In an article for Edge, EA lead game designer Randy Smith has listed a few of his Least Favourite Things in games design, poking fun at some of gaming’s greatest clichés. Health packs, vents, invisible walls and crates are among the long list of stereotyped design shortcuts that are preventing games from evolving into deeper interactive experiences. This is clearly the tip of the iceberg, and we’ve come up with a few more to add to the list:

1. Novelty controllers

It’s plastic war! Guitars, drums, mics, balance boards, buzz pads, webcams, steering wheels, light guns and headsets – there’s a peripheral arms race going on and it’s turning our lounges into a sea of plastic junk. This has to be stopped and it’ll only happen if console makers make a stand, together, and force publishers to curb their one-upmanship.

2. Faux-realism

As games strive for greater realism, the game environments are becoming steadily more believable. However, even though AI, graphical detail and scale are reaching incredible new heights, games are chickening out of going anywhere near true realism. Is it fair for the likes of CoD4 and Far Cry 2 to rip off genuine global conflicts and then conveniently forget the more unsavoury aspects, such as mass graves, child soldiers and genocide? Admittedly, some of those would have a hard time getting past censors (with good reason) but these are issues that need to be tackled if gaming is to ever break free from its childish stereotypes.

3. Freeroaming

Open-world is the new FPS. Since GTA III graced the PlayStation 2, rival game developers have been falling over themselves in a bid to capture the same success and many have taken the assumption that the solution lies in having a big, wide open space to drive aimlessly around trying to find something to do. Worst of all, it’s not just action games that are succumbing to it, but racing games too. Stop making us hike through monotonous scenery and let us get the hell on with playing.

4. Training levels

“Greetings Sgt. Mutantsmasher, veteran of a thousand space battles, destroyer of Planet Z-19a, nemesis of a zillion inter-galactic races, I am about to instruct you on how to fire your assault rifle. Press the right trigger.” Nearly every game you play features roughly the same controls and most of the time you can figure them out by jabbing wildly at buttons to see whether or not you die. There are ways around the tedium of training levels (which far too few devs ever take advantage of) but for once we’d like to see a game maker take the wheels off, save us a few minutes of boredom and chuck us in at the deep end. Much like the situation an equally stereotypical, recently awoken amnesiac protagonist might find themselves in.

5. OVS (Obligatory Vehicle Sections)

At some point a couple of years ago, it was decreed that all shooters must include some kind of driving section. There’s no real reason for it, other than to extend the gameplay – often thanks to punishingly difficult vehicle controls – or perhaps to highlight the relative quality of the rest of the game. There are so many games guilty of indulging in some OVS, but for every Half-Life 2 Dirt Buggy there’s a Gears of War Junker or Crysis VTOL – this must be stopped; let’s leave shooters for shooting or else risk finding Obligatory Shooting Sections in the next version of Gran Turismo…

Oh, and one more: Explosive barrels. Got any suggestions of your own? Drop ‘em in below.