Let me get this out in the open first: game design is art. There's a lot of creativity involved, and as with any other form of art, everything is flawed and nothing is perfect. Small flaws can be forgiven when the whole painting is so striking to look at, but some flaws are less easy to forgive: let us not forget the fact that on Metallica's 8th studio album, St. Anger, Lars Ulrich banged his drumsticks against tin cans and Kirk Hammett didn't play a single solo. Same goes for game design – the utter and complete uselessness of Doom 3's chainsaw has absolutely not as large an impact on gameplay as, say, Half-Life's horrible jumping puzzles.

As a huge shooter fan, I take serious flaws, well, very seriously. A well-designed shooter can be a blast and everything could be fine if done well, but in all ways should it avoid those steps which I'm about to delve into on this editorial. I would like to present to you 10 sure-fire ways to kill a shooter.

I'm here! I'm there! I'm everywhere!
Ever felt so naughty and proud of yourself for running around and disappearing on your mom at the local supermarket? Yeah? You have, haven't you?
That's a bad boy!

Play Half-Life 2 and you'll see what I mean. Then go and apologize to your mother and give her a big kiss, and promise to help her with the groceries next time.

Do not by any means get me wrong. I still believe to this day that Half-Life 2 is the most enjoyable shooter I've ever played. That is, of course, until the fearsome proposition of playing with AI teammates circa Anticitizen One. The whole point of having AI teammates is that they help you fight off your enemies, not go randomly running every which way aimlessly, clustering around doors and getting killed. And yes, I know you never got killed on your mommy.

I would have said that Infinity Ward could teach VALVe a lesson, but thankfully the AI guys in the following Episodes were just fine. And oh, they weren't half as bad on "Follow Freeman".

Hey momma, can you please hold my hand?
Imagine this. You're running around, shooting enemies that are fun to shoot. The graphics are great and the guns are satisfyingly loud and devastating. You simply have a blast. You fight through the last fight of the current level and progress to the next, where you're introduced to some sort of lame excuse for a character who's probably going to die anyway. Then you're told it's up to you to keep them alive for your next assignment so they can do X to help you do Y. All is well and dandy.

You barely say Chaser and you and your new talking pet come under attack from such a juggernaut that you want to go cry to your mommy. No need to apologize again. Soon enough, your feeble new friend is all but tombstone-worthy and you're introduced to an encouraging little "game over" screen. Such are poorly designed escort missions.

Some of the greatest shooters I've played included escort missions, among which are Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Half-Life 2 and BioShock, and they all had those missions nailed to the very last script. But it's when games put you up against ridiculous odds that this problematic assignment becomes more a chore than a fun little variety and degrades a game that is otherwise as fine as a lovely chicka holding a gun.

So what now? Where go I?
If it's Chaser we're talking about, then this good game has another glaring issue that has also appeared in fine games such as Heretic II and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

Hub-oriented level design is just fine as long as you're informed well on where to go, just like a tourist heading to the nearest supermarket. That was one of the greatest advantages of BioShock – even when it sent you to other levels to complete a mission, you always knew where to go. But that is not an obvious trait, oh no dear sir, it ain't. Now eat your cookie and read on.

When you have a level that's built like a hedge maze and you get absolutely no indication as to where you have to go next, you might find yourself traveling through empty hallways and yards ad nauseum, having already killed all enemies in sight, completed your tasks and collected all the goodies.

Then you find your way, and it's like finding the birthday cake of your dreams. Soon enough you realize that the truly daunting experience isn't the hour+ that Xfire just registered to your gaming profile of you doing absolutely nothing, but realizing it was there all along right in front of your eyes, and that the cake actually is a lie.

At least those spectacularly tedious indoor levels in Halo had arrows on the floors.

If a cat can do it, you probably can. 't.
Cats are sneaky little bastards. I find it hilarious to watch a cat trying to use its fascinating sneakiness on a target as silly as a cockroach. The point is, just because a soft-pawed, omni-alert cat can do it, it doesn't mean that you, a buff, entire arsenal-toting Big Tough Guy can too.

Be honest. Do you think true stealth missions can actually be implemented to a pure run-and-gun shooter? Well, yeah, but it's about as touchy as a lunatic. For the sake of example, why, oh why did the guys in 2015 think they nailed it? What is up with that night raid in Medal of Honor? It is obvious someone is going to see you and sound the alarm. Those missions should not be designed like that. What I find even more amusing is that, should you not run into a game-killing game over screen, the ensuing chaos is more often than not way more fun than trying to sneak around. Think about it. Walking this slowly at a crouched position with 8 weapons on your back must give you one hell of a backache.

Stealth was fun in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way and Aliens vs. Predator 2. It was also fun in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (with what is probably the single best stealth mission I've ever played in a shooter), Crysis and Far Cry, but if I ever run into another Soldier of Fortune II I'm going to get seriously pissed.

Thanks for reading this far. No need to catch me later, here's your beer:

Right. Now that that's out of the way, let's move on.

Tap tap tap! Tap 'till it's dead!
Let's face it. No one but freaks likes little furry critters. If I hate them in real life, what fun is it to shoot them? I simply loathe spider missions, especially when you might find yourself under attack from multiple angles (Doom 3) and when those little tap-sound-making scumbuckets are too small (Unreal II: The Awakening). Remember the scene in Jurassic Park: The Lost World where the Russian guy is killed by a pack of little dinos? Does that look like fun enemies to fend off? DOES IT?!

Ugh

Please, game developers, please stop the spider missions. They're not fun. If anything, they're the epitome of tedium and frustration.

Not if I see you first!
Do you enjoy making eye contact with your enemies on your casual kung-fu fights on the street? Yes, so do I.

Do you like it when your Ninja foe throws shurikens at you from the window across the street from you? Me neither.

I guess the guys in 2015 like having their protagonists pierced by magical bullets that appear out of nowhere, because they're really into absolutely ridiculous enemy accuracy from magical Nazis that share the odd knack for invisibility. I think we all remember that mission in Medal of Honor Allied Assault where we're tasked with making it through a town filled with Nazi snipers. But those supernatural Nazis (wait, is this Wolfenstein?) can do the childish task of peeking out, shooting you while. you. are. running, and returning to hiding within less than a second. I'm surprised they didn't win the war.

But they're snipers. With enough being a forgiving rag you can forgive them developers for surprising you with foolish design choices. But it's when it's a darn punk with a .22 gun who hits you three times in a row from fifty yards away (a certain baseball bat Mafia mission springs to mind) that you wish you had a gravity gun.

Running away from snipers can be a blast (see: Half-Life 2, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow), but I have a feeling growing inside me like an evil fetus that developers might not always be too aware of their mistakes.

No, really, baby. I was just waiting for the right moment!
Hack-abusing enemies aside, there's another form of annoyance. I'm talking about those fools who have the ability to be invincible and suddenly (and foolishly of course) relinquish it just because you're around.

I don't think triggered enemies are fun to fight. And if they are, please let them appear after I trigger them so that I don't waste my trusty bullets not killing them.

Here, my pet! Jump. Jump. JUMP, or die trying!
Shooters shouldn't have jumping missions unless they're designed around them. Especially first-person shooters. It's obvious. Why would I want to do athletics when I can do some shooting stuff in the face?

Unfortunately the best example I can give you comes from another favorite of mine, Half-Life. Do you remember those horrible Xen levels? Where you had to jump from platform to platform lest you plummet to your invisible death? That's simply something you want in your shooter as much as a tsunami wave in your hometown. A few jumps here and there aren't harmful if they're done right, but man oh man. Jumping from rotating platform to rotating platform doesn't make Gordon Freeman feel like Lara Croft. It makes him feel like an idiot.

BOOGA BOOGA!
There's an evil monkey in the closet, and he's going to bite you in the butt when you turn around. Cheap scares are cheap for a reason, dear developers. I don't buy enemies hiding in the secret broom closet and treasure chests. They can suddenly appear for a nice scare here and there, but building an entire game whose name I'm not Doom 3 going to give on it shouldn't become your next New Years resolution.

Dead Space actually did a pretty good job with cheap scares because its enemies were actually scary, what with their high speed and remaining human features, but at least they pretty much stuck to vending shafts. They didn't cower in the closet like children. I want to fight brave, heroic creatures! Not children. Killing kids is illegal, you know.

On a lighter note, I'm pretty happy to see that "prize fights" are dying and out and only appear in compatible Painkillers and Serious Sams. No thanks, dear Mr. Carmack, I don't want to grab that armor.

We will now move to THE most annoying annoyance in the annoying history of annoying shooter annoyances. Take a breath, people, and enjoy the drumroll.

Hey there, Sunshine! It's me again!
Don't you just love it when that enemy you just fragged reappears out of nowhere? How does the next proposition sound: if you stay put, you're just going to get swarmed and run out of ammo, so I will now DEMAND that you keep moving. Yeeeep.

Respawning enemies are an epidemic. I simply can't see why any developer would want to do that. They weren't that bad when the occasional zombie reappeared in Ravenholm, but No One Lives Forever 2's Soviet base mission was absolutely horrendous. Same goes for the same game's submarine mission, that spider battle in Doom 3 where you're waiting for that ladder to come down, and what is, in my opinion, the most terrifyingly horrible level in shooter history, Halo's Flood-flooded The Library.

This isn't the tip of the iceberg. It's very bad when there's one or maybe two levels that implement this cheap method of inducing challenge, but it's an absolutely devastatingly critical flaw when certain developers base entire games around them. It doesn't matter how intense the mission can be and how, in the end, you had some fun with the game. Fighting through countless waves of infinitely spawned enemies is just not what I call good game design, and definitely a cheap way of challenging you and keep you going. As cheap as Far Cry's intelligent enemy taunts.

If seeing the same baby is this disturbing, why see the same enemy time and time again?

Everything can be done well. The problem is that most of the things mentioned here tend not to be very well-done in a lot of games. They tend to be tedious, frustrating and at the end of the day - it's all a question of what the shooter is trying to do, or be.

So yes. There are games out there that contain some seriously flawed design that I simply cannot underrstand. For me, a good shooter creates challenge, emotions and good gunplay through good design and a long thourhg process, not something cheap and fast like... respawning enemies, or ways to prolong gametime with bad level design and hair-pulling sniper missions. Here's a toast to a future of well-designed shooters that have no respawning enemies. Please, no more respawning enemies.

Congratulations! You've made it through my new, and admittedly long, editorial. Hope you had some respawning fun reading it. Thank you and see you next time!