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The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey

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#3.
Thou shalt admit when enough is enough.

Violators:
Turok, Gears of War, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Call of Honor, Metal of Duty: Honor Call

There are two times in a creative field when you know you have to move on: When something just isn't working, and when something has worked for too long. Some conventions that have never worked include:

Escort missions.

So you've spent the first half of the game accumulating weapons and hit points and turning yourself into a zombie-killing machine. How does the game reward you? By forcing you to escort a completely helpless and unarmed dumbass through the war zone, and making so that you instantly lose if they get a scratch on them.

No one has ever liked an escort mission, ever, in the history of gaming. So why do they still exist?

CPU-controlled squad teammates.

This is supposed to be the flip side of the above, here the computer gives you a half dozen or so teammates to "help" you fight the Nazis or commies or zombies or whoever the enemy is that day. It doesn't work. It has never worked.

Either the AI is too stupid, or it's so sophisticated that it has become sentient and aware of the futility of living. Either way, as recently as Call of Duty 4 we've got teammates walking in front of our machine gun, eager to feel the sweet, sweet embrace of death. And then we get penalized for it.

First-person jumping puzzles.

There is no possible freaking way to jump accurately from a first person perspective. All of the things that would let you do it in real life (sense of balance and momentum, awareness of your body) are gone. Also, you can't see your fucking feet.

Yet, here we are in Half Life 2, entering the spooky, atmospheric zombie town of Ravenholm, ready for the fight of our lives. How do we defeat the undead hordes? Why, by jumping across rooftops, on wooden platforms and suspended cars, like freaking Mario.

This brings us to our second category of "enough is enough" gaming elements, which are ones that sold truckloads of games, but that need to be retired. Such as ...

World War II games.

The average gamer has killed more Nazis than the entire Russian army. Where the hell are the World War I games?

The grizzled space marine.

Doom introduced the grizzled space marine to the gaming world 15 years ago, dreamed into existence by someone at id Software, probably just minutes after watching Aliens. The grizzled space marine character so captivated the imagination of first-person shooter fans that they decided to have him star in every single FPS game since.


Doom 3


Gears of War


Haze (left) and Turok


Killzone 2

Oh, look. We've come full circle.


Aliens: Colonial Marine

Will the gaming world ever get enough of the grizzled space marine?

Yes. Yes, we will.

Move on.



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Oh god, 7 is one of my greatest pet peeves. Duke Nukem 64 had f*****g split screen, and the XBLA port doesn't.

I swear, if Resident Evil 5 does this I'll choke a b***h.

Posted on 11/15/2008 11:51:37 AM

"By the way, some of you are scratching your heads about having the obviously single-player Mario Galaxy up there on the list. Well, it turns out Nintendo included an option so that at any moment, a friend can pick up the second controller and, with the pointer, help the first player collect items and shoot at enemies. It's a small thing, but it means a guy can get his girlfriend in on the action and cut off her complaints that his gaming is taking away from his time with her. "


YES!!!!! Finallly! get off my back women!

Posted on 11/13/2008 11:58:26 PM

I bought the game Pure.
No multiplayer.
I had motostorm.
No Multiplayer.
I bought MotoGP08.
No multiplayer.
Brand New nostalgic golden axe.
No multiplayer.
Whats next?
Mortal Kombat that doesn t support multiplayer.
F U C K Y O U ! ! !

Posted on 11/12/2008 12:58:25 AM

All I have to say is that on page seven: A-f*****g-MEN!

Posted on 11/9/2008 6:57:09 PM

Motorstorm IS multiplayer you can play on a split screen (im' in europe but I don't think that changes anything)

Posted on 11/4/2008 9:03:01 AM

I think skatoolaki is a whore.
Only idiots will hate the Wii and/or its games.

Posted on 9/29/2008 12:07:56 PM

I f*****g hate escort missions in a certain game called z*lda (damn straight i use that asterisk!) no matter how good you are at it, if the ai loops, the carriage f****n goes to the bats and you end back uo at kokoro gates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on 9/29/2008 3:03:07 AM

I thought Gears was a horrendous game, though I won't go off on you for liking it. However, I have a problem with your proclamation that "Epic is god" and they make games for the "hardcore" crowd. In fact, it's the exact opposite.

Epic has made it a point over the years to tell their true hardcore fans to f**k off and die (see Unreal Tournament 3) and have only made efforts to advance the graphical aspects of their games over the years. I can't really blame them for that - I mean, half of what they're selling is their engine. On the other hand, there are companies who work diligently on improving the visuals without sacrificing gameplay. Look at Valve's Source Engine...pretty games that also deliver brilliantly with their gameplay.

There's also the fact that Epic has a brigade of talking heads whose sole purpose is to spout off idiotic, ass-brained comments in the press (CliffyB, Mark Rein, Mike Capps). It seems like every week one of these colossal morons is waxing vitriolic about PC piracy, PC games dying, etc. etc. despite the fact that PC gamers constitute the majority of their customer base.

But at the end of they day, I guess it's all about how you define "hardcore crowd"...if you mean the people who like to whack off to the latest advances in bloom in glorified engine tech-demos, then Epic does a very good job in supporting you. If you mean "hardcore crowd" as in the people who play games competitively for 5+ years with no patch support, anti-cheat, or what have you from the developers, then Epic is doing a very bad job.

Regarding the rest of your post, Lampshade, I definitely disagree with Capp's statement about how developing for the Wii would be regressive. If there's any console right now that could completely redefine the way FPSes are played, it would be the Wii. Unfortunately, like you said, Nintendo and other devs have done little to harness the console's incredibly unique hardware. Brawl, the biggest game for the console, can be played with a Gamecube controller. It's a shame really.

Posted on 9/28/2008 8:49:12 PM

Gears of War rocked and cutting edge graphics certainly made it better. For a company like Epic Games (God bless em) that focuses on making kick ass shooters for the hardcore crowd going to the Wii would be a step backwards. Look at Call of Duty 3 for the Wii.

The Wii had a few good games but the problem is there is nothing good coming out now.

Posted on 9/18/2008 12:14:18 AM

Lemme tell ya: when I spent a hundred and fifty years in a Lithuanian prison camp for eating the face of a screaming child in public last week, the only thing that really kept me going was Zelda 3. That's right, they made you play video games while beating you with your own spinal cord and insulting your mom in their own bizarre barbarian tongue, all in the hopes that when you finally escape during their drunken orgies with pigs, those video games will carry such painful associations that you'll never be able to play them again. Like in 1984, except with Zelda. But for me it backfired. It was Zelda that kept me going in there. Zelda that drove away the demons at night, the ones that saw me standing over the grave of another dead president. It was Zelda that made me finally take part in one of their drunken pig orgies and find out that at the end of the day--they weren't such bad guys after all.

Posted on 9/14/2008 11:51:11 PM

I agree with the last one.

Posted on 9/13/2008 9:19:01 AM

Everybody sing it with me... 'Metal Gear Solid'

that franchise never fails to deliver... its got an amazing story line, its always had 'ahead of its time' graphics and lets face it...god must be proud to know that the people he created, have created metal gear solid!

Posted on 9/4/2008 8:17:59 PM

Ok, I've just got two things to say about number 4. First of all, the wrench in Bioshock was awesome. It almost made the game believable, and we're talking about a game in which a man willingly hops in a submarine that takes him down to some lost Atlantis-esque city where he proceeds to inject himself with insane chemicals that he picked up off the floor. Secondly, I find it much more gratifying if you don't use a weapon in Oblivion. The feeling of killing a rat with one well-placed punch is extremely gratifying, even if it is a video game, and it also relieves you from the "why did that guy's arm not fall off?" paradox.

And don't get me wrong, I think this is an awesome website full of hilariously useless information, but that was just bugging me.

Posted on 9/4/2008 6:39:54 PM

I look back at gaming history and I still conclude that oldschool games like Zelda III and Castlevania S.O.T.N where way better than most of the high tech s**t they created today. Unless its something like Fable?

Posted on 9/4/2008 6:28:31 PM

How is Halo 3 not mentioned on this list? It breaks commandments 5 and 4, and it absolutely rapes number 3, regarding Space Marines.

Posted on 9/4/2008 1:24:49 PM

If a guy put in GTA IV, he could totally touch my boob. Screw Mario Galaxy.

Posted on 9/4/2008 7:53:55 AM

how about being able to replay cut scenes?

Posted on 9/4/2008 7:05:38 AM

I think the most chintzier ending wasn't the original Metroid, but the one in Contra where after you finally destroy the main boss. You end up getting a dark screen with the words CONGRATULATIONS! flashing across the screen.

Then the game resets, making you wonder, 'What th? I just wasted several hours beating this game, and this is ALL i get?!?'

Posted on 9/3/2008 5:15:27 PM

You forgot that all RPGs must have a random treasure-chest/box monster that can kill your entire party with a "claw" attack, meanwhile the last boss is a demi-god who shoots lightening from his eyes and rains fire down from outer space, yet somehow you can still beat it like a black stepchild.

Posted on 9/2/2008 2:51:51 PM

..... then put the rest into dumpsters. shhhh. lawsuit.

Posted on 9/1/2008 2:04:38 PM

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