297: Pills Here!
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Lovely article, and quite true, too. Games wouldn't really be that interesting if you had to constantly worry about HOW and with what to heal yourself.
It's just much easier to eat a Sandvich, you know?
Of all the games I've played, the most realistic healing system was in Call of Chtulhu: the Dark Corners of the Earth. If i remember correctly, it had 4 types of wounds, and you needed 4 types of medical equipment to deal with them. If you fell from a high place, you'd break a leg and needed to use a splint to patch it up(though even that isn't as real as reality) If you didn't heal yourself up fast with a needle and some bandages, you'd bleed to death. And even if you managed to survive all those wounds, you'd still go crazy and shoot yourself if you looked at messed up things for too long.
I played the game quite a lot of time ago, and I was pretty damn impressed when i saw how it all worked and the little details, like a piece of bone sticking out of your leg. Your character was not pretty to look at after a long and difficult fight/escape, believe me. Though, to be honest, i had very little time to be impressed because most of the time i was really, really scared.
Also, i loved how you used the L4D meme for the article. I giggle every time Louis says those lines.
Obligatory Youtube video:
It's just much easier to eat a Sandvich, you know?
Of all the games I've played, the most realistic healing system was in Call of Chtulhu: the Dark Corners of the Earth. If i remember correctly, it had 4 types of wounds, and you needed 4 types of medical equipment to deal with them. If you fell from a high place, you'd break a leg and needed to use a splint to patch it up(though even that isn't as real as reality) If you didn't heal yourself up fast with a needle and some bandages, you'd bleed to death. And even if you managed to survive all those wounds, you'd still go crazy and shoot yourself if you looked at messed up things for too long.
I played the game quite a lot of time ago, and I was pretty damn impressed when i saw how it all worked and the little details, like a piece of bone sticking out of your leg. Your character was not pretty to look at after a long and difficult fight/escape, believe me. Though, to be honest, i had very little time to be impressed because most of the time i was really, really scared.
Also, i loved how you used the L4D meme for the article. I giggle every time Louis says those lines.
Obligatory Youtube video:
It's kind of noteworthy that Dungeons & Dragons, which introduced the concept of an abstract health meter/hit points, did have a table for the side effects of mixing magic potions since at least the late 1970s. And also noteworthy for how many DMs ignored it, if they even remembered it existed.
Healing is just another of those concepts like hunger, exhaustion, carrying capacity (in terms of weight, not number of objects) that is glossed over and abstracted by most games in the name of expediency. And usually for the better. Do you really want to go to the washroom in a game, The Sims notwithstanding?
Healing is just another of those concepts like hunger, exhaustion, carrying capacity (in terms of weight, not number of objects) that is glossed over and abstracted by most games in the name of expediency. And usually for the better. Do you really want to go to the washroom in a game, The Sims notwithstanding?
I never thought about the unintentional marketing here. A lot of people already have blind faith in modern medicine. That's why the med commercials are required to list side effects, to make it clear to people that there are no miracle drugs. A lot of parents are quick to put their kids on anti-depressants, not even aware of the various long-term physical and psychological side effects.
Side note: Ironically, the pills in Left 4 Dead weren't really health items. They were pain killers, they didn't really give you any health, they just made you feel like you had more health for a short period of time. They are arguably more realistic. But then the game did have the magic med packs.
Side note: Ironically, the pills in Left 4 Dead weren't really health items. They were pain killers, they didn't really give you any health, they just made you feel like you had more health for a short period of time. They are arguably more realistic. But then the game did have the magic med packs.
Blame TV and movies, first. They made CPR and a defibrillator into a magic spell more potent than any ingame medkit.Kojiro ftt said:
From http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=4131273#post4131273 (best thread ever).
Ah, health powerups. We can't make a video game hero as bulletproof as an action movie hero or it'd be a boring game, and this is the concession. But not why I'm here.
I'm here for pills.
When it comes to pills I much prefer pigeon Manderley rapping (6 minutes in). I love the Malkavian Mod.
See you just explained why Fallout: New Vegas confused me. I am encouraged to get high as a kite on all kinds of varying medication and the only drawback is a chance of addiction.
However there is actually a quest in the game where one option is to kill the NPC by spiking his supply of Jet with some Psycho. This causes him to die immediately on taking some. You character previously even says to the quest giver (if your medicine skill is high enough) that a little bit of psycho added to the guy's jet stash is fatal.
I stood over his corpse and tried the exact same thing to see what would happen (possibly not too bright here I know) and I didn't even get addicted to the stuff.
However there is actually a quest in the game where one option is to kill the NPC by spiking his supply of Jet with some Psycho. This causes him to die immediately on taking some. You character previously even says to the quest giver (if your medicine skill is high enough) that a little bit of psycho added to the guy's jet stash is fatal.
I stood over his corpse and tried the exact same thing to see what would happen (possibly not too bright here I know) and I didn't even get addicted to the stuff.
"Random pills, that's just like food!"
Taking things to their logical conclusion gets really hillarious in some games. I'm playing through Pokemon Black right now and now I'm wondering if there are berries to cure things worse than burns and frostbite. Have cancer? Just eat some fruit.
Taking things to their logical conclusion gets really hillarious in some games. I'm playing through Pokemon Black right now and now I'm wondering if there are berries to cure things worse than burns and frostbite. Have cancer? Just eat some fruit.
I think health/sheilds works well in the gaming universe. It is one of the things that I prefer to be as far from realism as possible. I would hate to think that if my character is shot in the leg, I have to go to A&E, wait in a room full of injured and diseased people before seeing a nurse, then waiting in another room on a sterile, uncomfortable bed for a doctor that couldn't care less. Then after I am all patched up, there would be physiotherapy, counselling, local law enforcers...
Fallout: New Vegas does have hardcore mode, where health is restored over time and you also have to eat, drink water and sleep regularly too. The problem is it all gets in the way of playing the game, in my opinion. It's nice to have a bit of realism but we must draw a line somewhere, and I think the health in most games straddles that line quite well.
Fallout: New Vegas does have hardcore mode, where health is restored over time and you also have to eat, drink water and sleep regularly too. The problem is it all gets in the way of playing the game, in my opinion. It's nice to have a bit of realism but we must draw a line somewhere, and I think the health in most games straddles that line quite well.
When thinking about food as a healing item, I remember the way food was treated in Oblivion. As you increase your alchemy skill and reveal the higher properties of the ingredients scattered about the land and present in food, I noticed that some items have some weird side effects. For example, the item of food whose property that I don't understand is strawberries.
In the real world, strawberries are delicious and nutritious at the same time. However, in Oblivion's world, strawberries have a tertiary property when you eat them or add them into a potion that damages your health. I don't know why the developers decided to give a fruit a property that would damage your health if eaten. If you are planning on poisoning someone in battle and happen to be near a farm, then you will most likely find a large amounts of strawberry plants with which to gain an advantage. But if you were looking for a delicious snack? You'd better look elsewhere.
In the real world, strawberries are delicious and nutritious at the same time. However, in Oblivion's world, strawberries have a tertiary property when you eat them or add them into a potion that damages your health. I don't know why the developers decided to give a fruit a property that would damage your health if eaten. If you are planning on poisoning someone in battle and happen to be near a farm, then you will most likely find a large amounts of strawberry plants with which to gain an advantage. But if you were looking for a delicious snack? You'd better look elsewhere.
Eh, I had some problems with Dark Corners of the Earth. Immersion is generally great, but some things, like an enemies' guns dissapearing into thin air rather than you being able to pick them up, are blatantly immersion destroying attempts to increase difficulty. The devs wanted to restrict your ammo and weapon availability, so they simply make the guns of enemies dissappear when they die, and force you to look in safes and closets for guns. Another example would be some areas where enemies infinitely respawn. There are also immersion reducing things that result in less difficulty- for example, you can carry several metric buttloads of guns and ammo. There is no canonical explanation for these events. The removal of a hud and the multiple stage healing system and such all add to the immersion, but these are overshadowed by the various things that reduce immersion. So in some ways the game is more immersive, in others, it is actually less immersive than other games.Owlslayer said:
I have to admit, i played it quite a long time ago ( it was available on a PC in 2006), and i don't remember that much. Only the most memorable parts got burned into my memory (aka most of the scary parts). So i don't really remember infinitely-spawning enemies.RelexCryo said:
Oh, and yeah...right now, when i finished typing the last sentence, i remembered something that really did agitate me when i was playing and ruined the immersion: the last part of the game, where you had to run, it was god-damn impossible.
But overall, i really liked it. Though, i supposed if i would play now, i might have a different opinion, but alas, i will not. Don't want to ruin good memories
The STALKER series tends to show a fairly realistic healing system. Sure Medical Kits are insta-heal but only by so much and you have different sets that not only heal you but come with meds to cure radiation. Then of course there are the bandages that you have to use to stop bleeding because Med Packs only heal you. The artifacts that automatically heal you can be explained because the radiation some of them give off a specific (but not real) kind of radiation that messes with your body, causing it to mend itself up.
And in Dead Space 2, we have no idea what's in those med packs. It's at least a century into the future (I think more than one) and it could legitimately work that fast. Pills on the other hand are, well, pills. By definition they don't work as soon as you take them.
And in Dead Space 2, we have no idea what's in those med packs. It's at least a century into the future (I think more than one) and it could legitimately work that fast. Pills on the other hand are, well, pills. By definition they don't work as soon as you take them.
Good stuff.
I tend to not care much about unrealistic healing either. As you hint at towards the end of the article, having to stop and preform some kind of surgery-sim in the middle of the action would completely destroy the flow of gameplay, not to mention not being very fun for people who like action-based games (you can go play Trauma Center on Wii if you want that).
You mentioned MGS4, but I think a game that deserves more mention in this article is MGS3. MGS3 introduced the "survival viewer," where among other things, you had to mend Snake's wounds with various specific medical items, depending on the type of injury (such as splints, bandages, ointment, styptic, sutures, etc). There was no real skill involved with this, however, as it just required selecting an item and pressing a button while in a pause menu. It was pretty obnoxious during events like boss fights where you'd constantly be pausing and going through a minute-long healing process a bunch of times. It upset the flow of the game.
Furthermore, it failed at its own intent.
When you try to use more "realistic" means of healing in a game, but allow the player to do it almost unlimited times and at their own leisure, it in turn winds up feeling MORE unrealistic than just hitting a button to use a magical medkit. I mean, what, are the enemies just standing around twiddling their thumbs while you bandage your chest and set a fractured humerus? On top of that, having the player visualize the wounds realistically -- bone fractures, gaping wounds, burns, etc -- makes it feel even more unrealistic, as all those things require lots of healing time. You can't just stick a splint on and go running off hunkey-dorey in a few seconds.
So yeah. Medkits are a trope I don't mind having around for a long time. Its benefit to gameplay far outweighs its silliness.
ps: good mentions of Call of Cthulhu by other posters. It also attempted a more "realistic" healing process similar to that of MGS3 that wound up feeling less realistic in the long run.
I tend to not care much about unrealistic healing either. As you hint at towards the end of the article, having to stop and preform some kind of surgery-sim in the middle of the action would completely destroy the flow of gameplay, not to mention not being very fun for people who like action-based games (you can go play Trauma Center on Wii if you want that).
You mentioned MGS4, but I think a game that deserves more mention in this article is MGS3. MGS3 introduced the "survival viewer," where among other things, you had to mend Snake's wounds with various specific medical items, depending on the type of injury (such as splints, bandages, ointment, styptic, sutures, etc). There was no real skill involved with this, however, as it just required selecting an item and pressing a button while in a pause menu. It was pretty obnoxious during events like boss fights where you'd constantly be pausing and going through a minute-long healing process a bunch of times. It upset the flow of the game.
Furthermore, it failed at its own intent.
When you try to use more "realistic" means of healing in a game, but allow the player to do it almost unlimited times and at their own leisure, it in turn winds up feeling MORE unrealistic than just hitting a button to use a magical medkit. I mean, what, are the enemies just standing around twiddling their thumbs while you bandage your chest and set a fractured humerus? On top of that, having the player visualize the wounds realistically -- bone fractures, gaping wounds, burns, etc -- makes it feel even more unrealistic, as all those things require lots of healing time. You can't just stick a splint on and go running off hunkey-dorey in a few seconds.
So yeah. Medkits are a trope I don't mind having around for a long time. Its benefit to gameplay far outweighs its silliness.
ps: good mentions of Call of Cthulhu by other posters. It also attempted a more "realistic" healing process similar to that of MGS3 that wound up feeling less realistic in the long run.
Make developers aware: The Red Cross on white background is a copyrighted symbol owned by International Red Cross, and it happens more often than not that attribution for this effect is not paid in proper.
[img_inline caption="Shown: Copyright Infringement" width=300]http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/0/02/Largehealth.png[/img_inline]
[img_inline caption="Shown: Copyright Infringement" width=300]http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/0/02/Largehealth.png[/img_inline]
I enjoy the "magic bandage" of Action Quake 2 -- quite possibly the first "realistic shooter", the game strives for "movie realism". In that game, there are no healthkits, but bandaging will stop any bleeding and splint your leg if necessary, and takes six seconds.
I'd swear I've seen at least one newspaper headline suggesting this.randommaster said:
OT: I'd like to see more use of health items as a risk/reward calculation. Similar to, for instance, Jedi Outcast, which has you stand still and defenseless while Force-healing at low level. Introducing a potential drawback to popping pills (a side-effect, if you will) encourages players to think more carefully about whether to use them.
What's that? Another chance to plug Earthbound? Why yes, I do believe I'll take that one...
The above mentioned game takes an interesting approach to food--condiments! Condiments make everything better, used correctly, and will amplify the effects of food. And food, well, food is a magical item that restores health! And, no just health--puddings, cakes, pies, truffles, and other delicious desserts will supply Psychic energy, revitalizing you! Who knew??
Then there's the Gauntlet strategy, of offering different levels of food. Fruit? Well, if you have a papercut, sure, go get some fruit. What? Ham? Well, you better be missing a leg, ya hear? Eh? What's that? You're almost decapitated, you've stepped in spring-launched spikes, your arm is on fire, and you're more than a bit peckish? Well, you best get a meal then--hop to it it kiddo!
The above mentioned game takes an interesting approach to food--condiments! Condiments make everything better, used correctly, and will amplify the effects of food. And food, well, food is a magical item that restores health! And, no just health--puddings, cakes, pies, truffles, and other delicious desserts will supply Psychic energy, revitalizing you! Who knew??
Then there's the Gauntlet strategy, of offering different levels of food. Fruit? Well, if you have a papercut, sure, go get some fruit. What? Ham? Well, you better be missing a leg, ya hear? Eh? What's that? You're almost decapitated, you've stepped in spring-launched spikes, your arm is on fire, and you're more than a bit peckish? Well, you best get a meal then--hop to it it kiddo!
Perhaps the concept of consumption for either medicine or food is just a sign of our nation as a group of consumers, blindly grabbing and devouring what we think we need, without having any time to think of the side effects, or to look back at what happened.
Yeah, Taskmaker and Tomb of Taskmaker had that... TOT's highest (best) healing item was a can of spinach. "I'm hero the sailor man..." Okay, maybe not. And then you had everything from iron rations to apples and steak for your healing needs, plus potion of healing. Avernum goes this one better. Not only do you have all sorts of food and potions to heal with, but bandages as well!BehattedWanderer said:
You forgot to mention that junkie Lara Croft. She chugs more pain medication than Dr House! I wonder who leaves all this medication lying around? Especially in tombraider. She's going into a tomb where no where has entered for thousands of years, but then who left all these weapons, ammos, and medipacks about??