The Video Game Critic

So I was reading Herschie's new thread about Electronic Baseball and I thought of a topic: are there any games that you create your own rules to increase the fun you have with the game?

I can think of a few examples over the past which I have done. When I used to play Diddy Kong Racing (N64) all the time, I would let the computers lap me before I even started the race. I found it more enjoyable trying to catch up throughout the whole course then just slaughtering them from the get go (I do not believe there was a difficulty setting during standard races which caused me to start doing this). Other examples would be during Cool Boarders 2 I would purposefully mess up my jumps so I always started dead last (in the game you did two trick jumps to determine your starting position on the course) and I would have to catch up to everyone during the whole game.  The funny thing is, I've adjusted game rules for all sorts of things, especially when I was growing up, so that I could have more fun with the game (board games, card games, etc).

Has anyone else done this? If so, what changes did you make to how the game was played?

When I played Crash: Wrath of Cortex, I would try to get the crystal and gems in the levels in one go without dying, pretty tough in the levels where you have to backtrack to do so.

On arcade game compilations I try and give myself a limited amoun of continues to finish a game in (usually 5). I frequently break my own rules.

When playing NHL '94 with my brother, we have a rule where you cannot deke the goalie unless you hear the 'beep', indicating a breakaway, otherwise it's too easy to score. We also banned cheap goals in Blades of Steel (from the goal line), NHL '96 (backhand from the red line) and cheap saves in NHL '95 (using the Y button to dive across the goal line) because it literally stopped everything. In Base Wars, we also banned pitching anything other than across the plate (high and low was okay) because it made it too hard to get the ball in play (and see some fights!).

I personally did not use any warps or shortcuts in either Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World because it made the game too easy.

In Tecmo Super Bowl, I tried to get my buddy to agree to no "lurching" (Moving your nose tackle slightly down and towards the qb then diving for an almost automatic sack), but he's a cheating SOB. He tried to ban me from changing my playbook to counter with shotgun plays and roll-outs, but then if he can lurch, I can change my playbook to render his little cheating move ineffective. Oh, and I won 19-17.