Wait...I can do that?

[matsugawa]

I played through the first Ghost in the Shell game (on PS1), and just could not beat the last boss. Up until this point, I'd only been using my machine guns; I had no idea that if I held down my fire button long enough, I'd get lock-on icons and could unleash a volley of RPGs. I mean, it was cool I could finally beat the last boss, but it really just made me think about all the other arduous boss battles that came before, and how much more painless they could have been if I'd just held down a damn button.

The best one, though, happened to my brother on Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. He was riding around the open landscape after he'd beaten Ganon, when I asked him why he was still playing, he said, "there's a third armor I haven't gotten." Flashback to a few weeks earlier, when I was talking with my friend Jon, a hardcore gamer who'd beaten the game over a Thanksgiving weekend in the prior months. He was talking about playing through it again, this time beating the water temple without using the blue tunic. Remembering this, I asked my brother to open the inventory, which he did, and saw he didn't have the blue tunic (remember, he's beaten the game already).
Me: Oh, you don't have the water suit.
(dead silence)
Him: What do you mean... WATER suit?
Me: ... the one that lets you breath underwater.
Him: The one that lets me do what?!
He'd played through the whole game never going back to the Zora cave and thawing out the king to get the tunic. He's had one more similar situation with Jurassic Park on the Genesis, but this tops that one.

 

[kannibus]

I was playing Dragon Age and more or less up until the final boss fight I couldn't figure out how to make potions. Lord knows I knew it was possible but I couldn't figure out how. This is what happens when you buy the digital download copy and they don't give you the manual as a pdf. Regardless, the game was awesome!

Another moment was in Hawx. I'd spent months playing the game and just recently found out how to look around my plane (hold down C and move mouse).

 

[Spaghetti]

Same game but holding down A to drink the water continuously.
Was playing F3 fo about 6 months before realising.

SERIOUSLY? Damn, I wouldn't have left Fallout 3 on the wrong side of the atlantic if I had known that...It certainly deserves a 5th playthrough, simply so I can see if this mystical mechanic that was once unknown to me effects the game in any way...

 

[dirkdeldiablo]

I only found out about the Pipboy light, because a hint came up about it on one of the loading screens, did not know about the water, and I still haven't figured out how to put your weapon away without unequipping it either?

Hold down the "reload" key, as I recall.

Also agreeing with the gent about the Brutal Legend unlockables. I kept playing and playing, assuming that I'd be granted to ability to interact with them in a cutscene or something, when I accidentally set a dragon on fire. I spent the next hour or so catching up on all the dragons I'd passed.

And for a new one: I remember playing through most of one of the Ratchet and Clanks without realizing you could strafe.

 

[wizzerd229]

Same game but holding down A to drink the water continuously.
Was playing F3 fo about 6 months before realising.

You can do that?

Goddamnit...
Well, there's mine.

yep

 

[GrimTuesday]

I don't know if this counts, but in Borderlands if you do a quick fetch quest for some Claptraps, they give you extra backpack space. Well I thought it was automatic, but it turns out you had to apply this thing to give yourself more space. So I ended up beating the entire game with 12 backpack slots because I didn't know that you had to apply it yourself.

I did this too. For me, it's not knowing that you don't need the Electrosapper out to cloak while being the Spy. I don't know why I thought you did, it just made sense to me.

 

[thefourwings]

and I still haven't figured out how to put your weapon away without unequipping it either?

Hold the reload button to put your weapon away, then you can hit either reload or attack to bring it back out again.

Fallout flashlight didn't take me that long to discover, but no thanks to the game - it was because I went googling for a "flashlight mod"

Can't remember specific titles, but a handful of games that I didn't realize you could save at any point - thought the auto-saves were a checkpoint system, so I'd always play until I reached one instead of saving and quitting whenever.

 

[Alluminn]

I just recently realized you could trade Emblems in bulk in WoW, after having done at least 500 trades one-by-one

 

[butikilledu47]

Same game but holding down A to drink the water continuously.
Was playing F3 fo about 6 months before realising.

You can do that?

Goddamnit...
Well, there's mine.

same here

 

[Caligulove]

Sort of fits, but.

I played God of War, loved it. Was around a year until I got around to getting myself God of War II.
The first level in Rhodes... I had forgotten that I could roll-dodge. It took me FAR TOO LONG to remember something so crucial to that game

 

[cheese_wizington]

Same game but holding down A to drink the water continuously.
Was playing F3 fo about 6 months before realising.

Same here.

 

[RobotNinja]

I played the deku tree in ocarina of time for about 6 months before realising how to set fire to a web on the ground. Well, I say figured out. I got a friend to do it for me.

then I got to the water temple in a couple of months (it took me a long time as I was about 8) and had to brutally murder myself because of it.

If it wasn't for the internet I never would have been able to beat Ocarina of Time. It's hard to figure out what to do, and Navi doesn't do shit to help out.

 

[adledog]

Wow, we should really put out a press release or something to tell people about the damn flashlight in Fallout 3, I didn't know either. That, or just get Bethesda to put a flier inside new copies of the game tell people how to do it.

 

[TheNumber1Zero]

Same game but holding down A to drink the water continuously.
Was playing F3 fo about 6 months before realising.

Seriously? I found that out around 2 or 3 days of gameplay. You people need to experiment more.

I still haven't figured out how to put your weapon away without unequipping it either?

Press and hold X to holster your weapon.

On Topiclayed Oblivion for around half a year before discovering you could "Grab" objects and make them float around. A pointless feature, but one I used massively afterwards nonetheless.

 

[Ophiuchus]

About the Pip-Boy light: it tells you on page TWO of the instruction manual. The page right after the contents page. Doesn't anyone read those any more?

Anyway. First time I played Oblivion, I spent ages walking everywhere because I didn't realise you could fast travel. It was a rental game, and came without an instruction manual. Thanks for that.

 

[Corven]

I didn't know that you could right click to charge the demomans sticky bomb gun to shoot farther away, until the day I accidentally pressed it.

 

[Garla Mapit]

Harvest Moon: Back to Nature. I I played for awhile before I realized I could just hit shoulder buttons to cycle through items instead of opening the menu and moving things everytime I wanted to put something away.

 

[Manhattan2112]

I have like, thousands of them from the Pokemon games. I didn't know about evolution stones, about moves that increase stats, I just finally figured out how Attack/Defense/Spec.Attack/Spec.Defense works over the summer. You name it, and I had no clue about it. But that was part of the fun. Just last week I learned what the Pokerus virus was.

From some non-gameboy games... give me a second... give me a second. Well, I have a friend who defeated that mind-read-y guy from MGS1 without disconnecting his controller.

 

[Poomanchu745]

About 3 hours into the single player for MW1 i realized that if i hit the left mouse button it would fire a weapon. What a nice surprise! Made everything easier.

 

[koriantor]

Metal Gear Solid on the Gamecube. I borrowed it from a friend (I should really go buy the game), and he only gave me the discs. No manual. I had NO clue what the "Action Button" was. I got frustrated with it soon and left it for a week (Note: It wasn't just restricted to the action button. I had no clue how to play the game). Now I'm glad I looked it up on the internet