Modern Shooter Cliches that annoy the hell out of you

[blue spartan 11]

Health.
And evil russians.
And the stupid "Set it in middleeastian and call it realistic" bullshit.

 

[Choppaduel]

All of them, or more accurately the combination of all of them. Boring and unrealistic modern setting, bad ai, regen health, cover-based shooting, etc. Makes for boring shooting gallery gameplay. That's why stuff like borderlands is such a breath of fresh air. For instance, in CoD you heal by hiding. In borderlands you heal by throwing a flaming bird at ppl.

Yeah its probably the combination of cliche. For example, I really liked Battlefield 2, but I found COD 4 to be shit (multi & single)

BF2 has no cheesy faux-masculine characters, has no half baked terrorist nuke plot, has no simplistic set pieces, has absolutely no linearity, has no infinitely re-spawning enemies (sort of), has no character or weapon customization, has no regenerating health, and most importantly HAS NO FUCKING CUTSCENES. The cliche in multi is a little harder to pinpoint, so I suggest anyone reading this to actually play BF2; you'll see the difference.

It is class based and is modern, however it doesn't have the other cliches that COD and its clones all have.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

I kind of imagine that it will be more interactive than that, I think that demo was just to show the capabilities tbh.

Good point. They would want to show off as much as possible. Didn't think of that.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I am the only person in the army who can hit anything, only person worth shooting at, and the only person who can plant a bomb/breach a door/hack a computer/complete objective. This is why I loved the final mission in Resistance: Fall of Man. Where other games always have the last level with you being alone, the final level you still have allies streaming in to back you up. I was so amazed that I actually lost track of what I was doing at one point.

 

[Alexnader]

I think what people aren't realizing about the whole "where did color go" thing, is that for years people were demanding graphical realism. War games will look brown dark and gritty, because quite often, War scenes are brown dark and gritty.

Where are all the colorful games?

On the Nintendo system. All the cartoony, Disney-esque colorfulness is on the Nintendo system.

Probably because it's hard to have a serious shooter that's not set somewhere brown, dark and gritty. For serious shooters it's either brown filter time or you're making a game with the word Cry in its name.

 

[Tygerml]

Carrying hilariously small amounts of ammunition. Its ridiculus that my automatic rifle only lets me carry 120 rounds.

Well that's maybe a little low, but not ridiculous.. Most real-world soldiers only carry around 200 rounds for their rifle.

What does bother me is that there's crosshairs always on the screen, because real-world soldiers have crosshairs built into their eyes, right?

You take away crosshairs and add natural drift from hip shooting and you'll see some skill return.

 

[G-Force]

Well, quite a few of them.

But the biggest one is that you always play as a soldier of some sort.

To me, that tends to indicate lazy writing. See, every story needs conflict of some kind. Whether it take the form of combat, or the struggle to survive in a hostile environment, or even a love triangle, conflict is the core of drama. And of course that conflict requires a plausible cause or justification. And that's where things get complicated. So many writers just say, "Oh fuck it, it's a war and you're a soldier. Just shoot anything that isn't speaking english." Then knock off for the day.

I think another big thing I don't like is having defined characters. Many shooter protags are blank slates and we're supposed to inject our personalities into them. That's a cool and effective mechanic but not when almost EVERYONE is doing that. I kind of want to play a shooter with a strong lead and not too many games made nowadays are letting me do this.

 

[DarkRyter]

Grey, brown, and if you're really lucky, some more grey.

Splash some color up in there. Bright punctuating reds for blood! Deep blue skies! Glimmering green plantlife!

Or, hell, just paint the walls.

 

[Darius Brogan]

Invincible buildings, ring-shaped explosions, Scope Drift, ect...

Also, the inconsistent damage tables. I'm tired of going 'Oh, cool, high damage, and then being outclassed by a weapon of far inferior quality in real life, that happened to be higher-up on the un-lockable weapons list, seriously.

If you're looking for realism, actually try making the weapon realistic, instead of catering to 'it's more pretty than that one, make it more powerful as well'.

 

[The Wooster]

I think what people aren't realizing about the whole "where did color go" thing, is that for years people were demanding graphical realism. War games will look brown dark and gritty, because quite often, War scenes are brown dark and gritty.

The funny thing is for most of the late 90's gamers were complaining about the excessive coloured lighting in shooters.

Every genre has it's whipping boy and monochromatic games, no matter how effective, the style might be, are such an easy target.

Coming up in the next topic; watch people shriek about QTE's and then claim Shenmue is the best game ever!

 

[Kahunaburger]

All of them, or more accurately the combination of all of them. Boring and unrealistic modern setting, bad ai, regen health, cover-based shooting, etc. Makes for boring shooting gallery gameplay. That's why stuff like borderlands is such a breath of fresh air. For instance, in CoD you heal by hiding. In borderlands you heal by throwing a flaming bird at ppl.

Yeah its probably the combination of cliche. For example, I really liked Battlefield 2, but I found COD 4 to be shit (multi & single)

BF2 has no cheesy faux-masculine characters, has no half baked terrorist nuke plot, has no simplistic set pieces, has absolutely no linearity, has no infinitely re-spawning enemies (sort of), has no character or weapon customization, has no regenerating health, and most importantly HAS NO FUCKING CUTSCENES. The cliche in multi is a little harder to pinpoint, so I suggest anyone reading this to actually play BF2; you'll see the difference.

It is class based and is modern, however it doesn't have the other cliches that COD and its clones all have.

Haha, everyone is talking about how good BF2 is - I really need to get it when I have time to get into a multiplayer shooter again

 

[funguy2121]

Exactly what the title says really, but I'll give an example that makes me want to vomit blood.

I pick up a controller for the first time since Star Wars Battlefront II to play some Mortem Warfare (the first one) with my brother.

'I think I shall choose a sniper, because I am skilled in this subject and it was amazing fun in Battlefront.'

so we start the match, and I scope in to get a view of my surroundings. and that's when it appeared: Fucking SCOPE DRIFT.

Any one with the smallest increment of fucking rifle training knows how to keep a bead accurate up to AT LEAST fifty yards. and here I was swaying all over the damn place for no reason.

And I feel sorry for those who picked up a scoped rifle after playing Call of Duty, because holding your breath is the last thing you want to do. infact, I find it much easier to take deep breaths while shooting.

So my question in this: what Modern Shooter cliche annoys the hell out of you?

EDIT: I'm getting the conseseus of 'too bland of colours' and 'terrorists and nukes and stuph'. And I actually want to play Bioshock Infinite, as opposed to me previously being reminded of... ... Bioshock 2.

Um...fifty yards isn't really sniping, and actual professional snipers do indeed hold their breath. Scope drift is realistic. If you don't like it, perhaps avoid sniping? Would you also prefer a main battle tank that handles like a...


EDIT: also, what is Post-Mortem Warfare?

 

[ksge713]

several things bug me about modern shooters so i'll list them in no order

1.first person shooters
These bug me for several reasons most of them involving the fact that I'm terrible at most of them, and no I'm not saying every game should be one I'm good at but the problems have been fixed in some games. For example I am a very jumpy person so when I see an enemy I jerk the stick that way and most of the time over shoot costing me extra seconds that i don't have to line up the sight properly. Games like Half-Life and Bioshock fixed this in different ways and it wasn't even under the hood stuff like auto target (which does help when it works). Half-Life made everything clean enough that most of the time I could see the thing that would try to kill me before it could see me thus giving me time to plan out an attack, while Bioshock gave me the power to freeze things in place and then fill them with hot lead.
The next thing that bugs me is that I can't see myself, putting me in the mind set that I am the person doing these things, but then it gives me a personality and look that always make me think "wait who's that?" when my character is in a cut-scene or starts talking over a headset, ruining my immersion somewhat mostly because i need to change my thinking from "what would i do here?" to "what would this guy do here?". It works if i'm thinking one or the other the entire time i didn't like this in halo and i don't like it anywhere else.
When the game tells you are being hurt but won't say which direction. Duke Nukem: Forever did this and it makes you have to do a 360 before you can defend yourself, and every single time the thing trying to remove my kidneys is just out of my line of sight whichever way I don't start turning.
Separating the move and camera. Trying to turn and camera and strafe at the same time just gets confusing and in Team Fortress 2 I find myself getting stuck on things I can't see time and again, because I can only move in eight directions, and i can only see one of them completely and half of two more. This is less a shooter problem and more a PC problem but it still puts yet another bee in my bonnet.

2. Bad stories, this was one of my biggest grips in Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters I was just shooting anything that moved because the story made no sense until the 3rd play though.

3. 2 weapons that are exactly the same to players who don't spend hours at a time for several days on a single game or ones that just plain aren't worth using.Games like Bioshock and Painkiller do this well but, in games like Modern Warfare i can't tell the difference between an AK-47 and an m-16 carbine.

4.(Don't worry last one) Games that give you limited ammo but so much of it that you will never run out, again Bioshock did this well as did games like Silent Hill: Homecoming where they gave us different guns and a need to use them, other than some enemies need to be beaten by that gun alone.

yes I consider all these problems to be common enough that they should be considered cliches and not just problems that need fixing

 

[Demitri Kamoraz]

People who think that they are awesome because they can snipe. it doesnt make you a badass. just a coward.

Dmitri sad.

But seriously, I guess I can see that. When someone snipes against you, its the most infuriating thing since the russian department of fire safety, but when you're sniping, you feel like that one scene from meet the sniper.

Then again, I also have massive gay love for stealth, so I really am a coward when it comes to games.

 

[HyperDalek]

Evil Russians. C'mon the Cold war has been over for at least 15 years. Let's find someone else to hate.

 

[Demitri Kamoraz]

Exactly what the title says really, but I'll give an example that makes me want to vomit blood.

I pick up a controller for the first time since Star Wars Battlefront II to play some Mortem Warfare (the first one) with my brother.

'I think I shall choose a sniper, because I am skilled in this subject and it was amazing fun in Battlefront.'

so we start the match, and I scope in to get a view of my surroundings. and that's when it appeared: Fucking SCOPE DRIFT.

Any one with the smallest increment of fucking rifle training knows how to keep a bead accurate up to AT LEAST fifty yards. and here I was swaying all over the damn place for no reason.

And I feel sorry for those who picked up a scoped rifle after playing Call of Duty, because holding your breath is the last thing you want to do. infact, I find it much easier to take deep breaths while shooting.

So my question in this: what Modern Shooter cliche annoys the hell out of you?

EDIT: I'm getting the conseseus of 'too bland of colours' and 'terrorists and nukes and stuph'. And I actually want to play Bioshock Infinite, as opposed to me previously being reminded of... ... Bioshock 2.

Um...fifty yards isn't really sniping, and actual professional snipers do indeed hold their breath. Scope drift is realistic. If you don't like it, perhaps avoid sniping? Would you also prefer a main battle tank that handles like a...


EDIT: also, what is Post-Mortem Warfare?

I was saying that even fifty yards was unholdable in CoD.

I shoot in the (American) Great Plains, so the sights are pretty long. 1 km approx. for the longest I can hit consistently.

I guess I spend most shooting crouching, too, and maybe standing up for a shots harder? I've never had a problem with being unable to hold steady, but I'm pretty solidly built.

And yeah, I guess some people do hold their breathes while shooting. Not my cuppa tea, but then again I'm abit fatum in my shooting methods.

All in all, that was just supposed to be an example. It's annoying to me, but luckily I don't do it enough to BE annoyed.

 

[ChupathingyX]

The fact that everything is brown and grey.

Even in fallout vegas it annoys me and I love that game.

Uhhhh, New Vegas is set in the Mojave desert, that is what it looks like.

Plus if you want colour go to the Vegas strip or visit Mt. Charleston, there's also Red Rock Canyon if you want to look at some nice red sediments and if you have either of the DLCs they have som nice looking places and architecture. Plus at least New Vegas had green plants and trees and you have toi take in account that a couple hundred years ago there were some bombs dropped around the area that kinda screwed it up a bit, plus all the rusting and decay that soon follows.