When it comes to the expectations and reality of getting the enjoyment of a video game, you want to make sure you're going to love coming back to it. Thankfully there were game rentals, and well, if you got a game gifted to you then you could just sell it later if you didn't like it. But what about a game that has glaring flaws that may affect the replay value? You could either come back to a game as a guilty pleasure, or just never touch it again as there may have been something to take away the immersion. Today I'll be talking about some gameplay mechanics that I actually used to hate when I was younger.

Blind Jumps

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, blind jumps suck. A perfect example of this is in Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy, as there are plenty of instances when you can't tell if there's a bottomless pit below you, or a safe place to land because of the lack of view. Because the silicon graphics were still state of the art to see after the success of Donkey Kong Country, Rare made sure to make the sprites big in Land to see the details, and that's already a hint of why the view is so small. In Super Mario Land 2 it was at least acceptable because you had a power up that allowed you to float down slowly, and the jumping itself was more floaty.

"Hey! How come THEY aren't affected by stage hazards?"

In my introduction to beat 'em ups in the early 1990s, the logic of enemies only getting harmed by certain stage hazards and not all of them always left me scratching my head. I thought for sure that if there was a falling wrecking ball or a flame spewing machine that made short work of my health bar that it could also take out any nearby enemies, but alas, I saw them phasing right through as if the rules suddenly got changed of challenge. While it doesn't mean all that much to me these days, back then my friends and I would usually vent about it in co-op.

Steep learning system of mechanics without in-game tutorials

As 3D gaming was introduced, so was added mechanics and controls of performing actions of games. My young mind was so used to playing video games that were more simplified with overcoming obstacles and completing a level. It was honestly rare of me to actually look into an instruction manual to see button combinations for a spell or some kind of move as I thought that adapting to a game would be more fun.

In some cases, I actually pressed PAUSE just to see what item does what because there may be a game that doesn't tell you until you're at an inventory screen, taking me out of the action.

Let's talk about cheap shots...

More often than not, there may be a game that leaves you to split second reactions to something coming up on screen, or an inescapable trap door that you weren't expecting, or even getting shot in the back by surprise. Some call them "beginner's traps" and it can be more than that if it frustrates the player than wanting them to learn to overcome it later. Cyborg Justice is a beat 'em up that has these missiles that come into your line of sight just by moving forward. I felt like I was being shackled when trying to make progress. If you make it through a barrage of enemies almost unscathed you shouldn't be punished for doing so.

Unbalanced, "cheating" opponent A.I. in competitive games

The point of a "hard mode" in a game is to make the game tougher while still giving you an advantage to win, but in Mario Party's case if you're lacking friends to play with, the COM players may seem like they know exactly where a star might be, or having such advanced skill in a minigame that they could still be the first to win, despite being very close to a score if you choose to up the difficulty. If you know a game well enough to ace it, then that's good. However, any game of Mario Party can randomize things all while the CPU already knows what to do, and when things are going to happen. This is possibly the reason why playing with friends is crucial for competitive games, at least they have a balance of strengths and weaknesses, while hard mode CPU opponents can already have the advantage for the rest of the game without any speed bumps.

What pet peeves did you have for video games? Leave a comment, and I'll see you next article!