1. A game’s cut scene might have been seen before – we should be able to skip it!
2. Do not put things in a cut scene that I could easily do in the game. I want to kill the bad guys – not watch a fmv of me doing it!
3. Games installed on a PC should not be in a directory under the game company. Who would look for a game that way?
4. Always allow a gamer to assign their own controls. Some people have funny habits (inverted flight controls! grr)
5. It is called QUICK load. It must always live up to it’s name
6. We don’t need to confirm everything in games. At least give us the option to turn of the worried dialogue asking ‘are we sure we want to quit?’. Yes. ‘Are you sure you want to load that game? You might lose your unsaved progress!’. YES!
7. AI should be made aware of stationary objects: they can’t shoot through them, but they CAN run around them.
8. Battery-operated equipment like torches a) do not run out after 20 seconds and b) do not recharge themselves over time. There might be some futuristic plasma thing that does both those things, but that’s for you to work into your storyline, instead of messing with the our real-world torch physics.
9. Do not hide vital objects, keys, passageways or clues in obscure locations that can only be found by painstaking searching. Hiding something one needs to find in order to progress in a game should be a matter of logical deduction, or a gaming challenge.
10. But! include one or two Easter Eggs that can only be found by painstaking searching. I need to feel like there are things in the game that are worth finding.
11. Objects do not vanish when dropped; they fall on the ground and stay there until someone moves or grabs them. This applies to anything dropped by the enemy, too.
12. I just shot that guy right in the arm with a shotgun, and he didn’t even wince, let alone lose his aim or capacity for punching me with it.
13. But my second, badly aimed shot to the toe with a pistol kills him instantly. Something is up there…
14. In real life, if I bump into a wall, crate or fence that only comes up to my chin, I can climb on top of it. So why is it that my characters in some games have the superhuman ability to continuously run and jump whilst firing a bazooka with relative accuracy, but are completely incapable of clambering over anything higher than their waist? I don’t mind putting the gun away for a moment so I can climb. I really don’t.
15. I wish to name my own save games. I never have the thought “I want to load the game I was playing at 20:31:12 on 11/6/09″. I might occasionally use that info for reference, but don’t expect me to remember where I am in a game by judging between your chosen level or quest names. Let me at least tag them or something?
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