The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

We are here to condemn Grand Theft Auto IV, and other equally great games, not out of hatred, but out of love. For it does no good to point out the flaws in bad games as bad games by definition cannot be saved.

No, we aim to save gaming from the abyss by pointing out the sins of games like the Elder Scrolls and Half Life series, games made by creators who actually care. It is in that spirit that we proclaim the commandments that they have broken, so that they may be redeemed.

http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html">The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey at Cracked.com

Mild profanity, but pretty good overall.

And my favorite point (one I made about Mass effect a while ago):

Releasing games the console can't really run.

Look, we know with PCs it's hard as hell to make sure your game runs smoothly on every system--every PC is different. But you know what's inside an Xbox 360. There no reason, none, ever, under any circumstances, that your game should stutter and slow down because the console is choking on the graphics. This is like selling us an L-shaped condom. You know damned well what we've got to work with here.

(emphasis mine)

[NewHampshireDem]

1. Hard to disagree with any of it

The article seems to be making the same underlying point that Yahtze of Zero Punctuation makes every week: game developers hate us, the gamers.

Developers/designers seem to be in a constant pissing match with us, wherein they have to demonstrate their superiority to us by making us do things we f-ing hate to do. My pet peeve are games that have anything from another game genre randomly stuck in them, like the jumping puzzles in HL2 (hell, I even came across one in WoW!). Driving the tanks or using artillery in CoD. I don't like having to make my brain and fingers shift gears suddenly--especially when it's usually something that's never, ever asked of you in the game again. Quicktime events are what kept me from playing the R/E games. :puke:

And escort missions? Thank god you can skip most of them in WoW.


Of course, after playing WoW for a month now, I could probably make a list of 7 commandments WoW should have followed. (1. No escort missions. 2. Don't make me spend 30 minutes flying around delivering crap when I'm level 50. 3. Don't make me spend 3 hours killing something to collect 10 of its body parts because the drop rate is so low--especially when the game is touted as not being about grinding. 4. Don't send me three times in a row to the same place to kill a different kind of mob. 5. Don't make me spend hours getting my superpowers then give me a beam to shrink giants that only works on those giants and takes up valuable space on my action bar. 6. Don't let level 50 mobs drop 38 copper pieces. 7. Don't make us believe that all the NPCs are so stupid that they can't make a map to sell.)

I also dislike games that are too damn hard (see: Qicktime events--Who has time for that crap?) I especially dislike having to have exit a game, spend 10 minutes searching the internet ("Oh, the 20 chests have to be hit in *that* seemingly random order!"), then load up again. For my money, two of the best games I've played in the past couple of years have been the Paper Mario games. They seem to ramp up nicely and teach you how the puzzles work. And, IMHO, Super Paper Mario actually did something few sequels do: it had all the good parts (clever puzzles, neat tricks) and none of the bad parts (button mashing/joystick gyrating attacks).

Okay, they did keep one bad part: cut scenes. :puke:

[semillama]

2. Jumping puzzles! Bane of my gaming existence.

Some gamers bitch when a game doesn't allow you to jump. I breathe a sigh of relief because then I know there won't be any stupid jumping games.

[NewHampshireDem]

3. Here here!

Unless you're Mario, you shouldn't be jumping from block to block for any reason.

[PVnRT]

4. Fantastic article, and 100% true

I'm getting tired of "multiplayer" meaning that you have to go online and pay a subscription fee to play haX0rG0d696969 who is probably just going to find a way to cheat or leave you hanging right before he loses. Not to mention the asshole reviewers these days who demand that EVERY SINGLE GAME have online multiplayer capability or suffer the mandatory two-star penalty. Fuck you assholes, go out into the fucking sunlight and meet RL friends.

The thing about graphics is spot-on. I'm sick of gameplay and fun being sacrificed on the altar of OMG AWESOME GRAPHICS. Another case where we can thank worthless, scumbag reviewers who demand that every member in the 55,000-strong crowd at the ballpark have a seperate AI and realistic features.

[Occulus]

5. I was just going to post that very observation

I'll lime this for truth:

#1.
Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity.

How old is the Source engine? And yet, Portal is quite possibly the closest thing to "perfect" I've ever seen from a game. The dark humor, the complete lack of "enemies" (turrets don't count, sorry), the almost perfect length (I could have been happy with about two, more extended, multiroom puzzles, but hey, that's what the DEV TOOLZ are for!)..... Portal is a shining example of great gaming.

Thanks for the article, HKC. It was well worth the read!