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The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey

By David Wong April 29, 2008 3,395,307 views
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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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350 Comments

Ragnarok - I think he was picking on it because of the laughing voices, and how they sound absolutely pathetic.

While the game was a marvel, there were definitely bits and pieces that could be easily made fun of.

Hilarious article, and I agree with every bit of it.

7/2/2009 11:49:16 AM
tdug1991

I mostly agree right up to the last bit, where you picked on FFX.

That scene was just over a minute long, how can you attack the story of that game from watching thet little scene? FFX has over 100 hours of gameplay, hell, then main story of the game takes over 30 hours to complete.

So please, try and know what you're talking about next time, or else you just look like jackasses.

6/28/2009 9:43:37 AM
Ragnarok05

I think that this has been pointed out before but the sole reason why the Wii or the Nintendo DS have outsold all others is because of their lower price. That's why Toyota Yaris has sold way more cars than BMW Series 7 models. Wii also has the worst games out of all consoles, if you don't trust me head over to http://www.metacritic.com/games/wii/ and compare it's games to other systems. Even tho I agree entirely with everything you've written about I just can't agree that the Nintendo has sold more because it's more fun, it's just aimed at poor-er people.

6/23/2009 9:07:23 PM
Broloc

they think its bad that oblivion had a huge map? or any game thats like that? thats what made them awesome! sandbox games arent that great. open worlds are amazing! thats why games like oblivion and fallout 3 got game of the year!

6/22/2009 9:14:34 PM
atheistnation

There is hope though. Look at Fallout 3, which I believe to be one of the best games ever made. The only commandment it breaks is the lack of multiplayer, which it was really never designed for anyway. The team AI is limited to a single person, but it's fairly intelligent, the world is huge and hiking can take a long time, but there's just so much stuff to do between destinations.

Oh, and if you're looking for "bullets that create wounds", there isn't a better game out there. Hell the game even slows the bullet down so you can see it rip the guy's arm off in slo-mo. How cool is that?

6/11/2009 1:16:44 AM
One_Above_All

Epic article. for #3, the solution to keeping "tension" is to have a suspend & save system, where you can suspend at any time (quitting your game), but when you start it up again, the suspend data is cleared so the tension is still there.

In the 360's case, the suspend data shouldn't be cleared, for obvious reasons ;)

6/10/2009 11:32:23 AM
headcase88

lollll, i'm on my wii looking at this article and when i scrolled down to the screen shot of, i think it was, gears of war, a message popped up that said something about not enough memory. ironic.

5/26/2009 1:15:21 AM
elkatieface

A few other things I think are f*****g horrendous in games: Sewer levels, this isn't like a strict rule or anything, it's just that I've still to play a sewer level that I actually enjoyed; they should give what they advertise, remember the advert for Heavenly Sword, the one where you see her do a massive triple flip whilst sliding down a rope then kicking the ass of a million guys, they said that it was "actual game-play," but they didn't tell us that it was all executed with a single button!

5/18/2009 3:14:57 AM
microhendy

@asdfzxc920

Be that as it may, you're gonna get s**t for that.

5/13/2009 10:48:53 AM
PeakJ

I only agree with 1 and 2. Everything else is clearly written by somebody who has NO IDEA how games are developed.

4/29/2009 3:41:41 AM
asdfzxc920

There should be a rule like this about MMORPGs:
"Thou shalt make a MMORPG that have more than just PvE, PvP, leveling up and getting better equipment, AND anything related"

Because, let's face it. MMOs like WoW, Warhammer, Silkroad and anything else based in good graphics and killing the hell out of everything in sight is just a big pain in the ass. It's no wonder people like to hop from MMO to MMO.

4/28/2009 11:22:33 PM
Yaridovich

funny , i will uploaded this to tall dating site ___Tallmingle.com____ to share with my best friends,especially the hot models.

4/28/2009 10:16:55 AM
Shirleyxx

Thank you for the multiplayer comment. I can live with GTA4 for not being multiplayer.

What gets me are the FPS's. Oh sure their "techniqually" multiplayer... but guess what?
I don't have any freaking internet access in my basement!!!
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun let me and one of my friends duke it out with computers on split screen. Or even me alone if I wanted to.

Now what do I get with this generation?!? Running around an empty field picking up weapons and dreaming of shooting 59 other guys...

...I can only replay levels so many times.

4/24/2009 3:20:30 PM
ijpowers

It was good.
Get rid of that surplus watch, books, car, toaster, sewing machine, or clothes by the selling format of Uploaded.TV. Simply shoot a video of the item that you want to sell and upload it in www.uploaded.tv. Now relax, watch your video on real TV, and see how people queue up worldwide to show interest to buy your belonging.

4/20/2009 5:27:20 AM
debasree

I'm sorry, but if you aren't killing nazis or nips then you just aren't killing.

4/19/2009 1:46:24 PM
zombies!

one of the best games i have ever played involved dicking around o horseback for ages to find the next 'boss'. the game was shadow of the collosus and it was absolutely brilliant. i once spent five hours on ecstasy trying to make one jump over a chasm. totally fucked it up every time. came down. did it in one go. i still count those five hours as some of the best five hours of my life. so slagging a game with travelling sequences off just aint right

4/18/2009 8:26:17 PM
fireprism

And, at the end, an ad for "CIVONY": "A WORLD YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, A STORY HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD, A CAMPAIGN YOU REALLY SHOULD FIGHT WITH, A HOMELAND NEED YOU TO PROTECT!"

4/18/2009 1:03:43 PM
tydaeus

Yeah, in fairness it was EA who screwed the pooch on the PS3 port of Orange Box. Proof that the biggest publishers/studios aren't always the best. Otherwise this article was spot-on.

4/14/2009 2:44:12 AM
DasBroose

Heh, Hl2 is pretty good, you just don't like the style

4/10/2009 11:59:26 AM
LCP

EA developed the PS3 port of Orange Box, not Valve.

4/9/2009 7:09:45 PM
yournamehere

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