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14 Awful Examples of Padding In Video Games

Usaid — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 11:59:56 +0000

Video games can be an absolute rollercoaster of a ride when developers have a good understanding of how to control the pace of the experience. But this is easier said than done, and sometimes even the best of developers (intentionally or otherwise) overlook significant portions of the game that do nothing but artificially bloat the campaign with uninteresting activities. This is commonly referred to as padding, and we will be talking about 14 terrible instances of the same in this feature.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain – Repeat Missions

Metal Gear Solid 5 is a great game where you can spend dozens upon dozens of hours just tinkering around with the sandbox and its many systems, but there’s little argument to the fact that the game is excessively padded out when it comes to the missions in Chapter 2. Many missions in the last chapter are rehashed missions from before, but players now have to complete those missions with brutal challenges tacked on which can quickly turn into frustration as you try to satisfy the new clear conditions. Granted these can be satisfying for some players but given that the story ends randomly, these repeat missions stick out as a sore thumb. Those familiar with the game’s turbulent development cycle might know why this otherwise great game has been padded out, but it doesn’t really soften the blow of it regardless.

10 Dark Video Game Sequels

Usaid — Mon, 23 May 2022 10:25:13 +0000

Games don’t just cater to kids. They are meant for a variety of different age groups. As such, they aren’t always hearty tales about saving a princess in a castle or banishing an evil force into the unknown. It just so happens that sometimes, a franchise that may not originally be dark in theme will veer into a dark territory to deliver a more mature narrative. To that effect, here are 10 video game sequels that went dark in their respective themes.

Jak 2

Naughty Dog had carved out its reputation as one of the best developers with its 3-hit streak of Crash Bandicoot on the PS1. The studio once again reinvented itself with Jak and Daxter on the PS2, masterfully morphing its learnings from previous games into a brand new world. Despite many differences between the two franchises, most of Naughty Dog’s work was focused on building family-friendly experiences and charismatic characters, and light-hearted banter. This then changed with Jak 2, a markedly darker sequel that revolves around the iconic duo being thrust into an open-world futuristic dystopia – all while Jak’s personality becomes much darker after an experiment. Some might see this tonal shift as a welcome shake-up for the series, but many resented this change. Either way, Naughty Dog course-corrected again with the next entry in the franchise.

15 More Most Terrible PlayStation 2 Games of All Time

Ravi Sinha — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 07:13:08 +0000

With the sheer magnitude of classic titles that were released in the PlayStation 2 era, it’s almost easy to forget all of the terrible ones. Well, spoiler – there were a lot. Let’s take a look at 15 more such titles and what made them so bad.

GoDai: Elemental Force

Revenge, elemental abilities and the ever-consuming Void await in GoDai: Elemental Force. This melee action title offered martial arts combat and gliding inspired by the likes of wire-fu films while adding in some bullet time because why not. It would almost be intriguing if the gliding wasn’t unresponsive, the performance horrendous, the bugs plentiful and just about everything else being a chore to sit through. Almost.

12 Awful Endings That Were Difficult to Achieve

Ravi Sinha — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 07:08:39 +0000

Achieving the true ending in a video game can be quite the struggle, as one fulfills different conditions and confronts tough challenges. But some endings just aren’t worth the hassle, either ending the game in a less than fulfilling fashion, being outright depressing or just a complete waste of time. Let’s take a look at 12 terrible endings that were also really tough to unlock. Spoilers follow so be warned.

Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind

As a series, Kingdom Hearts has its fair share of cryptic secret endings that required an extraordinary amount of effort to unlock. Kingdom Hearts 3’s Remind DLC is no different – in order to unlock the Secret Episode and receive the “true” ending, you first had to defeat all 13 bosses in the Limit Cut. That means being level 99 with the best equipment and dealing with high damage unblockable attacks. Once that’s done, you face Yozora from Verum Rex in a much tougher fight than anything before. Depending on whether you win or lose, the ending will be slightly different but the scene with Yozora, waking from a dream while in a vehicle is a dead ringer for Final Fantasy Versus 13. How? Why? No one but Nomura can answer that question.

15 Moments In Video Games That Made Gamers Go “Wait, What?”

Ravi Sinha — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 15:47:05 +0000

There have been numerous moments throughout the history of culture that make us question things. Books like Game of Thrones, movies like The Sixth Sense and even TV shows like, well, Game of Thrones have had their fair share of moments that made us go, “Wait, what?” So of course we’re going to outline 15 video game moments in the same vein. Let’s get started!

The Joker – Batman: Arkham Knight

When the Joker died in Batman: Arkham City, it was a pivotal moment. It even made us ponder about WB’s focus on exploring the beginning of the Batman-Joker in Arkham Origins. By the time Batman: Arkham Knight rolled around and Scarecrow’s ACE Chemicals plan was foiled, we knew why. The Joker was alive. In Batman’s head. Rocksteady does a decent job explaining why this is the case but honestly, this moment came out of left field.

15 Worst Video Game Spin-offs

Alex Jackson — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 16:16:35 +0000

A name on the box isn’t always going to lead you in the right direction. Sometimes there’s a really obvious way to spin off a popular element of a game or series into something completely new that’s also natural and really fun. Then there’s other times when it’s clear that the name on the box is a Trojan horse to get some less than thought through schlock onto shelves for a quick buck. We’ve got 15 here that we’re more than a little upset about still. But did we miss a really insulting one? Let us know in the comments.

Metal Gear Survive

Picture this, you’re head of a game company and had a huge falling out with the father of one of your biggest franchises, a legendary series that’s famous for political intrigue, deep stories full of subtext with deep commentary on the future of information warfare or how language can destroy culture, all wrapped within a super spy thriller where a solo operative penetrates terrorist cells and save the world? Now that the creator of this series is gone, what do you do with that name?

If you answered lame co-op zombie survival game, Konami already tried that. Nobody bit.

15 Times Players Got It Wrong And Game Developers Listened Anyway

Alex Jackson — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 09:58:36 +0000

We as gamers love this hobby, and sometimes in the heat of something we disagree with, a loud minority who thinks they know best can sometimes become the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. But then there’s those times when the developers don’t actually understand why a game design element is the way it is, and when a developer capitulates, the game becomes worse for it. Let’s talk about 15 of those times here, and if we missed some good ones, we’d love to hear some more in the comments.

Lawbreakers – Health Regeneration

Gears of War scion Cliff Blizenski had some good ideas with his gravity shooter, Lawbreakers but when it didn’t take off like he had hoped, major changes came to the game including introducing regenerating health to resolve the problems gamers were having with dying too often and too fast. But tossing game balance out the window to buff everybody’s health and make it regenerate while not under fire just made games draw out way too long.

15 Times Video Games Forced You To Replay The Same Stage All Over Again

Ravi Sinha — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 17:03:24 +0000

Video games provide varying degrees of replayability. Some titles like Uncharted and The Last of Us are one and done experiences while others like Assassin’s Creed and Divinity: Original Sin 2 encourage you to explore the open world or experience the game with a different character respectively. However, there are plenty of games which force you to replay or revisit levels, whether it’s part of the main campaign, the end-game or as a side activity. Let’s look at 15 examples of this.

Destiny

One of the most notorious aspects of Destiny, which would continue into its third year, was the reuse of areas for missions. Many story missions saw you revisit the same places that you conducted Patrols in. The Will of Crota Strike was infamous at launch for making you revisit areas from the Earth story missions. Let’s not forget a Rise of Iron mission essentially being the Dust Palace Strike but backwards (and shorter). That’s not taking into account the Nightfalls which are the same base Strikes but rotated weekly and with some modifiers here and there.

15 Games That Have Frustratingly Long Loading Times

Ravi Sinha — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 10:05:59 +0000

Have you ever had that feeling of going nowhere? Like you’re glued to a single spot and can’t do anything? While video games don’t present such deep-seated metaphysical issues, they do have long loading times that will push you to the edge.

Of course, we’re not just talking about a single loading screen that stretches for too long. This can also apply to a game that simply bombards you with loading screens at every turn, adding up to an experience that’s more loading than actual gameplay. Let’s take a look at 15 such games that are notorious for this. And remember: They may or may not have been patched since release so beware.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3

One of the most recent examples of horrid loading times is CI Games’ Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3. The game was criticized for taking an inordinate amount of time to even load the first level. Eurogamer showcased how it’s possible to complete one race in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, some speedruns in Gone Home and casual Pokemon GO in the time it takes to load one level in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3.

The 5 Most Embarrassing Moments of Sonic the Hedgehog Games

Ravi Sinha — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:48:54 +0000

There was a time when gamers swore that Sonic the Hedgehog was the coolest of all time. With super speed, an awesome design that was suited for both attacking and just ramming past enemies, an awesome world to pull his stunts off in, his seemingly “never say die” attitude as he took on each of Eggman’s machinations and won, the overall lack of a back story made him a genuine threat to Mario’s stardom. Sonic Team and Sega played it up excellently in the sequels, giving Sonic a best friend and friendly nemesis with equally sparse backgrounds but still awesome traits to be the foil for our beloved hedgehog. However, as the games truly entered into the third dimension with Sonic Adventure, something…changed. Sega would never stop trying to give us the “character” of Sonic over the one we grew up with. And this resulted in some of the most embarrassing moments in the series’ history. Join us as we take a look back on these moments and shake our heads in collective dismay.

5. The Ancient Civilization of Hoverboards

In Sonic Riders, Sonic and his friends have to deal with this new team of furries who use hoverboard gear to commit crimes. And so they must enter a competition with these furries on their own hoverboards in order to…I don’t know. Didn’t Fonzie also have to jump a shark at some point to prove a point?

But when Tails, at a fairly early point, revealed the origins of the so-called Gear – the product of an ancient Babylon civilization – where we then proceeded to cut to shots of hieroglyphics, tapestry paintings and the like, that’s when things went from “Lol, fail” to “I need a drink. Even if it’s formaldehyde.” Yes, he’s a brilliant, talking inventor fox. But we loved him a little less after he uttered that drivel. Forever.

4. Sonic the Werewolf…Hog…Thingy

Pop quiz kids: What is Sonic’s most powerful form? If you said Super Sonic, wherein the brave blue collects 7 almighty Chaos Emeralds to defeat world conquering monsters and the like, then you are wrong. No, not even Super Sonic was strong enough to break free of a particular force field that Dr. Eggman had constructed to set up Sonic Unleashed. The solution? Lycanthropy.

Or whatever the equivalent of a friggin’ werehog is. In Sonic Unleashed, Sonic undergoes bizarre transformations at sundown that turn him into a werewolf-esque hedgehog creature that does stretchy arm punches. At this point, we weren’t sure if the physiology was more sad or the game itself. Both answers inevitably lead to “Drink!” so what did it matter?

Irony: The non-werehog portions in Sonic Unleashed are actually quite fun.

3. Drama! Storylines! Sniffing Glue!

It’s hard to pluck a single moment out of Sonic Adventure 2 but here goes: Tails transforming his plane into a car to catch the US President’s limo. Sonic being captured by the military G.U.N. Eggman’s ancestor. The friendship between Maria and Shadow. Conspiracies, cover-ups and the fate of the world in the balance. Heck, showing the world as being made up of stiffs like those seen in Sonic Adventure 2.

But the worst part of all is when you collect everyone’s equipment and just…look at them during the cut scenes. Seeing the obscene amount of gear on Sonic and Knuckles as they do their best to emote wasn’t laughable – it was sad.

What was laughable was Sonic Heroes, the further delineation of the story-line into team-specific endeavours that did nothing but try and fit as many furries into the game as possible. But Espio as a ninja? Shadow as an amnesiac (and possibly a clone)? Metal Sonic’s horribly underwhelming return?

In summation: Storylines and colourful casts. Stop them both, Sega, if only to stop giving us reasons to drink.

2. Shadow the Hedgehog: Why? WHY?

For the love of God, just why? Who in their right minds at Sega looked at that picture of Shadow the Hedgehog, all dolled up in emo tones and reeking of Linkin Park, on a motorcycle, wielding a machine gun and staring as menacingly as a two-year old into the camera and thought, “Greenlit!”?

Add to that some attempts at open-ended gameplay, aliens, the military, run-ins with other Sonic characters, awful controls that made the signature Sonic running feel like skating with a walrus tied to your back and Shadow the Hedgehog remains one of the worst games in the series, if not one of the worst games ever made.

Did we mention there are multiple endings? That’s right: Sega wanted you to play this game more than once, forget trying to drink your way through the first play through and dying of alcohol poisoning every time Shadow had a “Mariaaaaa” moment.

1. You May Now Kiss the Animal Corpse

But no. You can make a tough-talking, sword wielding hedgehog your protagonist. You can have time-travelling hedgehogs and bunnies and big cats and ninja chameleons as your supporting cast. You rip off Dragonball Z, and conjure up horrid spin-offs that make Mario is Missing look like Broken Sword. But this moment from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) beats them all.

The context is simple: Sonic and Princess Blech show fleeting traces of love between each other. All well and good – everything was all hunky-dory and PG-rated with Maria and Shadow. But then Sonic died (seriously) in-game and there was only one thing that could bring him back: A kiss from his so-called beloved.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) did what Twilight could not do: Successfully combine necrophilia with bestiality. And then sell it to children.

No amounts of cold water could wash away the shame and embarrassment this created for the franchise.

That does it for our top 5 list of some of the most embarrassing moments in the history of Sonic games. Any particular Sonic moments you found embarrassing or just plain icky? Maybe something from the comics, another cesspool of awful moments? Let us know.