Has auto reload ever gotten your ass killed in an FPS?

[Undercover]

So here I am, playing through the Marine campaign in the new Aliens Vs. Predator when of course, in the middle of a boss fight with a Praetorian, after blasting away with the double-barreled shotgun & knocking that fucker to the ground, when my guy, who should be running like a bat out of hell, suddenly starts trotting along, tra-la-la, reloading the shotgun, while the big bad bug gets back to it's feet, takes three steps and impales me.

Since when did FPS makers stop giving us an option to turn off auto-reload? Nearly every First Person Shooter (they seem to be the worst culprits for this) I've ever played where you automatically reload your gun & can't just drop it and run like hell, has gotten me killed, and almost always at the worst possible time.

Realistically, if I'm in the middle of reloading & hear the unmistakable sound of an enemy bearing down on me, I should be able to say "Fuck it, just RUN" no matter what. I have no problem ripping down a hallway at top speed with an empty weapon if its going to buy me a few seconds, but to be forced to reload at what basically amounts to a brisk walk just completely wrecks any sense of immersion, especially when things are just starting to heat up and the adrenaline is pumping.

Does anybody else go through this, or do I just have the shittiest luck in the world?

 

[Gaderael]

I don't think so. I mean, I don't think that I've ever played a game where I couldn't run at normal speed while reloading or just switch out to another weapon in the middle of lading my gun. The loading animation would just start over when I selected that gun again.

 

[Jordi]

This has never been a problem for me. But I think that in the games I play(ed) reloading doesn't stop you from running or switching to a side arm. If a game does impose penalties while reloading, they should absolutely give you full control over when that happens IMO.

 

[Super Six One]

Arrrg those damm shotguns, they kept getting me in AvP too. Come to think of it, its always the shotguns in games that take ages to reload and what makes it so hard to run while reloading?

 

[fix-the-spade]

Does anybody else go through this, or do I just have the shittiest luck in the world?

Pistol switch!

All shooters equip you with more than one weapon, just hit fast swap and RUN!

Even to run away it's a useful tactic, if you end up with an empty rifle and pistol... well you deserve to die.

 

[NeuroShock]

What I want to see is a game where you can sprint and reload at the same time, but just have it take significantly longer because your character is rushing/panicking/whatever. But what's gotten me killed more than auto-reload is when you automatically switch weapons when you're out of ammo. Sometimes I want to just run up and melee as a desperation move instead of waiting to switch weapons while some guy is unloading bullets on me.

 

[Eldarion]

The reload animation got me killed a few times in resident evil 4 on the harder difficulty.

Cause he can't move AT ALL while doing it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm sure I got killed that way a few times while playing online games of Shogo back in the day. There was no manual reload, but after a large number of shots, there would be a short animation, seemingly at random, in which your gun either reloaded or had a short cooldown period. Generally speaking, if you fired that many shots off without getting a kill, it was either because you had bad aim, your opponent was good at dodging, or both. In the first case, you probably deserved it if someone killed you. In the other two, chances are your opponent was having just as hard a time hitting you as you were hitting them, so it was likely that you would both get the reload animation eventually.

 

[KEM10]

Wait, usually when you hit the reload button while loading a shotgun (at least the pump or lever action ones where you have to load every shell individually) it'll stop the reload and give you a 1 or 2 shell clip. They've been trying to get more real with that and have it so you can load the gun mid way through and not lose more ammo.