Insignificant details in games.

[MrBrightside919]

Metroid Prime was one of the first instances in games where I actually noticed my surroundings and saw how detailed they were...

I actually went out of my way sometimes just to see what strange stuff I could find...

Kudos Retro Studios...

 

[YuheJi]

When playing COD 2 I believe, you could reload the M1 Garand. Totally killed it for me. It's the only detail I can think of, and it is the opposite of realistic

They can be reloaded. It was just common US Army doctrine to fire until the clip is done, as reloading without firing the whole clip could potentially get dirt into the gun. It was done on certain occasions that US forces were cut off from supplies and needed to conserve ammo. For the most part, ammo was plentiful so there was little need to reload. And by that logic, none of the other bolt-action rifles should be reloaded halfway through a clip either.

 

[Zeramo]

I think it was in duke nukem 3d when you go into an arcade of some kind and there is a flipper called balls of steel. personally one of my most favorite little details

 

[HardRockSamurai]

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.

 

[HT_Black]

In HL2, in that bit with the speedboat, there's a semi-hidden area in the swamp where you can find a horribly mangled corpse slumped against a tree...just one of this lttle set-pieces...

 

[SharPhoe]

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...

 

[HardRockSamurai]

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.

 

[achilleas.k]

Ah! New one coming in:
In Half Life 2: Episode 2 Alyx covers her eyes if you aim the flashlight to her face. Not sure if this happened in Ep.1 as well and I'm pretty sure it didn't happen in HL2.

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

In the original Timesplitters, on the level Bank, if you went into the safe room and shot one of the bags of cash you could hear a little tinkle of change.

Also guitar solos on the Disco level in Future Perfect rawk. You could also play drums, spit into the microphone and do some dj-ing. Hilariously, all as fast as you could mash the A button.

 

[MannyDon]

In Fallout 3 I was wandering around one of the many subway tunnels and right up the end of one after squeezing past a train I found a baby pram with a skeleton in the tattered remains of a dress next to it.
The whole scene just made me feel a little sad.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

In Gears of War 2 how insanely realistic the water looked. Also in the arcade of day one, you can look at the machines and read the titles and controls and they were actually kind of funny.

 

[brettman170]

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.

 

[Mackinator]

Dom's wife in GOW2.

Hehe. I actually liked that part of GOW2 but yes funny.

 

[Mutough]

I liked how radios would show up in The Warriors and play music right before you got into a big fight.

 

[JenXXXJen]

Not from a specific game, but I love it when the NPC's say different things depending on where you are in the game, or what the weathers like, that sort of thing. In fact, when what they say is actually interesting, I love when they do that.

Another thing I like is when you go through your inventory, each item has an actually INTERESTING description, or one that obviously had some thought put into it.

FFIX, FFXII and DQVIII were good at all of these.

OOOH, just remembered one, In FFVIII, one of the characters actually has a blog that you can read that gets different things added depending on where you are in the game, and also has comments from other characters. I really loved that feature. There was also an info corner with a mini bio on all the places and characters, that was nice.

 

[Mr. Fister]

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.

 

[achilleas.k]

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

 

[Zillar]

In fallout three, you could activate the random parking meters lying around. It really surprised me that they went that far into detail.