Little touches in games that made you smile

[DJjaffacake]

I just finished playing episode 1 of The Walking Dead, and the special thanks section of the credits ended with "and you," which elicited a smile from me. So I started wondering, have my escapist comrades ever encountered something like this? Not necessarily something in the credits, just a little thing that made you think the developers actually care.

 

[Aeshi]

Most of the Vehicles in Enemy Territory:Quake Wars have their own fully-working GPS systems somewhere on their dashboard. Redundant because you have a more detailed minimap but still a nice touch.

 

[Cryptotom]

This wasn't so much something that gave me the impression that the developers cared, but when I was playing Black Ops (the last CoD game I played actually)I saw a poster of Guan Yu hidden away behind a market stall in the level where you're running through the city with the scientist chap...It's been a long time since I've played it.

Since Guan Yu was deified after his death and became the god of commerce (of all things) I thought it was a very nice little touch.

 

[Terminate421]

In Halo: Reach, if you use the gravity hammer at the right time, you can redirect rockets and grenades.

 

[ReadyAmyFire]

When the MGS1 life bars filled up at the end of MGS4. Nostalgia overload.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well, a few of the emotes in League of Legends are a reference to a variety of different things. That always makes me smile. Spamming /taunt /joke /dance /laugh is the first thing I do when I play a new character in fact.

"Double Rainbow?! What does it mean?!"

Lux is just all round hilarious.

"Haaaaa, DEMACIA! *Pew*

Oh and the few hilarious moments the grab button in Dragin's Dogma has provided me with. Super awesome bandit with a big fuck off warhammer and way too much health destroys my entire party, bullrush him, pick him the fuck up and lob him off a cliff for the instakill

Oh my that was funny

Speaking of comedy gold in DD


14:20ish

BOX!

 

[scorptatious]

In Shadow of the Colossus, when Agro goes to drink some water out of his own free will while I climb a tree for some fruit. Normally horses in games don't do that.

 

[Lilani]

God there is just so much in just about any Valve game. In Half-Life 2 and the episodes, I always loved to listen to the extra dialog from the NPCs, and look at the posters and scenery which always had a few interesting stories to tell. And Portal 2 was also just full of little things, from the Rat Man's drawings and hideouts to all the posters and easter eggs throughout the old Aperture area.

 

[Zhukov]

Many of Catwoman's combat animations in Arkham City. Examples include checking her nails while silently choking a dude unconscious or giving an enemy a peck on the cheek before judo-throwing him into the floor.

Yeah I know, it's silly, but it made me smile all the same.

 

[Lectori Salutem]

One character mentioning the book 'Roadside Picknick' in Metro 2033.

For those who don't know, it has similar elements as the book Metro 2033 and is also the book the Stalker games are heavily inspired by.

 

[JaceArveduin]

LotRO has tons of little things like that for those that have read the books, like how Nob can be seen walking around The Pony.

 

[Moriim]

"You must gather your party before venturing forth."

I grinned when I saw that message in DA:O.

 

[Emiscary]

Being able to respond thusly when a treacherous NPC tried to offer me a "deal" in The Witcher 2's Enhanced Edition:

"There will be no deals."

And promptly killing her & all her companions.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

The cats in Persona 4.

*You're walking home from a leisurely day at school, and you spot a cat by your house.*

*Talk to it?*
>>Yes
>No

*You talk to the cat for a while*

It was a nice little touch. I especially like how more cats appear the next day. It's almost like real life. >.>

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

when you find stephano in cry of fear, and the character references pewdiepie.
"stephano?? what the fuck pewdiepie?"

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

There are plenty, but one I thought of was in Assassin's Creed 2: "It's a-me! Mario!"

 

[the abyss gazes also]

Environment details. Like in Skyrim when I recently came across a tree near a river that had obviously been downed by a beaver. For some reason I thought that was just a nice touch.

 

[Clinky]

One for me was Double Fine's dedication to whatever situation can pop up in that game as well as really fleshing the whole of it's world out. For example:

-Outside of a few solitary moments the Clairvoyance ability has little to no use. But you can use it on everyone to see how they view Raz, by using a cheat code you can actually go to all the people in camp and do just that. You can even do it with enemies(bears seeing Raz as a picnic basket is just made me giggle).

- You temporarily get a turtle called Mr. Pokeylope, you can very quickly finish using him for the task you need to complete... But then you can just go and show him to EVERYONE. And they all have a reaction, fully voiced too.

- You can actually listen in on conversations characters have and look around the camp to see the silly little things they are up to outside the storyline, you can even view some cutscenes only by backtracking in some of those cases.

 

[Screamarie]

Usually what makes me think a developer cares is little details.
Random wildlife actually out in the wild and not just things enemies trying to kill you.

Decoration changing from house to house, like one house is super tidy because the person that lives there is tidy, but then in another there's books everywhere because the person living there is a scholar.

Changing weather in the sky or at least moving clouds.

Just things that aren't necessary to the game to continue playing it, but you know that a designer or designers was working hard to make certain it was "right." That it looked real or accurate as possible so it wasn't breaking your immersion because you're thinking "okay I've got to go to house number 5" and instead you're thinking "oh I have to go Brother Genitivi's house."

 

[Muspelheim]

One character mentioning the book 'Roadside Picknick' in Metro 2033.

For those who don't know, it has similar elements as the book Metro 2033 and is also the book the Stalker games are heavily inspired by.

And it's one helluva good book, too. I really liked that touch, too.

Another thing of notice in Metro: when you're in the old command bunker, there is a boot in a corner with a small plant growing in it, as a bit of a shoutout to Wall-E.

Now, while it was -very- unhelpfull, only really a bunch of textboxes, I did like the in-game tutorial of Hearts of Iron III, where a certain short, ugly ol' Austrian with a mustache give you the basic ropes of world conquest (with the odd, 30-minute raving tantrum), before dejectidly resigning to shoot himself in his bunker once he grasps that you still don't know what on earth you're doing.