A contemporary of ours, the GameGirl, recently posted the seven things she hates most about her passion ^[1], gaming. Game Guy thought to post them because, quite frankly, a few are insightful as well as interesting.

One of them, reading dialog, is pointed at Nintendo, which she says forces Wii users to scan line after line of text for character and setting description instead of using voice-overs. We noticed that, too — “Star Trek: Conquest,” ^[2] for example, runs the same long time-wasting scene-setter every time the game starts up (“Star Date 41153.2. It is a time of conflict. The major races are at war, Diplomacy is dead” … yadda, yadda, yadda).

Another is the physical act of swimming in a video game — still not the smoothest or stealthiest activity in this, the seventh generation of console gaming. GameGirl’s supremely irked by this, so much that she puts it atop her list of gripes.

“Almost always, the controls are slow, inverted and repetitive,” she says about swimming. “Then you have an oxygen meter. You never swim exactly how you want either.”

That part sounds a lot like real life.

Anyway, go look at her list ^[1], then come back and tell us what you think.