Ten things games should have.

[Gabriel]

Article at:

 

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/conte...1012_041625.htm

 

1. Never ask a player if they want to save their game.

 

I can see both sides of this one. There are times when I reach the magic checkpoint, but I've done something I don't want to keep. Maybe I'm just futzing around. Maybe I want to backtrack and see if I can fix it before I save my game with things messed up.

 

 

2. Always say "press any button" to start a game.

 

To be as blunt as possible, the whole reasoning behind this one strikes me as catering to total idiots. When you can't figure out that you need to press the button clearly marked START to start the game, then you don't need to be playing with an expensive piece of electronics. Instead, you should be reporting to the nice building where they process you into Soylent Green.

 

I can see some consistency being required. I've seen my share of games which require me to hit the standard action button to start instead of hitting START. But it never confuses me to the point of alienating me from the game.

 

Gaming newbs tend to just bang all the buttons on the controller until something happens anyway. That's why they call it "button mashing."

 

3. Always let players remap controller buttons to suit their preferences.

 

Yes. Complete and total agreement here.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

Yes. And I have some additions for this one too.

 

Always let players skip tutorials. Nothing pisses me off more than some tutorial which treats me like a complete moron where I have to input programmed moves in order to be able to proceed with the game.

 

Always let players turn off the voice acting. There are games with seriously bad voice acting out there.

 

Always let players go to a menu and watch those skipped cut scenes at a later time.

 

5. Never let a camera get too close to a player or bump into a wall.

 

This is more or less a mere complaint about games with crappy cameras. I can get behind that.

 

6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can.

 

Actually, I far more often see the reverse happen in games. The designers have crammed too many functions into too few buttons because they wanted to make the controls "simple." Instead their efforts have only made things more complicated and awkward.

 

I think the guideline would be better stated as "use your control options wisely and effectively."

 

7. Always give players full control of accessiblity options.

 

Turn subtitles off and on. OK. Got it. I'm with ya.

 

8. Never use insipid, indefensible enemy attacks.

 

This really falls under "Don't populate your game with cheeze laden enemies." Otherwise phrased as "The NES era is over."

 

9. Always present in-game tutorials, FAQs, and help menus for newbie gamers.

 

By this point, the list is really showing it's colors of "Waaahhh! Games are too hard! It's too hard to start the game! There are too many buttons! It's too hard to figure out what to do!"

 

Despite the fact the writer obviously needs to just buy a Wii and shut up, there is a good point here. Games shouldn't toss you to the wolves. Despite being against insipid tutorials, I'm all for help systems as long as it isn't mandatory you must suffer through them.

 

On the other hand, the recent events surrounding Space Giraffe shows that people will ignore the in game help systems and complain the game is too hard anyway. So there might not be any point.

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).

 

Anyone who has played RPGs knows about Save Points. Save Points are evil pieces of shit. They're evil pieces of shit because they aren't really intended for you to save your game. They're intended for you to have to play a certain amount of time before you can save your game.

 

Nothing is more irritating about an RPG than having to lose all your progress because the save point is still an hour away and you have to stop playing NOW.

 

Since I love Tactical RPGs, I've encountered quite a few games of the genre which only let you save in between battles. When battles start taking 2 hours to complete, that's a bunch of crap.

 

So, yeah, I'm completely behind this one too.

[2600Lives]

Good list, actually.

 

1. Kinda pointless, really. I personally prefer to be asked to save instead of auto-saving, though.

2. Duh. What if you need to press, say, select to go to an options screen, and start to actually start the game?

3. 100% agreed. Holy hell I hate it when I can't re-map the buttons. And none of this preset crap, either, make EACH button mappable to what you want it to represent.

4. Hell yes, I hate unskippable cimenas, especially if they occur right before a boss fight and said boss kicks your ass over and over.

5. Fix the camera in the first place and this isn't a problem. Games with broken cameras are, by definition, broken games. Either put a decent camera in place, or don't release the damn thing.

6. Eh. I'd rather have each button do something different than pressing combinations of buttons when there's no need.

7. Again, eh. Doesn't affect me one way or the other, though I do like subtitles, as often, the voice actors suck, and it's hard to make out what they're saying.

8. Otherwise known as Capcom Syndrome. I think developers who implement this kind of crap into their games should be put in front of a firing squad.

9. Agreed, actually. I find tutorials give me a feel for the game, though they should always be optional, and never, EVER forced upon you.

10. I'm looking at you Resident Evil. 'Nuff with the stupid ass typewriters and such. Let us save whenever we want, dammit!

[godslabrat]

1. Never ask a player if they want to save their game.

 

I 100% disagree with this. Too many games force you to save. Saving should be a habit one develops, not something the game does to keep you from falling behind

 

2. Always say "press any button" to start a game.

 

By the same token, I often wonder why the end of games still reads "Game Over", when A) The game is obviously over since you either beat it or died and B) game hardware is now sophisticated enough to put more than two words on the screen.

 

3. Always let players remap controller buttons to suit their preferences.

 

Why not? Although, I'll make the small point that games should still have intelligent and intuitive default controls. Being able to map your own controls is no excuse for making games that feel like the only person who could play them is Reed Richards.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

I'd be content if the "skip" button weren't the same as the "advance text" button". I can't tell you how many cut scenes I've skipped by accident... probably as many as I've had to watch without a choice.

 

5. Never let a camera get too close to a player or bump into a wall.

 

Fair enough, but camera issues have come a long way since Super Mario 64.

 

6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can.

 

"Can we play this game with four buttons? How about three?" That should be the thought process when controls are designed.

 

7. Always give players full control of accessiblity options.

 

 

8. Never use insipid, indefensible enemy attacks.

 

Yeah, right. Like programmers will EVER stop doing this...

 

9. Always present in-game tutorials, FAQs, and help menus for newbie gamers.

 

I disagree. I'm all for making people read the manual or buy a strategy guide. If I know what I'm doing, don't baby me.

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).

 

Agreed, though I've been known to cheat at this. If I'm playing a major RPG and I have to go to work/sleep/school/a party/hell, I go into a menu or pause it or do some game-stopping feature. Sadistically, some games are even making this difficult anymore. Why, I don't know.

 

11. Boobies.

[Gabriel]

I'd be content if the "skip" button weren't the same as the "advance text" button". I can't tell you how many cut scenes I've skipped by accident... probably as many as I've had to watch without a choice.

 

It's not the same thing as what you're saying, but I hate games whose only "skip" feature is to hit the primary action button for an hour to page through the text. The games guilty of this invariably require two button presses to get through a single block of text (one to make it appear all at once instead of character by character, and another to make it move to the next block of text), and have War and Peace sized text blocks distributed in bite sized chunks of 2 or 3 words per screen.

 

Phantasy Star Universe is the latest game I've tried which was infuriatingly guilty of this. To make it worse, the text blocks are periodically interspersed with bits where the only function is to walk to where another text flood is triggered, no combat, no interactivity, just walk to the next 15 minutes of hitting A to page through the text. And none of it was skippable by any other means than just hitting A as quickly as possible.

[supercat]

I can see both sides of this one. There are times when I reach the magic checkpoint, but I've done something I don't want to keep. Maybe I'm just futzing around. Maybe I want to backtrack and see if I can fix it before I save my game with things messed up.

 

There are some tradeoffs here. If someone has been playing for hours since they last saved, unaware of how much time has passed, and then something bad happens to them, they're apt to be rather annoyed. I'd suggest having a good mix of 'quicksave' and 'perma-save' options, preferably with enough storage capacity to keep a few auto-saves as well.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

Yes. And I have some additions for this one too.

 

There should be a way to skip any cutscene, but it might be good to have different skip-sequences for different scenes, clearly shown on the screen, to avoid the possibility of a person missing an important cut scene they'd not seen before because they were expecting a different one they've seen and skipped a dozen times.

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).

 

Anyone who has played RPGs knows about Save Points. Save Points are evil pieces of shit. They're evil pieces of shit because they aren't really intended for you to save your game. They're intended for you to have to play a certain amount of time before you can save your game.

 

I think the issue there is that if players are allowed to save at any moment, and freely return to save games, then even mediocre players can muddle through a game by hitting "save" every time they land an attack and "reload" every time they get hit.

 

A compromise might be to allow players to save game and close session anywhere, but if they continue from a saved game and then reload it, they get set back some amount. This would minimize annoyance when people have to quit a game for some real-world reason, and yet would still ensure that people who can clear a level are really capable of clearing it.

[+HammR25]

I think the issue there is that if players are allowed to save at any moment, and freely return to save games, then even mediocre players can muddle through a game by hitting "save" every time they land an attack and "reload" every time they get hit.

 

Save points are only for offline games so who cares if mediocre players can suddenly get through a game? They aren't "cheating" anyone but themselves.

[supercat]

I think the issue there is that if players are allowed to save at any moment, and freely return to save games, then even mediocre players can muddle through a game by hitting "save" every time they land an attack and "reload" every time they get hit.

Save points are only for offline games so who cares if mediocre players can suddenly get through a game? They aren't "cheating" anyone but themselves.

 

Perhaps, but I think it's better for a game to have an established and meaningful "standard" for how much people should be allowed to use save/restore and claim a 'legitimate' win.

[+Random Terrain]

I think the issue there is that if players are allowed to save at any moment, and freely return to save games, then even mediocre players can muddle through a game by hitting "save" every time they land an attack and "reload" every time they get hit.

Save points are only for offline games so who cares if mediocre players can suddenly get through a game? They aren't "cheating" anyone but themselves.

Perhaps, but I think it's better for a game to have an established and meaningful "standard" for how much people should be allowed to use save/restore and claim a 'legitimate' win.

If games are supposed to be fun distractions from the worries of the real world, who cares how people 'win' the game? If a guy is so pathetic that he'd lie about how he won, he'd be using cheat codes or cheating software/devices anyway, so let people save any time they want so they can get back to the real world when duty calls.

[supergamer]

I think the issue there is that if players are allowed to save at any moment, and freely return to save games, then even mediocre players can muddle through a game by hitting "save" every time they land an attack and "reload" every time they get hit.

Save points are only for offline games so who cares if mediocre players can suddenly get through a game? They aren't "cheating" anyone but themselves.

Perhaps, but I think it's better for a game to have an established and meaningful "standard" for how much people should be allowed to use save/restore and claim a 'legitimate' win.

If games are supposed to be fun distractions from the worries of the real world, who cares how people 'win' the game? If a guy is so pathetic that he'd lie about how he won, he'd be using cheat codes or cheating software/devices anyway, so let people save any time they want so they can get back to the real world when duty calls.

 

If you save/restore at all, it's not legitimate. There's no need for a standard unless you're formally competing with others. In that case you might as well use the de facto internet standards like Quake/Doom's nightmare level or Halo's Legendary. Few people care how well anyone can do on an easy level.

 

As RT points out, the primary purpose of games is entertainment/enjoyment. Most people don't want to be judged by how 'correctly' they play (or finish) the game, they just want to play it and have their fun. Asking for an established standard of completion (or levels of such) is akin to not considering a movie watched unless a person can identify the major themes and character development.

[Avid Fan]

How about the ability not to only skip cut-scenes, but how about a pause feature? I skip most cut scenes, but some are beautiful to watch and I'm always yelling "come look at this" and then its over. I like GOOD cut scenes damnit (KOTOR, Bounty Hunter)

[Artlover]

Article at:

 

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/conte...1012_041625.htm

 

1. Never ask a player if they want to save their game.

I see it valid in this concept. No, don't ask or autosave. Allow the player to choose to save when ever they want, where ever they want, but when loaded, starts the player exactly where they were when they saved.

 

2. Always say "press any button" to start a game.

Nope. This is a mistake. If it's too hard for someone to press the "start" button to start the game, then I fear game play will really confuse them.

 

Besides, that will just encourage the problem of missing a game ending/score or something when the game is over and one's crazt button mashing triggers a restart/continue.

 

3. Always let players remap controller buttons to suit their preferences.

Yes. Complete and total agreement here.

Ditto.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

Yes. And I have some additions for this one too. Always let players skip tutorials.

Ditto.

 

5. Never let a camera get too close to a player or bump into a wall.

Yup.

 

6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can.

This is dumb. It's purely dependant on game. Some games need lots of buttons, some dont. It's impossible to lump everything into a generalization, and it's stupid to try.

 

7. Always give players full control of accessiblity options.

Yup.

 

8. Never use insipid, indefensible enemy attacks.

Yup.

 

9. Always present in-game tutorials, FAQs, and help menus for newbie gamers.

So long as it doesn't conflict with point #4, yup, give players an "option" to these things if they so desire.

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).

Yup. See my comment on point #1. Always beable to save whenever, whereever and start where they left off.

 

 

8 agrees, 1 disagree, 1 they don't conceptualy get it.

[n8littlefield]

I don't mind being asked to save - what I DO mind is that when I choose save - it asked "save? y/n" then I say y, and it says "where?" so I tell it, then it says "There's something here already, are you sure?" and I again press y.

 

It shouldn't take 3-4 steps just to save a game!

[Gabriel]

11. No matter what, game saves should be transferable and possible to back up.

 

Every time I see a game whose save can't be transferred between memory cards or from the hard drive to a memory stick (or vice versa), I get a little bit angrier.

 

There's really no reason to prevent moving the save from storage device to storage device. The only possible excuse is that someone involved in the creation of the game wanted to be an asshole.

[supercat]

If you save/restore at all, it's not legitimate. There's no need for a standard unless you're formally competing with others. In that case you might as well use the de facto internet standards like Quake/Doom's nightmare level or Halo's Legendary. Few people care how well anyone can do on an easy level.

 

Requiring that someone have hours of continuous time to play a game to be declared a 'winner' isn't very nice. At minimum, in general, someone should be allowed to save and quit, and then resume the game later.

 

I think it's nice for games to have a 'standard' benchmark by which people can judge their performance. Though I should have allowed it to function even after "Dec. 24", I think the approach in Toyshop Trouble is reasonable. A player can practice any level they've reached, but don't get credit for clearing it unless they can play straight through to it. Something like Millipede is also a nice approach. To advance, you have to be good enough to reach ahead two checkpoints, and if you fail to reach at least one you slip backward.

[supergamer]

If you save/restore at all, it's not legitimate. There's no need for a standard unless you're formally competing with others. In that case you might as well use the de facto internet standards like Quake/Doom's nightmare level or Halo's Legendary. Few people care how well anyone can do on an easy level.

 

Requiring that someone have hours of continuous time to play a game to be declared a 'winner' isn't very nice. At minimum, in general, someone should be allowed to save and quit, and then resume the game later.

 

I think it's nice for games to have a 'standard' benchmark by which people can judge their performance. Though I should have allowed it to function even after "Dec. 24", I think the approach in Toyshop Trouble is reasonable. A player can practice any level they've reached, but don't get credit for clearing it unless they can play straight through to it. Something like Millipede is also a nice approach. To advance, you have to be good enough to reach ahead two checkpoints, and if you fail to reach at least one you slip backward.

 

Maybe it's not nice for people to have to run 26 miles to win a marathon, either. Anyway, I'm not requiring anything, I'm just expressing a viewpoint. Twin Galaxies is the closest thing to an authority (afaik) on relative performance for those who care, and while their rules vary from game to game, generally they require video of continuous playing.

 

The issue with saving/restoring isn't that people get tired, it's that you can use it to circumvent the risk that the game entails. Imagine if Pac-man let you save after every board. Some of the remakes of older games add save features like that, and it makes them stupid. Yes, in a real world example you can usually just pause and walk away from the console... so for your own personal pride, that should be allowed. But as soon as you load up your save, die or whatever....and reload it to mitigate the loss rather than starting over, you've removed much of the difficulty from the game and reduced it to a series of trial and error.

 

Games you might approve of, that have good built-in ranking, are DDR and Crazy Taxi. I'm sure a lot of others do too, but not off the top of my head. Another thing about "winning" modern games is that almost all of them have different standards for completion. Are you a Pokemon winner if you beat the last bosses? Or if you collect them all? Depending on what the game is, total completion can take several times the length of merely seeing the whole story.

 

In short, I think what constitutes "winning" games is subjective and mostly designed to be that way. You can decide if you want to play the game for points, for fastest time, for full completion, or just to see what's in it and move on the the next one. Saves are admittedly necessary in games for practical purposes, but I don't think casual gamers need to be held to a standard of completion.

 

Perhaps we're thinking of different types of games, anyway, as you mention Toyshop Trouble and Millipede. When I think saves, I think of RPGs and games with lots of unlockables. There's also a certain idea of the gestalt. You might be able to finish every individual level in a difficult game (assuming saves), but can you finish them all consecutively on a fixed amount of lives?

[supercat]

The issue with saving/restoring isn't that people get tired, it's that you can use it to circumvent the risk that the game entails.

 

I've seen games which allow a user to save and quit, but the user can only restore the game once.

 

[Perhaps we're thinking of different types of games, anyway, as you mention Toyshop Trouble and Millipede. When I think saves, I think of RPGs and games with lots of unlockables. There's also a certain idea of the gestalt. You might be able to finish every individual level in a difficult game (assuming saves), but can you finish them all consecutively on a fixed amount of lives?

 

I guess one thing that complicates the RPG equation is the fact that milestones don't represent fixed game states. In Toyshop Trouble, if you reach a particular level, you've reached it. While one may sometimes score more or less on the various levels preceding it, that won't affect the play of the later levels.

 

What is nice with Millipede is the concept that 'losing' doesn't set you all the way back to the beginning, but imposes a specific penalty. If someone isn't very good at Millipede, they're not going to reach a score of 200,000 no matter how long they try. A similar concept could be employed in an RPG design, though setting the penalty may be difficult. Too hard, and one may as well force the player to start all over. Too light, and players will just shake it off.

[supergamer]

Ahh I see, you're speaking as a game designer. I was considering the question from the point of view of the player. My comment about not saving was in the sense of superlative maximum completion of the game, rather than "just barely winning" or by using shortcuts/warps. I see where it would seem "mean" to force that a user take the hardest route, from a design perspective. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

I've seen games which allow a user to save and quit, but the user can only restore the game once.

 

That seems like a great idea for arcade-style games, where you are playing for a high score or maximum level but real-world issues interfere with actually playing marathon style. The guys who can play for over 12 hours transcend the intentional game design anyway.

 

What is nice with Millipede is the concept that 'losing' doesn't set you all the way back to the beginning, but imposes a specific penalty. If someone isn't very good at Millipede, they're not going to reach a score of 200,000 no matter how long they try. A similar concept could be employed in an RPG design, though setting the penalty may be difficult. Too hard, and one may as well force the player to start all over. Too light, and players will just shake it off.

 

An idea you just gave me would be an RPG design with difficulty levels akin to the action games (more respawn points, less health per pickup). With an RPG (or other adventure style) you could have different levels of health recovery as well as, get this, less save points. Basically have some save points exist on all difficulty levels, but the challenging modes would force you to go farther without saving, increasing the risk to your characters.

 

Another thing I liked that I saw in some games was where the different difficulty levels actually added stages to the game. The first difficulty would be "tutorial" or so and have 2-4 levels, normal would be the standard game, and the hard level would have an extra level at the end. That way the better player is rewarded for the increased skill/time, while the novice can enjoy the game as well without missing much.

[supercat]

Another thing I liked that I saw in some games was where the different difficulty levels actually added stages to the game. The first difficulty would be "tutorial" or so and have 2-4 levels, normal would be the standard game, and the hard level would have an extra level at the end. That way the better player is rewarded for the increased skill/time, while the novice can enjoy the game as well without missing much.

 

I recall hearing of a game that implemented implemented that revolutionary concept. The author was so pretentious as to call it "Adventure", as though it was the only one.

[supergamer]

I recall hearing of a game that implemented implemented that revolutionary concept. The author was so pretentious as to call it "Adventure", as though it was the only one.

 

Indeed, haha. I forgot about that, I was thinking one of the NES Double Dragons, or maybe one of the Gradius games. Anyway, more games should have structural difficulty changes beyond just tweaking game constants.

[gdement]

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

Yes. And I have some additions for this one too.

 

Always let players skip tutorials. Nothing pisses me off more than some tutorial which treats me like a complete moron where I have to input programmed moves in order to be able to proceed with the game.

 

Always let players turn off the voice acting. There are games with seriously bad voice acting out there.

 

Always let players go to a menu and watch those skipped cut scenes at a later time.

 

These are a couple things which I think really hurt modern games.

 

1) Full motion video is almost always a bad idea. This stuff is boring and undermines the whole point of a video game, but it's an easy way to pacify people who play games for the "story". If there's a story to tell, it's far more effective to convey it with in-game graphics, and the interruptions (if any) should be kept to a minimum. Bionic Commando or the old 2-D RPGs tell their stories far better. FMV breaks the flow of the game and is a poor substitute for Blockbuster.

 

2) Tutorials suck. It's apparent that these things have been in vogue among the development teams for quite some time now. They really should be asking themselves why the game is so hard to play that a tutorial is necessary. I played lots of RPGs back in the NES/Genesis days, and it never took more than a few minutes to figure them out.

If Street Fighter II came out today, it would probably insist on teaching you the moves before you could play.

[AtticGamer]

I think that saving should be between levels or at mid level but give the option to start from a checkpoint when you die like RE4 did. If it's on a portable, then saving at anytime is a must, plus a sleep option.

 

One thing a game shouldn't have is a ranking system, I find those extremely irritating.

 

I agree with the indefensible enemy attack banning, the enemies should match the capabilities of the player.

[Vic George 2K3]

1. Never ask a player if they want to save their game.

 

If it's in the middle of the action, I'd say I agree.

 

2. Always say "press any button" to start a game.

 

Agree.

 

3. Always let players remap controller buttons to suit their preferences.

 

More than that, also have remapped contoller buttons be saved for future use.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

Agree. Hate having to sit through the same cut scenes again and again with no ability to skip them.

 

5. Never let a camera get too close to a player or bump into a wall.

 

Agree.

 

6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can.

 

Also make sure you don't cram so many control functions into too few controller buttons.

 

7. Always give players full control of accessiblity options.

 

Agree.

 

8. Never use insipid, indefensible enemy attacks.

 

Agree.

 

9. Always present in-game tutorials, FAQs, and help menus for newbie gamers.

 

Definitely agree.

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).

 

Also definitely agree.

[supercat]

Fair enough, but camera issues have come a long way since Super Mario 64.

 

Do any recent games simply take the approach of making translucent any objects whose far side is closer to the camera than the player? I find myself rather annoyed at games that force the player to use awkward camera angles because the camera won't "fit" between the player and the nearest obstruction.

[AtticGamer]

Devil May Cry has the worst camera angles ever, and were done on purpose!

 

I think SM64 has a good camera, and it's controllable as well so you can just correct it, Sonic games can be worse.

[Video]

1. Never ask a player if they want to save their game.

 

Actually, I'd dissagree with this. I think games should have an autosave feature ONLY if it also has an independant manual save feature (games like oblivion come to mind) I might not want to save everything, but sometimes, haveing that recent save is handy.

 

2. Always say "press any button" to start a game.

 

Uh....most games do (or use primary action, or start) so uh...what's the problem here?

 

3. Always let players remap controller buttons to suit their preferences.

 

Hell yeah. I understand in the atari days (when controllers only had one button, or a small number, and games didn't have the memory to devote to such things) but now days, there is NO excuse not to have this option on all games.

 

4. Always let players skip cut scenes no matter how important they are to the story.

 

Damn streight. I don't mind sitting through the cutscene the first time (except the 'developed by, produced by, slapped on a disk by, urinated on by, etc' crap on the front of all games) But you know, if I like the game enough to play it again, I don't see why I shoould be required to watch the damn 10 minute long irrelevant to the gameplay cutscene again (I'm looking at games like Final fantasy here) First time, great, threehundredseventysixth time...not so great.

 

5. Never let a camera get too close to a player or bump into a wall.

 

Cameras are better now than they sued to be, but in general, if the games designed good, this sin't a problem anyways.

 

6. Never make use of every controller button just because you can.

 

I'm all for this, but also, on the flipside, just cause you can assigne multiple actions to one button, doesn't mean you should (especially when the controller still has unused buttons as many games that do this tend to do/have)

 

7. Always give players full control of accessiblity options.

 

Not sure what this means, if they mean, alter controller, difficluty, lighting, sound etc in game, rather than going back to the main menue, then hell yeah.

 

8. Never use insipid, indefensible enemy attacks.

 

Not sure what was said here either. If you mean haveing it set up where you have to spend days leveling up, and then just barely scrapeing by by useing all your potions, money, bullets, whatever (as most poorly designed RPG's do, looking at Final fantasy again) then I totally agree.

 

9. Always present in-game tutorials, FAQs, and help menus for newbie gamers.

 

I agree...provisionally. Providing it is NOT REQUIRED (see advance wars for GBA for required in game tutorial)

 

10. Always let gamers get in and out of gameplay as they desire (otherwise they'll just turn the console off).[/]

 

Damn streight. If I'm in a boss fight that will take an hour to do, I may not be able to finish it (just cause loosers with absolutely no life so they can spend their time doing this crap exist, doesn't mean we all are one of them) I don't know how many times I've lost literally hours of work on a game just because I absolutely had to leave. (and then been pissed to find later as I played it, "oh, only five more minutes, or just around the next bend and I coulda saved"

 

Honestly, it's a good list, but over all, it sounds like people that bitch cause the games 'to hard' to me.