If only he'd saved his hate for anonymously posting into the comments on an internet blog site thus starting a massive flame war like an adult.

Boy Arrested For Writing PS3 Sucks On Video Game Cases [Fun Tech Talk]

I've never played a good game where the developers put a big icon of the button you're supposed to press onscreen... I look at Heavenly Sword and it seems really half-assed, because it's asking you to do all these button-timing sequences but you are not getting much payoff from it.

Snap! Heavenly Sword producer Kyle Shubel's answer to those criticisms?

My response to Mr. Itagaki would be that the intent of the Hero sequences is to empower the player to experience events that would be nearly impossible to play in a natural platforming state... for example, making the player run down ropes, leaping from rope to rope as they're being cut from underneath you, all while dodging other objects — that would be a frustrating experience to 99 percent of our users if we were to force them to do that manually.

Thanks Christian!

Over at Next Generation, Colin Campbell asked three designers what their great game design evils were... which design choices, ubiquitous in games today, they would most like to pull the bowels out of through the belly button.

Jonathan Smith of Traveler's Tales' answer is pretty good: balance. ". Games are so often neither too easy or too hard but somewhere in the middle. As a player I can never quite fail, nor can I succeed too easily. It feels like I might as well not be there at all." I'm totally on board with him: I don't want to play a game that is completely without challenge. Games aren't passive entertainment like movies or books: I like to feel tested, thwarted and victorious, feelings which disappear when the game just can't be lost.

Molyneux's answer is obvious, but pretty good too: cut scenes suck. The answer of Simon Byron is pretty lame though: he hates stealth, saying "Games should be about fantasy and action..." In other words, his inability to enjoy a specific type of game means that it should be purged on an industry level, and all of the people who actually love games like Thief and Splinter Cell just need a good dose of God of War.

I agree that stealth badly done is pretty much worse than anything (San Andreas, I'm looking squarely in your half-assed direction), but the question Next Generation asked wasn't "What game design element do you irrationally hate like a crabby old man foaming at the mouth while sitting in an aluminum chair on his front lawn?" Florian Eckhardt

Three Great Game Design Evils [Next Generation]

Developers don't just hate game reviews, they hate game reviewers too. But hey, I hate most game reviews as well, no big whoop. While my reasons are different, here's why the developer loathe critics:

• The games are played only for a few hours.
• The specific audience isn't understood.
• The game's genre isn't respected.
• Reviewers have no clue about development.

The article goes on to list ways that game journos can improve and how developers can help. While their haterade is founded, the problem is more in format and execution. Like with anything, there are great reviewers, and there are bad ones. And the above reasons aren't the only reasons to blame. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [GameDaily] via Press The Buttons