Top Ten Game Cliches

1up.com has a piece examining game cliches that are just done. Really. From the article: "2.) Pushing crates. Note to evil masterminds everywhere: We understand that you're trying to run a business, which involves receiving equipment and food somehow. But leaving those giant crates just lying around your warehouse for any one-man army to use for supplies and climbing? It's no wonder most startup criminal organizations fail within the first five years. Even seen in: God of War (PS2) 4.) Ridiculous portrayals of females. Women have breasts. Get over it. Even seen in: Soul Calibur II (PS2/XB/GC)"

Comments

Top Ten Gaming Website Cliches

[Aix]

And the winner is... "Making Top Ten Lists of Game Cliches"!

Why women only?

[Linus Torvaalds]

Ridiculous portrayals of females. Women have breasts. Get over it.

Yeah, because game portrayals of male characters are so lifelike. It's not like their biceps are bigger than all of me curled up in a ball, with veins as thick as my fingers.

Game characters are caricatures. It's not sexist because it's applied to both sexes.

Re:Why women only?

[interiot]

Best technical description of clothes features, evar.

Uh...

[Surye]

#5 Unnecessary stealth

If you want to make a stealth game, then make a stealth game. Don't give us guns and bombs and swords and fast cars and explosions and then tell us to be quiet, just for a bit! If we want to sneak around, then we'll play a game that's designed for doing just that. In your game, we shall blow stuff up.

I call BS. First, this kind of narrowminded view of game making is why the industry is so piss poor right now. Variety in gameplay is good thing. Second, even if this was a bad idea, it's a recent trend, not a cliche. Exploding barrels, that's a cliche, or predictible boss fights. I liked a lot of those points, but #5 just didn't check out.

Re:Uh...

[skadus]

I was about to say the same thing when I saw your comment.

Really, the best of both worlds is to offer a way to pick the best option that works for you, and offer rewards or challenges based on which scenario you pick. I think Fallout does this a lot. Want to try your hand at stealth? Great, you get 200 more rupees at the end. Feel more hack and slashy? Okay, but you have to fight an extra-hard guy at the end.

I'm all for adding 'variety' to games, but when you throw a major genre-curveball, it's nicest to make the scene optional, like the fetch quests in Zelda that require split-second timing just to wind up with the best sword in the game or an extra heart container. It's fun when you finally accomplish the goals in these through determination. It's frustrating as hell when it's required and doesn't seem to do anything gameplay or plot-wise besides show that the developer is a sadistic bastard.

I suck at stealth, I hate having to use stealth, and I especially hate it when the mission resets because somebody saw me out of the corner of their eye. When the guy is alerted, let me go on my murderous rampage and move on, m'kay?

Clcihes can be good

[Shadow Wrought]

The biggest cliche, and the one not mentioned, is that health, ammo, and everything else you need are all strewn about waiting for you to pick them up. I can't think of a FPS, or RPG I've played where that has not been the case. So long as a part of gaming requires you to obtain food, then crates will be there to ensure that you have to actually go to the trouble of opening them to get the goodies. Would they be happier with boxes?

As for the exploding fuel cans, 55 gallon drums which splode are just too cool knock;-)

What about ...

[Hanji]

Jumping Puzzles.

Now, I'll admit that the last console I owned was the N64, so I'm behind the times, but back when I played video games regularly, there was little that pissed me off more than extended jumping puzzles, where you had to leap between 10 platforms in a row flawlessly, restarting if you failed.

Have they wised up yet, or did these guys just miss it?