What SHOULD be an effect?

Within every game, there is always that little neat touch that easily makes you chuckle at it' s geniousness. Those nice little footprints in the snow, for instance. Maybe even one of those nostalgic moments that is triggered by your actions. Everybody is bound to have a favourite- one that they activate purposly, just to bring a smile to their face.

Perhaps there are some that you think are missing, though. There could be something that you long to do, but cannot because of the game physics' restrictions. Well this is the place to mention them. Share with us any effects, whether it' s related to real life situations or fictional abilities, that you think would liven up the game for those agonising moments of which the player wanders around the world- clueless as to what to do.

This isn' t just limited to visual effects, of course. It could have anything to do with sound as well(although, it' s rather difficult to think of an unused sound effect).

I' ll give an example of something I would like to see, to start you off:

I would love it if, when one enters a large body of water, their clothes become, and stay, wet- until, of course, one finds a way to dry themselves off again. This could work particularly well in stealth games, I believe.

Forget about the game' s boundaries, etc. Let your imagination go wild! You could also take this opportunity to express some of your favourite existing effects, if you wish to do so(one of mine would be wasting bullets in water when playing Resident Evil 4, and getting that nice splashing effect).

I used to like in ico the water that would react to ico near a windmill, i used to play in that for a while. More water should react more realitically to objects moving through it. I agree about the wet characters, and the clothes drying off but only really for stealth games.

hmmm something.... in black where every bullet would do some kind of damage or at least leave a mark, and everything would just stay there, not disappear (until you left the area), loved that.

Fahrenheits use of multiple views at once, like 2 cameras for a film effect. Eternal darkness insanity meter that would turn the sound down etc... not really on the right track but certainly good things.

I' d like to see in fighting games characters clothes get torn, and in all violence games, to take damage and it be seen, bleed in the right places, bruise, scar (like what fable did a bit of)

I could probably think of a hundred, if you didnt ask me

NiGHTS into Dreamcast

Chaos Theory did the whole wet thing.

XBL Gamertag: Rampage99

" Basically, pollute the air all you want, your just speeding up the inevitable. Our future generations are f*cked as it is and there' s really nothing we can do about it. Have a nice day "

I want cloths to move...when running :)

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.

I' d like to see in fighting games characters clothes get torn, and in all violence games, to take damage and it be seen, bleed in the right places, bruise, scar (like what fable did a bit of)

Sometimes they don' t do that in games because it harms the image of the
character. Imagine DOA where the characters fall from dazzling heights and they
got up and their necks were broken, or glass shards cut them up.... It wouldn' t be
known for its pristine approach to scantily clad women..

These characters go through hell, and if they were to only make it half-realistic
(ie bruises, cuts) then they may as well go all they way (impalement, loss of limbs).

The whole point is they don' t want to give players an inch, so they can take a mile,
it gives way for iconic markings like scars on characters faces that hold in them
a deep and disturbed past... Now, put loads of scars on the face and bruises, and
that one scar the character had from that all important battle becomes
meaningless, leading to better dialogue like:

" That scar, where did you get it?"

Rather than:

" Jesus! You fall out with a butcher?"

So it' s not that they can' t do it, its more like it makes the story interesting and at
the end of the game you don' t want to have an unrecognisable character...

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

I like Shenmue. Lots of great visual and gameplay effects.

Very nice Tiz, now please read my original post and then reply.

Very nice Tiz, now please read my original post and then reply.

I hear you..

Sorry, just the art director coming out in me (in training of course).

Effects... effects... I don' t really like dreaming about effects that can be in
games so I made a few of my own and put them in my own idea. If i visualise the
physics in a particular game, it spoils the experience... But for the hell of the thread,
I say that I would like more " standalone object destruction" or environment
damage. To give a more chaotic feel to the videogame world.. I would love to fire
a missile and for it to miss and destroy a bridge! And in real game physics just for
everything to explode... crumble, crash, burn and for the dust to settle.



Or they could just bring out ShenmueIII and then I wouldnt have to worry about
any other game ever.

I came back from the dead to play Shenmue...

There are two rules to success:

1. Never tell all you know.

I' d like to see in fighting games characters clothes get torn, and in all violence games, to take damage and it be seen, bleed in the right places, bruise, scar (like what fable did a bit of)

Mortal Kombat: Deception has that. The characters get bruised and their clothes get messed up. If someone gets shot with say a bow and arrow, then the arrow stays embedded in them throughout the fight.

It doesn' t affect the actions though, not like in the ancient Bushido Blade.

I used to be memerised by the reflections in every pool of water in Mario Sunshine. After I' d played that game I' ve always noticed puddles in real life more. They rarely look as good.

I know this is possible cause I was reading it on the webpage about the Havoks engine but never seen it actually done within a game at least not to the playable characters:
Realistic Injuries
-In shooter games for instance say you get you legs shot up pretty well. Usually when you take anough hits you' ll die. Well howabout remaining alive but no longer able to walk. You' d have to drag you ass around while trying to shoot with obvious less accuracy.

- Or you get shot in the left arm. Result? Now you can use 2 handed weapons properly, reloading takes longer, climbing ladders is a bit of a struggle, etc.

-Take a minor hit to the leg now yer slowed down with a limp.

-Here a twisted situation: You get you legs shot out and are stuck dragging along. Comes along a player who decides to play with you by disabling weapon use. He/she does this by shooting your hands. Now youre practically immobile. This other player is tauting you and finally decides they are bored with you. Walks over and blasts you in A: the heart B: Lungs to make you suffer but inevitably die C: headshot.

-Now take this further and fill characters with a limited blood supply. Where unless you tend to you wounds you will eventually bleed to death.

-Long falls can break your legs and leave you helpless

Call of Chtullu sort of did this. Even took time to fix injuries as you had to wait while he applied the proper splints and bandages. The chases in this game is by far the most intense situations you' ll ever expierence. The desparation you feel whiel trying to run on a broken leg is insane.

I think if vf6 gives you the ability to hit softspots on your matches body, it would be great.
Like, have you ever been hit in the ear?
Or maybe have your nose broken, and react in a realistic way, that would be great.
Maybe tripping over junk in the arena would be great too.
Swollen eyes that make it harder for you to pull off moves...

All these things would be great.

This is getting kinda grisly. Do we really need a Torturing Simulation? The answer of course is yes, yes we do.


It really is kind of weird to think how fighting games haven' t actually progressed much in terms of simulation. All we' ve really got over the years is better graphics and faster gameplay. Things like the swaying in VF5 add more depth but there' s room for more realism.

How about when, after a character gets hit in the arm, their punches become weaker, and this also gets reflected in the punching animation as you see the arm being more limp.

And if you mess up the input for a kicking move, your character loses his balance and falls over.

The Wii-mote if in the hands of another company would definatly lead to some of the most twisted games in existance, if my " realistic injuries" wish were to ever happen.

How about when, after a character gets hit in the arm, their punches become weaker, and this also gets reflected in the punching animation as you see the arm being more limp.

actually Tao Feng for Xbox did that.



I want developers to spend more time on animations than on looks alone (oblivion for instance) and for good voice acting - but only if it' s combined with believable lines.In overall I want some awesome sound in my next gen games.

One thing that is missing in fighting games for me is nice blocking feature that looks like every single move is blocked with it' s dedicated animation - this would make games like that look spectacular and it wouldn' t be that hard to do.

I' d like to see any 1st party Nintendo game with awesome story (or at least a really good one).

Really FULLY destructible enviroments would be great too for some games.

Some good saving solution that doesn' t make you play 3 hours just to be able to save and that on the other hand makes games still challenging (for instance you can' t save every anytime you want) - I think Halo has a great solution, but many games have problems with saving your game.

Death animations in FPP games and different zones on enemy' s body (like PErfect Dark for N64 - head - 1 shot , chest 2 shots and so on)

I think Mario should have consequences for eating all that magical stuff! Like, eat too many mushrooms and you develop a malignant tumor in you brain. Eat too many invincibility stars and you get testicular cancer, or something! That would be cool!

I also think Sonic should have pockets for the rings that he collects. Of course, at their current size he could only collect one per pocket (if that) so they' d have to be shrunk down to a more manageable size. Of course, then you still couldn' t carry too many, because they would start falling out of your pockets! Maybe you could get a backpack as a power-up!

Oh, and Team Ninja should include nude-codes in ALL their games!

The end.

You just want the nude code for Ninja Gaiden don' t you?

Death animations in FPP games and different zones on enemy' s body (like PErfect Dark for N64 - head - 1 shot , chest 2 shots and so on)

Yeah, PD did it well. I don' t think I' ve seen another game with such a wide array of death animations (some even looked funny, like the one where the person " danced" to death). It' s strange that game is so old, yet so few games can compete with it.

I' d like to see holes when you shoot things. For instance, you could shoot doors and thin walls to make an impromptu peep-hole. Also, and this probably wouldn' t affect gameplay, humans would have holes if you used a high-powered weapon. Holes you could see through.

Two of the effects I enjoyed the most are:

1: When I first saw bullet-holes in Goldeneye. I spent hours writing my name and drawing lines with them, like MarioPaint with a machine-gun (or paintball gun after you unlocked it). I think I even counted once how many holes you could make before the game started erasing the old holes. Ahhh, nostalgia....

2: In Second Sight, I liked the fact that if you walked through a puddle of blood, you left bloody footprints. I had fun with that. The game even kept track of how many bloody footprints you left and told you in the mission results and your personal statistics. I don' t remember if the enemy AI saw those and followed them or not, I don' t think I ever tried it. If they didn' t, they should have.

ORIGINAL: Wolfjack

You just want the nude code for Ninja Gaiden don' t you?

I' d sacrifice looking at Ryu Hayabusa' s ass for a while to catch a gander at Rachel and Ayane' s " assets" !

1: When I first saw bullet-holes in Goldeneye. I spent hours writing my name and drawing lines with them

HAHAHAHAHHAHAH