I Shouldn't Bring Real Life Logic Into This, Does So Anyway

[cojo965]

So I was playing Shadow of Mordor on the PS3 (preemptive "shut up") and couldn't help noticing that Talion puts away his sword entirely in combat to perform ground finishers with the dagger. I don't know, wouldn't it be easier to have them both out (one in each hand) or better yet, just use the sword, and leave the dagger for stealth. Keep in mind this is the same part of my brain that cries at the unused bullets in shooter revolvers whenever the guy dumps the entire cylinder even though he only used two of them.

What trips that "reason" center of your brain against your better judgement?

 

[Zhukov]

Video game characters shrugging off bullet wounds still bothers me just a little bit. I don't mind if they're souped-up super soldiers or wearing special sci-fi armour or whatnot. But when ostensibly normal people (most recently Faith in Mirror's Edge) take a bullet and keep right on trucking some little part of my brain starts ringing the bullshit bell.

Another one is when fictional characters (movies, games, even books) can easily swim while wearing full clothing. Dear God, do people have any idea how hard that is?

Often when looking through a game character's inventory I will find myself thinking, "Y'know, there's no fucking way you could be carrying all that." While at the same time generally despising strict inventory limits.

 

[Zontar]

Whenever I'm playing a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game and fall from a high rock or hill and survive when in reality I shouldn't have if it was realistic, I often think about that thought without really taking into consideration that 9 times out of 10 I only got up there in the first place due to clipping or some other form of unrealistic means of climbing up a hill or rock safe that's too steep to actually pull off.

Also, whenever I watch anything that involves the military or physics that brakes logic either of the laws of physics or how the military operates/how a person in the military acts, I tend to over-think it despite my brain being turned off most of the time. Example is James Bond, they very often use military equipment for things that have me laughing at the result, like activating a space laser in one of them was just fiddling with a radar control system that wouldn't really do anything other then flicker a screen on and off.

You know that feeling when you watch The Phantom Menace and you see that ball-throwing thing in the room C3PO is being built in? Think something that stands out like that, only with the movie actively drawing attention to it and making that thing being there a central part of the plot for the scene it's in, that's 99% of military equipment and/or personnel in movies for me, even when it was a movie made by people who where in the military.

 

[Fox12]

Anytime a film does this:


Hey, assholes, how about you hold the line instead of breaking formation and running at the enemy with your hands in the air, waving them like you just don't care? No? You're just going to charge and form a large, unorganized mob? Okay then. Braveheart is particularly guilty, since I noticed that the battle of Stirling Bridge had a distinct lack of bridge. The Scottish are outnumbered, outgunned, and facing better trained soldiers. They didn't win that battle because they're tough, they won because they outsmarted the other guys. This always takes me out of a movie. I mean, I don't expect movie makers to be experts on medieval warfare, but a little bit of research would be nice.

I'll add the Eddie boss fight from Silent Hill 2. I can believe that James can shrug off monster strikes. I can accept that he's able to withstand the nurses pipe attacks. And Pyramid Heads great sword is typically a one hit kill, so that makes sense in the universe. What doesn't make sense is James and Eddie standing still and basically trading bullet shots like they're reenacting the Civil War. The design of the level is cool, but in a game that otherwise feels somewhat grounded in reality, having the normal human characters shrug off bullet wounds is really jarring.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hey, assholes, how about you hold the line instead of breaking formation and running at the enemy with your hands in the air, waving them like you just don't care? No? You're just going to charge and form a large, unorganized mob? Okay then.

Not unrealistic for certain armies, though. Now, winning against professional soldiers, OTOH...

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Play Shadow Warrior...it knows how to count bullets

I never noticed that in SOM, but now you mention it, perhaps it is because he knows he cannot die so he just wants to do these things stylish with flair. I mean, do you have to do a ballerina flip evey time you jump off a tall building? Hell no! But it looks fucking sweet and i would definately do the same. It beats landing on your arse, as hilarious as that would be to see in game.

Editio!

Spoiler: This sort of thing

When there is something my character could clearly navigate with a reasonable sized human body, like a broken door or a knee-high fence that the game is just like `Nah, girl, you can't go this way because you couldn't possibly get through this`.
I can see the other side, I should be able to get through to it no problem.

Agreed so very much here. You play as a hero that can fight off hordes of evil monsters, wall run, backflip...but oh no! A 10cm tall picket fence! Why hast thou forsaken me?? Thy shins do nothing!!

Another one, female armour, do I even need to say more.

Do you mean lack of? Or existence of? Am guessing lack of, which is also agreed.

---

Also, this is less unrealistic I suppose but it still kind of brought me out of the experience- I recently got the Uncharted Collection and so far I played through the first one (on Crushing difficulty ooh yeah)- but anyway. 80% of the dialogue between Nathan and Sully is a variation on `You remember how we like to have sex with women? Yep. Women. Love to sex 'em. Totally no homo here` and I'm just- people don't talk like that. It's just dumb. But that's a minor nitpick.

Ugh, the demo put me completely off ever getting the collection. Gameplay was fun, but the talk was so very cringeworthy like Buffy at its' worst. I shall stick to only the final game in the hope that it matures somewhat.

 

[Phasmal]

Spoiler: This sort of thing

When there is something my character could clearly navigate with a reasonable sized human body, like a broken door or a knee-high fence that the game is just like `Nah, girl, you can't go this way because you couldn't possibly get through this`.
I can see the other side, I should be able to get through to it no problem.

Another one, female armour, do I even need to say more.

---

Also, this is less unrealistic I suppose but it still kind of brought me out of the experience- I recently got the Uncharted Collection and so far I played through the first one (on Crushing difficulty ooh yeah)- but anyway. 80% of the dialogue between Nathan and Sully is a variation on `You remember how we like to have sex with women? Yep. Women. Love to sex 'em. Totally no homo here` and I'm just- people don't talk like that. It's just dumb. But that's a minor nitpick.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Snippety snap!

Cowboy aesthetic.

It seems far more heroic to passionately charge at your opponent and beat through raw strength and force of will and freedom in your heart, rather than stoically hold the line with practiced discipline like an "unthinking soldier drone" would.
Or, as historically the case may be, push them into the river with spears to drown because the English thought you'd at least let them set up their ranks.

 

[Parasondox]

Far Cry 4

"Right, i'm going to jump down this rock so I can got to the river"

*dies*

"HOW?! That was a 2ft drop!!"

How can I die from a two foot drop yet I can slide down a steep hill that is about 15ft and survive?!?! Also,

"I just need to step onto the box to reach to roof so I can get the loot"

*jumps but can't move forward*

"It's not even high, I can just easily step over!!"

*Nope, go the other longer way that we designed for you (shows me the middle finger)*

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The usual - you have an axe but can't chop down a crappy wooden door, you have a shotgun but you can't blast the lock off, you shoot someone in the face and they're somehow not dead or comatose, your trousers take up space in the inventory created by your very own trousers, your rocket launcher takes up the same space as an egg...

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I recall that first Narnia movie...there's some kind of rebellion or something? Of beasts and people? And they put this little kid in charge? Because of a prophecy or something? I don't want to second guess a prophecy but leading people in battle is a serious job, you probably shouldn't just hand it over to a kid who is just recently out of short pants.

And his entire plan boiled down to shouting "attack" at which point the army just kind of went boiling off pell-mell, so...one, that's not a very good plan, and two, I'm pretty sure you could've come up with that one on your own, peoples of Narnia.

Just saying.

Do you mean lack of? Or existence of? Am guessing lack of, which is also agreed.

I'm guessing she means the omnipresent molded breasts on 90% of female armor seen in games (and even in some films), which would result in a cracked sternum and possibly immediate death the first time she was hit in the chest or fell down.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I recall that first Narnia movie...there's some kind of rebellion or something? Of beasts and people? And they put this little kid in charge? Because of a prophecy or something? I don't want to second guess a prophecy but leading people in battle is a serious job, you probably shouldn't just hand it over to a kid who is just recently out of short pants.

And his entire plan boiled down to shouting "attack" at which point the army just kind of went boiling off pell-mell, so...one, that's not a very good plan, and two, I'm pretty sure you could've come up with that one on your own, peoples of Narnia.

Just saying.

It does help that they have God directly on their side and literally cannot lose. Sucks to be the people killed off before God rocked up to win the battle, though.

I'm guessing she means the omnipresent molded breasts on 90% of female armor seen in games (and even in some films), which would result in a cracked sternum and possibly immediate death the first time she was hit in the chest or fell down.

Also gets in the way of your arms when in front of you so you can't use weapons properly. Mind you, this was a problem IRL with the armour the Kelly gang used, but they didn't expect to have to fight in it as such.

 

[tippy2k2]

Maybe it's old age finally catching up to me. Maybe it's because I've seen it in action movies too often now so it just doesn't do anything to my jaded movie brain. Maybe I'm just cranky when I watch them but...

Brainless action movies. If the movie fully embraces this brainlessness (Crank, Shoot'em Up), I am 100% on board but it's movies that try to be super serial at some points and plays by the real world rules at some points but then when the action starts, everyone turns into cartoon characters and are able to perform feats that would turn the most badass of badass special forces member into a puddle of crushed bones and blood. See Transformers and The Expendables for good examples.

 

[Something Amyss]

Honestly? I'm good. Like, the thing that tends to bother me is when a fictional world breaks its own rules. I'm fine with the pseudo-science behind FTL tech in a show, just don't change how it works every other episode. I'm fine with games doing dumb things, unless it explicitly spelled out the contrary.

But then, I still watch guys in plastic suits battle rubber monsters in cardboard cities.

I got one, a mix of OCD videogame logican and real life logic at the same time.

I have a 200 round magazine, but I did fire four whole rounds at that one enemy. Better reload, just to be safe. Wait, where did that brick of 196 rounds go? Did you just throw out 196 rounds???

It's called a tactical reload. When you time it right, the bullets transfer to your next box. Like in real life. What's the problem?

Another one, female armour, do I even need to say more.

Armour for women in video games? Is there such a thing? I only remember thongs that somehow provide bonuses to HP and such.

Are there supposed to be armoured women in games?

...but seriously, this doesn't bother me on the grounds of "real world logic" so much as it bothers me on the grounds that I'd just like to play games where my character doesn't look like she's posing for 12 year olds.

 

[Fappy]

Speaking of female armor, medieval plate armor and such is silly, yeah, but isn't modern kevlar actually better for women if it is shaped to their form? They call it Xena kevlar or some shit. I mean, it's basically fabric so it's not a liability and it's supposedly more comfortable. Plus, unless you're naked underneath (not recommended) I don't think you can really make kevlar sexy XD

 

[Something Amyss]

Speaking of female armor, medieval plate armor and such is silly, yeah, but isn't modern kevlar actually better for women if it is shaped to their form? They call it Xena kevlar or some shit. I mean, it's basically fabric so it's not a liability and it's supposedly more comfortable. Plus, unless you're naked underneath (not recommended) I don't think you can really make kevlar sexy XD

There's a difference between "boob plate" and armour which doesn't take the female form into consideration at all. The latter is actually a problem with any armour, and is not the problem with boob plate.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I got one, a mix of OCD videogame logican and real life logic at the same time.

I have a 200 round magazine, but I did fire four whole rounds at that one enemy. Better reload, just to be safe. Wait, where did that brick of 196 rounds go? Did you just throw out 196 rounds???

No... every FPS character has a small gremlin that lives on his or her back. When they reload they reach back and are greeted with a fully loaded mag handed to them... this is why they don't ever appear to struggle with the mud-encased pouches on their belt after you have made them crawl several kms in the undergrowth.

When you appear to discard a mag with rounds in the gremlin jumps off your back, collects it, debombs it into an ammo tin and then uses it to mag up another ready for your next discardment of good ammo.

You never see it because it is always on your back and there is no 3rd person mode.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I can usually shut off that part of my brain when playing video games. Only two times has it refused to be silent. Well, three times, but two of those times were in one game.

The first time was Borderlands 2. Okay, so a certain character was just murdered in front of me. Sad and all, but uh...why doesn't said character just revive? I mean, we have that machine that brings you back to life. We've been using it over and over throughout the whole game. And don't tell me said character can't, because it wasn't a problem before.

The other two times come from Uncharted 3. When your British partner guy pretends to be brainwashed, and then turns around and shoots his controller in the chest, killing him. Only, dude isn't dead. He shows up a bit later totally fine. The British guy even comments on this, saying, "How is that possible? I shot him!" The game never explains. Yes, I've heard that the developers said the guy was wearing a bullet proof vest, but nowhere is that mentioned in the game. It just looked like magic, and was a total red herring for me.
The other time is when Drake is stumbling through the desert, dying of thirst. He can barely walk, barely stand, and he is on the verge of death's door. You spend a fair amount of time just having him stumble through an ocean of sand. Finally, he falls into the ruins of a town, finds some water but can't drink it ("It's completely undrinkable"), and then falls through a wall into a mess of enemies. And suddenly, Drake is moving and rolling like he's perfectly fine. I just couldn't accept that. He should have been stumbling from cover to cover. He should have barely been able to hold his gun. He probably should have just surrendered, but we know that couldn't happen, so he should have ran. To this day, that entire scene still bugs me.

Honorable mention to Lara from Tomb Raider. She gets impaled at the start of the game--a wound that would slow anyone down--but after sealing the wound, she scampers around the island for hours, climbing walls and jumping off cliffs like nothing is wrong, and only remembers that gaping stomach wound toward the end of the game when the plot demands it.

 

[Solkard]

You mean stuff like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-E9HbUqc5k