QTE (Quick Time Events)

The last thing I need while playing a game is a sudden reflex test.

So you're playing a game, enjoying a nice adventure, killing hellion monsters, when you suddenly trigger a cutscene. You're like "sweet I can take a break" and you put down your remote. Suddenly, you see a button flashes on your screen and then a death screen. You sit there thinking "what the hell just happened" so you hit retry and sure enough another button appears and you press it, then another, and another. You are trapped by a dreaded QTE(Quick Time Event).

I think QTE's are the most flow breaking things added to any game and serve no purpose but to torture anyone with a slow reaction time. The cutscene ones are the most annoying because you never see them coming and your controller is more than likely not in your hand.

Developers say its to keep the person in the action but I don't think it works when you're watching a tense, story climax cutscene and suddenly the X button pops up on your screen and pulsates "PRESS/MASH X TO PREVENT BEING CHOKED TO DEATH!!1" . It really kills the tension when you have to do it. Its like jumping up into a play and stealing the main characters part and starting reciting their lines horribly.

Of course there are the combat QTE's which are not so bad when its one or two buttons but when it extends to three or more it becomes a horrible twitchfest where you don't know whats going to happen and you're glancing back and forth from the prompt section to your remote making sure you press the right thing, making you oblivious to the actions your character is taking.