Have you ever stopped and wondered at certain game design decisions, and asked yourself ... "What the f**k were the developers thinking when they decided to implement THAT?", or something to that effect?
Let's take invisible, unavoidable spike traps, for example. What the hell? They don't test your skill (save for your ability to memorize where all the traps were on your next playthrough), they're just freakin' annoying. A lazy design choice made to artificially slow down the pace, so that you don't complete the game too quickly. There are hundreds more examples that can be named, things that, if omitted, would make 95% of all games much more palatable. I simply can't understand why, during the game testing stage of development, no one ever seems to stand up and say: "Hey guys, this 'feature' is sure to annoy the f**k out of everyone. Let's scrap it."
So what annoyances in games do you hate most? Has there ever been anything that disgusted you so much, that you actually shoved a game aside, never to play it again, even though it wasn't a bad game at all?
Some things I hate most:
1. The aforementioned invisible traps. Most prevalent in titles such as Rick Dangerous and Switchblade II, they're simply a pain in the ass.
2. Slippery-slidey ice worlds. It isn't remotely clever, and when you plunge to your doom the umpteenth time, you just want to strangle someone.
3. No restart points/having to restart a level at the very beginning, even if you were almost at the end of one. Now, if a game has relatively short levels, this isn't a problem ... but you simply don't want to have to start over after a 20-25 minute round!
4. Big framerate problems. Normally, I'm not a graphics wh0re, but if there's one thing I would like to be sorted out in any game, it's the framerate. Inconsistent framerate really can ruin a game; it also means a developer simply bit off more than they could chew. What's the big problem with toning down the amount of objects on-screen by a bit, to keep things flowing smoothly? What's the difference between having 16 sprites dancing around, as opposed to having 'only' 12? The regular (non-AGA) version of Robocod had a lot of framerate problems, and that alone defeated the developer's goal of wanting to make a game to rival Sega's Sonic series.
5. Wildly illogical puzzles, that require trial-and-error rather than logical thinking. Even more annoying are trial-and-error puzzles that lead to instant-death when you happen to make the wrong choice. Any adventure game lover should know what a pain this can be.