Summary
Video games strive to put their best foot forward when marketing themselves to audiences. It’s sensible to want to ensure that potential buyers are able to quickly understand all the shiny new features that the developers worked so hard on bringing to life. However, there are other times when a more subtle approach actually works best.
These instances involve games that hid features from the player. This could be to add suspense, surprise you, or alter the game in a way that better suits your playstyle. Even though they may not be as pronounced as other features, these mechanics helped to shape these gaming experiences.
Rapture is easily one of the most iconic settings in all gaming and helps cement Bioshock as a classic. A ruined city left to crumble at the bottom of the ocean, filled with crazed inhabitants known as Splicers. These ravenous antagonists make up the bulk of the enemies you face in your time visiting this once-sparkling city, and they make for some deadly opponents.
Luckily, the developers made it so that the odds of you getting caught off guard and taking damage is lower thanks to a hidden feature regarding enemy AI. To put it simply, the first shot a splicer sends your way will always miss. This warning shot is meant to provide you with a few seconds to appropriately react, whether that be taking cover, firing off a shot of your own, or zapping the splicer with a plasmid.
Rockstar Games is known forputting incredible amounts of detailin its games. From the simple things like dates reacting to your clothing choices in Grand Theft Auto 4 or the plethora of random events in Red Dead Redemption 2, one thing is for certain: there is always more to uncover in any Rockstar title. Of course, Grand Theft Auto 5 is no exception, and one place that highlights that the most is with the stock market.
Investing in the game’s stocks can be a great way to earn yourself some extra cash, especially after the main story is completed. However, you don’t need to be subject to the whims of the market. By completing assassination missions as Franklin, you’re able to radically alter the value of certain stocks to acquire large sums of cash quickly.
The Battlefield series places a huge emphasis on spectacle and often weaves theatrics into the gameplay. It’s impossible to forget the first time you see abuilding collapse amid combatin Battlefield 4, which provides a similar sense of awe as you might feel watching a blimp catch fire in the skies as seen in Battlefield 1. The scale of these moments does not always have to be so bombastic to be of interest.
In Battlefield 1, you are able to equip yourself with a variety of grenade types, including fragmentation, smoke bombs, and poisonous gas. In a remarkable bit of detail, explosive grenades can actually disrupt clouds of smoke or gas if they explode nearby. In addition, your player character will also react to being too close to a live grenade, making sounds of authentic panic, which can be an effective warning to go along with the on-screen indicator.
Metro Exodus introduced many players to the harsh wasteland setting of Metro. However, the series began back in 2010 with the equally well regarded Metro 2033. Telling a more linear story, the plot followed Artyom’s harsh journey through the subways beneath Russia as most of the surface was too scarred by radiation to be remotely livable. Along the way, you will have to make tough choices that may lead you down a dark road in the name of survival.
When these opportunities to act come up, you have the opportunity to earn karma points for yourself. Managing to gather a sufficient number of these points will result in obtaining a different ending, as well as shaping how Artyom reacts to this world he’s been thrust into by necessity.
4Cruelty Squad
A New Meaning To Corporate Drone
Immersive simgames are not nearly as popular as they once were. Titles like Deus Ex, System Shock, and Thief: The Dark Project placed a strong focus on having you feel like you were a part of their world. It’s strange that, with how grounded many of these games were, a bizarre title like Cruelty Squad could be counted among their ranks as possessing similarly noteworthy traits.
Part of the charm of Cruelty Squad is that it allows you to take on its challenges in a very open manner, giving you little instruction or direction other than pointing at who is to be killed. However, should you fail at your task, you’ll be given a new body that only takes half the damage from attacks. Respawning still drains your bank account — unless you die four more times, in which case, you’ll be put down to the easiest skill which, true to the game’s strange habits, also will allow you to eat corpses to regain health.
Half-Lifeis one of themost influential games of all time, and the first title by prolific studio Valve. Of the game’s many strengths is it’s enemy variety and AI. Throughout your campaign through Black Mesa, you’ll have to contend with shambling zombies, fast-moving alien beasts, tactically-minded soldiers, and relentless alien juggernauts.
Their AI techniques are not just limited to combat. For example, the many corpses you leave behind in your wake will emit a smell that NPCs can react to. This can be as innocent as a security guard questioning the stench, or it can be what leads to an alien monster waddling over, looking to secure itself a meal.
The campaigns of eachCall of Dutygame are a contentious topic among fans of the series. To some, it’s entirely vestigial, as seen in 2019’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare allowing you to download the multiplayer without the campaign. But to others, it’s a central part of the experience, with Black Ops 4 receiving significant backlash for opting to skip the mode altogether.
When the campaigns are present though, they present the developers with the opportunity to experiment in ways that the multiplayer doesn’t allow. Take for instance the Russian missions in Call of Duty: World At War, which subtly offer you the chance to react to moral situations, including shooting at surrendering soldiers or mercy killing wounded enemies. The payoff for this is simple, adjusting how fellow soldier Chernov writes about you in his post-mission journal entry.
The Resident Evil series is no stranger to difficulty. Whether it be limiting your saves in the original entry, or requiring rapid runs to score a high time in Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil has never been shy about focusing on the survival aspect of survival horror. These themes carried over intoResident Evil 4in an extremely unique way, with the game boasting a dynamic difficulty feature that changes aspects of the game depending on how proficiently you play.
Enemies may hit harder or not even spawn in certain sections if your aim is poor, or you’re taking too many hits. Meanwhile, play carefully and take out foes flawlessly, and you’ll be faced with more deadly threats. This ensures that the gameplay is always exciting, regardless of how experienced you are. But for those who prefer a more predictable approach and don’t mind the challenge, professional difficulty disables this all together.
