I read this article a while back. Scott muses on how “casting caution aside seems to be an Achilles heel to most levels in action-based games.” Now, I didn’t think much of this at the time. I’m not a huge fan of FPSs - which is the main category to which this applies.

But I’ve spent quite a while recently watching Meri play Devil May Cry. After each stage in the game you get given a grade and how much you get to spend on upgrades for the next level depends on this grade. So, the better you do in one level determines how easy it is do well in the next level. And from the backseat driver seat the “all guns blazing” technique seems to produce better results than the “leave no stone unturned” technique - which is Meri’s preferred technique and can be quite frustrating to watch.

In contrast Meri and I have also been playing Quest for Glory V which, despite being about 6 years old, is good fun. However, this is somewhere where you have to talk to everyone. You have to solve puzzles and ask the right questions of the right people in the right order and it’s all very laborious. I can never be bothered with this and therefore end up relying heavily on walkthroughs very quickly. And of course once you start down that road it’s very difficult to stop.

So maybe I should play more gratuitous killing things games where I don’t have to be quite so dilligent. I used to enjoy them lots before someone came up with the idea of using the mouse and the keyboard at the same time, which I never quite got the hang of and my brother still gloats at me for managing to die on the training level in Half-Life on the PC. Maybe now I have a console I’ll be somewhat better off.