10 Annoying Things That Are Ruining Video Games

7. Automatic Full Health Recovery

You've on the brink of death after taking a smattering of bullets to your upper body. Your vision turns monochromatic and blurry, and the sound of your screaming squad-mates is muffled. You think you're dying, but within 10 seconds you're back on your feet. You react just in time to see a bullet hit you full-on in the face, and drop near-dead to the ground again. No matter - you'll be back again in another 10 seconds...

That's the Call of Duty near-death experience in a nutshell, and one that we see in other franchises like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted and Battlefield. It's a mechanic killing off much of the suspense in big-budget games that are supposedly trying to immerse us through varying degrees of realism. Of course, we shouldn't return entirely to Doom-style medikits, but some kind of compromise is needed. A segmented health-recovery perhaps, where your health auto-recovers to 25% to give you a fighting chance, or full health recovery, but only after a combat encounter is finished.

Once again turning to Dark Souls as a shining example, the fear of death is one of the most exhilarating experiences in gaming, and dying helps us learn from our mistakes next time we take on a challenge. Too many AAA games today have lost touch with that fact.