Unimportant Things In Games That Make You Grin And Think 'Neat'

[Vykrel]

the games not out yet, but in Ravaged, if you shoot another player in the balls, he lurches over and grabs them.

if youre accurate enough to shoot someone in the crotch, they should pretty much be out of commission. i dunno about you folks, but id just be ready to die at that point.

 

[-|-]

I liked how in Dead Space 2 the mapping lines where curved instead of angular.

 

[Fractral]

In GalCiv 2 the AI has some funny lines. If you make them a offer the refuse they insult you. Sometimes they'll tap the translator and say 'Is this working properly?' Also, the AI is amazing at seeing your strategies- if you build up a fleet of ships near or on the border of another races territory, they notice it. I once had the Arceans say 'What do you think this is, a video game? In real life, that tactic never works'.

 

[Ham Blitz]

The only one I can think of that hasn't been mentioned (Or maybe I missed) is in Deus Ex Human Revolution. I actually laughed out loud when I was sneaking in to an enemy bunker through a window, and noticed a Final Fantasy 27 Poster next to one of the beds.

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Stats pages.

I love when a game meticulously records all manner of weird stats from my adventure.

You'd like the stats in Alpha Protocol; it records "Number of orphans created"[footnote]I know that technically they're not orphans just from losing one parent, but it's a more wieldy phrase than any alternatives.[/footnote], including the fact that different types of enemies have different numbers of children on average. Chinese secret police, for example, always have no more than one child.

There is also this classic from Dragon Age 2.

Apostates? Prostitutes? Apostitutes!

Ooh! Ooh! Also: "And then Isabela went to the Chantry, and saw that it was...boring. Canticle of Isabela, stanza one, verse one."

It's just these occasional snide asides that really make me snigger.

Isabela: Besides, one day you and Donnic will have children, and I'm the last person you'd want around them. Imagine all the awkward questions you'd have to answer; "Mother, what's a slattern?"
Aveline: I'll just point at you say, "That's a slattern."

Or

Isabela: Aveline, if you shove your thumb up his arse, I win.

 

[3quency]

The dialogue options for Malks in Bloodlines.

For the uninformed, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a game based on White Wolf's goth-punk tabletop RPG, and the Malkavian vampire clan are fucking nuts.

It really carries across in game when you play one. It's glorious.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

But little superfluous details like in Persona 4 Yosuke is probably the character who has the worst luck in the game. And in the dungeon portions, he's the party member with the lowest luck stat.

Just little things like that kind of make me smile.

Seriously? That's neat. Next time I boot up the ps2, I'll have to check that out.

OT: I love the way Nathan Drake goes down stairs in Uncharted 2.

He always keeps one foot forward and the other sideways.

It's the little things that keep you going.

 

[DarthAcerbus]

I like when characters have a stair climbing/descending animation distinct from their normal running animation.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Stats pages.

I love when a game meticulously records all manner of weird stats from my adventure.

I like these but only when you're not put on a harsh grading scale. Sonic Team something or other was one where it seemed like no matter how well I did in one area, there would be several move stats that kept my grade from going over a D or C.

---

I loved how in Halo 3 (I think it was the second or third level) if you went down the left path while the base is being stormed by Covenant you would get 1 of 4 Easter egg conversations from the guys behind Red vs Blue.

 

[Noswad]

The crates in borderlands, there's just something special about a good box opening animation, it's like Christmas you come downstairs to find all your new loot wrapped in brightly coloured paper under the Christmas tree, it wouldn't be half as special if they were just dumped in the floor in the bags they came in.

Not enough games get this right, Borderlands, the legend of Zelda series and I'm struggling to find any more.

 

[TecnoMonkey]

I once shot a fly in Deus Ex. I was just passing by someone I had killed in the first mission and accidentaly fired my pistol and with that saw something fall to the floor, I wondered if I had killed a fly, since I knew they are attracted to corpses and garbage so I started investigating the ground and what do you know, found a black dot on the floor, when I put my crosshairs over it the interaction box appeared but no name, I also couldn't do anything with it and no message would appear if I pressed the interact button.

Still, pretty cool.

 

[cdemares]

Sailing in Two Worlds 2. In chapter 2, you can find a boat you can buy. It's not marked and totally optional, but you can sail around the world and stuff. You can't really cheat, though. The rest of the game is well gated to keep sailors from skipping huge chunks of story mode.

References to other games.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Some of mine are probably going to date me as a fogey.

Borderlands: I second the chest-openning animation. Also the degree to which everyone is crazy as fuck. I wonder if Pandora has some weird geomagnetic field or something that messes with brains.

GTA III and Vice City the head and tail lights reflect in columns in the wet pavement. Sadly, the effect was forgotten in San Andreas

Also, in any sandbox game: birds.

Half Life: Opposing Force: Petting the spore launcher. That the spore launcher occasionally asks for pets.

Freedom Fighter: The joy your buddies express when they man a gun emplacement. Say hello to my little friend!

Left 4 Dead 2 Never-ending banter. I still hear bits that I hadn't heard before. Also, Ellis used to be infatuated with Zoey, but I think he's more smitten by Francis, or his true love, the Jimmy Gibbs.

Also, the graffiti!

Valve games in general: the ability to hotkey basic dialogue options. It helps keep a team cohesive to be able to say "Thank you", "I'm sorry" and "Good job!" with a keytap.

Star Wars: Republic Commando: I second the screen wiper, which clears oil, bug innards, rain and impact cracks.

Thief: The Dark Project: The first game (that I know) to allow leaning left, right and forward (makes peering over cliffs safer). Also, single-button controls for creep, walk and run. Having chorded sprint keys (especially when the sprint key doesn't chord with anything else but forward) has become a pet peeve of mine, but one I fix with hotkey software.

238U

 

[Hemlet]

Little audio/visual touches that make sense in the world of the game always make me smile.

In Evochron Mercenary for example, if you're out in the space boonies with no charted systems nearby, you can turn your ship around until your HUD catches the glare from a (relatively) nearby star. If you pull a 180 and start jumping in that direction, you'll eventually find said star.

In EYE: Divine Cybermancy, none of the sniper rifles have scopes. This is because your character has augmented eyes that can just zoom in that far.

In Bastion, the narrator commenting on little things like your weapon load-out and how it would've seemed in the pre-calamity world really makes you care about a civilization that you never, ever see.

In Lunar Flight, you can flick a bunch of little switches in the cockpit to do things like recover lost cargo, collect data, and unload/upload cargo or data. There's one switch though that you never need to turn off and on, but can anyway if you feel like it: your transponder that you use for finding lost cargo. When it's on it starts to beep steadily faster as you get closer. But if you want you can turn it off. There's absolutely no reason to, but you can. Also all the switches make really really satisfying little clicky noises.

In Saints Row 2, your character will sing along (badly) to "The Final Countdown" if it comes on the radio while he/she is driving. The first time this happened I had to put the controller down because I was laughing so hard.

EDIT: My grammar is bad and I should feel bad.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

For me it's always reload animations and idle animations in FPS's. Unique animations depending on if the gun is empty or not is always a nice touch, especially if you're getting shot at and the reload is taking longer.

The animations in Soldier of Fortune were good as well, especially with the .44 pistol. Occasionally he'd just spin it around, always felt cool after taking some dudes out, spinning and reloading.

 

[cojo965]

For me it's always reload animations and idle animations in FPS's. Unique animations depending on if the gun is empty or not is always a nice touch, especially if you're getting shot at and the reload is taking longer.

The animations in Soldier of Fortune were good as well, especially with the .44 pistol. Occasionally he'd just spin it around, always felt cool after taking some dudes out, spinning and reloading.

I'm the exact same way I love watching the reload animations in games though that is pretty important don't you think?

 

[BiggyShackleton]

For me it's always reload animations and idle animations in FPS's. Unique animations depending on if the gun is empty or not is always a nice touch, especially if you're getting shot at and the reload is taking longer.

The animations in Soldier of Fortune were good as well, especially with the .44 pistol. Occasionally he'd just spin it around, always felt cool after taking some dudes out, spinning and reloading.

I'm the exact same way I love watching the reload animations in games though that is pretty important don't you think?

At first definitely, after a point though it just becomes a minor annoyance between all of the "pew-pew" for most people I guess. I mean it wouldn't bother most people if each gun just had identical reload animations of a hand slapping a fresh magazine in, where as we seem to enjoy the differences. Each to their own I guess!

 

[dystopiaINC]

I always loved when I was running around the citadel in ME3 e=there were all these people with little stories that would happen, pass by once overhear a conversation pass by again after leaving the area and the next part of the conversation would play, some really interesting and sad stuff. like that crazy asari in the hospital asking for a gun spoiler:

Spoiler

she wants to kill herself because she had to kill an innocent human girl to keep herself hidden from reaper forces, girl had spent days in hiding with the Asari commando and she got hurt, couldn't silence her moans of pain. (it is entirely possible that the little girl was Joker's baby sister)

 

[Platypus540]

The bachelor party/table dancer scene in Mass Effect 2 with the turian, the salarian, and the human.

That was great, I never noticed that when I played through the game.

OT: Also in ME2, I liked all the targeted advertisements that said "You've recently been dead!" and the ad for Elcor Hamlet. Also, I liked that in the Ace Combat games (and most flying games, nowadays) how if you took a sharp turn you could see the contrails and turbulence on your wings.