Insignificant details in games.

[Tehpwnsauce]

Nice ones Keep em coming!

Mentioning Deus Ex reminds me of another one.
I remember after the first mission when I was exploring UNATCO HQ, I went into the ladies' bathroom and later on I got told off by the supervisor for misbehaving.

What I like about most of these is that the game doesn't try to show them off like little gimmicks, it just lets you play around until they happen. For instance, if Deus Ex was advertising all its options like that, the above scenario would probably result in a subtitle message saying something like "Misbehaving on UNATCO premises may incur warning or penalties from your supervisor". It just breaks the immersion when it explains everything and it makes you feel that the game is saying "look at all the wonderful optional little gimmicks I have coded for you". It's much better to let the game play out itself without the step by step guide to it all, isn't it?

I remember that. I tried to kill that woman when she started talking to me but a trooper just ran in and gunned me down.

 

[The_Deleted]

The conversations in Battlefield: Bad Company were pretty good. Especially if you died at the beginning.

The ambient talk in GTA games.
And any game that lets you pull the flush is a classic in my book.

 

[chomp.]

Fallout 3, definitely. One of my favourites being in the RobCo Factory, if you open one of the cubicle doors in the bathroom, there's a dead (deactivated?) robot on the toilet, and if you move him, there's a little pile of scrap metal in the toilet bowl.

There are some weird ones too, like the toy factory where all the teddies on the conveyor belt are posed with guns and drugs.

It has countless little references too: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Cultural_references_in_Fallout_3

 

[BolognaBaloney]

The conversations in Battlefield: Bad Company were pretty good. Especially if you died at the beginning.

The ambient talk in GTA games.
And any game that lets you pull the flush is a classic in my book.

Haha, Haggard is probably the funniest character in current-gen gaming.

 

[chomp.]

In Shadow of the Colossus, you can actually shoot birds down with your bow and arrow. It's as hard as fuck to do, but feels pretty neat when you manage to do it.

For a game about killing gigantic monsters, the unexpected ability to kill a seagull is a pleasant surprise, and reflects the amount of realistic detail Team Ico put in the game.

You've managed to hit one? I chased a hawk around for almost an hour once in an attempt to slay it, to no avail...

Yeah, it's possible. Killing the doves is easy, but downing that blasted hawk is a ************. You basically have to be as precise as possible, expect a lot of trial and error. But once you do get that bastard, seeing it's corpse pierced by that arrow, the feeling is that of supreme joy, like an orgasm, without the cleanup.

Now that I think about it, I should've teabagged the sonnuvabitch while I had the chance.

You guys need therapy.

For me, seeing the shade from the clouds move along the ground in Twilight Princess was pretty sweet.

Psycopathic much, guys? It's way more fun to grab on to them and let them take you for a ride (although the doves can't carry you very far)

 

[achilleas.k]

In GTR Evolution [http://www.gtr-evolution.com/], the entire game is full of these, although they might not fit the classification of "insignificant", because the game is made for the sorts of people who would recognise these details [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/5588-Review-GTR-Evolution].

Engine notes are of particular note; any racing game which can accurately portray the difference between a Caterham with 200bhp and another Caterham with 260bhp has had a lot of work put into it.

Well yeah I guess they don't qualify as insignificant since those kind of details are what make the game. Though I really appreciate a good racing game, I'm sometimes put off by excessive detail, depending on my mood. I remember I really enjoyed Gran Turismo 2 back when it was the new fad. It was amazing how you could tune every little bit and feel the difference on the race track, but I'm guessing GTR is much more realistic from the article you linked (especially considering that the other game is much older and I've heard from many car enthusiasts - people who know more about cars than I do - that GT isn't as realistic as it would make you think).

 

[G1eet]

The Mass Effect codex was ridiculous. They didn't just sit by and let you assume they just had 'hyper-space' and 'laser guns'. No, they sat down and explained how every futuristic piece of technology worked, what scientific principles were behind it, they covered culture, economy, history, and religion of all the major alien races, they explained EVERYTHING. And a great many people probably never read one entry. I, for one, appreciate that kind of effort.

Yup! The amount and detail of the surrounding universe in a game is very important for immersion. I used to read everything like that before, but now my gaming time is limited so I couldn't read all of it in Mass Effect

I read about 3 main entries about species before my cranium imploded and created a black hole from the massive amount of information that had entered my brain. I really hope they trim it down for the second.

 

[VitalSigns]

I was pretty baked once, and playing Skate, and the horizon in the background looked absolutely beautiful, the buildings, the sun, the sky, it was all just so surreal in a video game.

 

[Headshot Gamer UK]

In Assassin's Creed I liked the way the AI muttered to eachother like "that man's a murderer" after I'd just massacred half an army

 

[Kayevcee]

In the cinema on the recreation deck of the Von Braun in System Shock 2, the replicator only sells snacks and they're all about twenty times more expensive than anywhere else

I also liked that every item, upgrade and type of ammo had a couple of paragraphs explaining what it is and how it works, but only if you hit it with the little ? pointer. No reams of unsolicited text, just the important stuff unless you specifically wish to know more.

-Nick

 

[achilleas.k]

I need a confirmation on this one, but I think in Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, near the end when you're at the wrecked UNATCO offices, if you press the button for orange soda on the machine in the kitchen, it gives you lemon-lime.
Do I remember this correctly, or am I subconsciously making a little detail link to Gunther's conspiracy theory?