This month's subject: originality in video games.

"Oh no, not again!"

But wait. This time, something different.

(How apt.)

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Every now and again, a familiar subject pops up whenever people talk about video games.

"Why are they so unoriginal?", some people wail.

"Because that's what sells, stupid", say some other people. "Besides, who cares as long as the game is fun?"

"But, but... all those driving games, Doom clones and beat-'em-ups", sob the first people again, sorrowfully.

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But it doesn't have to be like that, chums. There's a way EVERYONE can be happy. Would you like to hear it?

Because (although you might not think it from reading games magazines), it's easy to criticise. And when people say "Oh, and I suppose YOU'VE got some better ideas?", well, that's easy to deal with too. All you have to do is give them some.

Put my money where my mouth is, you say? No problem at all.

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For my example, I'm going to choose the crazy world of Doom clones. According to scientific research, we've seen approximately 3,622 of these in the last 5 years, and yet for some reason they're practically all completely identical in terms of design and theme.

"You are the last Space Marine in a space base of some kind. Weird alien monsters are taking over in some way, and you must kill them all with powerful weapons which some idiot has left just lying around."

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There are slight variations on the theme (Duke Nukem, for example, at least set things on Earth, but couldn't resist making the baddies still be scary weird space-pig aliens), but basically the plot of every single Doom game ever follows this formula.

But why should this be? Why can't we have something that's still just a Doom clone, but in a new kind of setting? Publishers still get to sell the same old game, but we get an illusion of originality. Everybody's happy.

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And just to show how easy it is, here's a whole bunch of new places to set Doom clones.

1. In a hotel. It worked for Die Hard (the movie), so why can't we have a game where, for example, a gang of terrorists have taken over a hotel?

You could logically find useful things in people's rooms, use the hotel's security systems, disguise yourself as members of staff, sneak around on fire escapes, all kinds of neat stuff.

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2. On a train. Goldeneye touched on this wonderful, underused setting in one of its levels, but it would be easy to make an entire game take place on a huge train.

Many of the same possibilities as the hotel setting would still be open, but with lots more brought about by the confined environment. The journey provides a natural and believeable time limit, but with opportunities to sabotage the train and slow it down. And then there are the stations, too...

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3. In an office. My old pals at Sensible Software designed a game set in an office, where you had to try to take over a huge evil corporation's skyscraper by both subversive and direct means, killing people or persuading them to join your side.

Once again, the possibilities for interacting with other characters are enormous, with the added bonus that you already understand what people are and what they do with no need for loads of stupid plot explanation sequences.

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4. In a school. Everyone's familiar with the infrastructure of a school, and most of them are multi-level mazes of corridors and rooms, with lots of secret little corners and shortcuts.

The school could have been taken over by a Demon Headmaster-style character, and you have to escape/save everyone without the aid of huge guns.

But you could set great traps, like in Home Alone or something. Wouldn't that be a tremendous game?

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5. In a prison, during a riot. You're a warder trying to get word to the outside world and bring help, but you're trapped in the middle of the jail and most of the other guards have already been murdered.

If you can get to the survivors, you can send them off on missions to find useful things or create a diversion while you try to get to the radio room, or onto the roof to start a fire and alert nearby villagers (but if you get all the guards killed, you lose).

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These, of course, are just the really obvious suggestions. And yet, such is the lack of imagination shown by games designers, any one of them would be a breath of fresh air.

None of them even require any great innovation from developers - they're just slightly new wallpaper to wrap around the same old game engine. No-one would have to work too hard, yet the games would feel totally unlike all the existing ones that we're all so very bored of. It's a perfect plan.

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So do you see how easy it is to create even the illusion of originality? The possibilities are almost limitless, and yet useless designers keep coming up with the same tired idea over and over again. Even if they don't want to risk coming up with a new kind of game, we can do a lot better than this.