Windows [Rant] Unskippable bull**** in racing games

Has anybody else noticed that racing games, in particular, seem to have a big problem with grating, patronising introductory cutscenes and video tutorials that can't be skipped?

Particular offenders that spring to mind are Burnout: Paradise, a game that I nearly never played at all because of its hideous 5-minute introduction with a cheesy hyper-masculine all-American voiceover that carefully explained difficult concepts like "points", "winning", "checkpoints" and "licenses"; DiRT 1, which did exactly the same thing, only the entire unskippable session was explaining how a "racing career" works and how cars have to be "unlocked"; and now Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, which....does exactly the same thing too, except half of the unskippable bull**** is a big plug for their DLC and online services (thanks, EA).

I can't work out why racing games, more than any other genre, have this tendency to cram a ton of simplistic, slow-paced tutorial/introduction material in FMV format - and make it unskippable. I tried to play NfS:HP today and had to sit through literally about 5 minutes of this garbage. I just muted my TV and wandered off, but jesus, what were they thinking?

 

I stopped playing grid 2 as i thought it was patronising. I did think the game was good other than that

 

Most gamers want a tutorial, Be difficult to name a succesful game that does not include one anymore.

Main dif is most dont force it onto you.

 

You want to see Grid 2. They've got some american sports commentator type guy and some other guy, doing an interview on the racing series of Grid 2. Real people. And you can't skip that, was painful to watch,

 

OMG I thought I'd managed to forget about Burnout Paradise. I spent most my time in that game shouting at the screen telling it to STFU and play.
NFS: Shift 2 really got on my nerves too with it's X-treme race drivers clad in energy drink sponsorship wittering on in that annoying US skater punk style that I've always found grating. Same sort of thing with Dirt 2.

EA is the biggest offender for non skippable videos and not just in racing games. I'm sure hours of my life have been wasted waiting for EA games to get passed the publisher/developer/nvidia logo/title screens and start the game.

 

This irks me too. I don't consider myself a Racing-Game kind of person, I only play them occasionally and very casually - And on that rare occasion that I do, the last thing I want is to be held up watching **** I don't care about for far too long before I can go and do something fun like crashing into walls.

The exact thing that came to mind when I saw the thread title. Combined with the horrendous menu controls and the slow menu transitions, this actually did make me just quit the game.
Fortunately, I picked it up dirt-cheap in a Steam sale at some point.

 

Which GRID was it that made you do shite Gymkhana? I only wanted to play the Rally stuff.

 

Get a proper driving game. Grab the assetto corsa beta access. Well worth it.

 

None of them, it was Dirt 3

 

DIRT/GRID: Same thing in my mind.

 

you just wait until I get GS sorted, im gonna shred your ****ing minds into confetti

 

The F1 games are annoying as it's pretty much the same every year.

 

^^ most sport games in general are like that though

few visual tweaks occasionally, little stat boosts / nerfs to characters, change number in title...

another successful cash grab for the development studio

 

I get really fed up with them in any game but racing games I find them to be the most annoying.

I really wish developers would stop using them, or at least make them skippable after the first time of showing them.

 

Yeah. Same with Fifa.

"You can chase a player down by holding square. Now you try."

Holds square.

"Well done!"

****

 

I had to watch the introduction for Burnout Paradise about 7 times until I figured out that it was crashing because it saw Xsplit as a webcam and tried to take my picture with it.

I'm still traumatised by that.

 

Let me skip tutorials...

Let me skip cut-scenes/videos...

but also Let me go back and replay the tutorial/cut-scenes should I wish to...

Is that too much to ask?

Oh and if you include one... let me skip the credits roll at the end... I'm sure you're very proud of the tea boy and feel he should have his name in lights as it were but forcing me to sit through minutes of credit roll is annoying enough with a film...

 

The cut scenes are atrocious I'll grant you that. But nothing in my eyes was worse than the game of SIMON that BF3 and NFS : The Runs had you playing.

B B B !

A A A !!!!

PUSH YOUR THUMB UP YOUR BUM AND SIT ON YOUR ELBOW !!!oneoneeleven*

*not that one but you get my point...

 

For once I agree with AA... unskippable QTEs that add nothing to a cut-scene/game can **** right off too...

Not everyone has the reflexes of someone wired on *insert energy drink here*...

 

I don't like memory games. Tomb Raider was very similar too with the sliding down the waterfall bit. All you need to know is when to press what button and when to steer left or right.

That's not skill, that's just dying over and over until you've finally died enough times to work out the method. Stupid, really bloody stupid.

I thought that devs would be pushing to add new ideas into games. Not ones from the 70s.