Doctor Panda:

Ahh, nobody ever seems to have played World in Conflict. If you're an infantry player, there is nothing more important than positioning! Now there is a game which more people should take note of. It's by no means perfect and it doesn't seem to have the same addictive quality of some games. But in terms of battlefield mechanics it really shows how you can make a game where coordination, positioning and planning matter.

It doesn't make for easy-to-get-in multiplayer, though.

Honestly i liked the characters in mass effect. I thought the interaction and dialog between Wrex and Shepard(or whatever you named the character) was well thought out and interesting. (i refuse your boot up my ass btw - just not my thing i guess)

Amnestic:

Mass Effect had party interaction?

(Slightly paraphrased from my memory)
Wrex: So, if you and Shepherd were to fight, which one of you do you think would win?
Kaiden: Wha? Commander Shepherd is my commanding officer. I can't ever imagine us having a fight.
Wrex: Hmph. That's why (s)he's the Commander and why (s)he would win.

Kaiden: I gotta say Wrex, you're not quite what I imagined the Krogan to be like.
Wrex: Hmph. Because humans have a vastly diverse set of beliefs and cultural aspects, but all us Krogan are the same?
Kaiden: I...I didn't mean...Look, just forget I said anything.
Wrex: Done.

Except all the party interaction involved you basically grinding conversations on the ship in what amounted to a time sink designed to artificially inflate play time and give the game the illusion of depth. Something Bioware has been shifting to more and more with every game they put out(like KOTOR).

Case in point: Near the beginning of the game there's a mission that involves a bunch of colonists controlled by that giant plant thingy (yeah, I know, technical terms here lol). You can either slaughter them all, or save as many as possible. I slaughtered every single one of them and no one said anything.

In old school RPGs, the characters would have piped up with comments on how they think you should do it. Your actions would affect your influence over those characters. Even when just walking around, characters would infight if they had reason to and sometimes they'd drag you into the middle of it. I remember arguments between Viconia and Aerie in BG 2 were always fun to watch. That just doesn't happen anymore in RPGs and the feeling of your partymates being more than just extra guns in a fight but actual characters with their own personalities is sorely missed.

And infantry in WiC were grossly overpowered if you knew how to whore them. Definitely my favorite unit type.

Oblivion's monster leveling thing has been done by other titles before it. I have fond recollections of those irritating flies outside the school in FF8 of never becoming any easier to kill.

Right now the orange box mechanics should be taken into account by developers of FPS type games. TF2 limiting your gear according to class and balancing it off of all the other game classes, the gravity gun, the freaking portals.

For tactics games turn to disgaea's making of everything into a potential tactical encounter, mega leveling, and officer / apprentice style of character building.

And Mass Effect was an impressive example of a horror story. It's like Bioware took four years of dev time, pissed three of it away, built a inconsistent game for the soldier class then through in a bunch of magic / rogue styled classes that make the game an utter irritation to play through.

Player Options. Just basic things like re-mapable controls and all that rot. PC games are usually good about this, consoles not always. As an extension of this: smart control schemes in general, whether editable or not. Nothing will kill my enjoyment of a game faster than controls which have me tripping over my ass to bite my elbow.

Allies which are more a liability than an asset -- get some fucking AI routines already. If you can't make NPCs that have to be relied upon to perform certain functions perform said functions in a consistent fashion then just don't bother.

Syntax Error:
Just because a platform has additional features (i.e. gimmicks) doesn't mean that you need to use it to make a good game. The DS is a prime example for this (e.g. Dawn of Sorrow).

the DS and the Wii are suffering from this horribly. seriously, the Wii has a classic controller for a reason. I don't want to waggle my hand around to swing link's sword. I just want to press a damn button. now, if you can implement an accurate sword swinging technique while still allowing me to move around in real time and do all the other moves commonly available in a zelda game then hell yes! I'd love that! if you can't, then just don't half-ass it! I either want to feel like I am in direct control of the character through physical movements or I just want a button that does what I want to do. I don't want a physical movement that takes the place of a button. that's not fun.

Yeah, I remember reading they flat out removed grenades from TF2 as a third weapon, because they felt 'grenade spam' was a skill free display of bad play and didn't contribute to fun.

I'm with them, and I love blowing stuff up.