It echoes around the globe, ringing out from self-help books, elementary school bulletin boards, and proclaimed by Hannah Montana herself: “Nobody’s perfect,” not even your most favourite video games.
Though love’s rosy mist fuzzes the faults in all of the things we like, when we replay a favourite game, we’re forced to acknowledge their issues like little pimples that won’t scrub away. We run into them, or against them, sighing in anticipation of that part or that thing or that questline to wiggle out from under the rug, and then they pass, and we’re in gaming bliss again.
The worst parts of the best games aren’t usually that bad, never egregious enough to make you feel like a game isn’t actually one of “the best.” But they can still be pretty annoying, whether it’s a fight in Bloodborne or a mechanic in Breath of the Wild.
We at Kotaku have a lot of favourite games. Here are some things we can’t stand about them.
The “Cortana” level, Halo 3
Halo 3 was a fitting end to an excellent trilogy of first-person shooters, with a galaxy-spanning campaign that satisfied the whole way through — well, almost.
“Cortana,” the ninth level of a near perfect Halo title, is agony distilled into digital form.
Outpacing the misery that was Halo: Combat Evolved’s “The Library,” or even all of Halo 5 — there, I said it — ”Cortana” is visually ugly, with confusing level design strewn across frustrating hallways of hostile grossness. The Flood (mutated, zombie-like creatures that mob you) feels even more impervious to your efforts than usual and never. Seems. To stop. Coming.
Heaven help you if you think the flamethrower is a good idea too, you’ll just burn yourself to death. Oh, and Halo 3’s slightly annoying habit of slowing the gameplay for a brief moment while a character in your head talks to you is even more exaggerated with the “Gravemind” antagonist, who literally screams in your face while your vision contorts and your movement is brought to a crawl.
And to top it all off, the level is just a “save the damsel” trope. All that misery for a worn out cliche. – Claire Jackson, staff writer
The airboat, Half-Life 2
When asked to name the best game ever made, I often respond with Half-Life 2. It’s that good. I love it that much. However, even I have to admit that the airboat section of the game isn’t great.
It’s not nearly as bad as Xen in Half-Life, sure, but it’s just such a slog through canals and tunnels. And worse, the airboat isn’t very manoeuvrable or fun to drive. If this section was half as long and included a few more big set pieces it would still be a kind of “meh” bit in an otherwise fantastic game. – Zack Zwiezen, staff writer
Driving, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
By the time the Sly Cooper sequels came out, I was more than happy to play as a character beyond the titular kleptomaniac raccoon.
But in that first PS2 platformer, switching over to Murray — the Cooper Gang’s big oaf of a driver — to do kart racing was one of the worst segments in the game. The Cooper Van was floaty and had no traction and using the boosters you could pick up on the track was more likely to send you flying and off course than get you ahead in the race.
It was bad enough that they did it once — but they did it twice, making you slog through a kart racing section again later on in the game. I’ve replayed Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus multiple times over the past 20 years (thank you to my Vita for keeping those games close as Sony makes playing old games difficult and costly on PS5), and every time I get to these segments it’s a momentum killer. I’m glad Murray got out from behind the wheel and started swinging at baddies on the field in the sequels, because this shit sucks. – Kenneth Shepard, staff writer
More driving, Alan Wake
Creepy third-person action-adventure shooter Alan Wake has many things in it that work wonderfully, including the shadow-covered monsters, precise and satisfying gunplay and a mysterious story that evokes Twin Peaks and X-Files.
However, one big part of the game that doesn’t work at all is the moments where Alan Wake gets behind the wheel of a truck or car and drives around the world.
The controls are bad, the physics are wonky and even once you get a hang of driving it ain’t much fun. I come to Alan Wake for spooky moments, combat, and fake TV shows, not shitty driving segments. – Z.Z.
The Micolash boss fight, Bloodborne
It’s not much of a secret that Bloodborne is my all-time favourite game. Its grey pathways and vein-purple sky have comforted me in the past four years since I started playing it, over, and over again, and I’m yet to find a game that attracts and disturbs me in the same exhilarating way. But the Micolash, Host of the Nightmare boss fight is bad. In a game full of challenging fights with operatic drama, Micolash feels low-effort, annoying, and way too tedious.
To lay even a single hit on Micolash, you need to corner him by chasing him from room to labyrinth room. But, despite all the stairways and corners in his boss room at your disposal, you have to run after him in the exact path the developers intended, or else you’ll get stuck in an infinite loop, and I’d rather eat glass.
Once you’ve stayed awake long enough to complete the puzzle run and have him standing in front of you, he’s weak and pool noodle-y. It only takes a few hits and well-timed dodges of his one-shot attacks to get him to a new phase of the fight, which is marked by more running around in circles and cornering. Usually, I bypass this by standing on a ledge above him and impaling Micolash with poison knives. A long-standing glitch traps him underneath me until he dies, and then I yawn and move on. – Ashley Bardhan, staff writer
Pet death, Life Is Strange 2
The Life is Strange series is prone to moments that could be reasonably criticised as emotional manipulation, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget just how disappointed I was in Life Is Strange 2, when the game unceremoniously decided to kill off Mushroom, Daniel Diaz’s sweet puppy in Episode 2 – Rules.
Life is Strange 2 follows brothers Daniel and Sean Diaz as they embark on a road trip through America to reach the Mexico/America border, and in the first episode, the younger brother meets and adopts (steals) an adorable little puppy he names Mushroom.
She’s a wonderful addition to their journey, and I would have loved to have seen her grow big and strong throughout the Diaz brother’s journey. But, instead, the game decides to kill her off at the beginning of the second episode by way of a fucking cougar finding their hiding spot in an abandoned cabin.
It feels like a moment of buyer’s remorse on the developer’s part, like they wrote a character into the story in one episode and didn’t want them there anymore. It doesn’t play into any decision the player makes, and only serves to do something needlessly cruel in a story that was already running its characters through the wringer. If you wanted to illustrate these boys were losing things they cherished, was it not enough to kill their dad? At least that felt like meaningful commentary. This is just mean. – K.S.
The Ultrahand ability, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
We can call Tears of the Kingdom one of The Best Games only two weeks after its release, right? I think enough people have nearly peed their pants waiting in one of its many long release date lines to ensure the transformation is complete.
So, great. Tears of the Kingdom’s opalescent open world is engaging and beautiful, as are many of its heartstring-plucking storylines. But please, God, don’t make me Ultrahand grab another tree stump. I’m not a Transformers-level forest architect by any means, and I wish TotK could at least smooth out my amateurishness by letting me easily rotate an item into my desired position. I have spent the better part of my hours trying to glue one piece of wood onto another piece of wood only to realise that the first piece of wood is slightly crooked, or that the second refuses to snap into an appropriate place. I feel like Link owes me hazard pay. – A.B.
Rainy days, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I have a lot of annoyances getting through Breath of the Wild’s open world.
Yeah, some of that comes from me not liking most open-world games to begin with, and trying to brute force my way from point A to B, but my stubbornness can only take me so far, because the second rain starts pouring next to a wall I need to climb, it’s over for me.
If I wanted to play on a slip-n-slide, I’d buy one. But Link’s climbing prowess falls to the ground as quickly as he does the second there’s a little bit of rain on the mountainside. Is that gonna stop me from continuously trying to climb up the side of a cliff? No. I am the goddamn Hero of Hyrule. I will not be bested by something as simple as raaaaaaiiiiaaaaaahhhhh (That’s the sound of me plummeting to my death)!!! – K.S.
What’s the worst part of your favourite game? Let us know in the comments.
Leave a Reply