"YOU CAN STEER THE TORPEDO?" moments

[Naqel]

I wish I had a cool one to share, but sadly, reading the freaking manual was the first skill I picked up after learning to read at all.

 

[Dogstile]

You can hold down the action button in Fallout 3 to continually drink from a receptacle, instead of having to press the button over and over.
My mind was blown when I found out on the forums a few months ago.

What? I have like, 400 hours on that game and I never knew. Holy fuck that would have made getting irradiated for moria SO MUCH EASIER.

 

[Smeggs]

"A Pokemon's Nature effects their stats?"

Dead Space 2: THE RIVET GUN HAS AN ALT FIRE THAT BLASTS THE RIVETS OUT OF WHERE THEY'RE STUCK LIKE BULLETS?!
I set up many traps with it on my second playthrough.

While playing through Dead Space 3, I didn't know I had a roll if you clicked the L-bumper. Even after the game specifically told me, I forgot again because I never really needed it, until accidentally hitting it in a fight near the end...fucking snow beast was a pain in the ass without dodge.

And, Dark Souls: "I'll put all of my points into STR and END! I'll be able to carry all the strong weapons! Wait...What's this 'scaling' crap I'm hearing about?"

You can hold down the action button in Fallout 3 to continually drink from a receptacle, instead of having to press the button over and over.
My mind was blown when I found out on the forums a few months ago.

You can also open the XBOX menu right before the timer for the Wait function begins, and the hours fly by super quickly. Like 24 in-game hours will go by in about five seconds. I believe the same is true for Skyrim. I use that to restock merchant gold faster so I can sell more junk.

Kingdom Hearts 2. My first playthrough, The Castle that Never Was. I CAN SWITCH MY MAIN KEYBLADE?!

Was still fun, beating the game with the starting keyblade though.

How could you...you unlocked a new keyblade after literally every world you completed. It even has its own screen that comes up and tells you about it before you continue the game. How could you have not known about them? Were you playing with your eyes closed?

 

[Jmp_man]

A more recent one was "I CAN DIG A HOLE BEHIND ME TO GET MORE MONEY FROM THE MONEY ROCKS!?" Animal Crossing.

IF YOU PLANT BELLS IN A GLOWING HOLE THE TREE THAT GROWS THERE BECOMES A MONEY TREE!?!? (Suck it Tom Nook)

Another Animal Crossing one: YOU CAN PLAY CLASSIC NES GAMES IN YOUR HOUSE WITH THE RIGHT FURNITURE!?!? (Many long hours were wasted playing balloon flight)

 

[uchytjes]

When i was a kid, in MGS 1 I didn't know that i could use lorazepam to stop the sniper rifle from shaking and then i felt like a badass because i was doing thing the "hard way" without even realizing it.

lol "lorazepam". If I remember correctly it was called "diazepam".

 

[deserteagleeye]

You can hold down the action button in Fallout 3 to continually drink from a receptacle, instead of having to press the button over and over.
My mind was blown when I found out on the forums a few months ago.

This and that there was a hot key system.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I can promote my party members to make them waaaay more powerful?! This was after what was probably the 50th attempt on the boss, Chaos, a giant robot who could one shot almost everyone in my party and only took about 1-2 dmg.

Ya, turns out that's a pretty core mechanic to the game but that was in my first few years of gaming when I was still pretty stupid.

YOU CAN GO FASTER THAN THE YETI?

I think that's the most mind blowing to guys who played Ski Free when they were kids.
Death by yeti is not inevitable. You can hold F to outrun him.

+1 for this. I accidentally hit the button one day and pretty much lost my shit.

 

[MajorTomServo]

A more recent one was "I CAN DIG A HOLE BEHIND ME TO GET MORE MONEY FROM THE MONEY ROCKS!?" Animal Crossing.

IF YOU PLANT BELLS IN A GLOWING HOLE THE TREE THAT GROWS THERE BECOMES A MONEY TREE!?!? (Suck it Tom Nook)

Another Animal Crossing one: YOU CAN PLAY CLASSIC NES GAMES IN YOUR HOUSE WITH THE RIGHT FURNITURE!?!? (Many long hours were wasted playing balloon flight)

Balloon Fight is such a good game! I actually got the actual physical NES cart at a Goodwill the other day.

 

[Dr. Paine]

I CAN CHANGE GUNS?!

Me, about 3/4s of the way into my first playthrough of Mass Effect and finally discovering how you changed weapons in battle. Up until then I had been using nothing but pistols.

... I still just used increasingly powerful pistols after that though, I hated the rest of the guns. ME2's controls were so much better.

 

[Movitz]

Playing through all of Fallout 1 without noticing that you can aim.

It was like playing a whole new game.. *Teary-eyed*

 

[DjinnFor]

I don't think I could ever imagine myself going "ermagerd pressing a button does something!!! i never knew!" like half the posters in this thread.

Like, really people. Look at the options menu, pay attention to the in-game tutorials, and if all else fails press random buttons. Congrats, now you know all of the controls. Not hard stuff.

I can only imagine that happening for something like Metal Gear Rising, but that's because the game requires strange button combinations like "hit attack at the exact moment you push forward on the movement stick to block, lolwut?".

 

[Starke]

I don't think I could ever imagine myself going "ermagerd pressing a button does something!!! i never knew!" like half the posters in this thread.

Like, really people. Look at the options menu, pay attention to the in-game tutorials, and if all else fails press random buttons. Congrats, now you know all of the controls. Not hard stuff.

I can only imagine that happening for something like Metal Gear Rising, but that's because the game requires strange button combinations like "hit attack at the exact moment you push forward on the movement stick to block, lolwut?".

I don't know, there's a lot of posts about things like holding E to continue drinking in Fallout 3 and New Vegas that aren't really apparent behavior and don't appear in the options menu. Or stuff that's genuinely buried in games. Though how you could get through most of Mass Effect without knowing you could use the other weapons? That one does strike me as really damn weird.

 

[TreuloseTomate]

Antichamber has those moments every minute.

 

[hazabaza1]

Probably being able to curve biotics in Mass Effect 2.
I think a loading screen says it at some point but I never really paid attention to them, so when I did it and I happened to be playing as Adept...yeah, good times.

 

[TheFunPolice]

Half Life: "YOU CAN CROUCH JUMP?"

Not a major ability, but it's required to get through certain parts of the game. I spent an hour roaming the halls of Black Mesa for a secret vent or tunnel or something when all I had to do was crouch jump over a box.

Shit. dude. My friend just bought Half Life and we were playing it together

I actually can't believe we had the EXACT same experience as you....I actually said to her as a joke "You should try crouch jumping over that box, it would be hilarious if it worked"

she tried and it worked first time...

We just stared at the screen like ._. for what felt like hours....CROUCH JUMPING SHOULDN'T BE SOMETHING YOU USE AS A PUZZLE, VALVE. THAT'S A COMPLETE DICK MOVE

Are you new to gaming? Crouchjumping was a mainstay in FPS of that era. As was jumpclimbing (hold jump to grab on and climb up).

Well I wasn't really around during that era, I thought crouch jumping was a generally new thing

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Antichamber has those moments every minute.

I love that you mentioned that game. Though to be honest, most of Antichamber is the opposite of those moments as it tries to unteach every single thing you've ever learned from videogames up to now.

 

[Skorm034]

Played through Devil May Cry series before DMC came out as I never played them.
Halfway through the 2nd last boss fight of #1 (The last fight with Nightmare) I entered Devil Trigger accidently...
...Huh... That would have been handy knowing I could do that earlier..
I kept waiting for a cutscene showing Dante enter the mode like games do now...
Boy did I feel stupid..

 

[Anathrax]

Kingdom Hearts 2. My first playthrough, The Castle that Never Was. I CAN SWITCH MY MAIN KEYBLADE?!

Was still fun, beating the game with the starting keyblade though.

How could you...you unlocked a new keyblade after literally every world you completed. It even has its own screen that comes up and tells you about it before you continue the game. How could you have not known about them? Were you playing with your eyes closed?

Give me a break, I thought those new keyblades were for my second hand when I was in final form. It never crossed my mind to press X on the main keyblade screen.

 

[Frontastic]

Oblivion has a fast travel function??!! You mean I spent my first 10 or so hours of my playthrough needlessly horse-trecking in real time?

And then in Skyrim... (lets say, 20 hours in?) You have to use the dragon souls to unlock the shouts?? I was wondering why I had a list of unusable shouts!

 

[Owlslayer]

Threads like these every now and then are pretty damn awesome. Always great to learn new things about games.

"YOU CAN FLIP THE V TO THE GUARDS?"
Mirror's Edge. What a game.

What exactly does "flipping the v" mean? I've played Mirror's Edge quite a lot, don't really recall anything that could be described like that.

So, I was playing vanquish last night. One feature I discovered fairly quickly in the game is that if you press the thrust button while in cover, your character lights a cigarrette, smokes it a little, then throws it away. Nice touch adding to the eighties action movie absurdity of the game, I thought.

Last night, for the first time, I noticed that you actually have three cigarettes per level. This limit suggested to me that smoking actually does something, but I couldn't figure out what.

So, I just looked it up, and apparently, the cigarette being thrown away can actually distract the enemies! THERE'S EVEN A GODDAMN ACHIEVEMENT FOR DOING IT!

Unbelievable.

That's a really nice touch, quite cool! I've always wanted to try out Vanquish myself, but i only have a PC, so I've never had the chance.


But for my own experiences, well, i don't really remember any. Tho I'm damn sure I've had several moments like those.