Gameplay mechanics that are awesome, but sadly left out in future games

[Mark Geroux]

It happens all the time, a huge gameplay innovation is implemented on a successful title. The terrain destruction in Red Faction, the gravity gun and physics of Half Life 2, even the ones that have become more common like bullet time from Max Payne. The thing is, if developers implemented these features in a game shortly after the release of the original they would have been slammed for stealing ideas. See the Doom 3 expansion, it featured a Gravity Gun too and was called a Half Life 2 ripoff because of it. That's my theory on why this happens: fear of being called a clone.