It's the little things... Your favorite small details in games.

[The Wykydtron]

This could be considered egocentric.

But! I found that it really made a difference in a game where the main character had my first name. It was first person and people spoke directly to screen, so it really did have that extra step of immersion for me, because it felt more like people were talking to me - although this can not be directly credited to the game, as it was just chance that my name was the same, but it felt really strange to experience!

Try finding it immersive when my name is the same as the protagonist in Amnesia: The Dark Decent T_T

OT: The recurring close chin dodge in MGS Rising: Revengeance. Basically Raiden will bend over backwards to dodge something in slow motion and whatever the sharp object in question is will barely scrape his metal chin. He does it at least 5 or so times

The first example


I've said this before but I really like the emotes in League of Legends. I'm playing some DOTA 2 and it feels really lacking when I can't mash laugh or joke for no reason other than I can. Especially since I send most of the laning phase in DOTA sitting next to my tower stock still waiting for the wave to push for ages.

 

[somethingorother003]

No Metal Gear Solid 3 yet?

Just recently I learned I could throw snakes at people, and eat vultures that ate people to get special dialog.

Also Hitman [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKbptWt_Qs4].
While only somewhat related to small details, Hitman's openness combined with so many little things that give me so much creative freedom is utter hilarity.

For instance, in that one missions with the nuns, one of them is having a conversation with a dudeguy soldier, with a small chesthighwall behind them. Dudeguy soldier looks away, I grab and garrote said nun over the wall behind them, making a ton of noise which somehow the soldier doesn't hear. Soldier looks back, says, "Where'd you go!?", then leaves.

It's so great because that wasn't scripted. It's just a crazy thing that happened to me, and if you play around enough you'll find hundreds of these things.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

When first person shooters allow you to see your body or shadow looking down. I'm always smitten with that. "Oh my god! I'm actually playing a person!"

Third person games when the characters interact with the environment, such as gliding hands on walls you're near, or when characters randomly interact with each other.

However, if you want outrageously small details in games, Metal Gear Solid is the series for that. Every game has something somewhere, and I love it.

 

[DanielBrown]

I'm not one for noticing details, but I remember one when playing a Tomb Raider game(Underworld, I think). When Lara faced fire she would put up her arms to cover her face. At the time I thought it was quite fucking cool.

 

[Ipsen]

Persona 4 Arena lets you switch the confirmation/cancel buttons, essentially from US/EU version to Japanese version (O=confirm, X=cancel).

To this day I find it weird (in principle) as to why US playstation uses X for confirm, and O for cancel. Then again, my first Playstation game was FF7, which also had O-confirm by default. Hell, even my mother's first question when I taught her how to use the controller was why X confirms and O cancels.

Anyway, I love the game a little bit more (every time I hit confirm :3) for making sense to me on both a small and ubiquitous scale. I hope Ultimax continues this!

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I like how in Mega Man X when X's health is low he has a deep-breath, "I'm tired," animation (yes I know this was mentioned above, stick with me on this) and in Chill Penguin's icy level, when he does this animation, you can see his breath.

I really like the timing-based button presses to increase damage Legend of Dragoon, Paper Mario, and Lost Odyssey. It's a great way to make simple turn-based combat more engaging and rewarding.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Raikov's underpants in MGS3, lightning bolt and all.

Also, being able to make Snake/Eva vomit by spinning the round and a round.

The way the battle with the Sorrow track every enemy you killed in the game, not only that, but how as well, walking past ranks of soldiers with their heads hanging off at unnatural angles or gurgling incomprehensibly because I'd slit their throat was, off putting to say the least.

BF4 has you loose the rounds left in a mag when you reload instead of magically consolidating all that ammo.

The old BF games up to 2142 all did this, they also didn't have the 30+1 magazine count because the player would always cycle the weapon on reloading, ejecting the last round in the chamber, which was neat.

Speaking of old BF games, I miss vehicles having limited ammunition and having to return to base to reload. It made life against aircraft a touch easier when you knew you had thirty seconds to minute after the first run to find cover or leg it to a new position.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Any game that has 'sight-seeing' quality that makes me want to go to every corner and just look at everything. I've played each game in the Bishock series at least three times and I still find myself looking at walls, the sky, up at buildings, through windows, and under tables. I just like being in awe of my surroundings and feel that if I played it again, I might even see something new. Also, characters like Elizabeth in Bioshock: Infinite. She'd lean against walls, warm her hands at barrel fires in Shantytown, explore a room with me and tell me where stuff is, throw me things in combat, or just toss me some change for the vending machines.

NPC interactions with things always make me happy too. Where it seems like they have their own lives and I'm just running right through them, going through their homes. The Elder Scrolls series where the shopkeepers walk around when you go out of sight to make sure you don't have sticky fingers, or if you go into someones house at a late hour, they tell you that you best leave or they'll have to make you leave, or that they'll call the guards. Go to the Inn to watch everyone gather, talk, eat and drink, and then they just go home. I don't know, maybe I'm just easily impressed. lol

 

[Duffeknol]

Spec Ops the Line. When you're under fire, especially if you're hit a couple of times, the look on your face is like you're about to shit yourself. No matter how tough of a military dude you are, when death is zipping around your head, you don't keep a action hero scowl. You are scared.

 

[Fireaxe]

The non-plot critical emails in Deus Ex: Human Revolution that fleshed out the world and made locations feel almost like real environments where people would actually do things.

 

[Professor Idle]

Shadow of the Colossus is probably my favourite game.

Talking of little touches, whenever you saw huge fish swimming downstream, you could grab them and they would pull you along! Why is that so cool? You can do the same with the eagles, grab on to them and let them fly you around, with no hint that they'd do such a thing.

Also (unrelated), when you have a physics object in your game, and you drop an item over a bin, the item better go in the goddamn bin, not float over the top!

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I like it when save points are justified within a game through actual stuff.

-The typewriters from Resident Evil.
-The notepads from Silent Hill.
-The cameras from Fatal Frame.
-The grandfather clocks from Haunting Ground.
-The paper vessels you set adrift in rivers from Kuon.
-The "Bucket Knights" from Rule of Rose.
-The old-fashioned telephones from Echo Night.
-The mirrors from Okami.

Sadly the practice seems to have been knocked off in favor of checkpoints and autosaving.

 

[freaper]

Recently, that one mission in ACIV:BF when Edward is in the templar mansion at the start of the game, with the four main templars bent over a map and you're given this bonus quest to pickpocket all of them. This kind of characterization is what makes me smile.

 

[Dr. Doomsduck]

In Mass Effect, when Tali says "Go for the optics!" as a reference to Minsk and Boo's "Go for the eyes!".

 

[Mersadeon]

In Zelda: Twilight Princess, when you beat an enemy you can put your sword away in a spectacular way - but only if you press the button JUST RIGHT. Seriously, in a game that had interesting combat moves but where every fight was way too easy, this became a fun challenge: being as stylish as possible.


Hearthstone is full of little things that make me smile - the flavour texts are all nice, but I think I appreciate the soundbits each card has the most.

If you look at the flavour text for the Houndmaster card, it says " "Who let the dogs out?", he asks. It's rhetorical."
When you play his card, he says "*I* let the dogs out!". It just makes me smile a little.
And even cards that would only live to attack in extremely odd situations that almost never happen have unique soundbits. I love it.

The reloading animation for the "Shambler" shotgun in the Metro games. It's almost entrancing, and there are several different outcomes depending on WHEN you start reloading. It made the game feel so real and atmospheric.

But my star probably has to go to Jade Empire. I can't say what it is, but let's just say it starts as a little detail and ends in a revelation. That little detail is great, because it's something you know about but just dismiss.

 

[Black Reaper]

In Tales of Vesperia, every single sword you can get for the main character has its own sheath, and this is a huge rpg with dozens of weapons, and he just tosses the sheath away whenever you get into a battle, so you can only see them while running around the map, and even then only if you selected Yuri as your on-screen character
Also in Tales of Vesperia, if you cook something from the menu, your character's portraits will change depending on whether they like that food or not, everyone has their own tastes

In Ninja Gaiden 2, every single item you find has a detailed description you can see if you examine it, even if it is just an insignificant key you will be ditching shortly, i was pretty disappointed when that same feature wasn't in Ninja Gaiden 3

 

[Aesir23]

This is probably the epitome of small details but I found myself oddly pleased when I was playing Red Dead Redemption when I noticed that horses and wagons leave tracks on the road.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

I'm thinking about the schoolhouse in Dead Space 2. I remember scouring from room to room looking for stuff that looked the same, pretty much every room in that schoolhouse was unique. It surprised me, I figured here was the spot where they could afford to get lazy and they didn't. No to mention that most of the classrooms had a little timeout corner which I thought was kind of cool.

 

[Mikejames]

And Finally, Everything about Psychonauts. The amount of details put into that game are frankly astonishing.

The fact that you can get humorous responses from almost every character when showing them items you might only have for a few minutes really cracks me up. Lots of foreshadowing I missed on the first run too.

Spoiler: The Last of Us spoiler

Looking in Ellie's backpack, and hearing her thoughts on all the items. It's easy to overlook this ability, since first time playing it you're too preoccupied with whether or not Joel is dead. And it being a "secondary character" section you expect the less crucial game mechanics to take a backseat.

Spoiler

Like old items? Taking note of that for next replay.

I liked how Joel and Elle would actually respond to miscellaneous messages they found in general. I can't think of many games that do that.

 

[FPLOON]

Well, I remember when Jak 2 was the first game I would literally just walk to my next mission (if it was possible) just to overhear all of the hover vehicles pass by above me... Also, overhearing two Crimson Guards just having idle chit-chat before you basically shot them with the Peacemaker on Hero Mode never got old for me...

There was this one referenced enemy from Symphonia that I really liked finding and having a hard time defeating due to it's very high defense stats... (Every attack only did 1 damage... and the enemy never stayed for too long, if I'm not mistaken...)