What makes the perfect game for you?

[The Curmudgeon]

So I've recently discovered two new gaming franchises I'm going to get totally obsessed with, and they both tick all of my gaming boxes that keep me coming back for more, and I was wondering what exactly ticks your boxes?

So, the games I've been playing? Ratchet and Clank and the remastered Uncharted Trilogy, both on the PS4. Both were blind buys, I didn't know anything about them but they just LOOKED like my sort of thing. Obviously not every game fits this (traditional platformers, fighting games etc) but here are my guidelines for the Perfect Curmudgeon Game.

Third Person Perspective. I've played, and enjoyed, the odd FPS but it's an instant turn-off for me, not least because you spend the entire game running around with a giant metal wang bobbing up and down in front of you.

Good controls. This sounds like a "well, no shit" comment, but when a game handles WELL, man it's a joy. No "arghhh, fly, you fucking dick! Not jump! FLYYYYYY." There's no wildly shooting trying to hit stuff, it all works like you expect it to, like you WANT it to. That's why I could never get into the original Resident Evil game but I adore the later ones. That's why Mario works; he jumps and hops and ducks and flies how you want him to, while Sonic spins and bumps into spikes because he's too damned difficult to control. The Batman Arkham games are a masterclass of how controls should work; Batman can do a hundred different things with his utility belt, and it all makes sense, it's all fluid. Same with Ratchet and Clank, same with Uncharted.

Unlockables/hidden stuff: I remember the first game I played that had "collectibles" in it was the Spider-Man games on the PS1, this time it was artwork from original comics. Now that might not be the very first game I played that had hidden items to collect, but it's certainly the first one I remember. And that's an instant win with me as well, having hidden items that you need to collect for, well, no reason. And I love trophies. That satisfying little "ping" when you get one, I am all about that. The Lego games are particularly great with this sort of thing, unlocking characters, vehicles, artwork etc.


Those are just three golden rules of Curmudgeon gaming, some more might come when I think of them.

What are yours?

[trashcanman]

I don't know, man, my tastes range far and wide. It's like asking what the perfect song sounds like. I just know it when I hear it, but it could sound like almost anything. But as far as my personal preferences go:

Turn-Based Combat

I love all kinds of games, but RPGs have been my favorite since the SNES era. And while a lot of the best of those are in real time (The Witcher, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dark Souls, etc) if I were to design a game, it'd be turn-based strategy. This is seen as a bit outdated by some, but fuck that shit. Some of the best and most innovative games I've played in recent years have been indie RPGs like Undertale, Darkest Dungeon, and the Shadowrun trilogy, not to mention X-Com and Persona. I love games that reward strategy and getting older with my reflexes and mental faculties a bit dulled, I very much relish taking my time and choosing my course of action intelligently rather than memorizing a crazy control scheme with a hundred combinations only to forget it all in the heat of battle and then only remember after the fact that I totally could have done something much cooler than just mash buttons.

Great Story

The days of "x kidnaps y; go kill stuff" are gone. Or at least is has to be a bit more fleshed out than that these days. Storytelling is super important now and any game that ignores it feels like a wasted opportunity. Movies and books are great, but only in video games do you get to be IN the story. And the innovation based on that concept has come hard and fast in recent years. Cheap little low budget indie games like Pony Island, Orwell, and Undertale can melt your brain with the kind of fourth wall breakage that the likes of Deadpool couldn't even dream of and Telltale games has on occasion surpassed the masters with stories from Batman, The Walking Dead, Fables, Jurassic Park, and Borderlands that are as good as anything we've seen from those franchises.

Finish. Your. Game.

Some glitches are a given, but this shit has gotten ridiculous. Companies are rushing out games without fixing gamebreaking bugs and I am fucking sick of it. Darkest Dungeon was ruined for me because close to the end-game it froze up for the umpteenth time. But this time it was during an auto-save and I had to reset the game, which corrupted my save file. Since the game only lets you have one, that meant game over, man. Game over. One of the best games I played all year ruined over a bug that never should have made it through testing. All of my progress, all of my characters, all of my items, everything gone. Mass Effect: Andromeda was supposed to be my game of the year easily, but they released it too soon and it was all fucked up when I played it. They fixed it up with patches after I beat it, but what's the fucking point? Overwatch and Street Fighter V were both released as half a game for full price and just added more stuff later so by the time they were finished, you could get it for cheap. This happens a lot now. They rush games out unfinished and those of us who were waiting with baited breath to buy them get fucked. So now I can't trust any new games. Best to wait a couple years when the game is $20 and actually finished then pay $60 for a game that's incomplete.


Actually, that's probably about it. Give me those three things and do it right, and I'll probably consider you a perfect game.

If you love Uncharted, your next stop needs to be The Last of Us by the same developer. It does for the zombie apocalypse what Uncharted did for tomb raiding and is generally considered one of the best games of that era. You won't be able to go back to Resident Evil games after that one.