Non-obvious cool shit from games you like

[deuxhero]

Unique jam clear animations for everything in New Vegas. You'll never see the vast majority of them even if you use a mod to increase the rate by several times since unless you shoot shitty corosive ammo through an MG at nothing or pick up a weapon after shooting it out of someone's hand since for most weapons repair parts are so common repairs will never be an issue.

 

[Borelli]

• Traversable map in Arcanum (probably felt like a disappointment at the time, but I love that it's there).
• Possessing creatures in Dungeon Keeper (why even put such a thing in your strategy game?)

You don't see things like this anymore.

 

[JarlFrank]

Just list off any cool aspect of some game you like that doesn't get its due attention in regular discourse.

I've gained appreciation for the level names in Red Alert 3. They're titles of old movies, or Zagor episodes. For example, a level in which you invade a Russian village on new year's is named ''The Death of Father Frost''. You stop the soviet premier from escaping to space, and it's called ''The Moon Shall Never Have Them''. You wield a giant samurai mech, and it's called ''Behold the Mighty Saint of Swords''. RA3 conveys its corny tone in many other ways, but I like this touch of extra commitment.

Totally off topic, but I feel like RA3 is one of the more underrated games of its era. People were probably over RTS SP campaigns at that point, but I enjoyed it a lot for something that has almost no place in collective memory

I always liked RTS games but couldn't stand RA3's campaign because every mission was a co-op mission, you never got one where you had to fight solo.

 

[JarlFrank]

In Thief 1&2, if you are leaning near a locked door you can hear what is going on over there. Very useful if you don't want to stumble on to a guard who is just standing or patrolling there.

The cool part about Thief is that all of this is based on simple physics and property interactions within the engine. I have a little experience with the level editor, so I know how it works under the hood.

The game's sound propagation is determined by room brushes. Those are independent of the terrain and have a simpler shape (to help old PCs process sound propagation, which would be harder with complex shapes). Sound passes between room brushes that meet.
Doors can block sight and sound. You can actually adjust the amount of sound blocked by a door in percent! And when you lean into a door you're basically pushing yourself through its sound blocking field, so you can hear everything beyond loud and clear.

It's pretty genius design entirely derived from the principle of making everything systemic, not scripted.

 

[NecroLord]

Games that faithfully reproduced a sci-fi franchise, say Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien, Predator, Terminator, or whatever.

Lovingly capturing the feeling, atmosphere, setting, procedural logic, philosophical attitude, sounds, architecture, graphical interfaces, starship designs, technological level, scientific detail, history, lore, political situation, way of speech, etc, etc. Games once did this exceptionally well, for example the Interplay and Microprose Star Trek games, such as Judgment Rites, Klingon Academy and Birth of the Federation, or the Lucasarts Star Wars games such as Dark Forces and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.

I could list thousands of little things from 1990s games that utterly captured the atmosphere. Damn impressive fidelity.

Now the only place you will find it is indie studios like Tindalos and Teyon.

I agree 100%.
Good old 90s FMVs. I miss them.

JarlFrank The use of sound and lighting as game mechanics is what made Thief so unique.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Arx Fatalis with tiny maps - so small that you have hard time fighting with two-handed weapons because they bounce off the walls and ceiling.
And of course you can see your feet. Those sausages wrapped in the chain mail pattern of paper.

 

[PapaPetro]

Easter eggs.
Still appreciate that some of the devs are keeping the tradition.
They are much harder to hide these days.

 

[Ol' Willy]

In Fallout 1/2 engine, when you carry any weapon in your hands and interact with something, your char plays holstering animation, then interacts with object, then plays unholstering animation. This makes all of it much longer than you want to, so you would want to walk around with empty hands, keeping weapon in other slot.

 

[Tweed]

I like games that let you mouth off to characters you don't like and provoke unnecessary fights. I.E. Fallout.

I like it better when you get nice things if you manage to survive, I.E. pissing off the main antagonist of Voidspire Tactics on the first encounter when he tells you to get out of the way.

 

[Iucounu]

Easter eggs.
Still appreciate that some of the devs are keeping the tradition.
They are much harder to hide these days.

If they fit the setting (like well hidden weapons and armor in a FPS). I wasn't too fond of searching for frogs in Crysis Warhead.

 

[what am i doing]

Every single unit un Supreme Commander having a cool nickname is a touch of creativity I really appreciate. As well as the consistency of the themes of each faction, the UEF being squarejawed jocks, Cybrans being edgy teens, the Aeon being hare krishna hippies. Look at this.

>Cybran T3 Armoured Assault Bot: The Brick
>Cybran T1 Light Gunship: Jester
>Cybran T2 Gunship: Renegade
>Cybran T3 Heavy Artillery Installation: Distruptor (might as well be called "middle finger")
>Cybran T3 Strategic Missile Submarine: Plan B
>Cybran T3 Battleship: Galaxy Class
>Cybran T2 Point Defense: Cerberus
>UEF T3 Battleship: Summit Class
>UEF T2 Shield Boat: Bulwark
>UEF T3 Heavy Gunship: Broadsword
>UEF T2 Missile Launcher: Flapjack
>UEF T3 Strategic Missile Launcher: Stonager (points deducted because it's not a real word, but it sounds just right)
>Aeon T3 Strategic Bomber: Shocker
>Aeon T2 Air Transport: Alumnar
>Aeon T3 Omni Sensor Array: Oculus
>Soul Ripper
>Fatboy
>Galactic Colossus
>Monkeylord

Bubble shields in SupCom block weapons fire, but they don't block units, or the wreckage of units. Air units' wreckage does some amount of crash damage, but goes through shields - so a very well-shielded building can still be taken out by dropping a sufficiently high-crash-damage unit on it. Two UEF satellites will take out an SMD, for example - you set them to Hold Fire and then give them a manual move order (separately, so they don't fan out) to go right above the SMD, and then ctrl-k them. One Ahwassa will take out most buildings, although it's difficult to aim. The CZAR can also be used for this purpose, although its slow speed means it will usually be identified and intercepted early.

 

[Vlajdermen]

Every single unit un Supreme Commander having a cool nickname is a touch of creativity I really appreciate. As well as the consistency of the themes of each faction, the UEF being squarejawed jocks, Cybrans being edgy teens, the Aeon being hare krishna hippies. Look at this.

>Cybran T3 Armoured Assault Bot: The Brick
>Cybran T1 Light Gunship: Jester
>Cybran T2 Gunship: Renegade
>Cybran T3 Heavy Artillery Installation: Distruptor (might as well be called "middle finger")
>Cybran T3 Strategic Missile Submarine: Plan B
>Cybran T3 Battleship: Galaxy Class
>Cybran T2 Point Defense: Cerberus
>UEF T3 Battleship: Summit Class
>UEF T2 Shield Boat: Bulwark
>UEF T3 Heavy Gunship: Broadsword
>UEF T2 Missile Launcher: Flapjack
>UEF T3 Strategic Missile Launcher: Stonager (points deducted because it's not a real word, but it sounds just right)
>Aeon T3 Strategic Bomber: Shocker
>Aeon T2 Air Transport: Alumnar
>Aeon T3 Omni Sensor Array: Oculus
>Soul Ripper
>Fatboy
>Galactic Colossus
>Monkeylord

Bubble shields in SupCom block weapons fire, but they don't block units, or the wreckage of units. Air units' wreckage does some amount of crash damage, but goes through shields - so a very well-shielded building can still be taken out by dropping a sufficiently high-crash-damage unit on it. Two UEF satellites will take out an SMD, for example - you set them to Hold Fire and then give them a manual move order (separately, so they don't fan out) to go right above the SMD, and then ctrl-k them. One Ahwassa will take out most buildings, although it's difficult to aim. The CZAR can also be used for this purpose, although its slow speed means it will usually be identified and intercepted early.

It's hard to tell whether that's intentional or an oversight.

Another cool detail of supreme coomer based on the fact that everything is simulated: all the turrets swivel independently. It is the most apparent on battleships, as they are the most heavily armed units, how one cannon can aim at one ship while the other two aim at another one that just happened to be closer, meanwhile the torpedoes are helping out at their own pace and the AA guns are busy with the torpedo bombers buzzing around.
It doesn't happen all the time, but it's cool that it can happen. The only practical application of this detail is in the direct combat-based experimentals: the Galactic Collossus, the Soul Ripper, and the Fatboy. I haven't had the pleasure of playing with the Megalith yet (I have to say that's the lamest name of all the experimentals).

 

[Vlajdermen]

There are many details to appreciate in supcom. For example, how they were actually autistic enough to come up with an entire set of armaments which are used in multiple ways in the given faction, while keeping their gameplay properties.

For example, the UEF linked railgun is used on their T1 static AA, T1 interceptors, and on four turrets on their T3 battleship. The Aeon oblivion cannon is used as a T2 point defense turret, but also mounted on their T2 destroyer, thrice on their T3 battleship, and once (but giant) on their experimental battleship. Indeed, it's always the same weapon, but in a different calibre.
The heavy artillery is a case where all 3 main factions use the same payload for both the static and the mobile versions, including the experimentals (again, with a different calibre). The UEF use anti-matter, the Cybrans use proton shells, and the Aeon use sonesis shells, but the Cybrans also apply the same type of explosive for their strategic bomber. It's as if that's all their poor underpowered nation is able to manufacture for the given purpouse, so they have to use it whereever possible.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

I like it when a game has mirrors and water that show your reflection and I like when a game's ambient music will change based on circumstance. Sombre music playing if it starts raining or during economic hardship in games like Stronghold.

 

[what am i doing]

Every single unit un Supreme Commander having a cool nickname is a touch of creativity I really appreciate. As well as the consistency of the themes of each faction, the UEF being squarejawed jocks, Cybrans being edgy teens, the Aeon being hare krishna hippies. Look at this.

>Cybran T3 Armoured Assault Bot: The Brick
>Cybran T1 Light Gunship: Jester
>Cybran T2 Gunship: Renegade
>Cybran T3 Heavy Artillery Installation: Distruptor (might as well be called "middle finger")
>Cybran T3 Strategic Missile Submarine: Plan B
>Cybran T3 Battleship: Galaxy Class
>Cybran T2 Point Defense: Cerberus
>UEF T3 Battleship: Summit Class
>UEF T2 Shield Boat: Bulwark
>UEF T3 Heavy Gunship: Broadsword
>UEF T2 Missile Launcher: Flapjack
>UEF T3 Strategic Missile Launcher: Stonager (points deducted because it's not a real word, but it sounds just right)
>Aeon T3 Strategic Bomber: Shocker
>Aeon T2 Air Transport: Alumnar
>Aeon T3 Omni Sensor Array: Oculus
>Soul Ripper
>Fatboy
>Galactic Colossus
>Monkeylord

Bubble shields in SupCom block weapons fire, but they don't block units, or the wreckage of units. Air units' wreckage does some amount of crash damage, but goes through shields - so a very well-shielded building can still be taken out by dropping a sufficiently high-crash-damage unit on it. Two UEF satellites will take out an SMD, for example - you set them to Hold Fire and then give them a manual move order (separately, so they don't fan out) to go right above the SMD, and then ctrl-k them. One Ahwassa will take out most buildings, although it's difficult to aim. The CZAR can also be used for this purpose, although its slow speed means it will usually be identified and intercepted early.

It's hard to tell whether that's intentional or an oversight.

Another cool detail of supreme coomer based on the fact that everything is simulated: all the turrets swivel independently. It is the most apparent on battleships, as they are the most heavily armed units, how one cannon can aim at one ship while the other two aim at another one that just happened to be closer, meanwhile the torpedoes are helping out at their own pace and the AA guns are busy with the torpedo bombers buzzing around.
It doesn't happen all the time, but it's cool that it can happen. The only practical application of this detail is in the direct combat-based experimentals: the Galactic Collossus, the Soul Ripper, and the Fatboy. I haven't had the pleasure of playing with the Megalith yet (I have to say that's the lamest name of all the experimentals).

Actually you can use that for SEAD or to bypass air defenses. If you send your air in two waves, you can for example get flak to swivel facing away from your front just as mercies come in and strike. The flak will have a bit of a delay before it could turn and fire at the second air wave.

 

[Benny]

In the original Rome: Total War, there was a feature where you can zoom in on any of your settlements on the campaign map and view it on the battle map. You could explore the city, look at the cool buildings you'd built (if you conquered another culture's city, their style of buildings would be there mixed in with your culture's), see citizens walking around and generally chill out in your empire. Very immersive, especially as you could see the city expand and change over time. It made your empire feel like more than a bunch of markers on a map, although the only real gameplay purpose is that you could perhaps use it to plan how you would defend the city during a siege battle. That's probably why the hacks at Creative Assembly removed it in later games.

In fact, Rome and Medieval 2 were full of little details like this. You could use agents to spread plague from your cities to enemy cities; recruiting and disbanding units in a province affected its population; there was a lot of detail and humour in the character traits and their retinues/followers; if you fought a battle near a great wonder, city or road, it would appear in the background of the battle map, etc.

I couldn't forget the generals' speeches either. There were a vast number of lines you could get depending on the general's culture, the army composition, the enemy and even the general's character traits. For example, generals with Caligula-type traits would make batshit insane comments and jokes. They serve literally no gameplay purpose, just adding some more cheesy flavour, humour and excitement to what was basically a campy and exaggerated Hollywood depiction of ancient battles.

 

[Vlajdermen]

Ok, one more Supreme Commander fap.

Many RTSes use factional differences with equivalent, but not identical, units to portray each faction's personal flavour. Supcom does this better than any RTS afaik, by the fact that its more complex unit designs allow for more variables, that it's close enough to reality that the units are self-evident as to what they are, but sci-fi enough that it can go for more exotic faction ideas than ''america vs russia''. Also bolstered by basic, but consistent shape theory and colour symbolism, as well as the aforementioned names.

Let me use the battleships as an example again, but what I'm about to say applies across the board.

The UEF's Summit Class - its strong square shape, vast blue colour, and gameplay properties of slow turning speed, high durability, long range, and armaments most closely resembling a traditional battleship portray the factions stubborn insistence on the old ways and desire for unshakeable, all-encompassing unity.

The Cybran's Galaxy Class - its jagged angular shape, blood-red colour, and gameplay properties of (relatively) quick production, high mobility, weak armour, and quick-firing, jack of all trades, master of none armaments portray the faction's squirrely paranoia and low fighting experience (their leader is a scientist who reluctantly took up leadership).

The Aeon's Omen Class - its clean rounded shape, healing green colour, and gameplay properties of high accuracy, high damage, and simple armaments unmarred by supplementary weapons like torpedoes or AA portray the faction's fanatical assuredness in their ways, which are new to humanity and as the results show, may just be superior to the status quo.

It also fits the general culture of each faction, i.e. the shape of things to come if they win. If the UEF wins, you'll be munching space apple pie and selling anti-matter and anti-matter accessories. If the Aeon wins, you'll live a simple and healthy, but obedient and mindless life. If the Cybrans win, you won't live at all. They just want you off of their territory, your choices are fuck off or die. (It is implied that cybran civillians live in cramped chink hives, but considering their biology that may work for them more than it'd work for us).

Again, you can tell that these are battleships, you know what a battleship is supposed to do, but the specifics of each one get you to think that it's a battleship of such and such origin.

 

[Vlajdermen]

In the original Rome: Total War, there was a feature where you can zoom in on any of your settlements on the campaign map and view it on the battle map. You could explore the city, look at the cool buildings you'd built (if you conquered another culture's city, their style of buildings would be there mixed in with your culture's), see citizens walking around and generally chill out in your empire. Very immersive, especially as you could see the city expand and change over time. It made your empire feel like more than a bunch of markers on a map, although the only real gameplay purpose is that you could perhaps use it to plan how you would defend the city during a siege battle. That's probably why the hacks at Creative Assembly removed it in later games.

In fact, Rome and Medieval 2 were full of little details like this. You could use agents to spread plague from your cities to enemy cities; recruiting and disbanding units in a province affected its population; there was a lot of detail and humour in the character traits and their retinues/followers; if you fought a battle near a great wonder, city or road, it would appear in the background of the battle map, etc.

I couldn't forget the generals' speeches either. There were a vast number of lines you could get depending on the general's culture, the army composition, the enemy and even the general's character traits. For example, generals with Caligula-type traits would make batshit insane comments and jokes. They serve literally no gameplay purpose, just adding some more cheesy flavour, humour and excitement to what was basically a campy and exaggerated Hollywood depiction of ancient battles.

You know how to make a game sound appealing, I'll give you that.

 

[Glop_dweller]

Arx Fatalis has little details like a secret passage between the houses of two NPCs having an affair, and in another case the miner strike has devalued the shares to the mine (that are for sale at the bank), but the shares become valuable again after the player ends the miner strike; so you buy them all beforehand, and then sell them back at a nice profit. There is a chicken wandering in the crypt; a wizard trapped in fowl form.

 

[Kabas]

Each monster in Daggerfall has a very distinct sound. So distinct in fact, you can tell what kind of monsters are nearby just by their noises alone.
Caverns of Xaskazien 2, a roguelike, also features a very diverse soundscape. Always a relief to hear a smuggler nearby offering to buy your stuff in gems.
Couldn't get into wizardry 8(combat too slow for me) but the sounds of trap disabling are ASMR tier.

 

[Kabas]

Also, when your characters react towards finding a good stash of loot.
Temple of Elemental Evil comes to mind.