Pointless things in games

[MD]

The Eyetoy does a really useless thing... when you switch it on it comes up with a langauge select screen, and you use the arrows to select the flag of a country whose langauge you want to use Frence, Dutch, Finnish, etc, etc. Once you have the right flag up. You then select 'Select' and what does it do when you Select 'Select'? Well it changes 'Select' to the local langauge before fading out... Hmm well thought out that...

[Magnakai]

I always liked the rubber ducks in Metal Gear Solid 2. And the little toy Ravens, but they have a teeny tiny miniscule significance, so they're not completely useless.

[Jakeway]

How about the Bubble Gun in Earthworm Jim 2?

It took about 2 secs to shoot one bubble and it gives you 99 bubbles, it couldn?t even kill things? it was a useless annoying weapon.

[df0notfound]

cheese in perfect dark

[Papercut]

The Eyetoy does a really useless thing... when you switch it on it comes up with a langauge select screen, and you use the arrows to select the flag of a country whose langauge you want to use Frence, Dutch, Finnish, etc, etc. Once you have the right flag up. You then select 'Select' and what does it do when you Select 'Select'? Well it changes 'Select' to the local langauge before fading out... Hmm well thought out that...

That could be seen as useful, to inform the player that their chosen language has taken effect.

[MD]

Surely it would have been better to change the Select into the local langauge before you select it rather then in a briefly before it disappears... that way you know it's been selected...

[E. Randy Dupre]

Sort of in line with that first example, the game setup screens in Samba De Amigo Ver.2000 suffer from one daft decision. Anywhere else in the game, a shake of the right hand or press of the yellow button acts as confirmation of your choices (it's the replacement for the pad's Start button, basically), except for on one screen, where the function of the button suddenly changes to Back. Cue pointless loading as everyone used to the first title ends up repeating the height selection process at least once per game. Clever.

[Tom Salter]

The baby in Metal Slug. WTF!

[Lactose Intollerant]

Being able to recuit the octopus' kid in Suikoden 2, which if you did, led to you being unable to get all 108 stars.

[Ady]

The flaming torch in Ghosts N' Goblins and Ghouls 'N Ghosts.

Excellent thread, btw.

[Tom Salter]

The flaming torch was ace! My weapon of choice, you could do some serious damange with that! You do mean the weapon, don't you?

[Ady]

Yeah, I meant the weapon.

You're the first person I've ever met that liked that weapon! I just hated the way it arced over the heads of enemies all the time...

[Tom Salter]

But it exploded on the floor and went BOOM, taking out loads of zombies/things. On bosses it caused serious damage if you got it right. Tres fun

[Lactose Intollerant]

Was it possible to hurt that huge caterpillar boss (with the hearts) with that weapon at all?

Also:
Combining Ken/Ryu/Akuma into one character in Marvel Vs Capcom

[Darwock]

That flaming torch was terrible, but I wouldn't say it was pointless - it was like a booby prize, something to avoid after opening a treasure chest. Adds to the game.