Things that are annoying in First Person Shooters:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

-The obligatory level where you lose all your weapons and ammo you have spent the whole game painstakingly accumulating, and have to start over again with nothing, or just a pistol or knife.

-Fighting mechanical sentry guns or flying drones. Just seems very sterile, and annoying, all at the same time. This reminds me of why I hated the many battles between the Jedi and armies of droids in the Star Wars "prequels". Just seemed very sterile and not compelling.

[Hatalles]

1. "You need the Red Key."

I don't think this is too prevalent in FPS anymore... doors that require hunting down keys in large boring maps. I absolutely hated this.

[Ready4Change]

2. Under/Overly aware AI

I've played FPS games where the opponent AI's were incredibly ignorant.

Example: 2 guards standing next to each other. Pop! I drop one with a sniper rifle shot. Does the other react? Run for cover? Check his buddy out to see what's wrong? Look around to see where the shot came from? Nope, just keeps standing there like nothing has happened.

I've also played them where the computer AI is obviously more aware than it should be.

Example: I'm part of an assault force with the goal of taking over an island. I've seen than much of my force is headed for the west side of the island. I decide to take advantage of their distraction and sneak onto the islands eastern shore. Sneak sneak sneak. What to I see when I pop my head over the beach dunes?

Every single one of the computer controlled characters facing my way.

I duck, run 100 yards left, pop up again. And again, they are all looking RIGHT at me. No time to relocate me. I can run behind buildings, get on boats and go around to the other side of the island, etc... and their eyes are still connected to me as if by strings. X-ray vision. Through walls, rock, dirt, trees, Destroyers. Heck, probably lead too. Superman couldn't shake these guys.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. Yeah, Rainbow Six's sniper AI was like that. If you appeared ANYWHERE

in their possible line of sight, you were instantly capped.

In real life, they'd have to be looking for you, realize you are there, sight in on you, then shoot. Even if they were in a high state of awareness you'd have at least a second or two.

That's what I liked about Far Cry. Soldiers had different levels of alarm/vigilance, and if you were outside of their cone of sight they didn't see you at all.

The "my buddy just dropped dead, oh well" AI is annoying too. Seems like Thief and No One Lives Forever were among the first games to get on the importance of hiding your "handiwork". Perhaps Hitman, though I never played that.

[benEzra]

4. Secret doors...

though you don't see these much anymore, thankfully...they went out with the "red key" thing, I guess...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

5. I still remember tapping on every wall in Wolfenstein 3D, LOL.

[AZCat]

6. I still didn't find all the secrets in that *#$@#$ game!

Kids these days are spoiled - you can find everything on the 'net. Back in the old days you were lucky if your dorm had that one guy who was courageous enough to sacrifice his grades that semester to get all the codes for the rest of the campus.


Whatever happened to that guy anyway?

[YOY]

8. He found work at Diebold...They like people who can find shortcuts

n/t

[NewHampshireDem]

7. Just about anything that makes you retrace your steps

--I downloaded the Q4 demo the other day ... fight your way into the Strogg fortress, then run back out to get the medic and bring him right back in through the same path. No thank you!

--Squad-based play or 'protect this dude' missions ... I'm interested in protecting my own ass and no one else's, thank you very much!

[Occulus]

11. I quit the Quake4 demo at that exact spot!

That's why I liked Half-Life 2 so damn much: NO BACKTRACKING, enemies in exactly the right spots, a truly logical loss of all weapons but one.... that game was outstanding.

Now, I also have Homeworld 2. In spite of it being a very pretty, if a bit sterile game, visually, and in spite of the extensive tech research tree.... the AI is impossible to win against, even at the very easiest setting. Most mods do not address this problem.

Homeworld 2 has some serious balance issues. The PC players laugh at your ships.

Now, a game like Command & Conquer Generals and its expansion are damn near perfect. Balance, weapons, speed.... it's all there.

A good game with bad balance issues is as bad as a bad game.

[Hatalles]

13. Which reminds me...

I hate it when in FPS (and other games for that matter) when you re-visit an area, the same enemies who you previously killed, have magically been "resurrected," waiting in their same old positions.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

14. Glad to see someone else thought that about HW2

I found out Relic programmed the game to give the enemy more ships then you do in each succeeding mission...to make the game more "challenging".
At least that's the way it was in the single player. If you finished mission 5 with a battleship, the enemy would have a battleship (or two) and a couple of destroyers)

While the game was very detailed and amazing to watch, the scaling enemy (based on your unit production) was just a bit too high.

[YOY]

9. Mah...I don't midn loosing everything if that's the story

Halflife has it happen a couple of times. It never bothered me too much.

Linear levels that all look the freaking same. That's what bothers me. Some games really have orignial levels with little occurances that happen only one or twice (again Halflife 1 and 2)

Other FPS just have the same after the same after the same and all in a straight line that defeats exploring and finding alternative solutions.

[Atmashine]

10. Barrels, Crates, and The Sewer Level

I swear, isn't there ANY fps without this?

[Hatalles]

12. Ah... the infamous sewer level. I hate it too.

This is the first one that comes to mind... LucasArts' Dark Forces.

[Guy Fawkes]

15. the "lose everything" level..

was one of my favorite levels in HL2.

Super grav gun? Fuck yeah!