Favorite Video Game Gimmicks?

I don't know if "gimmick" is the right word, so let me try to explain. I'm talking about things you see in many games, such as certain level designs, that may feel out of place or forced. Something like that. Anyway, my example would be explodable barrels which are features in pretty much every shooter ever. They often out of place and don't make much sense for the level/area of the game. Enemies often foolishly take cover behind them. It's dumb, it's forced, but damn do I love it anyway.

Exploding barrels are always fun.

Level ups. "I know I've only been doing this thing I've never done before for 2 hours but man have I improved! Who needs years of training?"

Yeah, it makes no sense to go from farmer to a demi-god in an afternoon but it's certainly fun!

Character Creation

Not meaning class or race selection, actually sculpting your character, picking hair/ beards/ eye color/ body type.

It's purely cosmetic, has no real gameplay benefit in any game that comes to mind. Only little things like weight and height sometimes, though never an important factor for playing the game.

But I like having my own creation running in a world. Whether it be an RPG games like Dragon's Dogma or Platformers like Little Big Planet.

Ant-loins, completely overpowered, but that's kinda why they are great.

There are RPGs where character creation plays a huge deal. An extreme example would be the Infinity Engine games, like Baldur's Gate. In Baldur's Gate there were very few and very limited ways to change your initial stats but they played a huge role in your character advancement. They greatly affected damage you did or how many spells you could cast between rest.

Modern game design seems to put less and less mechanical emphasis on character creation, mostly because devs realized that it's hard to make such important decisions relating to your character's advancement when you haven't played the game yet.

Running at someone who has a gun, with a knife.

And winning

Funny stuff when it works :P

I like when characters in games break the 4th wall. It adds an extra layer of comedy to whatever the game is tbh

@pug987: "Not meaning class or race selection, actually sculpting your character, picking hair/ beards/ eye color/ body type."

I edited this in moments after the post and before I saw your reply, as I thought people would get the wrong idea. Even though I hoped many would know the difference.

As it states I'm not mentioning class selection, what your 'role' is, or anything like that.

Baldur's Gate lacks alot of the character creation I'm referring towards, so pardon any confusion.

Running at someone who has a gun, with a knife.

And winning

Funny stuff when it works :P

Swords>Knives>>>Guns. This is just the law of all fiction :)

I exaggerate a little but love melee weapons in games and other media.

Hmm, gimmicks

There are many like in a game where they took the time to put air in the car tires so when you shoot them, they become flat. Which they didn´t have to.

So i guess i enjoy the eye for detail, windows smashable, barrels exploding etc. etc. etc.

Reminds me of exploding cars. I guess cars can burst into flames in real life, but they way they do in video games is often over the top and hilarious. I can't think of many games that have done this, but I remember being able to shoot at the gas tank for an immediate explosion. I'm playing Mafia 3 right now and you can shoot out the front tires of a vehicle causing it to spin out and explode in a massive fireball. Sleeping Dogs had something similar to that.

Just thought of slo-motion shooting in general. Usually pretty fun and unnecessary. I hate those Call of Duty breaching moments, though. And though it's exclusive to Fallout - VATS. So silly, so awesome.

Destructible buildings and environments are some of my favorites. They still haven't been done to the completely realistic point I'd like to see but here's hoping one day they will.

hmmmm probably sticky cover.

I mean, it's the most useless mechanic ever incorporated; we've been taking cover in action game for years without there needing to be an actual "mechanic" specifically designed for it.

"oh look, a crate/wall/barrier/etc, I think I will crouch behind it, then peek over it and look/shoot/etc occasionally"....c'mon, we've been doing that since forever. Occasionally, a game would incorporate a "lean" feature and that'd be really awesome!

Then along comes Gears of War (I Don't think they were the first, but they sure popularized it) and they made the whole concept of "sticky cover" a thing; suddenly rushing to the nearest piece of cover and getting on it and staying there was this big piece of gameplay, and now all these games started doing it.

And people (me too!) loved it! It's the most gimmicky, silly thing in the whole world introduced to games in the last couple decades (hyperbole) and yet it is so awesome for some reason. There's something about being attached to that lovely piece of cover, being able to do a number of contextual things (peek, dodge, roll, melee from it, etc)...

...and again, most of these we have been doing since forever, but now we have a button assigned to it. Amazing.

haha yeah, totally unrealistic even in a game that screams anti-realism. But damn I love it.

*bang bang bang*

*sees barrel*

"oooooh BARREL!!!!!!!"

*bang BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

*bang bang bang*

Read a nice article about this a while ago, I will see if I can find it.

@mrbojangles25: I do appreciate sticky cover now that I think about it. I also like how things to take cover behind are often so random and don't really fit the environment. Like you walk into a room or something and you know there's going to be a firefight soon because of all the things there are to duck behind.

@balrogbane: I feel like Bad Company 2 was my first introduction to destructible buildings and such, at least on that scale. So fun to see just a small chunk of wall left knowing that a well placed RPG shot will send the building crumbling down.

I do like the V.A.T.S system but oddly I like it more in FO4 than NV and 3.

Best Slo-mo I can think of is the original Max Payne. It's very well done in that game.

@gncalvin Advertising is not allowed on GD.

• Topics in which you are advertising, promoting, soliciting and offering goods/services for commercial purposes or financial gain.

https://www.gamespot.com/forums/games-discussion-1000000/games-discussion-board-rules-updated-may-8-2015-31188094/#0

Lol pretty sure that's a bot or spam account or something

I generally don't like motion controls, but those Wii Sports games were always fun