The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Follow - General Discussion - Giant Bomb (2024)

I thought there was only one rule for a game:

It should be fun.

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey/19822/#23

Yeah, Cracked is pretty wicked.

Sean Baby's doing shtuff there now/

Lots of these are sort of stupid, at least how they went about it. The ideas are right, but the arguement just isn't. Interesting list either way
The only thing I just had a major gripe with is loading. I have yet to experience a game this generation with loading that was bad unless it was a 7 second one that you'd have to see constantly going in and out (which I haven't experienced). I sort of had a PS1, so yea....

And one that, not that I disagreed with, I just thought they were wrong about completely with their arguement was the last one. The wii isn't really home to a huge amount of innovative titles. Some, sure, but not more than other consoles. And a game doesn't need to be innovative to be good. Rather weird they use Gears as an arguement for this, that game did sort of innovate, or at least refine, the cover mechanic greatly, essentially putting forth a gameplay mechanic for other games to use.

Thou shalt make a more complete list starting with this one and spread it through out the internets. Thee 7 commandments art a good start.
Thou shalt start a gamers wiki that we can all change as needed and add new things that others have missed.

1) Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity
Game Sales (Wii is more popular that both PS3 and 360)
Gears of War vs Mario Kart DS (sales)
Hire Real Writers
Portal was great b/c of great writers
Hire competent Voice Actors
EX:Final Fantasy X bad voice acting scene
Put some work into the ending
EX:short Metroid esc endings (congratulations...)

2) Thou shalt make sure your game actually works
Porting games after 5 minutes of beta testing
Release games that actually run before selling them
don't wait until your fans are screaming on forums
stutter and slow down is inexcusable
Load Times
break up the action
"This is going to being the Achilles heel of this generation. It utterly breaks the spell of an immersive game to freeze the action while a "Loading ... " bar comes up. This would be like going to the theater and having the lights come up between every scene, so they can put more film in the projector. "

3) Thou shalt admit when enough is enough
No one likes 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."
CPU controlled squad teammates
usually unhelpful (defeating the purpose)
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 f*cking feet. "
World War II games
The grizzled space marine
Doom 3
Gears of War
Haze
Turok
Killzone II
Aliens: Colonial Marine

4) Thou shalt make killing fun
Don't start us out with a bullsh*t weapon
We don't want games full of tiny rodent enemies (small weak, annoying enemies)
Hard to hit, no satisfaction to kill them
Bullets that have no visible effect
"If we shoot a zombie in the arm, we want his arm to blow off. If we shoot him in the knee, we want him to limp. And if we shoot him in the head, we want his head to explode."
Swords that actually hack off limbs instead of merely inflicting damage
Filling the game with hordes of cookie-cutter bad guys
variation of faces, skin tones
"We want to know, deep down, that there are hundreds of grieving mothers out there, lamenting the terror of our dreaded blade."

5) Thou shalt not force repetition on the player
game checkpoints
having to replay levels due to limited save points
People have busy lives.
People could stop playing at ANY moment to go to bed, go to work, eat...etc
You should be able to save anywhere in new games
Force us to watch cutscenes repeatedly
Instant failure quicktime events

6) Thou shalt not pad the length of your games
Adding an Arbitrary way to pad the length of a game
Putting huge stretch of land between objectives
Adding pointless, mandatory fetch quests

7)Thou shalt let us play your game with real friends
Game Sales (multiplayer games sold the best in 2007)
Wii Sports
Wii Play
Guitar Hero III
Super Mario Galaxy (yes it does)
Madden NFL 08
Guitar Hero II
Mario Party 8
Split screen
They did it in Golden eye (why get rid of it now?)
"You're dropping it because four players on a split screen are playing off one $60 copy of the game. Four players playing online need four copies ($240). "
Splitscreen>Online Multiplayer for some things
"So when she comes over, do you think he's going to put on his GTA IV headset, or pop in Mario Galaxy? Here's a hint: The second choice gets him closer to touching boob."

Well I linked to the 7th page because, personally, it was my favorite.

And uncomfortable and bad are two different things. Final Fantasy 10 was bad. Pure and simple.

What else was there, oh yeah, Gears of Wars was not revolutionary, it was just more mass marketable. And it was also a bad game full of terrible design philosophies. You can argue whether a game is fun or not, and in the end that's all subjective anyway. But there are clear cute good and bad design philosophies, and in every case he's more or less spot on. For example: I like Board Game: Top Shop. On just about every level, it's a poorly designed game. It was definitely made by like two people, neither of whom were capable of fully translating it to English, resulting in a game that's partially broken. But it is fun as f*ck to play with friends regardless, at least for me. Subjective.

He wasn't saying these are necessarily all bad games, obviously. Half Life 2 is anything but a bad game. But it wasn't perfect, and the reason he listed was fairly valid. Not the best example when Oblivion was right next to it, and Twilight Princess... but a point none the less.

Also just because you disagree with a list doesn't make it poorly written or poorly argued, and trying to sell it as such just makes you come off as childish and lazy, and completely invalidates your opinion because clearly you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Just remember that next time you make an argument, kay?