10 Ways You Can Tell A Video Game Is Going To Suck
When a game's biggest selling point is its map size, be wary.
Video games are a considerably more secretive medium than, say, movies or TV, with publishers keeping their games heavily locked down until they're ready to unfurl their carefully curated marketing campaign leading up to release.
All the same, there are some serious "tells" of a game's quality which can either be discerned from the marketing or the very early moments of the game itself.
Gamers have become extremely efficient at sniffing out a stinker before throwing down their hard-earned cash, and with games now costing as much as £70 on launch day, it's just as well.
There are a number of telltale signs that a publisher is about to dish up a major calamity, and that a once-promising release is in fact total trash.
From basic design flaws to awful artistic choices, cynical business decisions, and dated gameplay elements the industry should've left behind years ago, here are 10 sure-fire indicators that a dud is incoming.
Obviously nothing is entirely concrete and some games have weathered these issues - perhaps even seriously improving things post-launch - but they should nevertheless leave you majorly wary every single time...
10. Mouse Cursor UIs In Console Games
One of the more groan-worthy console gaming trends over the last decade is the increasing tendency to have the game menus only be navigable with a mouse cursor, which the player moves with their controller's analog sticks, before holding a button to confirm their selection.
Popularised by Destiny and more recently adopted by the Assassin's Creed franchise, it's typically an agonisingly slow, unintuitive way to access menus, and rarely feels better or faster than simply cycling through menu options with the D-pad.
It's not exactly slanderous to suggest that making console players treat their controller like a mouse smacks of uncreative, even downright lazy UI design, as though the developers couldn't fathom an interface that caters to both those using a mouse and controller.
While not always the case, this stagnant design philosophy often trickles down to the actual meat of the game itself, whereby not nearly enough time has been spent polishing the finer details.
Though there have been good games released in spite of their poor UI design, it's absolutely an early telltale sign that you're likely in for a rough ride.