These Video Game Checkpoints SUCK!

When it comes to video games, checkpoints are a good example of "The Devil you know" as there's nothing that breaks the experience quite so expertly as having an autosave or "checkpoint reached" message pop up every other minute, but at the same time, we're sure glad it was there when we bit the big one and wanted to get back into the action as quick as possible.

However, it's a fine line to walk, as if you have an overactive checkpoint system or a completely lackadaisical one, you may end up with cases where the player is trapped in a death loop of respawning right in front of enemies or are booted back hours to a point where they have to muster up the grits and do it all over again.

Developers are damned if they do and damned if they don't, but god damn are the entries we're going to talk about today some of the absolute worst. So buckle up as we're about to get spicy and take a look at video checkpoints that absolutely SUCK!

Aaaah the humble grenade, friend to all except anyone in the vicinity of its explosion, people who can't count to five (three m'lord), and those few who decided to eat a whole buttered lobster before handling them as that's a recipe for a tasty disaster.

In video games, there's rarely anything more satisfying than being able to lob an angry potato at an enemy and watch them desperately scramble from cover or risk getting launched into the air in several pieces, and is really useful to flush out camping players looking to hug tight damp corners like the foul mold-spawn that they are.

However on the flip side, being targeted by a barrage of explosives sounds while you're just trying to catch your breath sounds like the worst time ever, something which Call of Duty: World At War makes very clear thanks to its abysmal combo of punishing AI and terrible checkpointing. Now usually the Call Of Duty games get called out for being far too much of a Nanny State when it comes to their checkpoints, offering an example of hand-holding so restrictive they could break the poor bairn's forearm as the game autosaves after what appears to be each fired bullet.

Oh we can't have little Tommy Pisspants over here fail now can we? We need to make sure he and the other 12-year-olds are able to make it through this campaign, can't make it too tough or else their parents might write a nasty tweet to us.

*clears throat* Sorry, back on track.

Yet when it comes to World At War, the devs took this rigorous checkpointing which should have been made for a far easier time for the player, and bungled it completely by also programming enemy AI who constantly spam grenades the moment you've settled for even a nanosecond. On Veteran difficulty it becomes an actual joke, as you will be constantly beaned in the face by grenades from the off, and thanks to the aforementioned checkpointing, it's very possible to respawn with a grenade already at your feet, meaning the only way out of this nightmare is to start the level again and pray it doesn't happen all over.

War is hell? They got that !*$% right.