My Six Favorite Things a Game Can Have

What does “My six favorite things a game can have in it” mean?

It’s not so much “a good soundtrack, great character balance, and outstanding gameplay” but more like the things insignificant to the big picture of design, but the neat  things I personally love about gaming. So, let’s get cracking!

A game is better to me if it has…

...A gloriously bad cover

Now I have to preface something.  Covers like this:

  are not gloriously bad.

Covers like this however...

...are gloriously  bad, and I love each and every one of them. 

...The ability to press the attack button as fast as possibly can

I hate it when games only allow you to shoot a certain amount of bullets on screen. Sometimes this is done due to programming limitation, (Contra) or “balance,” (everything else) but when a game like Strider lets me mash the attack button to the point of where I can destroy a boss in 4 seconds, its the best feeling in the world.

..No mandatory in-game tutorials

My favorite thing about NES games is that they are the video game equivalent of being thrown into the wild with nothing but a knife and flint and steel to survive. I’m not joking about this. There’s just something fun about failing miserably the first time you play a game, and then perfecting the level the second time you play.

Anyway,  in game tutorials are kinda annoying, I’m not going to deny that some games need them, but at the same time, these kind of things take away the mystery and fun of figuring out how the controls work... and a lot of games handle them poorly.

More tutorials need to teach in the way that Super Mario Brothers teaches you how to play. By your own curiosity, you figure out everything you need to know in the timespan of about 20 seconds.

 ...Cool spaceships

This one is   the most personal to me. I don't really have anything else to add to this beside"I like spaceships" and "cool spaceships kick ass."

...FM Snyth or "Video Game Snyth"

As far as I know, I am one of the few people who prefer this kind of sound over SNES orchestral stuff or modern sounding games. I love this screechy-tinny sound.  I’m not talking so much 8-bit chiptunes, but more like Genesis/Saturn style music. The kind of music that sounds like this:

Or maybe this:

and one more for good measure.

There's no other kind of music besides chiptunes that I associate more with video games. And don't get me wrong, I adore chiptunes, especially when other people have been making awesome music with them, but this kind of Snyth is needs more love. (who knows, maybe we'll get people experimenting with FM snyth in the future.)

Either way, (as of now) this sound is unique to games, and I say we should embrace it.

...Twisted Video game logic

So what is twisted video game logic? It's when a game has inherit logic that is effortlessly weird without trying too hard. Where can you see it?

Its in Ninja Gaiden, a game where birds can kill a highly trained ninja.

Its in Castlevania. Where whipping a stone wall leads to roast chicken.

Its in Cave Story. A game that has a machine gun that can PROPEL YOURSELF UPWARD by shooting the ground.

It's in Metal Slug. When the announcer pronounces "rocket launcer" as "rocket lawnchair."

Whatever this is, "video game logic" and "twisted video game logic" don't do justice in defining it . This is truly unique to video games, and the thing I embrace most about game design. And this isn't anything new, there are so many masterpieces that run entirely off of "twisted video game logic."

Case in point? Gunstar Heroes

You see, Gunstar Heroes is a game about running around and shooting people, but it also lets you pick up enemies and throw them at each other, body slam anything, and has a level called DESTROY THEM ALL.

Seriously whatever this is, modern games need to have more of it. It's  not the kind of thing that developers think "what can we do to make this awesome" it's the kind of thing that is done because it's just what works. (side note:  now that I think about it, all of Treasure’s games are like this. They’re the savants of making video games, video games.)

Most of all video game logic makes games fun! I mean, gamers are still playing games to have fun right?

In conclusion:

There is one game that has all of this! A little wonder of a game called "Ikaruga."

To me, this game has everything:  a gloriously bad cover, (I adore that quote) no tutorial*, the ability to mash the fire button insanely fast,  incredibly cool spaceships, a soundtrack that is 100% pure video game snyth, and the whole thing functions off of video game logic to make it fun.

Ikaruga is the best game ever.

Thanks for reading.

*There is a tutorial, but its in the main menu, the tutorial is not integrated into the game.