8 Brilliant Video Games Made Impossible By Terrible Mechanics

Perfection until THAT ONE SECTION.

Metal Gear Rising Easter Egg
YouTube

Perfection.

We all strive to achieve it but very few manage to ever come close. However fret not my friend, that's not a personal dig at your efforts, as "perfection" is an ideal state that is quite literally impossible to achieve in many cases, but it's that drive to achieve in general it regardless that has given the world the best food, art, films, literature and of course video games.

There are a tonne of video games that many would consider to be "perfect", whether it's down to the experiences and memories it gave them, or just because they're a die-hard fan of the series, but if we're being brutally honest very few actually deserve this label as mechanically there's always going to be something wrong or not quite as well implemented as one would have liked.

What's worse is when a game is actively hampered by these small moments enough for the entire experience to grind to a halt as we try over and over to get around this impossibly hard section.

These are such examples from otherwise truly brilliant games and I apologize in advance for reminding you of them.

8. Alone In The Dark - Inventory And Driving Sections

Metal Gear Rising Easter Egg
Eden Games

Now nobody is going to be claiming that the Alone In The Dark reboot/sequel that dropped in 2008 was a perfect representation of the survival horror genre, but you know what? It had so many things going for it that it was a shame that a few key areas hampered the overall experience and made things artificially difficult for a player.

For example, while the narrative might have ended in a laughable and much meme-d way, the journey to that point was pretty engaging, as was the interesting use of fire physics for puzzles and combat. In fact, combat definitely had more of a focus in this title, meaning the player was always battling against beasts from the dark at any given moment.

It's a shame therefore that the inventory system kinda sucked. The presentation of it was nice with the player holding items inside their coat, but being unable to pause the game, plus a finicky system of getting/combining the item you wanted, meant that you could get battered before you've even located your weapons.

Adding to this frustration were some of the worse driving mechanics I've yet seen in a game, with players sliding around like the floor was ice rather than concrete, and glitching through floors if they got ahead of the scripted events. If these were tweaked or worked on more then this might place higher in the overall Alone In The Dark games rankings, but when such moments leave as bitter a taste in the mouth, many wanted to snuff out The !*$% Lightbringer once and for all.

 
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Jules Gill hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.