There are different irks I have for different types of games. Let's start with MMO's and RPGs.
1. Unrealistic inventory. When the hell does a roll of bandages or a bundle of herbs take up the same amount of space in your backpack as a fucking broadsword? And why do some items stack up for over a dozen items, while others only stack to five?
2. Forced grouping. We've all faced this at one point if we've ever played an MMO; the area that can't even be explored unless you're ridiculously too advanced for it or you spend however much time it takes to get together a group of people to charge in with you. Admittedly MMO's are about teaming up with other players, but this would be more fun if there weren't frequent times when you had to wait until the second coming of Jesus for anyone to show up.
3. Permanently bound items. This varies from game to game; in some it's a boon, in other's in a colossal pain. Some weapons become permanently attached to your character, or "soulbound" as the popular term goes, meaning if you die you won't lose it. This is handy in a game where the penalty for death is dropping things. But in other games you don't lose your equipment, and in those cases you get none of the benefits of soulbinding and all the drawbacks. You can't trade or sell soulbound items to other players. This is especially frustrating in higher levels on MMO's, where all the equipment offered for sale on the ubiquitous "auction house" is priced out the ass because everybody on there is a money grubbing bastard looking to bleed you dry like a swarm of Amazon leeches.
4. Dropping items as a death penalty. Now I'm not entirely against the theory of dropping items as a result of death. Losing certain items makes sense; if you got your appendix torn out by a pack of werewolves, you'd probably drop your sword or shield or whatever you were holding in your hand at the time. But when you start losing parts of your armor, I have to wonder how in God's name you found time to strip naked before going towards the bright light at the end of the tunnel.
5. Breaking Stealth. I frequently play a thief/rogue in any fantasy game, but in MMO's one thing I notice is that you tend to come out of stealth for an absurd number of reasons, like opening a chest, or drinking a potion, or scratching your ass. If when you're in stealth you can walk right in front of an enemy and there's a good chance if you're skilled enough they won't notice you just because you've gone semi-transparent, why all of a sudden do they notice you when you pick a lock? Are they psychically connected to inanimate objects or something? And how about the time-release poisons? You go into stealth and suddenly the poison gives you a jolt, you're visible again in a group of guards who realize it's time to play their favorite game, Ass Rape The Rogue With a Battle Axe.
Now For FPS's...
1. Unrealistic accuracy/inaccuracy. Most decent FPS's will have fairly realistic accuracy for their weapons, but some can't get it right to save their lives, or more specifically yours. You'll cap away at an enemy only ten feet in front of you and only hit them once in an entire clip. I know how real guns handle and the only ones that are that inaccurate are the badly manufactured ones with barrels less than two inches long. Anyone who knows guns will also tell you that a revolver is almost always more accurate than an automatic.
2. Weapon Degredation. This doesn't happen very often in FPS's, I admit, but it does happen a few times, such as in Call of Juarez, an otherwise good game. I realize that the weapon's you're using are getting a lot more use in a short amount of time than they would otherwise, but no genuine gun is going to fall apart in less than 30 minutes of perpetual shooting. I spend more time at the firing range than that, for God's sake, a gun would have to be made out of cardboard to fall apart that quickly!
3. Unfair emphasis on certain weapons. As some have probably figured, I'm a gun enthusiast and own several of my own. I've noticed in a lot of FPS's that involve a variety of weapons (90% of them) if there's a revolver available, you're barely able to carry any ammo for it, such as in Half-Life (my only criticism for an otherwise magnificent game series). This happens, I'm sure, to other weapons in other games. If your character is capable of carrying 8 different kinds of guns and their accompanying ammunition (apparently having some kind of physics-altering pockets on his pants akin to Doctor Who's TARDIS) Why can't he carry a few more rounds for certain players' favorite weapon?
3. Multiplayer. Aside from Team Fortress 2, I'm not a big fan of multiplayer FPS's. Most of them boil down to a bunch of, as Yahtzee once called them, hooting dicks running around making headshots the second they see you either through hacking the game or by playing so frequently they can do it in their sleep while simultaneously saying they "Pwned u n00b" in the game chat (also something they can do in their sleep). From what I've heard and seen, many games today are designed under the assumption that tacking on an arbitrary multiplayer feature excuses making the story mode game ridiculously short.
Up next, survival horror.
1. Wimpy Characters. How many times have we been in this situation playing either Resident Evil or Silent Hill? A monster's coming at you, you raise your gun, they get up to you and hit you, and suddenly your character stops aiming so they can flinch, twinge, or dance around crying like a little *****. It's no fun dying not because you lost a genuine fight to a creature but because your character couldn't stop going through its flinch-o-pain animation (usually them gasping and lurching in one direction like they got shoved by someone on a crowded bus) long enough to listen to your instructions and shoot the fucking abomination. If my leg was getting chewed on by some demon from hell, I wouldn't spend time flailing my arms about it. I'd probably scream to high heaven, but I'd shoot the damn thing.
2. Stiff Movement. As great an improvement over most survival horror games as RE4 was, it and many survival horror games before (and probably those to come) had (and will have) the same problem of characters moving unrealistically to their situation. They'll stand there and let an enemy hit them becaue they have no concept of ducking, dodging, or just generally getting the hell out of the way. Even the option of turning and running is hampered by the fact that they seem determined not to turn and run at the same time, but instead must mince around on the spot like a submissive geisha until they're facing in a direction that doesn't lead to certain death and THEN run.
4. Fixed camera angles. Yahtzee's talked about this one before, and it still holds to many games that deal with the third person. So many of them have to stick a camera at what is supposed to be a cinema-esque angle but all it really does is give us a bad view of whatever the hell is pull our intestines out through our noses.
Also, a couple non-genre-specific quibbles I have.
1. Speedy timers. It's a pain in the ass when a game is designed with a ton of content in it but you can get to all of it because the game puts you on a schedule tighter than Michael Moore's speedo after he's hit the buffet. Dead Rising is notorious for this, especially if you don't want to have to restart the game five times so you'll have all the available abilities and the largest possible life bar.
2. Stupid AI. Another Dead Rising issue as well as for any game with innocent bystanders. Exactly what sensible person is going to dance around in front of you when you're in the middle of attacking whatever ugly bastards are trying to take over the world? It makes you wonder if they're secretly working for the bad guys and acting as their meat shields.
Well I guess that's it. Heh, sorry if it's too long for a first time post.
