Outdated/Annoying gaming mechanics?

What game mechanics were good, or at least tolerable in the time they were introduced, but need to go away, or are just plain bad? I personally feel it's parts in games where, after you complete an objective, you have to go back to a certain place to be given your next objective. Why can't you just tell me my next objective right after I finish the previous objective?

All it really does is artificially lengthen the game.

It wouldn't even be so bad if you were just instantly transported to the area where you learn your next objective. Having to travel back to that area breaks the flow of the game.

Being unable to move and turn at the same time. Resident Evil is the biggest offender in that department, but there are others.

Back-tracking is annoying, I agree, but I feel like it's a necessary evil until they can give us more actual content in games.

"All it really does is artificially lengthen the game." Think that might be their sketchy plan.

Though for that one it promotes the player to travel around, maybe exploring the area some more. These usually happen in sandbox games so it makes sense they'd want you to run around the area.

I believe that nearly all gamemechs done right are fine, any that are too poor should just be thrown out..

-Like sprints where you need to button-mash, San Andreas comes to mind.
-Escort missions with the bran damaged NPC who seems to always run into manage and dies in a few hits.
-Water levels. Just this done bad inspires rage.
-Random mini-games that are pointless and mandatory to progress.
-Hiding from combat for 3 seconds to have your health regenerate like a beast.

Again, only if they're done wrong.

Maybe not "gameplay" but I hate it when games don't allow you to change difficulty levels mid campaign.

I might not be good at one particular game but I still want to continue for the story. I hate it when it doesn't allow me to change difficulty levels up or down. It's stupid.

I agree with BloodRain. Mostly all game play mechanics done right can really work. For instance, back-tracking sucks but if the level changes its look after the firs time it can be really effective. Same with health regen. It's unrealistic but it's a good mechanic because it promotes aggressiveness. It works really well in MP because it stops camping a fair bit.

Unpausable Cutscenes.

-Like sprints where you need to button-mash, San Andreas comes to mind.

I actually like this. To me it feels more natural to tap a button repeatedly (or further extent an analog stick) rather than hold it down to add greater intensity to an existing action.

I think the only game I've played with health regen was the Hulk: Ultimate Destruction on the GameCube. In that game, health regen made sense, because the Hulk DOES have accelerated healing.

So getting health packs after being shot make sense as well?

It's videogames. Unless you are trying to ARMA, health regen works.

And yes, unpausable cutscenes are the worst, especially long ones.

What do you mean "getting health packs after getting shot makes sense"? You mean that it's unrealistic that there would be a bunch of medkits laying around?

What does ARMA mean?

I can relate to the cutscenes entry somewhat, because one of my main gripes with Fight Night Champions was that you couldn't automatically skip cutscenes. For a lot of them, you had to pause and then wait for the game to tell you that you can skip the cutscene.

You said, health regen made sense in Hulk. I guess I assumed that getting health from med packs made more sense than health regen.

ARMA is a realistic military shooter that does't have health regen.

I said it made sense in the game because accelerated healing is one of the Hulk's powers.

I mean, a bunch of medkits being littered across a wide area isn't exactly realistic either.

I feel a little conflicted with unskippable cutscenes. I personally never play a game with any intention of skipping the cutscenes, and I'm also a big proponent of the idea that sometimes the developers know best and that it can be good to limit player control - unskippable cutscenes function as such a device if the developers feel that the story is an important part of the overall experience, and where you have gamers that would potentially skip the cutscenes if they could, but would at the same time be doing themselves a disservice unaware of the fact that they would actually be enhancing their experience by watching the cutscenes.

The real problem imo is where you've already completed the game and just simply want to replay parts of the game without watching the cutscenes again. Some games do a system where they make the cutscenes unskippable the first time you play it but enable you to skip it on subsequent playthroughs, which works to an extent but not when you don't have your completion data saved.

Being unable to move and turn at the same time. Resident Evil is the biggest offender in that department, but there are others.

I'm a fan of this as well actually, though specifically in the context of a zombie survival mode of gameplay. I like the challenge it adds, alongside stuff like really long reload times and slower aim intensity. The slow moving, unarmed variety of zombie is naturally at a massive disadvantage compared to the player and I always thought the better way of raising the difficulty rather than simply overwhelming you with numbers was to impose certain physical limitations on the character.

If it was just slow moving, shambling enemies, I wouldn't mind. But say, in RE 4 and 5, there are fast moving enemies with ranged attacks. Not something I particularly like.

Oh yeah absolutely, I'm definitely not a fan of how it's implemented in some of the Resident Evil games.

Surprisingly, though, the thing that makes RE5 enjoyable even with that, is playing co-op with a friend. It's a much smoother experience, as two people working together can compensate for stuff like that.

I actually like this. To me it feels more natural to tap a button repeatedly (or further extent an analog stick) rather than hold it down to add greater intensity to an existing action.

That being said I definitely don't feel this way with the shoulder buttons.

The real problem imo is where you've already completed the game and just simply want to replay parts of the game without watching the cutscenes again. Some games do a system where they make the cutscenes unskippable the first time you play it but enable you to skip it on subsequent playthroughs, which works to an extent but not when you don't have your completion data saved.

And of course in cases where the cutscenes take place after the checkpoints and you have to keep reloading at that point.

Originally posted by -Pr-
If it was just slow moving, shambling enemies, I wouldn't mind. But say, in RE 4 and 5, there are fast moving enemies with ranged attacks. Not something I particularly like.

The fast moving ones were usually melee, weren't they? Knife throwers or those heavy machinegun guys usually camped in one spot, for the most part.

I agree, the mechanics do artificially increase the difficulty. OTOH,being forced to stop and aim is pretty realistic, too.

I suck at run and gun anyways, so stop and shoot works for me. 😉

Quicktime events.

How I hate quicktimes. They're either cheap deaths, or they interfere with the flow of gameplay/combat.

I don't mind quick-time events either. I play games for the atmosphere, gameplay and story. Sometimes I feel that quick-time events work well (God Of War for instance).

Stealth segments in non stealth games

please stop, please stop, please stop

An entire LoZ game was ruined by this(Phantom Hourglass)

Originally posted by -Pr-
Being unable to move and turn at the same time. Resident Evil is the biggest offender in that department, but there are others.

I couldn't stand RE5 because of this. It felt so dated and robotic. Simply there for the sake of artificially making the game harder. It wouldn't have sucked so much if RE5 was not so action oriented. It got to the point where I could not even finish the game and I am a hardcore RE fan. Thank god Capcom fixed that issue with RE6.