically air fucking tight lol. Wtf?