I got  my first games console back in 1990 and have avidly played games ever since, so in the last 20 years I’ve noticed certain recurring themes in video games that quite frankly are bloody annoying. Don’t get me wrong, I accept that glitches occur in games but nowadays with the whole ideal of “realism” in games, such inconsistencies cause more controllers to become airborne out of frustration….

Cloudy with the chance of MINIONS!

End of level bosses always give you the chat about how you are weak, how you cannot defeat them blah blah blah. Fine. So if you’re so tough why don’t you take me on one-on-one you fucking pussy? No. Games like Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Final Fight, etc always had about three or four minions pouring into the fight like a disrupted ant’s nest only for you to be occupied with fighting the underlings before the boss unleashes a generic cheap attack. Prime example of this is Mr X. in Streets of Rage 2. This guy would put you through a fucking gauntlet of knuckleheaded employees before sending out his androgynous understudy. Once you’ve defeated him the whole hornets nest erupts and minions come pouring in from every building oriface before Mr X stands up and starts shooting with a fucking machine gun…or he smacks you in the face with it. I mean seriously don’t give me all the chat and then get everyone else to do it, which brings me to my next point…

Is it a bird? Is it a plane, no it’s the next boss’ head…

From the days of 2D side scrolling beat ’em ups to games like Devil May Cry 4, why are end of level bosses always huge? I mean is there some kind of height discrimination in the evil empires? Someone could be perfect for the job and get a promotion but can’t because they’re always too short! Yes bosses seem to get bigger these days and it’s getting to the point that you start thinking where does it stop? In the days of Golden Axe, Death Adder was about 7′ 2″ which is conceivable but when you have bosses like in Bayonetta and God of War which pretty much obscure the skyline it’s getting to the point that surely it’s going to reach some kind of limitation. Final Fantasy games are known for having monolithic bosses but they used to break it down into various parts like leg, torso, arm, bum, etc rather than fight the whole thing in one go, that’s understandable.

Professional Sportsmen with Emphysema

This is aimed at more modern sports games such as FIFA games. It seems like in more recent times the statistics of each individual player are so thorough, games have to balance an increase in difficulty by making your team worse rather than make the other team better. An example of this is in FIFA, playing as Liverpool on semi-pro or pro difficulty is rational. Players are consistent with their ability in real life. However the instant you ramp it up to World Class, Liverpool play more like Lincoln City and despite what team you’re against the goalkeeper has the ability to fly. And what is it with lower division teams having players that would struggle to out pace a mobility cart? Just because the team has less ability, doesn’t mean that all the players run like a darts team. But of course on World Class ability every single player for Accrington Stanley runs like Usain Bolt under gunfire in a street in Mogadishu.

Infinitely Spawning Enemies

More recently in open world games certain places in games seem to have an Argos style conveyor belt of endless production of soldiers. This is particularly stupid when you can sit and mow down in excess of 200+ soldiers coming out of one igloo. With games being billed as realistic, having an entire garrison pouring out of a garden shed is hardly conceivable!

Do I have a tracer up my arse?

Enemies in all games these days always KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE! It’s they permanently can detect you despie your attempts of approaching situations with stealth and guile. This is annoying like in games such as Earth Defense Force 2017, hiding in a building before the wave comes and before you know it you have a horde with the same amount of numbers as the population of Liechtenstein bearing down upon you. How did you know I was there? This gets taken to a silly level in games like Mercenaries and Just Cause when you can be casually standing in a road unarmed before some soldier spawns in your vicinity, deems you hostile and before you know it the entire Viet Kong army is on your ass from here to Denang.

Blocking Enthusiasts

Bosses in beat ’em up games always seem to spend half the fight running away and blocking. Which dick ever thought it was a good idea to hold away from the attacker and make them impervious to attacks?!? This is doubly annoying in games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat when merely holding up an arm can make you invincible to fire, ice, bananas, etc.

Rush Hour Traffic at 5 in the morning

Why is it in open world games that when you need a car there aren’t any within 40 miles, yet the instant you start a street race the traffic materialises like its rush hour on the M25? GTA is frustrating when you need a car and there’s nothing at all in the middle of the motorway at midday. I mean come on the game’s called Grand Theft AUTO, how can you not have any cars at some point? I agree that Grand Theft Air is a shit name but the vehicle spawning in most games is so inconsistent. And putting a clock on the game is silly because traffic levels are never consistent with them. You can have a congested motorway at 5 in the morning yet an empty motorway at 11 in the morning as if you found yourself in I Am Legend.

 

Would you please kindly GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY

Staying with open world games why is it that when you crash into another car head on in them, they always seem to keep driving in front of where you want to go to get around them? I mean seriously if I was driving my car and a car full of yardies wielding Tec-9s smashed into me and then tried to get around me, the last thing I would do would be create an impediment. Self preservation and all! And you also always get people jumping red lights and driving across you all the time. If you are a pedestrian, most cars will just amble about but the instant you step behind a wheel they pull out in front of you as if you were driving away from a firestorm.

Don’t Attack Me! Get him!

Games like Left 4 Dead get irritating after a while when you constantly get vicitmised by the specialist enemies. Playing an offline co-op in signle player for example will see every single tank, smoker and hunter explicitly come after you! Sometimes they will run past the unwitting Gay-I and pummel you into oblivion rather than take out the computer controlled characters walking around aimlessly.  Plus most of the time the Gay-I will observe your demise rather than help you survive.

Follow Me…oh you’ve died…

Another pet peeve of mine is escort missions in games. Most games nowadays have missions whereby you’re required to babysit a complete and utter dullard who needs to stay alive otherwise the mission fails. However, due to the intelligent programming of games the NPC has a habit of waltzing out in front of a mini-gun toting firing squad like an ostrich with a sock on its head. And then the game fails you! Fuck. Off.

Dare you find all of Yamashita’s gold?

While it’s apparent from my gamerscore, I love achievements. However lots of games make it impossible these days to achieve a maxout because they litter it with achievements for collectibles. When I play a game I want to enjoy it and I certainly don’t enjoy painstakingly scouring the city like Google Street View and a magnifying glass looking for obscure items be it orbs, pigeons or CDs. I did manage to hunt down all 200 pigeons on GTA4 which took nigh on 4 hours and I was stuck on 199 out of 200 for ages, which induced a bout of Tourettes. Seriously I have better things to do, like execute pedestrians.

Post-Game Gloating

I don’t know if this is just me but certainly in earlier games they never seems to cause much furore if you managed to complete the game but if you managed to die and it was game over, the game would massively rub it in face like you’re the worst player ever because you have failed. Is it the game’s intent to utterly demoralise you so you feel compelled to right the wrong. No, you just feel worthless and insulted. I seem to recall Street Fighter II really rubbing it your face that Zangief had blocked his way to victory and against all odds managed to hit you with an endless chain of those impossible to pull off piledrivers. Assholes.

Where the hell did THAT come from?

Going back to 2D scrolling fighting games one of the most annoying occurences were when enemies were off the screen you couldn’t hit them, as if you were stopped by some cosmic forcefield, yet their reach was always enough to smack you in the face. Not only was this cheap, it was also very irritating. Golden Axe was a prime example of this whereby quite often you’d be at the far right of the screen trying to coerce the level to progress, only to receive a sword to the face from out of nowhere. By the time the screen had caught up you’d somehow managed to be 25% health down and the adversary was only just popping onto the screen.