Neat little touches you've enjoyed in videogames...

[MinionZombie]

Okay, was thinking about this today and decided to post about it - kind of a list of things from everyone.

What cool little things, in videogames, have you found either by accident or by trial that were nice little touches? You know, the odd detail that makes the experience more fun...

I'll start (obviously), with Hitman: Blood Money - if you shoot at the door handle, the door will burst open so you don't have to open it yourself. As soon as I discovered that all I did for the rest of the day was walk through buildings blasting the doors open with my pimped out shotgun before laying waste to the occupants. :elol:

[Danny]

being able to put cans in bins and stuff in half life 2, that was a good one.
in the old pokemon videogame, the first one that was out way back in 98' the house you started in has a snes in his bedroom, though i dunno if it counts.
theres literally tons i cant remember but the best one has to be when you attack the chickens in the legend of zelda:links awakening dx on the gameboy colour, then the screen is filled with hundreds of chickens that attack you, also if you steal from the shop then go back in the owner goes all dragonball z on your ass and kills you, nothing to do with the game but still entertaining.

[capncnut]

Cool thread. There are many neat touches in videogames but only three spring to mind right now.

Silent Hill 4 - Look outside your window and you see a busy city street. On top of the nightclub is a billboard with a telephone number on it. Dial that number on your telephone...

Deus Ex - The 'coffee wars' mission requires you to support a local coffee business and take out the rival by destroying the beans. Instead of blowing up the beans/store (the obvious choice), how about breaking in, picking up a box of coffee beans one at a time and dropping them on top of a garbage can fire. No ammo wasted.

Fahrenheit - Too many to mention but as you clean up the men's restroom after murdering that dude, give the johnny machine three slaps. You recieve a coin. Use the coin in the restaurant jukebox to unlock a secret song.

Im not even gonna mention Shenmue. :D

Edit: Sod it, I will mention Shenmue. Go to the Tomato Convenience store in Dobuita and participate in the store raffles. On top of winning rare capsule toys, you can win Sega Saturn games on CD. Now go home and open the cabinet under the tv in the living room. A Sega Saturn!

Playing a game within a game, genius!

[Terran]

Super Mario 64 .....Marios voice is just great in that game the little touch being how the voice reacts in the game....like you walk up to and over a ledge and you grab onto the ledge and Mario goes "WHRO!" cracks me up every time....Or when Mario crys when his ass is on fire... Or how he is waaaay to enthuisastic about jumping like the triple jump....first jump "woo!" Second jump "Woo hoo"....third high jump "YEEEA HAH!"

Final Fantasy X the monster catching man....and Blitz Ball....I think I spent more time playing Blitz Ball than I did the actual game.

[Tricky]

Theres so many!but i was just playing call of duty 2 5 minutes ago,and i was watching one of the british troops firing from behind cover,& watching him cocking the bolt on the rifle after each shot was pretty cool,little touches like that impress me!same as on medieval 2 watching hundreds of characters fighting on screen,all in individual one on one fights,that is impressive :D

I loved it on metal gear solid where you could hide from the guards as well,it set my pulse racing when you were squat under something & you could see them looking for you,proper on edge stuff!

[DeadJonas190]

I enjoyed all the Star Wars refrences in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete on Playstation, they were all over that game. I also liked the humour in that game, for instance, at one point in a cave the lights go out and one of the characters cracks a joke about going blind from doing "that" too much. That game had little jokes like that that kept me laughing through the whole thing.

[Danny]

the tv shows in max payne 1 and 2 were neat too.:)

[Chaos]

Shooting the thick hedgerows in Zombies Ate My Neighbors would give you 1ups or bonus levels, providing you had the bazooka.

Getting through level -1 on Super Mario Bros. by using the same pattern as level 8-4 on Bowser's final castle was also pretty cool.

Continuously hopping on the koopa shell on the steps of level 3-1 (3-2?) in Super Mario Bros. to get infinite 1ups was also a neat little trick.

Pulling your buddy off the screen and killing him on the Waterfall level of Contra was also fun... That is, until he took all your remaining lives by rejoining the game!

Watching somebody play the demo of Motorstorm on a Playstation 3 kiosk at the local Gamestop, and seeing them repeatedly blow up their car by overusing the Nitros boost.

[kidgloves]

In terrorist hunt mode on Rainbow 6 Vegas some of the things the terrorist shout out are priceless. Yesterday the conversation i heard between 2 was something like this

"There coming to get us. What should i do?"
"Grow some balls"

Quality :lol:

Not only is the AI superb with terrorists sometimes running away when you go on a killing spree but the whole game has these little exchanges between characters that seems very natural.

[Tricky]

Have any of you ever played "soldiers-heroes of world war 2" on the PC?if you have you'll notice so many awesome little touches & animations,good game that!similar in a way to the recent company of heroes :)

[Mutineer]

Theres so many!but i was just playing call of duty 2 5 minutes ago,and i was watching one of the british troops firing from behind cover,& watching him cocking the bolt on the rifle after each shot was pretty cool,little touches like that impress me!same as on medieval 2 watching hundreds of characters fighting on screen,all in individual one on one fights,that is impressive :D

I loved it on metal gear solid where you could hide from the guards as well,it set my pulse racing when you were squat under something & you could see them looking for you,proper on edge stuff!

Nice ! I mainly stick to BF Mod Forgotten Hope but have enjoyed some COD. Another nice touch in that franchise is when a soldier gets shot in the throat, grabs it as arteries spew open and collapses to the ground. Great touch.

-

I was always impressed with the RE series; the first time I ever played was the RE Directors Cut and I had walked out onto one of the decks that overlooked the alleys and streets; and you could hear the undead moaning ...

Creepy

The audio in games is so imporatant

[MinionZombie]

Speaking of audio - the audio in Doom 3 floored me. It was so intricate, and while the game relied on old school 'BWAH! JUMPIN' OUT AT YOU!!!' scare tactics, the audio was just fantastic.

Scrambled snippets of screaming, terrified marines as alarms blare out, hisses of escaping steam, distant grumbles, growls and creaks. The audio experience is flooring - and I was just using normal old everyday audio. I crapped myself (not literally) playing Doom 3 with old school audio, man alive ... if I played it with that thar fancy 5.1 (or did they use 6.1 in Doom 3?) I'd have been dead long ago from terror.

Another touch - the telephone wires flailing wildly in the downdraft of choppers etc in Half Life 2.

[Danny]

heres a few more

the wind waker, plates and cups can be knocked off stuff and smash and if you roll into a wall in a house shelves will fall and drop goodies in a few locations, plus tingle in general, he was the ****!:lol:

the infamous scientist diary you find in a cabin in the origional resident evil about a guy who doesnt know he is infected with the t-virus saying how his skin is pale and itchy and his mind starts to go as does his coherent writing and when your done he jumps out the cupboard behind you as a zombie.

oblivion, things like hanging chains and stuff move if you hit them and each link bends ni a different way as it swings, very small touches liek that are why that game rocks.

sticking a plasma grenade on a grunts leg in halo and hearing the group scatter yelling "WE ALL GONNA DIEEEE-BANG!":)

-oh more max payne, you can sneak up adn listen to enemies have conversations eg. "its never been this cold man, never ever", which is pretty damn cool when you think that there programmed to just talk as freinds as well as kill.

[Tricky]

Speaking of audio - the audio in Doom 3 floored me. It was so intricate, and while the game relied on old school 'BWAH! JUMPIN' OUT AT YOU!!!' scare tactics, the audio was just fantastic.

Scrambled snippets of screaming, terrified marines as alarms blare out, hisses of escaping steam, distant grumbles, growls and creaks. The audio experience is flooring - and I was just using normal old everyday audio. I crapped myself (not literally) playing Doom 3 with old school audio, man alive ... if I played it with that thar fancy 5.1 (or did they use 6.1 in Doom 3?) I'd have been dead long ago from terror.

Another touch - the telephone wires flailing wildly in the downdraft of choppers etc in Half Life 2.


Dammit minion im going to have to get Doom 3 installed again now,i loved it when the base first gets taken over,& you can hear the muffled shotgun blasts & shouting :D
And that creepy bit when you first encounter the lost souls,you hear crying coming from somewhere,then you find that girl & her head comes off & turns into a floating skull :eek:
Or that bit where you hear a baby crying,then that voice shouts "they took my babies" i was bricking it,i didnt know what was going to happen :eek: :eek:

[capncnut]

Silent Hill 2 - When you are running up to room 302 or whatever and you can hear Mary calling your name as you get closer. In fact, the bit after you watch the videotape tape (where Mary's voice comes on the radio) and you realise James is mad is one of the best punchlines in videogame history. Also, the horror quiz in the elevator, Mary's disappearing love letter , the long run into Silent Hill at the beginning (always a pleasure :D), too many to mention.

*wipes tear from eye*

[axlish]

Being able to fight in NHL 99 (and to a lesser extent, Blades of Steel for the NES)

[Danny]

Silent Hill 2 - When you are running up to room 302 or whatever and you can hear Mary calling your name as you get closer. In fact, the bit after you watch the videotape tape (where Mary's voice comes on the radio) and you realise James is mad is one of the best punchlines in videogame history. Also, the horror quiz in the elevator, Mary's disappearing love letter , the long run into Silent Hill at the beginning (always a pleasure :D), too many to mention.

*wipes tear from eye*

you find a newspaper outside those apartments talking about walter sullivan murdering two neighbourhood kids, he is the 'nemesis' of silent hill 4 and the spirit of those two murdered kdis became the two ehaded baby creature, the newspaper had little to do with the story other than a question for the hospital elevator puzzle but it was just another little link between the series.
then in silent hill 4 when you press whatever the 'affirmative' button is on your console on a picture in henrys room of the lakeside hotel it says a mr sunderland gave it to henry and his son and wife dissappeared there in silent hill, the character in silent hill 2 you play is james sunderland.

plus theres loads of little ties between valtiel and pyramid head and such that have nothing to do with the games plot lines there just little touches that give the series a much grander feel.:D

[MinionZombie]

lol, indeed, I might have to blast through it for a 5th time myself actually.

And aye - those baby screams keep freaking me out, it's just wrong. When I first heard those I didn't know what was coming - next thing I know, devil babies with wings and red eyes and sharp teeth screaming like a baby being flung around a room (or at least what I'd approximate it to sound like anyway)! :eek:

Another bit about Doom 3 that I love are the quiet moments, well sorta quiet, there's no monsters but you're yomping through the metal stairs, pipes and all that machinery and the only light is coming from those red warning lights that are circling as a gentle foghorn type screech blares momentarily. It's straight out of Aliens when Ripley is doing much the same thing, heading for the Queen - and it's friggin excellent in Doom 3.

[capncnut]

I really enjoyed the extra Maria scenario in Silent Hill 2. It's a shame they didn't make it just a teensy weensy bit longer. Who the hell was that guy behind the door? Man, I'm gonna have to play it again.

[Chaos]

Being able to fight in NHL 99 (and to a lesser extent, Blades of Steel for the NES)

lol!!!! I forgot all about Blades of Steel! Nice one!

Didn't you have to repeatedly tap B or something to get the players to fight?
It's been a while, heh. I can still remember the close up of the fight though. Good stuff.

[Danny]

I really enjoyed the extra Maria scenario in Silent Hill 2. It's a shame they didn't make it just a teensy weensy bit longer. Who the hell was that guy behind the door? Man, I'm gonna have to play it again.

he was a ghost of the houses owner his daughter died when she fell from the roof adn he got maria to collect all those things to bring here back to life, when she collected them all his spirit moved on and she left them.
and james uses them in the rebirth ending to bring back mary.

[capncnut]

This 'unknown dark liquid' or whatever, didn't you have to throw it over Cybill in the amusement park in SH1?

[axlish]

lol!!!! I forgot all about Blades of Steel! Nice one!

Didn't you have to repeatedly tap B or something to get the players to fight?
It's been a while, heh. I can still remember the close up of the fight though. Good stuff.

I can't remember if there was a button push to get a fight going, but I do remember that you needed to slam into the dude three or so times and then it'd break to the Mortal Kombat style screen.

[Danny]

This 'unknown dark liquid' or whatever, didn't you have to throw it over Cybill in the amusement park in SH1?

nah im on about the white cluadia, that stuff you threw on cybil was the drug that kaufman got the people in the cult hooked on, that way they couldnt run for help i think i read once it was what was keeping them human as well and the rest turned into mosters, i think it was called PTV and the white cluadia was used in a ritual to bring the dead back to life by the natives back before it was a town ,instead it was a marsh called "the place of silent spirit". apparently.

[Tricky]

The silent hill games are seriously messed up!i remember playing the first one through & actually feeling a bit sad when that nurse went all weird and died :(
The whole game had a really creepy,uneasy feeling all the way through,but thats what made it good!i played the second one as well at that was the same,very good!what was that one like where it was all set in one room?the 4th in the series i think...

[Danny]

yeah silent hill 4: the room, it was origionally not a silent hill game, then it was an add on to the series, with a few links to silent hill 2 then they just decided to make it a full off silent hill game.
thats because walter sulllivan, who you read about outside the apartment building in silent hill 2 was raised in wish house, the cult ran orphanage in silent hill 3 and they taught all the kids ,between torturing them, about the cults religion ,about the holy mother (alessa) and a ritual called the 21 sacrements, but walter, who was grossly mistreate by his father before he was put in the orphanage believes the room he was born and dumped in itself is his mother and the holy mother from the cults teachings and he believes he can reunite with her by performing the 21 sacrements ritual, which includes killing himself halfway through and somehow his corpse gets from the prison graveyard to a hidden room inside the apartment "room" the game is centred in, and thats why the holes keep appearing, people think it may have something to do with the "there was a hole here, its gone now", graffiti inside a building in silent hill 2 but nothing officials been said on that by konami.
damn rambling huh?

[capncnut]

So how did James die then? I heard he's the corpse in front on the tv when you first enter the apartment block in Silent Hill 2.

[Danny]

nah, that was just a reused character model, they do it all the time like a running joke, anothe ris in the hospital world in 4 the woman whos sullivans disecting is the character model for claudia from silent hill 3.
most people and i think konami said officially james left silent hill with laura in the leave ending, though most likely cus thats the ending most people get the first time they play through, though in one ending he does drown himself by driving his car into the lake. some people reckon that marys body was in the boot of the very car from the start of the game and james drove with her body straight to silent hill after SPOILER killing her in her hospital room in south ashfeild and since he blocked it out he just whent into the town forgetting it all till he reached the hotel.
though origionally silent hill just attacked people who were there, then in 2 and 3 it drew people with dark pasts TO the town and in 4 its influence has spread to the town of south ashfeild, were mary was kille dby james and the events of silent hill 4 take place.
the games developers said the towns power was origionally good when the natives were there but just like that pet cemetary out a certain movie "that thar; gruand went sour".:D



see , i can remember the entire history of the silent hill adn reisdent evil games to the damn letter, but i couldnt get a C in G.C.S.E science, wierd what your memory remebers so well.

and most of its bollocks:lol:

[capncnut]

That's some major Silent Hill study right there.

[Danny]

meh, im a big sruvival horror fan and there aint too many i dont know of/ havent played, cept forbidden siren you cant find that anywere its easier to find carrier on the dreamcast, though thats a bigger piece of crap than zombies vs abluance.
http://www.silenthillforum.co.uk/forum/index.php
i got most my silent hill info from the official uk forum, which is a BIG forum makes this one look tiny in comparison, but if you need info on s.h games this place is were i look for info.

http://www.dreamdawn.com/sh/


EDIT- did i really misspell ambulance that badly? :lol:

[capncnut]

This thread should've been called 'Silent Hill questions answered' :lol:. Hellz, just a little question. What are the differences between Inner Fears and Restless Dreams, does Inner Fears have the UFO ending?

[Danny]

yeah one was on the xbox and got that born from a wish ending and something about using a stone in certain locations to get a ufo ending but the it was released again on the ps2 with that new content, cant remember which is which though they should have just called it "silent hill 2" and have done with it not all these different titles.:rolleyes:

[Tricky]

Back in the day i thought it was a neat touch when you had to run after your bike if you came off it on road rash 2,we were so easily pleased back then :p download it here for a re-cap http://www.games4win.com/games/road-rash-2/

And FarCry,that game is loaded with neat little touches,from the ragdoll physics to the fancy lighting,AI & awesomely huge levels :D thats another one im going to have to blast through again!

[Danny]

yeah to bad its the most glitch filled sombitch i have ever played.

[MinionZombie]

Glitch filled? Which game, FarCry?

I admit it isn't the most generous engine to various systems (Doom 3 and Half Life 2 were very good on a wide variety of specs, but FarCry is rather fussy). I've never really considered FarCry to be a buggy game, I take it you played a console version?

Tricky - fudge yeah boyeeee! Road Rash 2 - I've got it for the Mega Drive, sitting on my shelf as I recently dug my console out of the cupboard, will have to give it a blast through sometime soon. It was a great game, I remember getting so pissed off when a car pulled out in front of me from a side road and I was going like a million miles an hour, so it took ages to get back to my bike again.

How was I going that fast? ... Remember the cheat that gave you that beast of a black bike? Oh man ... it was like porn it was so good! :D

hehe, I blasted through FarCry a few weeks back, not quite as good as I remember, the generic story and piss poor acting put me off a bit, and the indoor areas are fairly "meh", it's the outdoor areas I love.

If it had just been mid-day sunny, tropical island outside only, with just merceneries I'd have been fine with that, those are the levels I've played over and over and over, some of the monsters just get annoying ... that said, it's still an awesome game.

Ahhh memories ... I remember autumn semester 2004, going back to uni and installing my fresh and new Radeon 9600 Pro and playing FarCry, I was blown away - then it was onto Doom 3 and I was again utterly blown away, I almost creamed my pants ... meanwhile one housemate who was on mushrooms when I was playing one day almost sh*t his! :lol: (I had to take a break from laughing at them all hopped up on shrooms, but he came looking for me as I was the only sober one and he was terrified that I wasn't there to protect him from ... get this (seriously) ... killer strawberries and toilet rolls ... I kid you not.

He almost had a heart attack when an Imp burst out of a door at one point in the game! :lol:

[Danny]

i was pretty much the same the first time i turned on my 360 with oblivion in, cus my pc is an emachines and the best they can play is like direct x7 level graphics without screeching like a banshee then givinjg me the blue screen of death!!!:lol:

[MinionZombie]

lol, aye it's great to have that significant step up and be all "oooh ... ahhhh" ... unfortunately I'm currently in the decline that comes before either the "ooh" or the "ahh".

I've gone back to Hitman Blood Money ... which I need to play on 800x600 resolution *grumpily grumpily groo* ... still, stonking great game! Gotta love shooting doors open while holding a civilian hostage at gunpoint, walking away slowly from a cop with their gun drawn and then tossing the innocent down on the ground and capping them in the ass. :elol: Ahhh virtual videogame violence ... how it calms one down. :)

[Tricky]

Well minion,if far cry is starting to seem a little aged now (as does the first call of duty which i LOVED!) then fear not,as this puppy is just around the corner :evil:
This will be one of my first purchases when ive afforded my new rig!

http://www.news3d.eu/ftp/immagini_2006/crysis_2.jpg

[MinionZombie]

*fills pants with joy*

If only I had a rig that could handle that baby ... mind you, this Windows Vista sh*t doesn't fill me with joy, their Nazistic control over what you can and can't do is pure facism ... and I duno ... the potential change in PC gaming with this "games for windows" idea, although it's not really clear, makes me feel a bit uneasy.

Still ... Crysis looks freakin' ball bustin' ...

*power dip ... :eek:* They're after me!!! :confused:

[Tricky]

Ive been playing medieval 2 most of the afternoon,& ive found out if you leave it when it says "start deployment" at the beginning of a battle,you get a rousing pre-battle speech from your general,and it differs everytime,depending on who your fighting & why :D another neat touch in a game thats full of neat touches!

[MinionZombie]

I've got another one from Hitman Blood Money - when you've got a "human shield" hostage and you're shooting, but need to reload, Agent 47 will kick the person forward, slam them on the ground, and kinda straddle them as they lie face down so they don't escape, then once the new mag is in he picks them back up and resumes.

Also, knife play - not only can you throw them at people, but sneak up on them at you can either:

1) Stab them in the back, thus pushing them forward.
2) Grab them and shove the knife in their head, blood spurts forth.
3) Grab them and slice their throat, blood spurts forth.

It's also hella fun to shoot someone in the head with your silenced/red dot sighted Silver-baller so that their brains splatter all over something behind them.

Also of course, the "natural cause" assassinations you can pull off, shoving someone over a balcony, or into freezing water or replacing the replica WW2 pistol with a real WW2 pistol so that you don't kill the target, but the actor aiming the pistol at the target does it and you get to sit back and watch - brilliant. :elol:

Also, I've been playing it through while being really lax about identity security - so now when I enter a level there are newspapers with my image on (captured from video cameras I didn't steal the tape from) and people say things like "Don't I know you from TV?" ... "aren't you a celebrity?" ... or flat out knowing - "it's him!!! It's the [insert previous mission] killer!!!" and they all run off.

Also, one more, if a civilian picks up a gun to shoot at you, sometimes you get them to surrender by shooting at them nearby - at a wall, at their feet etc, and they'll drop the gun and re-surrender. :elol:

[Tricky]

Another one,on metal gear 2 when you could shoot the enemys radio that was clipped on their belt so they couldnt call for help :D
You can do similar on far cry as well,when you come across a platoon of mercs,make sure you take the radio guy first,otherwise all the bad guys in the area will be down on you!

[MinionZombie]

Cool tip for FarCry there, never knew about that one.

Another HMB one - a little touch indeed - when you walk down stairs his head tilts down and to the right a little - he's actually looking at the steps! A nice little touch that I rather like and swivel the camera around for, especially when I'm descending into the belly of the casino in Vegas with a pump action shotgun 'on hold' in my left hand and a handgun (silverballer/desert eagle) in my right ... noiiice. :cool:

[capncnut]

Just thought of one as I was playing Oblivion today. You know the bit in the Imperial City where you grass up the corrupt officer? If you stalk the watch captain after, he will move on foot from place to place and ACTUALLY nick the guy, read him his rights and (after more stalking) escort him to prison.

Ten days later (when you've totally forgotten about it) the corrupt officer comes back to kill you, no matter what part of town you are in. I've got that to look forward to in a couple of says, hehe.

[Danny]

yeah theres loads in that game, which i started again today, damn that first dungeon is boring.
i liked the mini quest were a womans daughters been captured by a town i passed through early on that was half burnt and they had mutant cultists in caves under the town and a cult religion and they were planning to sacrifice here, and i love how you can either be the hero, which i allways do without thinking (which means you miss a lot in the elder scrolls) or take part and be a bastard yourself, it'd be like GTA but being a cop OR a gangster.

[capncnut]

i love how you can either be the hero, which i allways do without thinking...

I started Oblivion again a few days ago and I haven't even left the Imperial City yet. My cousin (who just got a 360 today for Xmas) is having a totally different experience with it. He has progressed much further in the main quest than I and is considering... blah, blah, blah...

That's what I love about Oblivion.

I recently lost my 360 game save (due to a drunken error) so I've had to start it again. Previously, I had everything clocked and living as a stage 4 vampire. I lived my 'night to night' life collecting books, looting dungeons and feasting from my maid in Skingrad... blah, blah, blah...