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Bullet points, "What's cool about it", "features", you know what I mean, the short sentences that are supposed to sum up the individual tings that makes the game special, and make you interested in the game in question. Which ones make you almost automatically think "not for me"?

Games that brag about the "old school challenge" or about being really hard in general. I like challenging games, but my experience with games that brag about such things is that the challenge often feels artificial, or false. Thus when a game makes its high level of challenge one of its main selling points, I usually decide to go for another game instead.

"Retro" "Old school" or any other such word that is supposed to convey nostalgia. Quite often when games brag about this, they are puzzle platformers or something along the line of Super Meat Boy, which really were not all that common back in the NES/SNES days, which is usually the kind of "retro feel" the games try to market themselves as having. Either that, or they are heavily inspired by the games of yesteryear, but they don't quite understand what made those games fun and they tend to have many of the flaws of those games (often they are more along the line of a middle of the road "game of that type" than one of the really good ones, that we actually bother to remember).

Games making its "pixel art style" one of its main selling points. This makes me wonder if it actually has all that much to offer, because I can clearly see the pixel art style on the screenshots, it does not need to take up a bullet point.
I find pixel art to be a little silly. I'm sorry, but there's way more artistry in a game like Hard Reset or Tomb Raider than there is in FEZ or Meat Boy.
Anything that's already oversaturating the market, but the developer is attempting to use as a selling point. >.>
I'm with you on this Fnordster!
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LiquidOxygen80: Anything that's already oversaturating the market, but the developer is attempting to use as a selling point. >.>
Works for crystal meth dealers though!
Post edited December 26, 2013 by Sachys
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Sachys: I'm with you on this Fnordster!
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LiquidOxygen80: Anything that's already oversaturating the market, but the developer is attempting to use as a selling point. >.>
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Sachys: Works for crystal meth dealers though!
Hahaha! Touche, sir, touche!
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LiquidOxygen80: Anything that's already oversaturating the market, but the developer is attempting to use as a selling point. >.>
This. think we have enough retro looking/pixelated/voxelated indies for example......
"Cinematic gameplay," "gripping story," "over X hours of cutscenes / voice acting" and the like. This is usually code for "there's no game in this box."

"A heartwarming indie physics-based puzzle platformer with a unique gameplay twist." Those can go to hell.

"Choice and consequence." If this makes it onto the back of the box, it usually means that I can look forward to a sprinkling of hamfisted one-off moral quandaries that will alter some trivial detail later in the game. Recently this seems to be as much in vogue, and about as well-executed, as the tacked-on multiplayer modes that nobody gives a shit about.
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Sachys: I'm with you on this Fnordster!

Works for crystal meth dealers though!
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LiquidOxygen80: Hahaha! Touche, sir, touche!
mayeb this is the line of thinking of the developers - that games are crack for nerds?! O_o
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Mentalepsy: Recently this seems to be as much in vogue, and about as well-executed, as the tacked-on multiplayer modes that nobody gives a shit about.
OOH! and tacked on single player campaigns as well!
Post edited December 26, 2013 by Sachys
I'm ambivalent about pixel art. People seem to be understanding pixel art to be anything with huge visible pixels, but it's actually more anything that would have been seen in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. You may hate Fez and the like, but then there's games like Jamestown that have some truly beautiful pixel art.

It's like any art style - if there's a good game beneath the graphics, I don't care.

Everything that Mentalepsy said is usually a turn-off for me though.
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Sachys: OOH! and tacked on single player campaigns as well!
Um...wut?
Post edited December 26, 2013 by jamyskis
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Mentalepsy: "Choice and consequence." If this makes it onto the back of the box, it usually means that I can look forward to a sprinkling of hamfisted one-off moral quandaries that will alter some trivial detail later in the game. Recently this seems to be as much in vogue, and about as well-executed, as the tacked-on multiplayer modes that nobody gives a shit about.
We can thank Witcher 2 for this. Before that game, devs weren't really playing this aspect up so much, but CDPR pushed the idea in their advertising and they pulled it off in the game so well, now you hear it all the time.
- Three billion hours of gameplay !! (thanks but i prefer games that i will finish at some point, before they become an old chewing gum)

- Multiplayer capture the flag free for all massive persistant nerdrage voice com chat facebook compatible steamland !!! (i keep gaming forums and youtube comment sections for when i'm missing that)

- At last, the PC version is out !! (for those who play their pc games on tv set with an x-box controller, i know)

- Be anything you want : a sexy [female] thief, an overly muscular barbarian, or a bearded wizard !!! (that is one of those three, or go play something else - okay i will)

- Harness at last the power of huge power with the extreme might of the top of powerfulness powering !!! (i can kick my cat whenever i want, for that)

- Mature content !!! (aka: tailored for puberty crisis)

- More achievements !!! (okay just fuck you)
Post edited December 26, 2013 by Telika
Most of mine can more commonly be found in the genre line, but sometimes I need to look at the bullet lists or screenshots to find these things.
-"First Person" whatever. For some reason I find first person perspectives to be very disorienting in games. Also not a fan of getting hit by something out of my line of sight and not being able to find it or see it coming.
-"Turn-based strategy." There are exceptions, but for the most part these bore the crap out of me.
-"Open World." Not a killer, but I am wary of anything advertising itself as an open world. Many of these games just dump you in the world without a clear goal, and I hate that.
-"Classic cRPG." Frequently have the same problem as Open World games, before the term was common. Then add well armed, "sturdy" adventurers that fall over dead at the sight of a water flea.

Off on a tangent here, but as much as I love RPGs it is kind of hard to find one that's really well suited to me. JRPGs tend to be too easy and too linear. Western RPGs are the complete opposite, little to no direction and damn frustratingly difficult. Obviously generalizing there.
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jamyskis: Um...wut?
Those games that are built for co-op and multiplayer only yet for some reason have included a single player mode / campaign and a few brief hints of a story, making the single player campaing useless and misleading!

Not mentioning any names...

BORDERLANDS!
Post edited December 26, 2013 by Sachys
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Sachys: BORDERLANDS!
I've never played Borderlands with anyone else and I've never had a problem with the single-player experience. Heck, the only mainstream game that you could seriously level a "tacked-on single player mode" accusation at is Battlefield 3, and even that was a serviceable mode.

Although on that note, I will agree with you that I do get annoyed by those games that are essentially lazily put together multiplayer shooters but add useless AI bots with no campaign structure to allow them to claim that it is a "single-player" game.
Post edited December 26, 2013 by jamyskis
Not on GOG (which is probably why I prefer buying games here):

"Social features"
"Free to play"

Those for starters.

On top of that, I must say I dislike those "over-the-top" COD or Battlefield TV ads that were running especially before Christmas. Like the one where a group of 20 somethings were trying to convince the viewer how unbelievably cool it was to play the game, "OMG like there was this tank and pooof it went through the building and a jet collided with it in midair, pow wow wow!". It just made me think the game is for some six year olds. It reminded a bit of those Apple iphone or ipad ads where similar trendy asses were telling how cool it is to use Apple products, just wipe here and there pow wow wow.

And another one of them where there are constantly explosions, falling trees, someone in a space suit hanging from a ledge with his pinkie finger only etc., and some stupid ass Eminem or whatever singing in the background. I'm getting too old for this shit. I guess it is not worse than Transformers 5 trailers and such... wait, actually they are even worse.

Maybe part of the problem is that maybe they remind me a bit too much of some cheapskate US army commercials, as in "War is fun! Join now!". I am more attracted towards ads or trailers/intros which advertise the grim side of war and combat, like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-xcgBL1mY

Fortunately there was no Eminem singing in that intro.
Post edited December 26, 2013 by timppu