Games are trying to get closer to real-life, it can’t be completely true to life or other wise the game’s going to be boring or extremely tough. I do enjoy the games that I play, but then the little nitpicky demon in my mind starts jumping around and it causes me to question some game concepts. This is a short list that points out the little foibles in games that we seem to have just accepted through time.

I can stand being stabbed and sent to hell, but no ground vibrations please!

Jumping up and shaking the ground shouldn’t hurt you

This happens in most fighting games, where the guy pounds the ground with his fists or jumps up and stomps the floor causing you to lose health. It would make more sense if something fell on you or the shock wave causes you to fly up 10 feet, then fall down. I just get extremely mad that you can survive a proton cannon to the face, while the ground smash can do the same amount of damage to you.  It just leads me to believe that most game heroes have brittle bones. The shaking of the ground causes their femurs to ache, thus causing them to get hurt. I just hope that they take out this idea in the future when we won’t have grounds anymore and we’re all living in the sky.

This is how hospitals look in the game world.

Eating Food Will Not Heal You

Back in the early days of Streets of Rage, when you suffered a beating, you manned up and ate that fried chicken on the floor. That was all fine and cute for the 16 bit days, when we’re all just discovering pixels and common sense. That doesn’t translate well in this current generation. It’s pretty prominent in games like Bioshock, GTA4, and Dead Rising. In terms of game world, you can survive 12 bullets to the chest, as long as you get to that burger joint. If it had to make sense, wouldn’t a sirloin steak cure cancer? What if other games used that concept? What if in Left 4 Dead, you carried a bag of Doritos rather than a first-aid kit? It would be actually pretty funny to here “CHIPS HERE!”

Bang! Bang! Forget the other 28 bullets, I gotta reload!

You can’t just replace one bullet in a clip

This is pretty nitpicky but it just always pops in my obsessive compulsive mind. The one weapon that is put to justice in the reloading department is the 12 gauge shotgun. Pistols, assault rifles, and even sniper rifles have the extremely quick bullet fill of whatever is left of your inventory. Every next generation shooting game in existence uses this concept. I blame you. The people who need to keep constantly reloading to have peace of mind. You feel better when you replaced those two bullets because it’s frightening to see those shadowy transparent bullet symbols. It’s going to disillusion our youth in to how actual guns really work. You know, because all kids need to know how guns work.

This match should be over in two hits.

Swords Are Not That Blunt

SoulCalibur keeps reintroducing these rubber swords in all its fighting games. Oblivion had this same problem too. The swords are dulled down where it’s as useful as the pen. This is probably where that quote “The pen is mightier than the sword” came from. At least the pen has better chance of stabbing someone. It just softens the M rating down to a T for the game either way. Even though it shows Nightmare actually stabbing a person through their midsection and pull it out as if went through butter. It’s okay though, the other guy just brushes it off like a bad mosquito bite. If they did retain the actual sharpness of the blade, SoulCalibur would be a hell lot more disgusting. Just think what you can slice off of Voldo and Ivy. Yeah, that’s right, their legs.

After this, I'll know enough on how to fly a plane.

Killing animals does not give you experience to be a Blacksmith

RPGs seem to have a weird affinity to killing animals or mutants to let you gain your experience. What about actually read a book on building your vocabulary? Nah, just kill this super behemoth. This takes in a lot from prison rules. Take down the biggest guy, and you’ll never be messed with. The opposite would be to kill a hundred smaller people to reach the rank of infamous. Also, the skills you learn from defeating sewer rats really never connect. I could see how killing more enemies raises your ability to use the sword of destiny, but how does it increase your ability to convince a weapons dealer for lower deals? You also seem to gain more health from abolishing your enemies to their hell, but you don’t drink their blood. It’s pretty inconsistent, you have to drink people’s blood to become stronger, am I right? It is a strange concept that killing defenseless animals can make you ruler of the world. In this case, serial murders are the level 51 paladins of our world.