Spider-Man's Knickers

[INF1NIT3 D00M]

Okay, before I get ninja'd, Red Orchestra 2 did this.

EDIT: Now to elaborate. In Red Orchestra 2, you start the multiplayer portion of the game as a recruit. You have all your gear strapped to your back, you have your helmet securely fastened, and you have the basic rifle.
As you level up, your gear gradually strips away from your character. By the end, your character probably just has their gun, a helmet, and a shovel. Your guns may or may not be battle-scarred, but you definitely will have attachments for them and you will also have picked up some enemy weapons.
From the enemy team's perspective, there isn't much difference between enemies, but if you stop to look, or you're playing with both a high level and low level teammate, there is a difference between the skins each player has.

Also, once you "finish" leveling up, you receive a "hero" skin. You basically turn into the dirtiest, patchiest, most battle-scarred and lightly equipped officer on the battlefield.

 

[Trishbot]

Well, Garrus is space-Batman after all...

Boring, overrated, and the subject of more memes than actual thought?

Captcha: Stop asking me which dish soap is eco-friendly! I still don't know!

Batman never had hot, intimate, inter-species alien sex with me. Garrus did.

Point for Garrus.

 

[SonicWaffle]

...probably take more blows to the head than a disobedient hooker.

Seriously? You're going to be that guy?

I've always been that guy. Pleased to meet you! Hope you guess my name...

 

[SonicWaffle]

Well, Garrus is space-Batman after all...

Boring, overrated, and the subject of more memes than actual thought?

Captcha: Stop asking me which dish soap is eco-friendly! I still don't know!

Batman never had hot, intimate, inter-species alien sex with me. Garrus did.

Point for Garrus.

To be fair, have you ever given Batman the chance? He might be up for it, you never know. He could even turn out to have tentacles under those wings somewhere.

 

[maninahat]

My favourite "story behind the wounds" character comes from No One Lives Forever 2, in which the devious super villain spends the entire game in a wheelchair, cacooned in bandages. About half way through, you eventually find out why. Skip to 5:27 in the video:

 

[Mahoshonen]

Regarding the last paragraph as to where Spiderman gets thread, I dunno...maybe if he had a thread-making animal do it for him. Like a spider. Have to be a big spider, though. Big as a person.

 

[Kargathia]

I'll just note that the whole concept of gradually looking more like you've ran out of fucks to give is something Red Orchestra 2 is doing. You start out as a fresh-faced recruit in a neat uniform, but the higher your level, the more dirtied and worn you look like. Very high level characters for example go into warm-weather battles with rolled-up sleeves.

It's very subtle though, especially as you don't spend much time looking at your character model, it being a first-person shooter and all.

That might actually might for a pretty interesting mechanic, if the degrading skill weren't automatic and time-based; the more damage a character takes over the course of the game, the more skill points/levels/stats or whatever they lose. Play well, protect your character, and retain your best abilities. Play badly, charge into fights without planning or just get knocked down too many times and your abilities will diminish. Imagine that sort of game on a Ninja Gaiden style difficulty level :-/

Actually, that mostly reminds me of Shogun II: Total War. Your units gain veterancy in battles, but replenishing their numbers causes the entire unit to lose veterancy, as it is diluting its battle-hardened veterans with fresh recruits. It functions as an incitement to try and not only win, but win with as few casualties as possible.

 

[04whim]

That was one of the things I liked about the X-Men Origins tie in Wolverine game. Wolverine got damaged and regenerated, but his clothes didn't take part in that second part. Although his jeans staying pristine the entire time was always a bit weird. And it happened in-game.

 

[Yosarian2]

That might actually might for a pretty interesting mechanic, if the degrading skill weren't automatic and time-based; the more damage a character takes over the course of the game, the more skill points/levels/stats or whatever they lose. Play well, protect your character, and retain your best abilities. Play badly, charge into fights without planning or just get knocked down too many times and your abilities will diminish. Imagine that sort of game on a Ninja Gaiden style difficulty level :-/

Well, that doesn't really work; it means that the most skilled people end up playing a less challanging game, which isn't what they will enjoy, and the least skilled people end up playing a more challanging game, which REALLY isn't what they will enjoy. It would kind of make the game worst for everyone.

 

[Murlin]

Regarding the last paragraph as to where Spiderman gets thread, I dunno...maybe if he had a thread-making animal do it for him. Like a spider. Have to be a big spider, though. Big as a person.

How could such a thing even exist?

OT: I don't know if I'd enjoy receiving scars as achievements. But having wounds after tough fights that scar later on in games like Skyrim could add something. It sometimes strikes me as bizarre that you can get mauled by a freaking bear and still your face doesn't even show any wrinkles.
Maybe this could even become a mechanic: if you don't visit a doctor or patch yourself up your wounds start infecting and you suffer stat decrease and fatigue.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Yeah, I remember The Prince doing that with his shirt and chest armor in The Sands of Time. Is this going to be a trend in single-player games, story-induced clothing damage? SOmetimes it's clever, and sometimes it sounds like a cheap gimmick.

captcha: puppy dog

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

Shadow of the colossus did this really well, by the way.

I was going to say that. You look at yourself at one point and go, "Oh my god, I'm a monster!" Adds the the story in a fantastically subtle way.

 

[Agow95]

Well if I ever make a game I'll put in a scar for every achievement.

 

[SonicWaffle]

That might actually might for a pretty interesting mechanic, if the degrading skill weren't automatic and time-based; the more damage a character takes over the course of the game, the more skill points/levels/stats or whatever they lose. Play well, protect your character, and retain your best abilities. Play badly, charge into fights without planning or just get knocked down too many times and your abilities will diminish. Imagine that sort of game on a Ninja Gaiden style difficulty level :-/

Well, that doesn't really work; it means that the most skilled people end up playing a less challanging game, which isn't what they will enjoy, and the least skilled people end up playing a more challanging game, which REALLY isn't what they will enjoy. It would kind of make the game worst for everyone.

Not really - this is why we have difficulty levels. For the skilled player surviving at high difficulties would be a challenge, and for the less skilled playing at low difficulty would still be a challenge.

 

[joshuaayt]

It makes sense for Spidey, though- he's literally always messing his costume up, because he IS a total spaz- especially in Ultimate (On which Amazing was totally based no matter what the mean kids say).

Thematically, it may not really do a whole lot, but I felt the costume damage did plenty to add some weight to each individual encounter- I mean, fuck, the dude is a kid, of course he's out of his depth in every single battle. He sure keeps winning, though. He drags his ass back to that apartment every time.

 

[Rot Krieg]

I just finished Spec Ops: The Line the other day, and maybe it's because it's fresh in my mind, but I think that game probably had the best use of damage over time on the character models I've ever seen in a game. Certainly it helped with making the characters vulnerable, which helped to make them seem even more badass, but it was the thematic connotations that I liked.

The state of the characters models, going from clean, undamaged models to bloody, beaten characters with tattered clothing, mirrored their emotional states, going from calm, emotionally stable soldiers there to do a job to broken men, beaten and wearied not just by physical trauma, but the actions they've taken and the horrors they've witnessed, barely able to stop from tearing each other apart.

In the end, Walker's sleeves are torn off, leaving him looking like he's in a vest (in a throwback to the Vietnam aesthetic of Apocalypse Now), and his face is torn apart. One of the final scenes has him standing next to a mirror. The camera is on the right side of his face, showing his bloody, burned, and scarred side, while in the mirror you see his far less mangled left side, which is cleaner, and has only one major cut, which resembles a cross. The battle damage the character has acquired is in this scene used to represent his fractured psyche, and his internal conflict; his desire to do the right thing and help people, and his burning need to kill everything in his path.

 

[hydroblitz]

When I played through Arkham Asylum, The clothing damage was actually somewhat disturbing. I always saw batman as untouchable, a highly skilled badass in every sense of the word, a legend that strikes fear in the hearts of criminals everywhere. But then as the game went on, I saw he was human and vulnerable. It was very effective.

 

[Caffeine_Bombed]

Anyone else really NOT want a spider-cheeseburger?

 

[Porecomesis]

Yahtzee, actually using the word "badass" to describe a character? Well, this is new.