Overused Gaming Conventions
 

What irritates you about games that you see all the time? Perhaps it's one too many barrels. Or maybe it's the overuse of bump mapping.

For me, it's fucking rag doll physics. It does not look realistic in the slightest and actually becomes comical in many ways. I know it's easier to do that than to animate every concievable death keel, it's still overused and I HATE IT!

I think FPS's in general. I'm a hardcore Counter Strike: Source player and on occasion BF2 but I'm just tired of them. You don't get much of anything new. Although there is one I'm highly excited for and that's Huxley.

Oh, another big peeve is the overuse of "However" or "Ya know" in anime or games. God that annoys me!!

I've gotten pretty tired of the way none of the female characters in RPGs wear proper armor. I mean sure, I like the female form and a bit of cleavage never hurt, but it's just so incredibly DEPRESSING that even after decades, designers still can't get over themselves and devise some proper protective gear for characters who are supposed to be engaged in combat for 90% of the game. Why make chestplates shaped like breasts? Battle armor can be attractive looking without a massive hole for cleavage or a two inch long skirt. WHY WOULD THEY EVEN WEAR A SKIRT IN FUCKING COMBAT? It's more offputting and insulting of gamer intelligence to see it constantly used in the wrong context.

But then this applies to every unconventional "combat gear" in any game, movie or anime.

I've also gotten tired of flimsy doors which prevent superpowered and heavily armed characters from advancing. It is a ridiculously crude device on its own, but if you really have to use it, at least bother making it a steel door, or one made of titanium with the most powerful lock the hero has ever seen or something similar.
Just once it would be nice to be able to kick in flimsier locked doors in games that aren't first-person shooters.. Or maybe a game where none of the doors are locked.

A third incredibly outdated, abused and embarrassing structure design is the arbitrary witholding of information or necessary inventory that is mostly present in RPGs, but has also leaked into most other genres as well.

A typical situation is that you arrive to a town and you are told to go talk to some person as you need some piece of information or perhaps some device to continue your journey. This person only agrees to give this necessary information or device once you have done something for them, which usually involves a long treck to another location where you will probably need to do more favors for more people before you are able to return.

If the character extorting you is a greedy, influential, sly crimeboss who has a habit of putting his own interests before others', the idea is somewhat more plausible than when a character who is supposed to help you save the world asks you travel to a distant cave to bring back a ring he left there and seems too lazy to go get it on his own.

The problem is not the witholding itself, it's the way most games present themselves. Designers need to consider whether the character, within the context of their personality and their standing in the game's narrative, would stand for such ordering (and how much this would piss the player off), and whether the character giving the orders actually have any kind of proper motivation to do so, other than just to slow proceeding down.
Military based games support the order following very well if the character is supposed to be a trained soldier, but in more relaxed environments it's just not that plausible.

If a person is said to be the only person in the world who can save the universe from destruction, you'd think people would try to help him as best as they can by providing equipment, useful advice etc, instead of asking favors and preventing him from reaching his goal.

Bullet Time.

I mean really, how many times do we need to see that now? I wouldn't mind it if more games actually used it in some kind of clever way (lol, Viewtiful Joe, Max Payne), but now it's an overused convention and needs to be put to rest for a while.

Swearing.

Swearing doesn't make a game look good, just look at San Andreas to see what I mean. Vice City was okay, but the amount of laughable black slang mixed with swearing in San Andreas was ridiculous.

I think they need to cut this out immediately. It's okay in some situations, but not ALL THE DAMN TIME.

I have... forgotten.. the name of the game! I lost it in the back of my head as I was typing. ;_; But yeah, I remember laughing at some futuristic sports game on Xbox, which featured a load of swearing. Just that it was like the voice actors had never said the words before, so they sounded so out of place in the middle of a sentence.

"I'm going to rip your fuuuuuUUUUUUUUUuuuuuckiiiIIING head off!"

Estensive Voice Acting. Basically, it adds little if done correctly, and greatly detracts when done poorly.

Cutscenes, specifically of the Metal Gear variety. Toothy, toothy, toothy, and the plot still sucks. What a waste of time.

E3 Expo is overused.

I hate scrolling text RPGs that flash back to your last save point. Yes I remember a half hour ago. He died? I know. I was totally there.

Camera angles.

Breath of Fire III and IV is a perfect example of this. Why, for the life of me couldn't they have a regular camera angle like other games?

The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Clichés. This list summarizes a lot of the flaws with RPGs, and I figure I may as well share it in a thread about overused conventions! It's a very good read.

I would like to see more console American-style RPGs, rather than the overdone anime-style ones. I would like to be able to kick back and play a game like Baldur's Gate, Nox, Diablo II or Dungeon Siege on a console. Hoever consoles, being mainly out of Japan in the first place, are obsessed with making games that are cute and/or funny, in a Japanese frame of mind. You kind of get tired of hearing the Chocobo music and such in every Final Fantasy...

It looks like there's a nice start going on now with games like The Bard's Tale and Knights of the Old Republic, but I want more! More serious games are a must (I do love me my Devil May Cry's and my God of War), and I'd like to see more RPGs done in the same manner, without the cutesy crap.

I've always been annoyed at the aspect of turn-based battles. I don't see how that's every been acceptable as actual fighting. That in my opinion is the biggest turn-off for RPG's. Live Action, Full 3d battles please.

I think my ideal game would be to take Samurai Warriors for game play speed and style, crossbreed it with Soul Calibur 3 for boss battles, throw in a Wrestling game for character customization, and Diablo II for customizable character skills with leveling and the God of War for story style and emmersion. That would be a killer game.

I would disagree with you... that is up until I played Tales of Symphonia and now have trouble going back to regular turn based RPGs.

Namco has spoiled me... :(

Generic RPG storylines which are exactly like every other RPG storyline. I mean the whole fantasy/magical world thing was interesting at first, but now it seems like they aren't even trying. When I saw the intro to Tales of Phantasia and they went on to babbling about the "mother tree of mana and creation" or whatever the hell it was, it felt like they just made a frankenstein of a setting based off all the generic RPG storylines out there. I don't mind games that have a fantasy setting if they're done right, but at least put effort into making it unique or different in some way.

And DON'T introduce players to your horribly unoriginal universe with 5 minutes of scrolling text at the start of the game while panning over the world map, at least use some type of visual reference to give examples of what you're describing instead of expecting players to imagine this huge battle and the begining of the world in thier heads. Just think of Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring using text and a map of Middle Earth to describe when Sauron was defeated.


Deathrow? I haven't played that game yet, supposedly it was pretty fun with 4 players.

That hasn't even happened since mid-1995.

I'm sick of game worlds spanning several thousands square kilometers. I stopped playing San Andreas because I couldn't be arsed to drive so much around after so little.
Sure, it's impressive, but if the world isn't filled to the brim with stuff to see and do, what's the point. If I wanted to trek, I could as well turn of my PS2 and go around outside.

Actually, I still had Tales of Symphonia in mind when I said that. Sure, it wasn't 5 minutes long, but still a pretty boring way to start a game. Shadow of the Colossus *almost* fits that description, but at least it had a mask and moving clouds in front of the map while they described what your purpose was.

Edit: whoops, I meant Tales of Symphonia back in my original post, not Tales of Phantasia.

Same here. Once I picked up Star Ocean: The Second Story, there was virtually no going back to turn-based battles for me.

Ever heard of Samus Aran? Still I agree, but you know damn well that covered up girls don't sell games to teenage boys.



This is hilarious. I've noticed this in several games as well. Jak II had quite a bit of this running around. A lot of other games use it to introduce chances for mini-games. It's a pain when you practically forget the story of the game because you're busy running your tail off for some nut job for no specific reason.

Another MAJOR issue I have with most games is characters having to relearn ALL of their abilities. I guess it does reflect the gamers who play the games though. I was never able to retain information . . . good.

Slime monsters in RPGs. They are not cool at all. C'Mon Dragon Quest people, when are you gonne get it, putting an ugly blob on your game posters / ads / covers makes me want to puke. And not buy the game (although, if it's DQ, I end up buying it anyway).

Also, the sleep / rest music in VGs. I want to hear one that's original, quirky, memorable. Personally, I fall asleep to Canadian Indie rock, so some of that in VGs would be appreciated by me. Or something else other than sappy strings, twinkling piano, and gently harp.

Alas, for every Samus Aran, Jade and Claire, there's a dozen Time Bitches, Red Lotuses and dodgy Lara Croft copies.

They could make a compromise. Put the women in bikini on the cover, but keep them.. you know, not embarrasingly undressed in fights. But no, I'd probably not like that either. Marketing and target audience and such -_-

Yeah, especially the races are practically absurd.

"You came in second, you need to try again before I tell you where you need to go!"
"Why the hell are you so adamant that I win some stupid race? =/"

This one is kind of obscure, but I am damn sick of nuclear weaponry as a plot device. Yes, it's a serious threat, and usually something that makes for a real nice conclusion. That doesn't mean you have to use it every single time! If you play a game that's set with the protagonist fighting either terrorists or a war, it's just about guaranteed that the terrorists will probably get their hands on a nuke, or the dictator (it often tends to be a dictator, too..) of whatever nation you're at war with will have a nuke as a hold-out weapon.

Well it took awhile, but I thought of one. I hate the sudden mortality in video games during the cut scenes. For example, raiding an enemy base, taking gun shot wounds, only having your health bar be slightly effected from a nearby explosion, etc. Then suddenly you turn a corner, cut scene flashes up, and someone sneaks behind you and gives your character a good hit to the neck causing instant lights out.

I mean, I realize that for any normal person that would work, but after dealing with the previous conventions of video games, like walking off a fatal gun shot, it seems ludicrous.

Healthbars/HP. The only combat-oriented games I've played with no health bar were Bushido Blade 1 and 2. It worked very well without number-based damage.

And I'm sick of RPGs where you are out to save the world. It is so, so tiresome. Why aren't any of the heroes ever motivated by something more selfish? It seems more realistic to me.
On a related note, I am tired of villains who try to destroy/control the world.

And please, no more RPGs based on crystals. Just stop it. It worked the first few times, but God, just stop it.

Also, big-ass swords. No one can swing such a thing, and it looks ridiculous.

Props to Qwarky for the female armor crap. It is so stupid.

Getting hurt or killed by simply touching a bad guy, no matter how passive they look. I haven't seen it as much nowadays, but I thought it was really ridiculous with games like Contra.

Boss Battles are the worst convention in gaming. Seriously they were invented back in the days of arcade gaming, not because they made the game better but because YOU DIED FORCING YOU TO THROW MORE MONEY TO KEEP PLAYING.

Not to mention boss battles are totalbullshit anyway. hey every other soldier only takes two bullets to take down but not this guy! No no he takes 100 bullets. What is this shit? Weak.

Well, it was a really easy way keep players at safe distances at all times without having to draw a bunch more attack animations. I guess it might not make sense for some enemies, but it makes perfect sense in shmup where you colliding with another ship is death, or if the enemy's a bouncing fireball or something. Yeah it is a little ridiculous though, but I'm not that annoyed by it. However, something as general as this isn't really a candidate for overuse I think.

Another convention you need to find odd though is jumping on things' heads to defeat them. Although if somebody landed straight on your head, it probably would defeat you.

I pretty much agree on you on this. But then again, this makes it that more refreshing to see that SOME companies actually CAN make tasteful armor for women. Lenneth from Valkyrie Profile anyone?

http://www.everyeye.it/public/immagi...06/lenneth.jpg

Unless Lenneth's skirt is made out of silk mythril, that's still prone to wear and tear.

One convention struck me oddly was the fact that during cutscenes I was treated to one-hit blows by the heroes and heroines YET when you play the game it takes several hits for the enemy to take down. What's this God mode crap I'm seeing?

Why don't they just hit the enemy repeatedly and weaken them? God. Like Devil May Cry 3 for example, In the very first stage, Dante shoots and slashes all the demons in his wake IN ONE HIT yet when you control him it takes about 5-6 slashes and a full clip of bullets to take those demons down.

Mm, while it's certainly not that functional, it's at least tasteful (not to mention happens to look good as well), as you said. And that's a hell of a lot better than most Japanese character/armor designs.

Similarly, while many of the characters in something like Final Fantasy Tactics don't exactly wear entirely functional attire for close combat battle, the outfits themselves are entirely tasteful and fitting and the knights actually wear proper armor.

http://www.avalancheonline.com/Cdcovers/fftfront.jpg

Q: You remind me of Wyna from Thousand Arms whose armor was just.. er. Her armor was just a two-piece bikini. What?

http://www.chainsawsurgery.com/zombi...mages/wyna.jpg
Someone tell me how the hell she can survive cannon blasts in a fucking two-piece.

But yeah, I stick to what I've said before. One hit kills for the lose.

Well, you only need to look at any random few recent console RPGs to see how ridiculous it still is.

http://tales.namco.com/legendia/imag...le/large12.jpg

http://simplyff.free.fr/FF12/artworks/ashe.jpg http://www.rpgkingdom.net/images/med...nacarta/23.jpg

http://www.gamespot.be/images/babesp...tsCovenant.jpg http://www.rpgkingdom.net/images/tests/sh3/sh3_17.jpg

When I saw Qwarky talking about the (lack of) female armor, Lenneth was also the first female character that popped into my mind of at least decent armor, as well as Chris from Suikoden III.

So here's a thing that I mentioned in the FFXII thread regarding RPGs in general:

So basically:

1) Proper clothes for the characters to cope with the environmental elements.

2) Monsters that well...behave more natural. But it does look like FFXII is stepping in the right direction reading a few replies after.

You don't need mythril if you have divine ether coating.

Edit: Besides, she clearly has armor underneath it aswell.

The lack of lack of realism I see in games and seemingly disappointing gaming conventions that bring in complaints and arguments of lack of realism despite the fact that many efforts are made to prevent lack of realism is pretty annoying.

EDIT: What the heck...

I was drunk when I posted this. But I still stand by my word, because I actually understand what I said.

Ever play Drakengard? While in the end it does still use the save the world bit, the main character is a asshole with a vendetta.

Basically horror games that involve heavy use of Zombies, I don't care any game that has Zombies as a main focus in the 'enemy' area starts to feel really corny, Thats why I think Capcom felt they had to re-vamp the survival horror aspect and put real people instead of Zombies.

H fucking DR. I cant see crap with that thing enabled -_-

The more I look at this picture...the more I wonder how the hell she'd survive with a fire ball blast, lest even a cast of Ultima in her groin region. Oh wait, let's back up a bit and put in a strike of a regular sword.

Oh well,



I guess it's convenient for a quickie.

That sounds like a lacquer paint and a primer from Dutch Boy man.

Sounds like Gunpla talk.

It is.

ok i understand the female armor that doesn't really protect but when a character that is not a fighter (mage class I could say) they don't need a full plate to fight >.> so about half the screen you post Qwarky are not good >.>

but when you look at that :

http://lineage2.gameamp.com/modules/...loads/4355.jpg

and it's suppose to be a fighter, ok it may look good but doen't give any protection >.>

Tasteful? Are you kidding? Yeah, I'll admit that's better than most, but these guys look like they are consciously concerned about their waist size. :eyebrow: That's beside the point, though.

I can understand with the shmups, but come on, how hard can it be to add in attack animations? A good deal of the guys in Ninja Gaiden for example had them, even though it might be them just brandishing a bat or something as they walk, but that's good enough for me. (Even though the same thing still happened. You could walk up to them from behind and still get hurt.)

Well anyways, on another note, how about all those 'bottomless' pits where falling down typically means instant death (or sometimes a loss of health)? Practically every Mega Man game has them (if not all of them, including the X games). And yeah, I know they might be in places where it'd make sense, like say off a skyscraper or something, but sometimes that's not the case, and either way, I think it is (or has been) used too much.

Well, for the "bottomless pit" thing, I assume it's the lazy or less violent and animation-intensive way to show that the player clearly splattered their head open on the cold pavement. Plus, simple map-wide deathtraps like this one ensure you're not stupid.

Hmm, how about platformers, which have grass platforms levitating several hundred feet above the earth without any believable supports. They could at least make the damned things "hover" a bit if they're floating, since it'd be more believable. Although, believability and realism isn't always the primary focus, with gameplay usually being up there instead

Well technically, The worlds in Platforming games are meant to be fantasy, I've never really played a 'realistic' platformer were they took Physics into account.

What bothers me is the fact that in most games, you don't start out with a good looking badass skill. But when you get later in the game they are plentiful to come by and in fact the best looking skill isn't the strongest.
Also why in RPGs is there a damage/HP limit? You'd expect your strength to be able to break the boundaries of 9999 damage, but no only enimies can do that. It's also funny that while you have max HP much lower than most enimies (especially later in the game), you do a hell of a lot more damage than they do. If they did anywhere as near as much damage as you did, you'd die on the first boss battle.

That's a pretty typical compromise for player enjoyment, it seems. Like in first person shooters, you can down most enemies with a single head shot, but most of the time you can withstand quite a few bullets before you go down (unless it's Operation Flashpoint or one of the tactical FPS games in the style of Rainbox Six). Very rarely are there games where the player is just as vulnerable as the enemies (unless you count 2D shmups)

You'll also have to keep in mind for most RPG conventions that at most boss battles, the ratio is 3 turns for the player (assuming three characters are used in the present fighting party) versus 1 boss. This pretty much allows the player to execute three commands against the computer's 1 command per turn,whether turn based or ATB. The boss will obviously need to compensate in some departments, usually the max health and increased damage to give the computer's side a "fighting" chance, if you will.

I find that with few exceptons, most turn based RPG battles require little (if any) tactics. Near the end of the game, all but the ultra-hidden-boss are easy to kill just by mashing the attack button over and over. Most battles that don't have this simplicity have maybe one trick, such as attacking only a certain target or using magic attacks only. Using tactics makes even some battles where you are horribly outclassed possible to win, your enemy hardly ever uses tactics (other than if=else reactions and HP triggers).
Just spend a few extra rounds traversing the dungeon and that near impossible boss battle will be much easier. Fights like Yunalesca in FFX are an exception, but you'll find almost any other battle to be insanely easy if your stats are high enough.
The only way most battles are made hard is by enemies doing insane physical/magical damage or having massgve HP.

What makes these boss battles relatively easy, as you have stated, is that bosses which only have one turn. Many of these bosses in various RPGs that I've played so far spend that one turn on the attack command, or basically on a command that will damage your party through a spell or mal-condition. There are bosses which will do special commands, such as a block of some sort, to reduce or nullify attacks. But one thing I've noted is very few of these bosses bother to use that turn to heal themselves.

It looks like the programmers gave the bosses a priority on damage to the opposing party rather than healing the boss. Again, this also explains why bosses have such high hit point values to compensate for their not healing themselves. I personally found most to all of the bosses in FFX very easy, with the exception of the Sanctuary Keeper. After examining why I’m seeing the Game Over screen several times, it noted that this particular boss was exploiting the “Curaga” spell almost every second to give himself 9999 HP. This was the reason why it seemed to take forever to deal any decent damage and actually keep the damage there. If programmers want to make bosses more difficult, allowing them to heal themselves through perhaps an auto-potion or spell.

As well, the player’s party might only seem to have several “weaker” characters against the 40,000 some HP boss, where each of the characters might only have 1000 HP each. For argument sake, let’s assume that there are three characters in this party and each character has 1000 HP. This makes the player’s side have 3000 HP vs 40,000 HP. This isn’t the whole picture though. Recall that many RPGs employ an item system where usually most of these characters will have access to their inventory. Let’s suppose this player has 50 Hi-potions that regenerate 1000 HP and 100 small potions that regenerate 250 HP. This is already an additional 75,000 HP to the player, and this is excluding items which help bring back to life the fallen characters; an ability that is usually lacking in most bosses – to regenerate themselves.

As you can see now, programmers need to find a happy medium for the bosses to pose a challenge to the player without stalling their progress too much. If the bosses do have the ability to restore themselves HP, then the programmers need to be wary of not turning the fight into a battle of attrition, and seeing which side has more potions or abilities to make it out at the bitter end.

Except for Dragon Quest VIII. Two turns. One can be a major blow attack that decreases over 3/4 HP then suddenly launch a group attack also 3/4.

I was mentioning on a general sense. The more "bosses" you have in an individual battle, the more turns the computer gets per round. But, again re-iterating, most of the RPGs I've played so far have just one boss per battle. Also when I say "boss", I mean the general bad dude/monster usually at the end of a particular stage - I'm not referring to "super bosses" such as the Ultima weapon. Of course those bosses are engineered in such a way that even though they have one turn, they're attacks are absolutely devastating. Also note, that I obviously have not played every RPG in existence, so I'm sure my comment does have some holes in it, but at the same time, should make some sense.

'You're on a mission to stop terrorist that have nukes. You must save the world from these bad guys at any cost. You are our best man for the job. We're counting on you!"

"So what do I get to go in there with?"

"A pistol, a combat knife, and all our prayers."

Seriously WTF is up with that!? I don't buy that crap excuse they're throwing around now like in MGS where they say "We don't want them to know you were there, so steal their stuff". I'll possibly let MGS slide with it, but this is getting WAY too cliche. They should make a shooting game where you start with almost every weapon. Come very heavily armed, and all the goods, but you lose it a little bit into the game. That would at least be a bit different from the usual crap...

Under the circumstances of anything MGS3 related, the US wanted to keep the whole operation under wraps, so sending in the marines and a whole battalion of tanks into the USSR would probably start raising a few inquries in the international community.

I understand what you are saying. Games such as Rainbow Six and the like do have world-effecting implications, and at least you have a team to take care of it rather than a one-man army. I'm trying to run other games such as this through my head but can't recollect at this moment. I'll check back later.

Splinter Cell is the worst out of all of them. At least the MGS story is particularly different, and very interesting with's it's message.

Splinter Cell? Same old boring shit.

Splinter Cell (I've only played the first one) was way too heavy on doing things a particular way, and that was the only way to do it. It was basically a trial and error game that tested your patience, in a wrong way.

MGS games in general also tested your patience in waiting for the right moment, but it allowed you freedom to do somethings your way, and you could still get away from "screwing up" the alarm which didn't add as much to the frustration meter.

I see what you mean, but too many games uses this to an annoying effect. "Wow, you say I have all these mental powers/this humongous mech? Cool!"
*Someone snatches the mech away, gives you amnesia or something like that*
"Oh well, it seems like I must find it aaaaall again.."

Something I have always hated were the "Oh, this creature is all powerful and with it I will take over the world"....a few scenes later "What? Why he's betrayed me/the control device was broken!, you'll have to stop him while I watch over here".

I get bored with the 'madman creates a super being but then it gets a mind of it's own' deal. It gets used so much that I pratically already know what's going to happen in the end of the game after I play it for about 5 minutes.

Explosive barrels get to me the most.

Even in some of the better shooters (Half Life 2) there are explosive fucking barrels. Totally unrealistic that you just have flammable liquid inside of a giant iron drum, just waiting to be penetrated by a bullet hot enough to make it EXPLODE and kill nearby enemies.

I was recently playing Black and they took it to another extreme, where critical enemies such as those armed with RPGs, snipers, or high-power machine guns just happened to be next to something explosive. Sometimes it was fairly realistic, but most of the time you had to wonder why a sniper would perch on a tower that resides over gas tanks. Did they think no one would ever come to shoot in their direction?

I'll never understand.

"Watch, I'll stand by this barrel full of chemicals that react to lead in such a way that they blow up, so they don't even have to hit me, just in my general direction. But it doesn't matter, because I'm such a badass I'll wipe the sucker out before he even gets to fire."

Summary: FPS enemies are always egotistical. Also, I noticed a distinct lack of these barrels or anything like them in the first Halo. But Halo 2 had them.

Collecting X amount of crystals/pendants/etc. before you're able to get somewhere. I've always hated that. Free-roaming environments are getting pretty annoying too. And by this I mean generic New York styled cities. Ever since GTA3 it's been huge cities filled with buildings you can't go into. Also, everyone drives the same car, if not a different color.

For some reason I think this list will mention every gaming convention ever made.

Or similarly, the main character gets all this awesome stuff, saves the day, and then in a sequel that chronologically takes place not long after the previous game, he/she for some idiotic reason decided to discard all (if not most) of the fun toys.

You'd think Samus would have at least kept the Gravity Suit, or Mega Man X his armor parts, but nooooo... (to my knowledge they only did that for him in X5 and X6)

EDIT: No wonder Dr. Light never lived to see X awaken. He must've about killed himself making oodles of armor capsules to make up for all that.

One thing that's always bothered me about FPS games is, generally speaking, a lot of weapons, as cool as they may seem, are rather worthless. For instance, you may start out with a pistol, but once you get that machine gun, you'll never, ever go back to the pistol, unless you just happened to have run out of bullets on that machine gun.

Some games have been forcing you to use said pistol via not giving you enough ammo. In HALO 2 I found myself using the covenant weapons more simply because the human weapons didn't hold much ammo, and finding ammo for them was ridiculous at times. Same thing with Call of Duty 2. I find myself using the Nazi weapons simply because I know like half the Wermacht is going to be using that weapon, so I have a constant supply (there are exceptions though sometimes, cause in COD2 you generally have a lot of friendlies, who, um, get killed, so you can take their ammo. Just make sure the Nazi's kill them, cause friendly fire isn't tolerated if you do it to them, not vice versa).


Another pet peeve of mine is in RPG's, where they give you spells like slow, poison, stun. Again, they may look cool as heck, but 99% of the time you will not be using it, because they either won't work (bosses in particular seem immune to it, but a funny example is in most Final Fantasy games, where the majority of mobs are immune/resistant to quake/poison, so in like the first FF, it's a waste of money to even buy those spells), the battle won't last long enough, or you'll want to spend that mana on casting a damage spell as opposed to one of those spells. There are exceptions, but most of the time that's how it works.

Strangely enough, when those spells are used on your characters, they almost always work, and are always detrimental (such as a boss casting slow on your entire party, followed by a poison which knocks off 10% of your health per turn).

And yes, I know, that's in the RPG cliche list, but I always hated that. Why are you going to waste time putting a spell into the game, when at the end, your characters are only going to be using 1-3 spells max anyway?