Doom 3

I haven't played Doom 3 in a while, but I remember it had a feature I haven't come across in another First Person Shooter. Or I haven't remembered it being an option in anything else. At any rate, one of the options in the menu was to turn off "auto reloading." That is to say that you wouldn't automatically reload when your gun's magazine was empty. I know more than once this threw me off (mostly with the shotgun) because I'd drain the mag into something, and then frantically click the fire button. Freaking out as no shooting was being done, until I'd remember to reload. It's quite embarrassing to admit, what with being a gun nut and all. But I'd really like to see this added to more video games. It really added to the horror aspect of Doom 3 and I really think it would add to the thinking aspect of other tactical shooters. It's not an option I'd ever use in online play (just like turning crosshairs off. I love playing with crosshairs off, but when other people can use that unrealistic advantage I see no reason for me to cripple myself and turn it off. Games like Halo I exclude from this since you have a realistic device that would give you a heads up display in real life) but it's an option I'd really love to use in the campaigns. The level of stress added is amazing, given a change so small. This is a change I see as being fairly simple (coding wise) and something that would really change gameplay. Remember how you never had to reload the pistol or the shotgun from Doom? You had to time a pump with the shotgun, but you never had to reload it. I can only imagine what a hellish time I would have had in Doom had I had to worry about reloading the pistol and the shotgun. But I can't tell you how much I'd still love to see that change.

I like a level of realism in my games that a lot of people think takes away from the fun. They don't want to be limited by real life when they play. A lot of people don't like aiming down weapon sights. A bunch of people hate when weapons do a realistic level of damage. I find that being limited by such things makes a game that much more rewarding. I can go play the Call of Duty 2 campaign on easy and die only from my own stupidity. Or I can play it on veteran and watch myself dieing more often than shooting. But when I finally beat a level, the reward is more than worth the effort. Any idiot can beat a video game with invisibility on. And while it's fun to screw off on easy or play CoD4 with the slow-mo cheat on, there just isn't any reward when you beat the level or kill the final boss. I'm sure I've said it before but I beat MW2 (I like to call it CoD7. Since MW means Mech Warrior to me before it means Modern Warfare, but I digress) on veteran the first time playing it. There were a few challenging points, but nothing that got me stuck for days. Hell, I had it beat in 2 days (totaling under 10 hours of gameplay, if I remember correctly). In contrast, it took me months to beat Rainbow Six Vegas. I had to take EVERY corner tactically. The second I stopped worrying about the enemy was the second I walked around a corner right into a shotgun. When I finally did manage to beat it I felt a level of accomplishment that I hadn't felt since beating CoD2 on veteran years earlier. I'm still trying to beat CoD2 on veteran on my 360 (I'm a PC gamer at heart, so the joysticks won't ever give me the same control as the mouse) but that's another story for another time.