All pretty good valid points though!!!!

freespeech

I couldn't agree more with #1. I roll my eyes every time a developer acts as if the Wii's technical inferiority matters one bit. Stop complaining and make some more games for it. Everybody wins.

MysteryPersonX

AtomicPlayboy

Narfmaster

Oh, and one more thing:

-Bad voiceacting. If you can't get any quality actors, atleast give us an option for alternate language voiceovers and subtitles; bad acting is so much easier to tolerate if it's in a language you can't understand...

GhostWhoWalks

-No offline multiplayer. Not all games require multiplayer; Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games of all time has not an ounce of multiplayer. But when you have a game that DOES have multiplayer, but doesn't actually let you play it split-screen, AT ALL, that really annoys me.

On a side note, Halo not having any bots has driven me nuts. Halo 3 was the perfect opportunity for that because, with the map editor, you could possibly make team-based scenarios or co-op games by being able to place AI characters (even if they're just campaign enemies, like Covenant and Flood, which already have perfectly passable AI) into your custom game types. Yet, nothing.

-Starting with a crappy weapon. I'm fine with handguns, or an initially weak weapon that can be upgraded, or still can come in handy further down the line. But when you have things like RPGs, where your new character already has training in combat and weapon use, and the initial quest giver says "Welcome warrior, we could use your help around here! Take this stick and go kill X number of rabbits!" Wha....?

-Crappy AI squad-mates. Ok, I'll admit: when I have allies, I am perfectly content with them taking most of the kills so long as I still get to contribute and we accomplish our objective. But then I'll have "allies" who will run in front of me while I'm fighting, get themselves killed pointlessly, stand around not helping...if I wanted a team full of meatshields, I'd ask for them...

-Letting the gamers be your beta testers. Ok, seriously now, what the hell. Old-school companies like Nintendo and Capcom seem to be the only ones who realize that gamers want their games (and hardware) to be fully functional upon purchase. Red Ring o Death? Game crashes? Would be nice if more companies had Blizzard's policy of "we'll release it WHEN IT'S READY."

GhostWhoWalks

Interstella5555

greatslack

Evil Tortie's Mom

Esp. no save points and unskippable cut scenes.

Evil Tortie's Mom

Malevolentburrito

fuchikoma

That would explain why it's not funny.

Xiedo

Billkwando

roflwaffles

I guess the commandments makes Myst a game designed by gods!

boopadoo

pandafresh

6. Everyone poo poo's Assassin's Creed but I liked the fact that when you ride your horse from town to town, there are: bad guys to get around, Templar to kill, and flags to find. Finding/Killing all of them aren't essential to the game but it did give me a chance to play around with the controls and get used to the game.

5. Totally agree! Every game has repetition, what really matters is if you are having while doing it and don't notice. I played Creed (sorry but it's a good example) one city per night so I didn't notice the repetition. PLUS since I played the PC version there were extra ways for me to get info for the assassination so I never had to do the same thing twice in the row or at all if I didn't like doing it.

I do hate limited save spots though.

4. I personally find using the handgun as a challenge if I can take out some of the more difficult baddies with it. In Resident Evil, the handgun was still pretty powerful towards the end of the game if you upgraded it accordingly.

3. I don't mind escort missions if the person i'm escorting can take a hit. And in Res. Evil's case, that girl didn't even TAKE a hit. You just had to shoot the person who was trying to carry her away and AWAY meant out of that actual room.

1. while i agree with most of it, the author loses credibility from me because he puts up a video of FFX but that game was developed in Japan and then localized here was it not? I think he should be pointing out that localization should be better not the writing in that case. Who knows what it was originally supposed to sound like.

jp182

I_Hate_This_Place

D Mitsuki

"Here's your goddamn crowbar." Haha.

The Count of Monte Fisto

Wolfers

Cathaoir

Some of the stuff had merit, like the repetition, I know that frustrates most of us. And I do agree about graphics do not make the game, and make sure the game works! I personally feel console games have crossed that horrible line where devs are under pressure to get the game out and figure they can just patch it later. That is what I used to really like about consoles, I did not have to worry about patching like I did all my PC games.
The rest just felt like whining. The grizzled space marine? Come on, if you do not like it, dont buy the game. Let the devs and publishers you want a new genre by not buying it.
Some games do use too much padding, however I happen to enjoy the vehicles in HL2. Plus the distances helped give the game world some depth unlike other games where you leave one level and magically you have arrived 800 miles later at your destination. Games and life are both about the journey, not the destination, so enjoy the stuff in between.

And jumping puzzles in a FPS, if it is done well it is not a problem. Again in HL2, going from roof top to roof top make sense, since the streets were infested and all. This seemed like more personal taste resulting in whining.

The bottom line, if you don't like something about a game, don't buy it. Write a letter to the developer. Please note this should be a well written out and thoughtfully letter. Saying something like: "OMG you sux because you did this and that" is just not going to work. If put some thought and effort into the letter you might even hear back.
Whining about it online and developing online petitions are about as usefully as powdered milk with nothing to hydrate it with. If you are going online, same rules apply as writing a letter.
If you are so unsatisfied with how something is done, learn how to do some development and take a stab at it yourself. The Torque game engine and the Torque Game builder are both good engines to prototype something with, there are also free engines out there you can learn and try something with. If your idea is good enough, maybe you can convince other people to join you to develop it and release it. If you are lucky maybe a publisher will take interest and your game can be released world wide, then someone can whine how you screwed something up and tell you how you should have done it different.

MistahJGM

Malevolentburrito

Unskippable cutscenes: Yes. it would take like 2 seconds to implement. In fact why not go even further and treat cutscenes like you would movies. Let people pause, rewind, skip, replay, etc. Okay, some features are unnecessary, but still. It's not like it's that hard. Also, why not include a feature so that people can go view old cutscenes?

Padding game length: Yes, but one exception. Travel between areas shouldn't count, unless it's a repeat offender. Many of these "offenders" are adventure games. Not much of an adventure if the dungeon in right outside the city is it?

Making killing fun: This is a mixed bag. The crappy weapon thing makes sense. The Half Life 2 pic about giving him a crowbar and having him fight alien conquerers was funny, but they wouldn't be very good conquerers if they left rocket launchers laying around everywhere, now would they?
I agree about the pointless enemies. If they're not a threat, why bother? There were enough health packs in HL2 that headcrabs were nothing but an annoyance, and in Oblivion you could cast a heal spell using your regenerating mana if the rat even hurt you.
As for limb damage, more games should have it, but many existing games shouldn't. Oblivion would be a very different game if you could one-hit-kill anyone with decapitation.
Adding enemy variance is easy if you've already implemented a character creation system. Otherwise, each new variant is either a new model or a palette/texture swap.

Focusing on Graphics: I agree 100% here. Every time screenshots of a new game appear on Kotaku, and people disregard the game just off of a static picture, a part of me dies inside.

I could go on, but I think I've said enough. That, and I should be working.

Tiber

If every game followed these commandments, then all games would be even more similar to one another and thus boring.

arepeegee

That's pure comedy gold right there.

Billkwando

megaStryke

foxhound417

In Ico's case it was understandable that protecting Yorda would be difficult--he's a little kid with horns that might do *something* against a *tangible* enemy, but no, he's gotta fight off black ghosts with a stick.

At least in Ico's case, the game isn't making fun of you. It might seem cruel, but what's really cruel to me is when the game throws a literally infinite amount of ammo your way when it only takes one or two bullets from the enemy (or from YOU) to kill your escort and make you start over from... god knows where.

The moral? Ico. Never. Lies.

Xiatter

There's no Thou shalt not make money commandment I guess. People must like it if they keep buying it again and again. :/

battra92

The instant failure part is pretty weak though.

God of War gets this part right most of the time. Resident Evil Four was a little more diabolical with theirs but I still enjoyed it.

grecords

Flippin awesome article.

Chewbenator

Moonshadow101

TalKeaton

Side note: Just because an ending is long, doesn't make it good. Lost Odyssey has one of the worst endings ever, and it clocks in at over 30 min, probably (plus all the boss fights before it).

broomperson

battra92

Gray665

salmonax

i do, however, whole-heartedly agree with the first point, as well as the points about escort missions and unskippable cut scenes. The second God of War game drove me up a goddamn wall because of a very challenging boss battle that i had to give up, simply because i didn't have the patience to sit through the preceding 8-minute cutscene for the twelfth time.

salmonax

liquid_kore

burnman

Gears of War
Grand Theft Auto 4
Blue Dragon

Only game which allows me to pause anytime is Lost Odyssey

fronsacqc

TTCFCL

Antiterra

HAHA, I loved this one.

bakalhau

Cracked is always a good read

Shoot2thrill

Razorwind

TalKeaton

7) OK, understandable. You want to play with friends. But not EVERY game has to have multiplayer, or offline multiplayer. Sometimes it just doesn't work, or the designers don't like it. It's their call, not yours. Deal. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

6)Stretches of land? Not so bad if you have some speedy way to navigate it. On foot, not so good. Just do make sure the objective and destination are clear. Mandatory fetch quests? As long as they have purpose and meaning behind them (GOOD purpose... not like 'collect 40 coins to unlock the door...') then they're acceptable.

5)OK, let me get this out of the way. 90% of all video games rely on repetition. Every game encounters it sooner or later, and repetition is the key to progression in most games.

However, I do agree that being set back for failure and being forced through unskippable scenes is bad. It frustrates the player and causes them to lose interest. The problem isn't repetition in and of itself; it's the frustration of failure FOLLOWED by repetition.

4)The first part of this just shows a lack of understanding about game design. Believe it or not, using crappy guns at the beginning has more to do with balance and difficulty curves than wanting to start you with a crappy gun. Oh, and I enjoy the handgun in most games. It adds to the challenge, and frustrates people in multiplayer when they get pwn'd by it.

The third, I agree with, to a degree. Every player action should have a visible outcome. Still, keep in mind how difficult actual battle damage on 3D character meshes is to program and animate. I think you may be confusing things with the real world, where physics and aesthetics weren't assembled painstakingly by the human hand.

"How hard would it be to randomize facial features and skin tones?"
Not incredibly in some games, moreso in others, but even if you did you'd still end up seeing the same features just as often as before, and the differences wouldn't be as notable as you'd think.

3)"No one has ever liked an escort mission, ever, in the history of gaming."

Mmm, tasty, tasty generalizations. Speak for yourself, bud. This isn't even the worst of it. The author is quickly dropping their own credibility with stuff like this. The three elements listed all have been done horribly in the past, but don't say it can't be done well; it can, it just hasn't for a number of reasons too long to list here.

Genres: WWII? Yeah, been done to death, I agree. Space Marine? Done even further to death. God help me if I ever have to do 3D models for a game in either genre, I may go berserk.

2)Finally, I agree with everything here, though perhaps not the presentation. Developers know what they're working with on consoles; make it work well and without long loads before you ship!

1)GRAPHICS DO NOT EQUAL INNOVATION OR CREATIVITY. I've been saying this for years. Let's add 'GOOD GAMEPLAY' to that list, too. As for the writing and dialogue, I agree. There are plenty of great writers and voice actors out there. Hire them. Get people to critique both BEFORE you get too far in to back out.

Wow, that was long. Overall, I don't put a whole lot of faith in this author, though there were some very good points made, too. Still, in the end all this is up to the developer, not the player. If the developer chooses to listen to the players, super. They can decide if what the players want is a good or bad idea, because it's their game. If they don't listen, it's their loss, but hey, it's still their game and what they decide to do with it is up to them. For any player to make demands about their content shows that they think they know more than the developers do. If this is true, they should become developers themselves. If not, they can go ahead and shut up now.

TalKeaton

Sobe318

Jakuub

Thou shalt not end thy game with a cliffhanger.

ShirtGuyDom

I also like how he spends a ton of time praising the Wii, then says that games should go get better stories.

GyrFal

liquid_kore

I really wish more people listened to rules like this when doing game development. The only one I really disagreed with was the loading times one. the only game I've played this generation that annoyed me with loading times interrupting anything is GTA IV. Cmon, every time you die you get a load screen in multiplayer?

Demonbird

That killed me. It killed me in WoW too. Go kill then thousand of these critters, maybe one will drop epic loot.

Any game mechanic that simply functions as a way to prolong the length of the game by making players do the same task over and over, without adding anything inherently creative or different, gets monotonous.

DugDawg

SkutSkut

MURDERFACE

mphz

Pezdispenser

Lapoisse