Personal Opinion
A little slice of reality
Like 2/3 of PC or XBOX 360 owners, I'm playing BioShock at the moment. I'm not going to review it or anything, other than to say I'm having fantastic fun apart from the occasional and rather severe System Shock 2…
“Explicit” games
The player moves carefully through the undergrowth, but there seem to be no enemies nearby. Suddenly the sky lights up a ghastly green as a bright globule of light pierces the evening sky. A sound like a thousand horses screaming…
“Save me!”
Saves in games can be a thorny issue. If implemented well, no-one notices them. If implemented badly or even (forbid!) incorrectly then the whole internet explodes in your face. And not in a pleasant way. I'm not going to get…
Chibi-Robo loves you!
Just want to plug a great little game that does something quite different to anything else I've played. In Chibi-Robo on the GameCube you play the little robot of the title and it's your goal to make the family who…
Don’t punish the player
One of my pet design hates is when a game deliberately punishes you, either for doing well or for something as innocent as picking up some health. The main focus of this particular rant is the FPS games Doom and…
Disappearing Games
I'm concerned about our videogame heritage. There are dedicated centres whose role it is to preserve works of art, film, literature, important buildings and artefacts. But for videogames the situation is similar to times gone by where only avid independant…
A little less random please…
I do enjoy RPGs, and I've played a good mix of Western and Japanese over the years. But the two things that puts me off most JRPGs are the “Random Battle” mechanic and the turn-based battling. The first RPG I…
Getting manuals wrong
Manuals nowadays are (with few exceptions) rubbish and are symptomatic of how so many people are getting game design wrong. There are three main problems I have with manuals: 1. Insert tab A into slot B then… I do realise…
Unique is overrated
Inside the games industry I feel there is far too much focus on Unique Selling Points (USP). So much so that a lot of larger developers and publishers require a game design to have at least one USP before they…