Since the early ‘80s, game designers have faced one question: Where can I hide health and ammo?

The answer was, of course, the crate! (And the crate’s circular cousin, the barrel.)

Unfortunately, this crate method of hiding supplies soon became the norm, and even great games began to suffer from excessive creating.

To determine which games have the best Start to Crate (StC) number (higher is better), Old Man Murray played through 26 games to see how long it takes to find a crate in each. (The shortest amount of time it takes a player to reach the first crate represents the point where the developers ran out of ideas.)

While one game managed to make it one hundred and twenty seconds without showing a crate, most fell in the five seconds or less category, and many even showed crates from the very beginning.

Thankfully, it’s not a crate emergency, though it is interesting to see just how widespread this problem is.

Can’t they just hide the ammo under a potted plant or something?

[Old Man Murray - Crate Review System]

[Photo Via: peamasher]