That said, I think you can still criticize SHMUP’s for exploiting their established conventions in frustrating ways. For example, in Ikaruga I don’t mind the fact that my spaceship cannot turn around because I’m almost always moving forwards. In Gradius V, though, there are long sequences where the camera moves counter to your shooting direction for no other reason than to make the game harder. I found this somewhat ridiculous, since it seemed stupid that the pilot wouldn’t simply turn around when there was an army behind him and no one in front.

This is also, incidentally, why System Shock 2 drove me crazy, coming from having played System Shock 1. I’ve never liked the RPG convention of not even being able to equip a weapon outside my character class, and System Shock 2 seemed silly to me when I was trapped in a dead end with a cyborg closing in only to be told I couldn’t even pick up that alien crystal thingy to defend myself simply because I didn’t have an adequate exotic weapon rating. However, I may have felt differently had I not played System Shock 1, which spoiled me by having no such restrictions.

The “realism” argument, I think, has little to do with freedom suspension. Maybe on a very broad level, but even the Silent Hill 3 argument seems based less on realism and more on literacy of existing game conventions. I don’t think it’s the realism at all that suggests that boxes should be broken, but the notion in the collective gamer unconscious that all boxes are breakable. If “realism” was the issue, the player should feel dissonance at virtually every restriction SH3 has, including not being able to use your crowbar to rip holes in drywall, not being able to open windows, not being able to set wooden things on fire, not being able to change cloths and put on make up, not being able to use the toilet, not being able to dance, not being able to jump–in short, not being able to do the infinite things one would be able to do in reality. Of all these things, the one thing this writer complains about is something that’s already an existing game convention? That suggests our concept of “realism” has become subconsciously conflated with our concept of “default” videogame conventions.