I can think of just one situation where the red screen would fit, and that's if the main player is captured and being tortured by a guy that's pouring jam all over the player's face.

The best tutorial/hand holding I have ever seen in a game was The Simpsons: Hit &everyone Run. It's a Simpons driving game done in the style of a watered down GTA, I think of it as GTA:Springfield. At the beggining of the game you get a very sarcastic Bart Simpson saying "To drive the car push the X button. You know, just like every driving video game ever made!" At that point it tells you which button disables the tutorial.

One of my pet peeves, and it's mostly JRPGs, are the party based RPGs that let you recruit a dozen playable characters but only lets you take out a few at a time. When I'm playing KOTOR, for example, I'm getting my butt kicked on some planet while there are 5 guys sitting on the ship doing nothing. What is the point of having me grow my party but not my party size?

Yeah, this is the main thing that gets on my nerves. I don't mind screen blur, obstruction, etc. in first person games, but in something like Mass Effect 2 & 3 (was it in the first?) it's just weird and immersion breaking.

I don't think He's bashing. Its an opinionated list. I agree with most of them. I agree, he could have presented a little better, but he seems frustrated because games don't have to be this way. His summary is that companies have sold out to the dollar. They are making choices that yield gameplay to the lowest common denominator and it shows in very frustrating ways.

One I would add is game bugs. I play LOTRO and every update they release more bugs than they do fixes. Its becoming near unplayable. For the last month I'm playing 5 minutes then logging out in disgust. Sure, the game can be fun, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way. I'm not frustrated that there are bugs, I'm frustrated that some are 5 years old and STILL haven't been fixed. At this point, its a conscious decision to NOT make the game the way the customer wants. I see this in his review. He didn't play one game and scream that blood covering the screen is the end of the world. He showed several examples and listed it as a pet peeve. How is a pet peeve trolling, bashing, or hating?
I tend to find the screen-blood a cop-out. I don't think it adds anything, and for many it tends to detract from the game... yet it makes its way into so many games.

The most opinionated point IMHO was the one on experience. I like the XP in most games. They even added a tad of RPG into NOLF2. Wasn't great, but wasn't horrible either. if done well, I see it as an enhancement.. but this is opinionated.

So, I'd add to my pet peeve list:

Bugs (typically the game is rushed and known issues make it out of the door). I would much rather them wait and release a more polished initial offering. Again, its a dollars decision to move the game out faster which equals more frustration for the end user.

Lack of a quick save. I'm not a checkpoint fan. If its not a survival horror where save spaces are a form of inventory management, then it needs quicksaves. Even then, I'm a little frustrated with the save systems of SH games. I guess its an age thing, but I can't devote unlimited time to the keyboard any more, so being able to quickly get in and out are becoming more key for me.

Long intro's. I own a few games that the opening cinematics either have to be skipped every single time (multiple logos and videos)... or bypassing is disabled and you have to hack/delete files to just launch the game. IMHO, the game should launch instantly to a screen where an option exists to view all the purty pictures and videos. I always want to watch them once... rarely ever do I want to watch them more than that.

Repetition. This is a hard one to explain, as sometimes repetition is enjoyable when done well. But, when done poorly, its the worst on the list. Doom3 was a horrendous offender of this. I never understood the hype of this game. Monster attacks from the front. Guess what? Turn around, one is now magically behind you. Repeat 7,000 times (wait, the game wasn't that long...), Repeat 300 times and you are at last boss. Very boring. Very unimaginative. Perhaps it was the hype, because its extra frustrating when you figure out the formula so quickly and the highly touted game is just an exercise in finishing up so you can uninstall.

I think game designers need to remember that the key to a great game isn't to trick the end user... its to entertain them. I went to a movie the other day and it was a sort of "who-done-it" movie. The end villain was someone that they never EVER introduced until the very end. The appeal to so many is to follow the clues and figure it out before the reveal. In this case, they gave the audience the finger and said, "you were ALL wrong, it was this guy we haven't told you about yet!"... I feel many games are using this same tactic but with gimmicks, trickery, and features not too many are fond of. I feel like, for some, the motto could easily be, "sure, our game sucks, but at least we covered your screen with blood so you can't see it!". Not being able to SEE the game is only the second pet peeve of that mantra ;)

Yeah you're right - I pretty much agree with what you say. It was a highly opinionated list, but that's what a pet peeve is. But I think you can go both ways with all of the points mentioned really?

For example, I have never had anything against blood on screen and I wasn't even aware that this feature pissed people off. Though I would much rather have a system akin to that in HL that tells you where you're being shot from. If you get shot in the back, it's only elementary that you are aware of where you received the bullet, however unfortunately this information is not conveyed to the player in the vast majority of games.

As for your points on repetition... I can see you disliking it, but I actually quite liked the system in Doom 3. It made me constantly be on my toes and once I got used to the spawning mechanism, it actually felt satisfactory to blast them fools while there were porting in.

I don't understand what was wrong with HL1 damage system...it showed exactly where is damage doming from, and there was noting obstructing your view so you can shoot the ass***e back...

I don't think games nowadays are so bad. Lots of great games coming from both AAA-developers and indie alike. Games are different from what they used to be, but not necessarily worse, in my opinion. As long as there's a single player mode that's worth a damn, things are fine by me.

But maybe that's just me. We are different people, we got different tastes. That's a good thing as well.

Yeah, this was more where I was coming from. Some of the examples he gave were not directional, you could see a full circle taking up 30 - 50% of the screen showing you were getting hit. It wasn't a slight bump on the right side of the screen. It was like you were now playing through a telescope of blood. Obviously some games handle this differently.

And, I think my problems with Doom 3 come more from overhype than anything else. Honestly it wasn't a bad game (but it wasn't great either, IMHO). Some of the hype was my fault too. i simply expected something different given the creator and the title.

He probably has multi-lanuguage one.

Looking at it now and there is a kind of "bare bones" paper manual and an extensive one in .pdf on disc.

I guess in some regions they started skimping on content early.