So I wanted to take a random survey on the matter, and would like as much feedback as you can give, as this will help me with a writing project of mine (no, this is NOT for the ISB.)

1) What are some of the worst story clichés and conventions you've seen in books, movies and plays, videogames, etc.?

An example of some of the stuff I have in mind is the Evil Overlord List:
http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

2) What are some of the worst gaming conventions and clichés you've seen? The difference between this question and #1 is that the first is about narrative stuff, and this is about gameplay -- mechanics, gimmicks, etc.

An example of some of the stuff I have in mind is the Grand List of Console RPG clichés:
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

Please feel more than free to link other sites like the two above, or just go on personal rants about the reasons you feel a certain cliché is a crime against humanity and should be put to death.

The planting of the bomb and running/leaping at slowmotion. That's in a hell of a lot of movies and games and is just done to death.
Of course theres the whole 'I have captured you and will now present a ten minute monologue' that one pisses me off

I also hate the 'capture the good guy' bit. The hero and villian will spend the whole movie trying to kill each other, but when the bad guy finally gets his chance, he ties up the hero and gives him a speech. I mean what the hell?

oh! oh! and what is with the good guy letting the main bad guy live or get away?
Best example of that was in Daredevil.
He kills some guy at the start, he kills bullseye, but he lets the absolute worst of them live because he's 'nice'.
What a load of crap

And those moments, during the final confrontation between the hero and villian, where the villian is winning and then the hero spontaneously gets awesome. Worst examples of these are Spider-Man and Superman Returns. Especially Superman Returns. That movie had such a stupid ending.

An overused videogame mechanic is a false sense of progression through handicapping the functionality of the main character. Another poor progression indicator is when enemies come in different colors, and have slightly more health than the other.

Another annoying convention is that all mercs are stupid, there's never a hero among enemy AI, and bosses attack in patterns.

Good ones Jedikirby

One thing that annoys me about games is they're too twitchy or too stat-dependent. There's not much middle ground. Diablo II did an excellent job at requiring a balance of stats and player skill—but really, very very few games do.

While not cliche, games tend to offer either too much randomness (Fear MP), or not enough randomness (Counterstrike) (Which is kind of what Freelancer said.

Collecting things could be abolished from gaming all together, and I wouldn't mind. "Sure you beat the game, but now you can find CHALLENGE MARKERS! hidden around the [location] and 5 different difficulties: Obvious, Easy, Normal, Hard, Not physically possible!" They call this "replay value" in some games.

Another thing I've noticed—games are too damn easy these days. Remember how hard the original Mario was? Contra? Ninja Gaiden? In those games, you failed and failed often. You were continuously faced with defeat. Most of the games these days, you have to try pretty damn hard to fail.

Freelancer, I think that's just because today's games have quickload and unlimited lives.

Unlimited lives is FAR from a bad game convention. Quick load isn't bad either. Good games shouldn't rely on stupid replay elements. A good penalty is one that introduces a new, more difficult way to play, not the same area to play yet again.

One thing that bothers me about games is when the developers make mega ultra badass bosses and monsters that look like they should be impossible to beat. But instead of letting the monster just go wild and throw everything it has at you, it has to attack in patterns and leave itself hugely vulnerable in parts. I think God Of War is a good example of a game with this issue. Like the Temple Minotaur - It comes out of the door breathing fire and stomping around. It looks like it could simply flatten you right there and then, but it has to hold back so as to not completely destroy you. It just feels so contrived.

Shadow Of The Colossus is one of the few games where most of the boss fights felt plausible. The enemies behaved at least somewhat realistically, though there was one boss (I think maybe the 15th? A big monkey climbs out of a canyon to get you) that could easily just squish you at one stage.

Camera Angles should NOT be a gameplay mechanic unless it's purely asthetic. I'm looking at you resident evil.

Well, yeah. Both things most games could do without, in my opinion. Dark Forces got it right.

I just wanted to point out that I think Super Paper Mario does a good job with what's essentially a game mechanic that relies on camera angle changes (2D to 3D).

Also, if you can, please cite examples to the stuff that you refer to. It's mostly being done already, but I just wanted to emphasis that. Thanks!

it's not just quicksaves or lives that make the games easier. Look at the Zelda series. The originals were much harder.

replaying part of a game doesn't make it more fun/hard at all. It's just frustrating and excessive. One of the hardest, funnest, and interesting games are the Oddworld games, and those have unlimited lives and saves.

To each his own. I completely disagree. I look at it sort of like learning to play a new song on the piano. You practice it over and over until you gain the satisfaction that you can perform that song perfectly every time. Completing section 4-1 perfectly in Mario is kind of the same way. I like my games to have that feeling to them, rather than the alternative of you doing whatever, ala Morrowind.

I have no problem with that, and I don't see how it's a "poor progression indicator". I doubt that that's what the developers seem them as - they're just making the game more challenging as you go along. I guess what you're saying is that you'd rather they made entirely new enemies as opposed to recycling old ones?

And in your opinion, what's a "good" progression indicator?

Good progression is indicated by terrain variation, increased non-marginal difficulty (Not just more/beefier enemies, but more tactical and capable enemies.), and meaningful gameplay rewards that don't improve the player's controls (As that'd just be "unhandicaping" the player) but instead provide tactical or non-procedural complexity.

God of War is a very old school game in that it breaks most of these rules, but is balanced so well and is so well driven (It's mostly scripted, and very straight foreward), but is still amazingly fun. The approach I listed above makes for a very meaningful and timeless game, while the God of War rout makes for a fun, but short-lived arcade-like enjoyment.

That Evil Overlord List is pretty good :O

Having zillions of different endings. A couple of different endings based on how you played the game (i.e. Jedi Knight) is acceptable. Games like STALKER, however...There is no reason to have seven "different" endings in a single game. Especially when there's only one that even remotely tries to be a proper conclusion.

Oops.

I'm honestly tired of so many games being linear. And the games which have alternative endings, or changing points are just to long to hold any interested for me to replay the entire game for.

KoToR2 comes to mind, you can play it as a man, a woman, light or dark. Light Jedi male, dark Jedi male, light Jedi female, dark Jedi female. Why aren't there more games where you're able to make a different choice and have the entire game change because of it?

My problem with movies is basically summed up as the typical Disney plot.
Protagonist starts out as nothing. He gets a boon of some sort. Lies to his friends about something. Does some awesome things. Antagonist uses protagonist's lie against him and protagonist gets in fight with friends. Protagonist has a musical number, makes up with friends, defeats antagonist, lives happily every after. booorrrinnggg.

In action movies, people shooting 10 clips at each other and not hitting anyone, making guns look like useless toys that do nothing but make a BANG and a muzzle flash.

The same thing, only in games. I'm looking at you CS:S

What can I say but learn to shoot.

DBZ-style fights always annoy me. You know, the ones where the two fighters monologue at one another about each other's morals, then get into a short brawl, then talk some more, then attack each other again, rinse and repeat until the episode ends and then repeat it again in the next episode but throw in a plot twist to shake things up.

I hated the 'plot' stuff they threw in on dbz most of all.
They stretched fights out forever by chucking silly random things in.

On a related note: DBZ Tenkaichi 2 for Wii rules.

Yes, yes it does.

Like Abe's Oddesy? That game was so awesome.

Anyway, I really hate it when one character turns out to be another character's father.

Abe's Odyssey/Exodus are fantastic pieces of gaming perfection.

microbiologist that have OCD.
i mean, one of the first things you learn training to be a microbiologist is that you need all that harmless bacteria on you as it stops the bad stuff from being able to get in.

...what?

(I'm not arguing against what you said, I'm wondering why you said it)

Story clichés aside, there are some insanely frustrating technical gaming annoyances:

-Losing all of your weapons and not getting them back. It was somewhat miraculous in Deus Ex when you lost them and they were actually stored instead of thrown away. Unlike GTA:SA in the point where you can actually keep your weapons when you accidentally drown/die, but when you drop into the water and LIVE during a mission, say goodbye to weapons? Geez.

-"I can summon gigantic fireballs that can destroy whole continents, but hoo boy I'm ****ed if I can't get past this invisible wall... or jump over this bump!" Then again, this is more about the game's genre and engine restrictions, but it can still be annoying.

I'm quite sure I'd come up with a lot more if I was doing some freaky überdetailed article or something, but this still tops pretty much anything:

-Cheating AI. Mostly it's when the AI has the same tools/weapons as you do, but it still manages to do a lot more with them. More common in older games, too. In FPS's, headshots certainly work against the AI, but when you're actually aiming at their heads for that, AI just uses auto-aim. Never thought that random grunt was the master sniper of the year. Not uncommon. Also occuring when the AI actually has a weaker unit than you do but it still manages to beat your higher-standard one (Civilization IV likes this one). AI collecting the same amount of tiberium and yet building war factories spitting out more tanks than you could with the same money? Yeah. Of course, to this point a lot of people probably bring up "LOL YOU JUST SUX AT PLAYING TEH GAME LAWL", but there's really more to that. Maybe that's why multiplayer is so popular, since there's no cheating AI around.

Of course, I'm not exactly that annoyed of those (except for the last one now and then), because a game trying to be really realistic with everything (like STALKER, yet magically reappearing bandits isn't that realistic at all to be honest) just makes you wonder why you're playing it instead of going outside where you can actually find realism. Geez.

Fighting god at the end.

Cause when you go outside they tend to get angry when you start shooting people.

Getting imprisoned and losing all your weapons.