First-person shooters are some of the most action-packed and thrilling games on the market. Some offer the ability to fly through space or live through history as you battle Nazis and topple the German regime. These games have changed through time and have had new mechanics in them that players have argued for and against.
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Some of these first-person shooter mechanics are so bad that they were removed from the genre due to criticism from fans. Here’s hoping these mechanics never get put back into upcoming shooters.
10 Rocket/Grenade Jumping
Doom is one of the games most notorious for being able to use rockets to propel yourself across a map full of enemies. Other games, like Halo and Borderlands, popularized the same idea with grenades to allow yourself to reach higher areas. This concept doesn’t make any sense due to the fact that you would probably end up kill yourself in the process. It is amazing that this type of mechanic was even implemented in the first place due to the lack of realism it represents.
9 Wall Running
Plenty of games have used wall running mechanics effectively, but the most famous example of bad wall running is Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. When it comes to realistic war-style shooters, people tend to want realism more than they want gimmicks that sound cool on paper. It is understandable that the mechanic would be in the game since it takes place in the future, but they could have just stuck with exoskeletons. Wall running is fun when it comes to an adventure game, but it is something that shooters should stay away from.
8 Explosive Barrels
Explosive barrels can usually be found sprinkled throughout the maps of various shooters ready to be shot by players to make the enemies suffer. Who thought that this should be a staple of every shooter out there? This mechanic doesn’t make any sense. It would be better to think that these barrels would be kept in a safe location rather than placed next to walls, cars, and other areas that enemies are going to inevitably hide behind.
7 Protecting Targets
Too many shooters rely on defending a location against an onslaught of enemy forces as players try to take back an area of control. Games like Destiny, Call of Duty, and Halo use this mechanic to make the gameplay last longer.
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There comes a time that this mechanic gets annoying rather than fun like it is meant to be. After mowing down your fifth wave of enemies, you are finally free to proceed to the next area. Many players would rather be able to advance than have to wait around for enemies to make their move.
6 Killing Every Enemy
Similar to the above mechanic, this one is another annoying aspect of shooters that makes it so you must kill every enemy in order to proceed to the next area. Rather than defending a location, you must kill every enemy while heading to your objective in order to proceed or to simply get the next checkpoint. At a certain point, this becomes annoying, especially in games like Fallout 76 where enemies frequently run away or have annoying spawn patterns that make them easy to miss.
5 Lack Of Environmental Interaction
First-person shooters are horrible if you want to interact with the environment. Battlefield is among one of the few series that allows the player to actually alter the environment that they are in. You are running around, throwing grenades, firing missile launchers, and nothing happens to the world around you. Walls don’t cave in, buildings don’t fall down, and even that small barrier the enemy is hiding behind doesn’t budge. Wouldn’t a small crack appear at least? Where is the actual mayhem and destruction that war causes?
4 Generic Storylines
This could be said about a lot of games, but first-person shooters really seem to take a lot of the heat for this. Too many shooters focus on aspects of war and popularize it like it is the only way a shooter can play out. Games like Journey to the Savage Planet and Bioshock stand out because they break the mold. War stories can be fun if they are done correctly, but where is the diversity that you find in other game genres?
3 Perfectly Fine Weapons
You have run out of ammo, the enemies are going to be closing in, so you pick up a nearby weapon that was dropped by one of the enemies you took out. How is it in perfect condition?
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Modernized shooters tend to miss this aspect and allow you to use any gun that you find. That isn’t a complaint, but the mechanic doesn’t go far enough to make it so you have to at least fix part of the weapon before firing it. It would add to the realism of these shooters if you had to clear a jam before being able to fire the weapon.
2 Regenerating Health
Since when is it possible for humans or any other lifeform to regenerate health just by hiding for a few moments? While some shooters have started to go away from this concept and have added in health packs and other means of healing, many of them still stick to regenerating health. Battlefield is among the few games that use health packs, but they still rely on health regeneration. Call of Duty, on the other hand, uses health regeneration constantly and has only relied on health packs occasionally in their games.
1 Knife Kills
An absurd amount of shooters treat the knife like it is some amazing weapon that can kill just about anything besides a tank. While games have been going away from this concept, there are still plenty out there that treat knives far better than they should. Most shooters have the player take up the role of an elite soldier that is outfitted with amazing hardware. You can survive any bullet shot and in some cases missiles, but you can’t survive being stabbed? When you think about it it’s rather ridiculous.
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