10 most frustrating things about gaming online
The source of so much joy... yet even more pain
1) Not being able to pause
The phone's ringing. Your girlfriend's at the door. The cat's brought in a live bird. You've got an itch. You need to pee. There's a swarm of bees and the window's open. Your pizza's ready. Your baby brother's reaching for the flex that dangles from the still-hot iron. There's a UFO hovering outside the window and the aliens are posing for a photo.
But you can't pause the game! What's it gonna be?
2) Other people's crap connections
If there's one technological issue even more frustrating than the game taking ages to create a match, it's lag. This is where players with a slow internet connection jump around the screen as the game tries to calculate their position and actions in relation to everyone else. Modern games are very clever in their methods of concealing lag, but these often compound the issue. For instance, driving behind a laggy car, you'll see it flicker around, jumping from a short distance ahead of you to about a mile down the track, and back again in a second.
This is fine, until it materialises halfway through your own car, immediately making the game think you've hit it at 3,000mph and destroying your vehicle. Keeerrrunch!
Above: The mystery is finally solved. This Ferrari was the victim of lag
3) Lobbies emptying just before a game
We've got a full game – this is it. 8 vs 8 team deathmatch. All players are ready. Let's start the countdown. But wait - people are dropping out. Where are they all going? Now it's 4 vs 5 and we need another player. Nope, now it's three on three. Game starts in 5… 4… Oh, now it's 2 vs 3. Someone leaves. Game starts in 2… two more leave and now it's just us. Game start? Yes. Let's play single-player team deathmatch.
4) Shooting someone a zillion times doesn't kill them, but one shot from their gun kills you instantly
Dududududuh.
Dududududududududududududuh!
DUDUDUDUDUDUDUDUDU…
-Pap-
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
*dead*
Above: GamesRadar, I've told you aMILLION times not to exaggerate
Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.