Rules Of The Game

As much as I love playing games, they (sadly) aren’t perfect. Even genuinely, staggeringly brilliant games frequently make ridiculous errors, containing little things that just spoil the game for the player. What follows, then, is a list of gaming rules, that if I were King, would become an official part of gaming’s laws:

Don’t mix gameplay styles in one checkpoint.

Don’t make me gun down twenty enemies in a tricky section, and then expect me to make a tricky jump. Splat, and you’re right back at the start of the gunfight again. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow made this mistake, and it was one of the very few things I disliked about what was otherwise an amazing game. Platform, platform, platform, and then straight into a fight with enemies that could actually kill you with one hit. Very frustrating.

Never ever put a checkpoint immediately before a cutscene.

Writing this has made me realise how checkpoints are so frequently cause for concern among gamers. We’ve all had this problem. You watch a cutscene, start into the game, and then die. You reload, and there you are watching the cutscene again. It’s bad enough if the cutscene is skippable, but when it’s not, it’s enough to make you want to  defenestrate your controller. Developers, we know you put a lot of effort into telling stories in your games, and cutscenes are a key part of that, but seriously, once is enough. Deus Ex Human Revolution did this to me today; an unskippable cutscene immediately before a boss fight.

Don’t make the checkpoints too far apart.

Obviously.

Don’t force me to do side-missions.

I like side-missions, they’re a fun way to expand out a game, but they should always be optional. Maybe I just want to play the storyline, and not be distracted. Saints Row 2 is bad for this. It won’t allow you to continue playing the main storyline until you earn extra respect in side-missions.

Don’t ever make me spam my friends.

Most of the annoyances above have been around for years, but this one is relatively new. Social games such as Farmville flourish by forcing players to interact and spam each other with messages offering a new plant pot or tractor, but this is just irritating to everyone. It’s not even just a social gaming thing these days either, recently I was spammed by a couple of people with some rubbish about buying a new golf game, because doing so unlocked something in the game. And many games have linked Achievements to do with “sharing” something with your friends, that they almost certainly don’t want.

Don’t make the boss totally unbeatable.

I’ve written about this one before, but it’s as true now as it was then. Look, we appreciate that you want to make the final boss a bit more tricky so you have to fight to win the game, but seriously, a bullet-tough boss at the end of a game with reasonable difficulty is just ridiculous. There’s nothing more frustrating than making it right to the end of an enjoyable game, and not being able to see the ending of it because of a ludicrously tough final boss. I’m looking at you, Heavenly Sword.

As I said at the beginning, when I am King, these rules WILL be followed. Until then, I’ll just have to hope some game developers stumble across this article, and take my words to heart.