Small things you love about games you like.

[CardinalPiggles]

The banter between characters in Dragon Age Origins and DA2. Especially Origins, because Alistair and Shale are really funny.

More games need to have characters just engage each other randomly, because they wouldn't just silently follow you around for hours at a time in between cut scenes.

 

[iwinatlife]

the visceral satisfaction in the backstab and riposte animations in dark souls.

 

[K84]

- Adam Jensen's desk at home in Deus Ex HR.
It tells a lot about him and people can so easily miss it.

- Butterflies in Castlevania LotS.
- Boxes in Metal Gear.
- Bike music in Pokémon Red and Blue.

 

[A Red Robot]

Agni and Rudra's dialog in DMC3.

The music pieces that play around the Firekeeper bonfire areas(Firelink Shrine, Daughter of Chaos, Ash Lake), and the clicking-kind-of sound around the bonfires in Dark Souls. It makes the bonfires feel more soothing and calm to me.

The dialog between squadmates during the elevator loading screens in Mass Effect.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Well, in Battlefield 3 (or any first person shooter I play) I really appreciate cool-looking reload animations for guns.

In Hearts of Iron III (with the HPP mod) I really like all the historical photographs of various pieces of kit and such.

These things add absolutely nothing to the actual gameplay, but they are things that I really take note of.

 

[Ambitiousmould]

Movement in Farcry 3. I love how to can slide and leap large gaps then like struggle and scramble your way onto the ledge. I also think the cover system is great how there's no button holding and it's non-stick, and how the peep and shoot and blind fire work on it.

 

[IronMit]

Mass effect elevator

arkham asylum; Batman's suit getting more and more torn up as the game progresses

The character soundbites in red alert2; me and my friends still randomly shout stuff out like ' watch out for the bump. kirov reporting. NAVIGATING!'

All the ridiculous AI easter eggs in MGS3/4. Planting books on the ground...blow up the food storage and tossing bad food at them so they have stomach aches, actually scaring them with corpse camo, throwing poisonous animals at them. 'what? a box here?'

Blowing up almost any door in deus ex

Poisoning any food or beverage in Blood money

The way Drake touches walls and surrounding as you pass them in Uncharted 3

Bullet time reload animation in max payne 2.

 

[NightmareExpress]

There's this one part in Deus Ex where you make your way up a tower that has a fair number of UNATCO troops in it.
At this point in the game, they are your allies. Your goal is to send a warning message to the NSF (freedom fighters / "terrorists"). Once the message has been sent, your former supervisor sends a message of his own to you saying that he's instructed the troops below to kill you for being a traitor/failure. I tried to sneak my way out, but alas I was saving my invincibility cloak for a later segment and just resorted to shooting a few of them to death.

The next time I played through this segment (on a more pacifist playthrough), I used the electrical riot-prod to knock every UNATCO trooper unconscious on my way up the tower (they were still allies at this point) so I wouldn't have to turn the scene into a blood bath like I did before. However, this time the message I got was different. Basically the guy told me he "would have notified the lieutenant to give the kill order to the troops, but I see you've taken care of them".

I suppose that would be two small things.
Being unaware initially of alternatives, and then having the pursuit of an alternative path that wasn't immediately clear actually change something.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Bruce Campbell voicing the tutorial in Spider-Man 2. The whole game is aces, but that's the cherry on top.

Additionally, there are "info tokens" all around Manhatten that give you gameplay advice when you pass through them (also voiced by Campbell); a few of them tell you that once all of the tokens are collected, he'll say something different. Every time you touch one after collecting them all, he literally says "Something different!".

[edit] OH! I just remembered the Mysterio fight, too! Holy Hell that was brilliant. I'ma have to dig that game out.

 

[shrekfan246]

The animation quality in Assassin's Creed III was just astounding.

This track, and all of its variants, from the Kingdom Hearts franchise:

Sonic's idle animations.

The joke endings in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend.

Party banter in the Dragon Age games.

 

[Phuctifyno]

- Adam Jensen's desk at home in Deus Ex HR.
It tells a lot about him and people can so easily miss it.

Word. His office at Sarif and his apartment were full of great details like that. Anyone else notice that the guy has a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice?

Classes he must have taken:

Brooding 101
Haxorz: an introduction to hat shades
Advanced Boss Killing: imprisonment =/= justice
Not Asking For This: arm-blade self-defense course

Seriously though, really impressive level-dressing.

 

[Mr.Cynic88]

The optional codec conversations available in the Metal Gear Solid games. Calling Otacon while in a trash can or other random scenarios leads to some classic dialogue. They're great touches that many players never look to experience.

edit: And how could I forget pointing the mic at the soldier having some bathroom troubles.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

The reload animation for the FAL in MW2.

That's probably the smallest thing I can think of that I've ever noticed in a game and thought "Fuckin' sweet!"

 

[krazykidd]

UMVC3. When you get a perfect . I just love when those 7 letters fill the screen . And the voice that says PERFECT is so sexy . Iv'e even started saying PERFECT in my everyday speach .

 

[Lucifiel]

Not really focused on one game but here goes: Gideon Emery's voice. (I first heard him voicing Fenris in DA2) He has such a nice timbre, it's almost hypnotizing.

I was pleasantly surprised when my boyfriend picked up Rocksmith and I recognized his voice as the narrator's.

Another few things I liked:

- The menu sound effects in Sanitarium
- also in Sanitarium, the way the kids refer to the "mother" in the pumpkin patch
- The name of the first chapter in The Longest Journey (Penumbra)

 

[freakonaleash]

I really like the art for the classes, constellations and other little things in oblivion.

 

[Able Seacat]

The grunt party sound when you headshot a grunt in Halo.

In FFXIII if you make your character run back and forward quickly they'll show their frustration.

 

[Tom_green_day]

The radio in Fallout 3. While New Vegas had the music, they didn't have 3 Dawg and it just wasn't as good.

 

[TehCookie]

The change in map music near the end of Persona 3, that changed the entire mood.

Kamiya's callouts to his previous games. Like Dante in Bayo's artbook, Pillowtalk, Dante actually appearing in V.Joe, Luka's ex-girlfriends etc.

Metal Gear Solid's 4th wall breaking antics.

Spoiler: Zero Escape VLR

When you lose your eye Akane is in 2D, or in the epilogue with Kyle the Japanese audio uses 999's bleeps and bloops. Or the extra working phone numbers in the crew quarters, either get the gold file or just call 5309 and 6969. Or in the beginning when Phi calls Sigma ero-jiji or Dio calling him a senile old fuck, I thought that was weird but didn't think past that until the end. There is so much more I could list for that game.