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Games With Crates Get No Twinkie
Gamasutra's reoccuring feature "Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie" covers the subject of crates and barrels in games, (ala Old Man Murray) courtesy of designer Ernest Adams. From the article: "If there are crates in a place, there had better be pallets under them and at least one forklift as well. In fact, somebody wrote to me (unfortunately I lost his name in an E-mail crash) and pointed out that wooden crates are completely passé now anyway. Modern shipping is done in piles of cardboard boxes all held together with industrial-strength plastic wrap. Wood is heavy and expensive, cardboard is light, cheap, and recyclable. But our FPSes are still displaying 40-year-old shipping technology, even in futuristic science fiction games." He also touches on Rumble implimentation, Easy Mode, Split Screen, and Camera Angles.
1) No one cares how "hardcore" you are.
2) These games attempt to create a certain mood, and having crates in them may ruin that
3) Console gamers care, because they only have a dinky analog stick (and often simple or shallow gameplay) and so the games make up for it with "story" and "atmosphere"
Voila