The past forty years have brought massive and rapid improvements to video games. From drastically improved graphics and sound to far more advanced and engaging gameplay. However, every generation has bad habits, which often influence other companies to follow their lead.
There are things that annoy me about every generation of games, so lets go through the history of home game consoles and look at my biggest pet peeves of each era. I've excluded the first generation simply because those games were so basic and simple that its hard to legitimately criticize them.
Second Generation
Image source: Classic Game Room on YouTube
Half-assed games
The massively popular Atari 2600 ruled the second generation, but also nearly killed the industry it brought into so many homes. Their lack of experience and laissez faire attitude towards game development was the one-two punch that nearly destroyed video gaming. Atari's own low effort games like Baseball and the lack of quality control of terrible third-party games that flooded the market were massive problems that were thankfully rectified in the 8-bit era.
Third Generation
Image source: Giant Bomb
Licensed games
While quality control was drastically improved from the Atari 2600 days, we still weren't immune from terrible games. Creating a game based on a well-known property or movie was really popular on the NES, with seemingly every major action film getting a video game adaptation. Rambo, Predator, Total Recall, Die Hard. Name a popular action, sci-fi or horror film from the 80's and there's probably a version of it on the NES. Publisher LJN is famous for its low-effort ports like Karate Kid and Back to the Future, which are simply awful games that coasted on their name recognition alone.
Fourth Generation
Image source: GPuronen at DeviantArt
Sidescrolling mazes
As hardware became more capable, developers started to branch out and create bigger and better games. One of the annoying aspects of this is the rise of the "2D maze", as I like to call it. Through the NES days, we were conditioned to advance through stages from left to right. In the 16-bit era, stages started to sprawl in every direction and without identifying landmarks they became mazes you had to explore and memorize to get through. Even great games like Earthworm Jim and Sonic fell victim to this trend.
Fifth Generation
Image source: Krizalid99v2 on YouTube
3D games that have aged horribly
While it was exciting to get 3D games in the PS1/N64 generation, many of the games we loved back then have aged horribly due to the design choices of their developers. Titles that looked amazing at the time are eyesores in 2018. The games that have aged the best from this era are those that chose a hand-drawn 2D look (Symphony of the Night, Final Fantasy Tactics, Heart of Darkness, etc.) rather than 3D models. GoldenEye is a beloved game, but its nearly unplayable for anyone accustomed to modern shooters.
Sixth Generation
Image source: Paste Magazine
Stealth missions
Ah yes, this gameplay mechanic plagued games from this generation, even working its way into games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. When done well, it was a fun gameplay concept. It was horribly overused though. Let games like Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu implement stealth and keep it out of games where it feels shoehorned in.
Seventh Generation
Image source: NerdSociety
Neglected single player campaigns
As we entered the first fully-online generation, gamers flocked to XBox Live and the Playstation Network to play online shooters and other competitive games with people from around the world. While the ability to play these games online is a great feature, the single player campaigns started to feel like an afterthought. Picking up games from last generation now, which focused on the online multiplayer features seem like hollow experiences without the online mechanic.
Eighth Generation
Image source: GameSpot
Dependence on patches
With digital distribution becoming more and more popular, developers are now shipping games to retail before they're done and you can expect to install a patch the day you bring the game home. While its annoying to have to update a game you just bought (DOOM on Switch took an hour to update before I could actually play it), once support for these games fades and the servers where these patches are hosted go offline, anyone picking them up after that point will have to live with buggy, broken or incomplete games without a way to patch them.
So what are your biggest pet peeves that plagued a particular console generation? Let's discuss!
Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!
Cover Image Source: Abera.net