Burnout Paradise
Race for ten miles, come second, to try again you have to drive the 10 miles to the start of the race. As if it would have destroyed the illusion if they had a 'Restart' button - cars driving and hurtling through the air at ridiculous speeds, with no drivers, yet the ability to retry a race would be stretching it.
Oblivion
The games almost perfect, well perfect for what you'd want from a freeform style, first person RPG. It's just the little things that get to you, like how all that fragile glass is actually impenetrable, capable of withstanding any blow. Personally I'd love to walk into a shop and run around the tables destroying all the glassware. But despite the rigidity of the glass, it's still to precious for you to go around simply picking up, not unless you want the guards after you. This is why games like Oblivion have cheat modes, to help you get around the horrible and easily correctable flaws. The fixed this the opposite way in Fallout3, now you can pick up items for sale without getting into trouble, but you can also rob people blind while they seem to practice their 'nam stares.
Ohh, and Cheron. I spent a lot of money on that gimp, and just because he's stood in the corner of my house for 3 months doing nothing, he's gone home! - I have a contract FFS, I'm gonna sue. Good job I have Fawkes with me, at least he's loyal.
That's the next thing we'll see in games, real life working lawyers... maybe that would be a good plot for a game, survive till the end so you can sue Umbrella, Black Mesa, or whoever.
Test Drive Unlimited
Making people pay for their crimes in a game is counter productive. In this game, if you crash into a car the police chase you and charge you, so the whole point is to make money and get better and better cars and houses. But if you are unlucky and have crash while evading the police, it costs more, and more and more until you can quite easily waste all your money.
3 big problems with this daft idea...
1. I use a steering wheel, and sometimes it won't work exactly right, which is either down to the wheel or the game - either way it's not my fault. I shouldn't be penalized just because my wheel pulled to the left.
2. Because I have a wheel and pedals and a cool seat, my 5 and 7 YO nephews love it, so I let them play one afternoon. Within 30 minutes I had no money left, and a 30 second prison sentence. That's right, run out of money and you have to go to jail!.
3. The fines are ridiculous, I've been playing for about 6 months and don't have much money yet, probably only 20% through the game - but I messed up and got caught by the police, who charged me every single penny I had, and I had to do some jail time as well. I had enough money to buy 2 new cars, but lost every penny after 1 single police chase.
The games actually a lot of fun, especially with the wheel, if only they took the police out of the equation it would be a very solid racing game that is not simply a regurgitated Forza, like 90% of racing games out there.
