When Realism and Video Games Collide

The limits on "things with which to distract" really hacked me off in Last of Us.

Here I am, surrounded by detritus most of which could be suitably lobbed, yet the game enforced this fanciful rule that only brick and bottles can serve to distract. It wasn't even like there was a massive scarcity of bricky bottleness, but when I was caught short, the inability to hoist anything luggable shattered the immersion.

I think gamers have, and are entitled to a sense we should be abandoning some of the tropes and crutches game developers have used in the past, invisible walls, using hordes of braindead, impotent enemies in place of intelligent AI, forcing players to start in the back of the pack in racing games, "monster closets", doors and windows which cannot be interacted with for no apparent reason...these are all things that had their day and were accepted without comment in the past, but we expect better now. Take some time out from making sure that you have the latest high definition texture maps, and think about what you're doing with them...