NPCs… the thing that makes Single Player worth playing. I’m gonna rant about three of the things that have always bothered me about NPCs.

The first thing on the list, is NPCs with unlimited ammo. We’ve all met them sometimes, they are in most games that feature some kind of ammo. If it’s a modern-day shooter, or a fantasy RPG with arrows. Now, if the player gets unlimited ammo, such as arrows in certain games, I have no problems with it. But when you have to save every little shot because you know you don’t have enough ammo to take all the bad guys out without looting one of their bodies for ammo, then I get frustrated. Take Oblivion for example, enemies can pepper you with arrows, but when you finally kill them and loot their corpse, you find… 9 arrows. You reload the game and finish him off quickly… you find 8 arrows. Now Oblivion is far from being the best example, but I played Crysis when it came out, and it suffered from the same disease. They keep shooting at you for all eternity if you don’t take them out.

I mean, if I were to design it, I would have the NPCs fire at you the normal way… at the beginning. After, let’s say, 2-3 clips of ammo, they would get more careful on how much they shoot at you. And when they start to run out of ammo, they would try to sneak closer (or rush, whichever works the best). Or why not place ammo boxes that they had to run and get ammo from? Something else than just the constant shooting. I want to write more on this subject, but I feel I would only repeat myself.

The next item on my list, is the all-knowing NPC. Now, these are the NPCs that always know where you are, and I would like to divide them into subgroups:

• NPCs that will always know where you are when you come within a certain distance.
• NPCs that will always know where you are when they’ve spotted you.
• NPCs that will always know where you are and can fire bullets through 200 obstacles and still hit you.

Now the first group is primarily seen in older games, but yes, those I can’t really whine about. But even in present gaming days there are enemies that will always know where you are, they don’t even need to have seen you. I can’t come up with a clear example at the moment, but I’ll edit the post when I do.

The second group is slightly more common, and while I might be wrong, this behavior can be seen in Half-Life 2, for example. I know HL2 isn’t really the sneaky type of game, but still, those CPs really have a built-in Gordon Radar once they’ve spotted you (and that ain’t hard). Like I said, it’s quite common in games, but I still don’t like the fact that they know which of the 5 doorways I ran through, and behind which box I hid. Even if a game isn’t designed to be a sneaking game, it’s always good to know that you can go rest behind something and reload all your weapons without having a whole battalion on your ass within seconds.

And the third one is somewhat rare. The one clear example I can give you, is from Joint Operations. I know, I know. The game was designed to be a multi-player game, but it still featured some awesome COOP gameplay (I mean, sit on the back of a dirtbike and fire stinger missiles at a helicopter? How more awesome can it get?). But the AI was at some points utterly terrible. I remember the first time I played it at my cousin’s place. He played one of the tutorial missions and he had snuck up on a mountain top, next to a radio tower. So he lies down, takes out his sniper rifle and aims at a guard town in a base. Now, we were too far away and the crosshair almost blocked the sight of entire NPCs (I’m not kidding). He takes a shot and misses. The guard then turns around, pulls out an RPG and fires straight at where my cousin is at. Now, he sidestepped a few steps so he wouln’t get hit, but the guard managed to fire off a rocket to his exact position within three seconds after my cousin missed his shot. Talk about aimbot.

The last item on today’s list is when the game turns you into an NPC. Last week when me and Matt where playing Guild Wars Nightfall, we came upon a mission that featured lots of NPCs. NPCs at war, no less. The Sunspears where attacking a city harbor, led by us heroes. Now, at the final moment, when we finally meet what I guessed to be the boss of the entire level, the game jumps to a cutscene. Before I continue, you should know that these people we are allied with, they live in a city, where wildlife consists of giant plants that eat people. Giant seeds that throw lightning at you. Bugs the size of a horse. Back to the cutscene. The leader of the enemy decides to summon two demons. “Awesome” I think, “a really cool boss fight.” These two demons appear to be giant lizards, about the size of an elephant. What happens? EVERYONE FREAKING PANICS AND RETREATS! These Sunspears, which live among plants THAT COULD SWALLOW YOU WHOLE, they chicken out and retreat! Not only that, but all of our characters do the same thing, and I’m sitting there saying “Oi, what the hell! Get back in there you ass!”. Pisses me off.

I mean, don’t you hate it when you suddenly take on a totally different persona due to a cutscene? That’s why I dislike FPS games that have cutscenes. Especially those that let you have an “out-of-body experience”. The ones that let you see your character wimp out while you’re sitting there wanting to fight the badass monster. No, that’s why I like the Half-Life series. You aren’t just a witness, you ARE the character. But don’t mix this up with a straight storyline that fixes you on a path. You are being shoved around in the levels, but at least you are in control to make the decision on how to deal with things.

I’m tired. Any spelling mistakes, grammar mishaps or general contradictions you can shove up where the sun don’t shine.