Top 10 Annoying things in Videogames

Most of the time, we love the games we play… but sometimes, that love turns into hate. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Most Annoying Things in Gaming.

For this Top 10, we’re looking at game mechanics that are unfair, unnecessarily hard, or just downright badly made. These are the kinds of things that would completely turn a player off, prompting them to put down the game out of frustration.

Everyone loves a good RPG: you get to explore huge worlds, party up with awesome characters, and solve brain-tickling puzzles. What’s the one thing that constantly gets in the way of all that? You guessed it – the dreaded random encounter. This was fine when technology limited what you could show and do, but since it’s no longer 1995 there’s really no excuse for this. Here at Watchmojo, we consider RPG’s that don’t have this trope to be the better RPG’s, am I right Chrono Trigger?

Exploring big, open, beautiful worlds is something that gamers live for – but it’s not always easy. Sometimes there are roadblocks, closed gates, broken bridges, or some baddies that get in your way – and then sometimes, there’s a wall of… nothing. Sometimes game developers can’t think of a good enough reason to impede your progress, so they drop some invisible walls around the area to keep you from wandering off. “How come you can’t just walk away? Cause you just can’t” Brillaint.

When you’re playing a game and competing against the CPU, you expect things to be fair, but sometimes a game has a mind of its own. You see this a lot in racing games that adjust the speed of the cars – either slowing them down to give you a chance at first place, or speeding them up to keep you on your toes as you try to stay in 1st place. Don’t even get us started on those damn blue turtle shells.

While players don’t like games to hold their hands, the exact opposite can be just as annoying: not knowing what the heck you’re supposed to do next. A good game leaves a trail of bread crumbs for the player to follow; a bad game leaves no crumbs at all, leaving the player running to an online guide or backtracking endlessly. A good challenge is fun, and so is a non-linear game world, but there’s a happy medium between being led by the nose and being hopelessly lost for hours.

I hope you’ve got your microwave popcorn on hand, because these games are going to involve a lot of putting down your controller and watching… and watching… and watching. Cutscenes themselves are great ways to craft a story and a world, but having to sit through them is a bore. The worst offenders are cutscenes placed right before a tough boss fight, and replay with every failed attempt. Or cutscenes that just … drag … on … Metal Gear Solid 4.

Running around detailed 3D worlds is super exciting – unless the camera hates you. Some games have such shoddily-controlled cameras, you’ll barely be able to experience the thrilling 3D world of your choice without wanting to rip your hair out. Nothing’s quite as frustrating as getting killed, not because of an enemy, but because the camera decided to swing around and zoom in on some random patch of floor. Thanks a lot, game.

Let’s be honest: games are expensive. Sometimes you’ve bought the full retail version of a game, and you think have all the content available to you… except, not really. Enter things like Day 1 DLC and Pre-order bonuses to get you to pay for the game before it’s released, in other words: “Buy our game now before the reviews or your friends convince you that it sucks.” While developers claim that this is always superfluous content that wouldn’t have been included anyway, that response begs the question, why not?

The bane of every online gamer is lag. Well, that, and annoying homophobic and or sexiest vulgar 12 year olds, but that’s another story. But console gamer have to deal with this too, in the form of framerate issues, or a game just flat-out crashing. While modern consoles are getting a bit better at this, every year there’s a couple of games that chug like college freshmen when the particle effects start flying. Owners of the old N64 can attest to this problem, just trying playing Turok 2 and you’ll see what I mean.

Video games often take place in dangerous, life-threatening landscapes, and, let’s face it, it’s challenging enough keeping yourself alive. Then, some games like to saddle you with the added responsibility of keeping someone else alive, and that can just suck the fun right out of a level. This can be even more grating when the NPC in question has horrible AI - get ready to rinse and repeat that same mission over, and over, and over. No one needs that kind of stress in their lives.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are some honorable mentions:

Button Mashing

That One Annoying Character
Long Tutorials
Enemies who are about to die and heal themselves
No Local Multiplayer

Sometimes, what makes or breaks a game is the ratio of time spent playing, versus time spent waiting. Yup, what annoys us most are long loading times. Whether you just want to get to the next part of the story, or start playing that next level, or just move from one location to the next, or worse when you die and the game has to load up its level again. When a game makes you want to pull out your phone and play a few rounds of Tetris while you’re waiting, you know you’ve got a problem…


Do you agree with our list? Are there other gaming issues you want to vent about? For more cathartic Top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.