I was chatting with some friends earlier today (Yeah, I do have some) and I said how bored I was with my games collection. I told my friends clearly what I wanted, “I want a game called “Generic Beat ‘Em Up”” or perhaps “Generic Shooter”. I almost went for Battlefield: Bad Company but had to abandon it lest the game try and smother me with its story that’s as weak, limp and lifeless as Ashley Cole was before him and Cheryl split up. It was during this conversation that I said “We should just have a series of games which are generic; no story, no cutscenes, just 4 cliché levels and cliché weapons.” Later on I had a little jaunt through some Yahtzee columns and saw that he said something pretty similar so being the enterprising chap that I am I thought that I would outline you my plans for Generic Shooter, Generic Beat ‘Em Up, Generic Fighter, Generic RTS and Generic Platformer. I shall go through their Setting, Gameplay and Design in order.

Generic Shooter:

Gameplay- Simple really; first-person perspective, health bar, radar and ammo on the HUD, lots of guns and some baddies with some boss-fights. I’d have the weapons embarrassingly cool too, pistols which shoot green lasers, automatic weapons which shoot blue lasers, lightning guns, flamethrowers, rocket launchers and the obligatory MASSIVE gun which would simply be called “Anne” and fantastically over-designed. I’d also have all the baddies with completely distinguishable characteristics; clawed melee specialists, weedy snipers, big brutes which categorically carry big guns and drop armour and Bosses which can be identified by looking like big versions of whatever specialist enemy is in that area. Doesn’t this sound great?

Setting- This, is easy. Temple, City, Snow, Desert, Tropical Island, Volcano and Sewer. It would be great fun.

Design- the more exploratory you make it the better, big open levels with plenty of places to climb and kill shit, lots of big spaces to throw grenades into and end to the level which is a lady and the better you do the more clothes she removes.

Generic Beat ‘Em Up:

Gameplay- You know the wireframes from Super Smash Bros Melee? Them, just 4 of them, and simply controlled mechanics. A for jump, X for punch, B for kick and Y for special, Right Trigger for grab. Simple, brutal, effective, fun.

Setting- This is easy too, shaolin temple, city, forest clearing, warehouse and somewhere stupid… um… top of a lorry. Yep, sorted.

Design- I’d probably have 2 male and 2 female characters. They would be Skinny Powerful Kid, Massive Tank Dude, Agile Teen in Mini-Skirt and Character Inevitably Called Agatha.

Generic Fighter:

Gameplay- You have a sword and plenty of combos, bonuses for racking up hits, floods of enemies, third person perspective lots of corridors and bosses with increasingly large weapons. Also, whenever you score a critical hit it goes to a mini-cutscene like in Assassin’s Creed.

Setting- large open environment filled with enemies.

Design- You know how this works, it’s Fable 2 without the pretention of a story but proper combos. Might include tits for good measure.

Generic RTS:

Gameplay- You have men, big men, scout vehicles, light tanks, heavy tanks, jets, scout boats, attack boats and floating gun platforms also plenty of stationary weapons.

Setting- Different planets. Moon, Ice planet, dust planet, weird planet, strange alien planet and industrial planet.

Design- Y’know Starship Troopers? That.

Generic Platformer:

This is actually a little trick one, testing to see if you’ve read this far (and if not, why not, you should have been laughing and agreeing with everything I’ve said). Buy the Mega Drive ultimate collection, go to Flicky. There. Play that. See if you DON’T get hooked. It’s got everything, simplicity, intriguing level design, collectibles, enemies and a clear goal. Also fun bonus rounds. Go on, off you go.