Ever get that feeling? You're playing a game. All is going well. You're trouncing the enemy infantry/hostile aliens/gigantic fantasy dragons/eldritch abominations and having a grand time when suddenly... RAGE.
"WTF?!" you say, veins popping on your forehead, "What the hell is this?! NOT THIS AGAIN! ARGH!" (throwing of controllers or computer peripherals optional)

That's right, it's your least favourite game trope and it's popped up once more to ruin your gaming experience. So now's your chance to share!
What's the one gaming aspect/trope that really gets your goat? Maybe you have several?


For me, there's two that really take the cake:
(WARNING, INCOMING WALL O' TEXT. Skip to the bolded TL;DR sections if you can't be bothered.)

ONE: THE BATTLE THAT DIDN'T MATTER

^This guy is quite possibly the best example I can think of in recent times. Kai Leng from Mass Effect 3. If you haven't played the game, then I'll tell you that he's portrayed as a stereotypical omnipotent ninja warrior who will seriously screw you over at any possible moment with unbelievable skill with a katana and can escape any situation without any hassle. The key word here is portayed.
Inside cutscenes this guy is an absolute beast, constantly getting in the way and ruining your plans to save the galaxy in a heartbeat. In actual gameplay? Not so much.
He's incredibly easy to beat the few times you do actually fight with him. "What's his swordplay matter if I can just blast him from a distance with biotics or firearms?" I said to myself, and this proved to be true. You could pretty much position a knee-high couch between you and him and just chip away at his health with bullets and biotics until the inevitable cutscene kicked in - and that's where things get silly.
Firstly, during the cutscene he'll gain magical ninja powers from nowhere. Secondly, he'll fuck up whatever shit you were trying to do despite obviously having his ass kicked. And then he'll boast about how awesome he is and flee with the current plot coupon.

This kind of segregation between actual gameplay and the story really gets to me, as it kind of defeats the entire feeling of, well, whipping his ass. It really just feels cheap and poorly executed in the end. For lack of a better word, it feels like bullshit.
There are many other games that pull this, and sometimes it's acceptable (like say, if the boss was just toying with you all along *cough*DevilMayCry*cough*) but most of the time it just doesn't feel right.

TL;DR: You beat the big nasty boss with ease, and a cutscene pops up in which he acts like he's gotten bored of fighting with you, and then promptly smashes your ass/boasts about how good he is and then leaves like nothing ever happened.

IMO:
Bad Example: MASS EFFECT 3: Kai Leng (as mentioned above)
Good Example: DEVIL MAY CRY 4: Battles with Dante (since he's in-character by just toying with you - he doesn't really want you dead but won't let you think you're better than him anyway)

TWO: (most) QUICKTIME EVENTS

This is similar to the example above, but possibly worse in my opinion. Once again, you've beaten the massive Eldritch Abomination although it was significantly harder than the bullshit cutscene magic power boss in the above example. The cutscene detailing the boss's long, dramatic death starts playing. You relax, set the controller aside for a moment - after a hard-fought battle you can finally take a break right?
"WRONG! YOU'RE STILL PLAYING DUDE! NOW MASH THE RIGHT AND LEFT TRIGG- aww shiiiiiit you dun mash them in time. Now you gun' have to fight that there big beastie all over again! LOL!!1!1"

That's right. You're going to have to fight the gigantic bonus boss monster all over again because you didn't push the trigger buttons fast enough. Worse yet you might have to start the level all over again.
This really gets to me. Surely having fought so hard inside actual gameplay and having whittled down the big guy's health to nothing should mean you've beaten him, yes? This is when it starts to piss me off. The result of a boss battle should never come down to whether you can press the dodge button fast enough - that's what the whole gameplay segment was for, right?
Sometimes it's not even a boss monster that kills you. As in the picture above, you can laboriously blast your way through the unstoppable legions of mutants and zombies and generally be a complete badass to get this far, but if you can't mash some buttons fast enough or press them at the right time, you're dead.
Again I feel this just detracts from the whole feel of the game and makes the death feel cheap and unfair.

There are times where quicktime events are done well however - I approve of their use for canned finishers р la God of War's normal enemies where they're (usually) not required to put an enemy down for good, or when they're used in, say, a boss fight to avoid or reduce damage (rather than avoiding instant death р la Resident Evil) like what can be found in Yakuza or Kingdom Hearts. I even don't mind their use as the aforementioned "Press X to Not Die Boss Finisher" in Bayonetta - but only because you can restart from mid-event or mid-battle rather than having to fight the whole boss battle again or worse the entire stage all over again.
It's just when it boils down to "all you've done so far amounts to nothing if you don't PRESS THIS BUTTON RIGHT NOW!" that I get frustrated.

Still confused? IMO:
Bad example: BATTLEFIELD 3: The quicktime event in which failing a button press against a rat means you yelp out in pain and get blasted to death by insurgents.
Good example: YAKUZA 4: Quicktime event to reduce/avoid damage from a boss's attack - but failure isn't instant death.

TL;DR: I don't like it when having a slow reaction to a button prompt can flush all your efforts up till now down the toilet and force you to start again. However I don't mind when missing a prompt doesn't mean instant death or is just used for flashy finishers etc. without actually being required.


So then, what is it that gets your goat?
Is it having save points instead of quicksaves whenever you choose?
Is it the constant, grinding angst one of your RPG team members always seems to have?
Is it that you can't jump over a knee high fence?
Maybe it's being forced to have access to the god damned internet to play single-player?
Don't be shy, step forward and tell us all!


(As you may have noticed by my links, I'm quite partial to TV Tropes. It's a great place to go to in order to identify the positive and negative -well- tropes your game might have. Tropes, shortly put, are common aspects things in media might share. Like a clichщ without the negative connotations. I guess.)