Silly Features You Appreciate In Games

[spartandude]

The Journal Entries / Quest Descriptions by Dandelion in Witcher 2. I like how he just adds his own flavour to describing the whole thing, and I like how it keeps track of my decisions relating to the quest. I often find myself just reading over what he has to say after I finish a quest, it's like reading a mini-book

I loved how they did that, kinda of like him telling our story to us, adds alot more flavour than what most RPGs do

 

[Aeshi]

Some of the human vehicles in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars have a small fully-functional GPS/Minimap on their Dashboards if you go into 1st person.

Not much point since you have a mini-map, but cute nonetheless

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

In Guild Wars 2, I like the attention to detail that's been given to dialogue. NPCs will sometimes give different responses based on things like the race of the player, not the same dialogue with different variables but as in totally unique conversations. There is at least one quest in the Asura starting area where interacting with quest NPCs will give completely different back and forth conversations depending on what race you are.

I also like how there are same sex couples in the game, but it's not rammed down the player's throat. In fact they're so subtle about it you won't even notice they're there unless you're specifically looking for it.

 

[EeviStev]

A Boy and his Blob
the hug button.
every game should have one.

Made me think of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee's fart button
Which brings me to my silly feature: in-game character banter. O:MO made me think of it because whenever you tell a character to stay or follow, the one you're talking to says something. Just a simple sentence like "Hey, Abe!" or "There's my buddy", but it always made me smile.

And of course, this applies to The Last of Us. Every time Ellie exclaims at Joel's violent methods of interment, or at, well, any notable feature in the landscape, it makes me smile. Add that to the list of little things that make TLoU brilliant.

 

[Britisheagle]

Assassins Creed games have loads of minute details that make character movement look far more natural and deliberate. An example is you never go from full sprint to walk, the character slows. Little things like that.

Also looking down and seeing your body in first person games. It is immersion breaking in both Infinite when you have no reflection or body, apart from cutscenes and in CoD4:MW in the car you look down and realise you are a floating camera.

 

[RandomWhiteGuy]

Mirror's Edge did this too, and in FIRST PERSON.

Speaking of which, I love seeing the rest of my character's body when I look down. It really adds to a good sense of immersion and orientation, and more FPS games need this. I mean, for fuck's sake, Metal Gear Solid 4 did this, and it was primarily third-person!

One of my favorite things to do in Mirror's Edge was flick people off. You even got an achievement for it!

I know other people have already seconded your opinion, but I feel it bares repeating. If I'm playing an FPS (or any game in first person), I like to feel that I'm not just a floating camera. I also agree that little things like characters actually interacting with their environment (a la Uncharted) go a long way to solidify immersion.

 

[hermes]

I know this sounds frivolous, but I like when a game's trophies/achievements has different icons, that somehow represents what the trophy means. I like to see at a profile and being able to tell, not only which games my friends have been playing, but how far into them they are. Besides, icons are different on each game and they add to some of the visual style of the game.

I was disappointed when I saw all the God of War and Infamous games use the same, single icon for all the trophies (and, in the case of God of War, its the same icon in all 5 games)... come on, put some effort into it.

 

[9thRequiem]

I like games that let me screw around in unexpected ways. Not exactly a feature, but still funny.

The Elder Scrolls game Redguard was great for this - there were whole sections you could bypass with the right jump, areas you shouldn't have been able to get to that you actually could, and all sorts of mischief you could get up to in an otherwise linear game.

Perfect Dark (the original) had things like this too - You could wreck cutscenes with certain equipment / weapons.

 

[Leemaster777]

This one is a bit odd, but I LOVE that bit in No More Heroes, where Sylvia calls you before every boss fight, and you have to hold the Wii Remote up to your ear like a cell phone. It's just so... immersive? Why aren't there more games that let you use the Wii Remote like a cell phone?

Seriously, I know this is weird, but I love that. Hell, it's one of the main things I PREFER about No More Heroes 1 over 2.

 

[JEBWrench]

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (sorry, Chrome spell check, but revengeance is actually a word) and being able to chop almost anything into tiny pieces, while keeping score.

 

[Anezay]

Uncharted and The Last of Us both feature this and I absolutely love seeing it. It's a tiny tiny tiny detail that most gamers won't (consciously) notice.

In Uncharted, when Drake is running and gets close to a wall, he puts his hand out to steady himself. You don't really notice this but Drake braces himself when he's near a wall....am I the only one who finds this freaking fascinating!?!? So many game protagonists just slam into the wall at full speed that would likely kill your dumb ass but not Nathan Drake!

In The Last of Us, when Ellie and Joel are close together during a firefight behind cover, Joel will hug in against the wall with Ellie tight up against him. Most games would put you both just sitting there but Joel actually has his arm around Ellie against the wall. Again, I feel like I'm the only one who finds this freaking fascinating but I absolutely LOVE this little detail.

I don't think I'm explaining LoU very well so here's an example:

Spoiler

This isn't exact it since this looks to be a screenshot and not actual game-play but it's similar to this. IT MATTERS FOR IMMERSION DAMN IT >.<

Maybe someone else who has played this amazing game will be able to explain the animation better

Yeah, that bit in tLoU was pretty cool. It's just more natural than the usual method of having your guy kneel next to a wall waiting for his next victim while your escortee just stands awkwardly to the side picking their nose.

Also a fan of jumping for no reason and seeing yourself, but those were already mentioned and I don't feel like going through the effort of a quote.

 

[BarkBarker]

Interactive and enjoyable loading screens. Don't stick me in an elevator or long tunnel or what have you to hide a load, give me a loading screen, and let me do something in it! DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi had a great one, you used the spirit ball with yamcha and hit bricks, it felt enjoyable and was a fun thing to kill time during loads, more loading screens with something fun to are great, hell they only need the production value of a arcade game like tetris, I WOULD TOTALLY PLAY A TETRIS KNOCK OFF WHILE WAITING FOR THE LOAD.

 

[JEBWrench]

Interactive and enjoyable loading screens. Don't stick me in an elevator or long tunnel or what have you to hide a load, give me a loading screen, and let me do something in it! DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi had a great one, you used the spirit ball with yamcha and hit bricks, it felt enjoyable and was a fun thing to kill time during loads, more loading screens with something fun to are great, hell they only need the production value of a arcade game like tetris, I WOULD TOTALLY PLAY A TETRIS KNOCK OFF WHILE WAITING FOR THE LOAD.

While I don't disagree that interactive loading screens are a great thing - I hear Bayonetta let you practice combos, for example - there are some interesting non-interactive ones too. Spec Ops: The Line's loading screens were fantastic.

 

[Gronk]

"Interstate '76" is one of my favourite games when it comes to silly little features. A totally useless one that comes to mind is the "poetry button", which made your driver ask your wingman "Hey Taurus, how about a poem?". Taurus would then start reading a poem over the radio. I think there were like 10 or 12 different poems he would read. Made me laugh every time .

Another, more useful feature in the game was the one where you could drive up next to another car and shoot your handgun out through the side window. If you managed to kill the other driver, his car would ease to a halt and you would hear the horn as if someone had their head on it. Pure genious, don't know if I ever saw that in another game.

 

[Something Amyss]

custom soundtracks (pick a game with it, any game): there's nothing quite like loading up an epic boss fight, then cuing up "Yaketty Sax."

Makes ANY game better.

 

[Pink Gregory]

custom soundtracks (pick a game with it, any game): there's nothing quite like loading up an epic boss fight, then cuing up "Yaketty Sax."

Makes ANY game better.

In my head, Conflict Desert Storm is permanently soundtracked by Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman".

How come only something like five games on the Xbox had that feature?

 

[Something Amyss]

custom soundtracks (pick a game with it, any game): there's nothing quite like loading up an epic boss fight, then cuing up "Yaketty Sax."

Makes ANY game better.

In my head, Conflict Desert Storm is permanently soundtracked by Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman".

How come only something like five games on the Xbox had that feature?

Probably for the exact same reasons we've demonstrated.

I think if someone put up the Sepiroth boss fight from FFVII on YouTube with Yakety Sax instead of "One Winged Angel," Squeenix would not only file a DMCA complaint but also send assassins to the household in question.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I love idle animations, if your character waits around long enough they start messing around or fidgeting. Zelda games do this really well, Link will adjust his tunic, inspect his sword and shield, stretch and yawn, shiver in the cold, wipe his forehead in the heat etc. It helps characters feel a little more alive.

Also, I love reloading animations in first-person shooters, I can't explain it, but if the reloading animation looks smooth or a little complex, I find it satisfying.

 

[Legion]

In The Last of Us, when Ellie and Joel are close together during a firefight behind cover, Joel will hug in against the wall with Ellie tight up against him. Most games would put you both just sitting there but Joel actually has his arm around Ellie against the wall. Again, I feel like I'm the only one who finds this freaking fascinating but I absolutely LOVE this little detail.

I don't think I'm explaining LoU very well so here's an example:

Spoiler

This isn't exact it since this looks to be a screenshot and not actual game-play but it's similar to this. IT MATTERS FOR IMMERSION DAMN IT >.<

Maybe someone else who has played this amazing game will be able to explain the animation better

I liked that too, but I wouldn't call it "silly", it's more like a minor detail that is appreciated. I don't mean that to sound argumentative, it's just when I think "silly" I tend to think of something that's a little childish like in Army of Two where you can bro-fist or air guitar with the co-op partner.

EDIT: Although this looks like a case where the title and the OP seem to be a little different from one another. *grumbles*

 

[conmag9]

The first Fire Emblem to come out in English had the characters speak to you, the player, but not in a forth-wall breaking sense. I LOVE when games do that, making the player a character, not just a character the player plays. One of the reasons I liked Baten Kaitos, actually. I understand Fire Emblem Awakening has a similar feature, but as much as I want to play it, I refuse to shell out the money for a 3DS for the one game on it I'm interested in getting. Did it really need to come out for that? Ugg.

Also, games that give you lots of info dumps that you don't HAVE to read, but can if you think it's interesting. Metroid Prime did this in a way I loved, and Dragon Age to an extent.