Hey guys, welcome to my first Sunday Soapbox. Occasionally mine will be my own personal little rants, specifically about things in games that annoy the hell out of me. What am I going to talk about this week? Elevators! Some love em, some hate em. Trust me when I say that I loathe them with all my soul. There are a number of annoyances when it comes to elevators in games and I plan to cover the two that annoy me the most. Waiting for, and Waiting in.

Waiting for elevators:

This would probably be my favorite. Funnily enough, this ties in slightly with the release of Resident Evil 5. Actually come to think of it, Resident Evil seems to be my primary culprit. Lets start with Resident Evil 4. Verdugo, Salazars right hand man, [If you don't know this guy, all you need to know is that's he's a right ugly prick]. Anyway, you walk into a room, and suddenly he’s there. Shoot him? Doesn’t work, he seems to be pretty much invulnerable. You’ll notice an elevator so naturally you’ll press the button.

Next comes the waiting, waiting for a lift when there’s a dirty great brute attacking you isn’t pleasant, especially since you’re bound to waste a lot of ammo trying to slow him down. Eventually the elevator arrives and you’ll get away, but only after 5 minutes of running around in circles with your tail between your legs. You can freeze him, but that only slows down his rampage.

Recently in Resident Evil 5 they feel that a little nostalgia is in order. Except this time you don’t get a big ugly man, you get Lickers. A lot of Lickers. At the end of the hall is an elevator, but it’ll take a while for it to arrive. Lickers burst out from every glass window in sight, and you know deep in your heart you don’t have enough ammo to kill them all, and holding them off depletes your supply substantially. Your only hope is to toss the grenades that you didn’t pick up earlier because you didn’t have room in your inventory. Tough luck I suppose.

Why do they do this? I suppose just to annoy the hell out of us gamers, I suppose it creates a sense of panic. You know, “What if I die before it arrives?!”, kinda stuff. But to me it’s just an annoyance.

waiting in elevators:

I don’t know about you folks, but being trapped in a confined space with all the beasties of hell raining down upon my frail shoulders doesn’t seem like something I’m going to enjoy. Although sometimes it can just be a pleasant wait, and by pleasant I mean boring as hell. There are several games that use both examples but I’m not going to cover them all. Just a few.

The most boring times in a game can come from elevators. Especially when you’re constantly forced into them. I am a huge fan of Portal, but having to go into that bloody lift at the end of every level started to get on my nerves about halfway through. I mean seriously, how many floors can the place have? They could of just had a door, that led to the next stage. Masking loading times using elevators is bad news, especially for claustrophobic people. Another game that makes you stand in elevators is Mass Effect. Anyone who’s played it will know how annoying this can become.

Being attacked in an elevator is one of the worst places to be attacked. Why? Nowhere to run, hide or attack from. Trapped in a box with something you wouldn’t like to have as a pet. Or even attacked by invisible people, as was the case in Metal Gear Solid where you were attack by stealth camouflaged assassins. Throw on your thermal goggles and your good to go. But in such a tiny space its like being in a sardine tin with a bomb.

Again I return to Resi 5 where there is a giant bug-thing attacking you on an elevator. Why are they such a source of danger in videogames? In Dead Space you get necromorphs coming at you from all over when you descend a giant elevator, and in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes you have to fight Dark Samus on an elevator. It’s becoming kind of clichéd.

So developers, please, I’m begging, stop putting elevator sequences in your games. They aren’t original, they aren’t fun, all they are is downright annoying. I’m sure that I’m not the only person out there who’s sick of them. If you feel the same way, comment and back me up. Even throw in your own experiences with elevators, gaming related or not. If you disagree, well then you can write abuse. I give full permission, but I’ll silently curse you, may the next elevator you step in fall 20 storeys.

Check out this list of fun elevator sequences: Here

The Sunday Soapbox is an account of the writer’s personal opinions and not representative of Gamer Limit’s opinions as a whole.