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Colonel, why can't I just take their guns?
Professor Snugglesworth
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We all know that every videogame has rules to keep you from going against the game's unestablished borders. Normally you aren't always given a clear reason for why you can't do X during Y, or why Z isn't an option at all. But what about when the game tries to rationalize the rules for you? What are some in-game explanations that you either love or hate (or love to hate)?
My favorite attempt was in MGS2. Shortly after Raiden enters the Big Shell, if you examine one of the unconcscious guards and call up the Colonel, Raiden will ask why he can't just take the enemies' weapons while they're down. The response is a lengthy and absurd statement that all the soldiers have their DNA built into their weapons, so that the guns will only work when fired from their registered owners' hands.
I mean, come ON Kojima.
My favorite attempt was in MGS2. Shortly after Raiden enters the Big Shell, if you examine one of the unconcscious guards and call up the Colonel, Raiden will ask why he can't just take the enemies' weapons while they're down. The response is a lengthy and absurd statement that all the soldiers have their DNA built into their weapons, so that the guns will only work when fired from their registered owners' hands.
I mean, come ON Kojima.
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I HAVE PHEONIX DOWN. LET ME GIVE HER THE GODDAMN PHEONIX DOWN ALREADY.
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At least that's the popular theory. There just wasn't any room in the cutscene to toss in an attempted resuscitation, I guess.
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Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay had the same mechanic. Guns were DNA locked so prisoners couldn't use them. Heck, not only could you not pick them up (you even got shocked and lost health if you tried), you even took a quick trip to the mainframe to actually put your DNA into the list so you could use them. I dunno, sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
I think the arguement is that you don't die in battle, you merely get knocked out. Thus, they don't restore life, they restore consciousness.
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But the concept of a Phoenix is returning to life from the ashes of your corpse, which implies death is involved in some form.
If that's the case, then that fits my definition of a weak excuse. Even if characters miraculously managed to ever avoid taking a lethal blow before being knocked out, wouldn't any enemies make sure the "deal was done", so to speak?
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One would wonder how being shot with bullets, lit on fire, then stabbed makes one simpled knocked out.
I never asked for this!
Tim Schafer compared Ben to Bernard from Maniac mansion. Given a ham sandwich and a locked door:
Bernard would grease the floor with the mayo, slide a slice of bread under the door, use the toothpick to pop the key out of the door and drag it back under on the bread.
Ben would kick down the door and eat the ham sandwich.
On that note, I'm off to play some Full Throttle. Oh, Mark Hamill, you evil bastard!
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*Flies an inch into the red zone*
HQ: Return to the mission area, deserters will be executed!
Me: Fuck you I want to explore the countryside and bomb the crap out of some houses with my sweet-ass jet!
HQ: Ok we warned your stupid ass.
*BOOOM*
Not to mention having the entire planet obliterated out from under you at several times.
But... but I have a grenade...
Walls and rivers in Infinity Engine games- especially when the barrier to your brawny protagonist's progess is a five-foot wooden fence. I can't hop over it... why, exactly?
Hmm. Being able to bash more doors down in general would be helpful. Especially in RPGs- I was slightly surprised that Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines didn't just let me use a fireaxe or shotgun on the odd lock.
Oh please, it takes like four minutes worth of headshots to kill him, like you'd have the time to kill him then.
:P
Satans..... hints.....
I have never, ever heard any attempts to rationalize the sturdiness of locked doors. Usually "the door is locked, I need a key" is all you ever get.
I think the worst offender of this, ever, has to be Dragon Quest VIII. Your entire party is locked up (weapons, armor and magic intact, I might add) in the cheapest looking wooden barricade ever. Yet it takes them
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A foot-high fence/small stream/tiny rockslide/pebble/ant stands in your way. Run two miles back the way you came and take the alternate path.
Some adventure game with a knight:
>Pull the lever
You should not pull strange levers.
What. The. Fuck.
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>turn off lamp
You do not want the dark.
"Hey- he's kidnapping Bob! Fuck that! I move faster than light on speed! I could get over there and kill those bastards in two goddamn turns!"
You see an extremely sexy woman with a nice pair of twins.
>Have sex with the woman.
You do not want to have sex with this really hot woman.
But then again, it wouldn't be much of a game if it only required you to break the windows open (like it was ever much of a game to being with ^_~).
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Well, I think it's pretty obvious that no exit would work. Had he tried to lift the windows, it would somehow be too heavy. Just cause it wasn't explained doesn't mean it can't be easily.
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Or yeah you fight some guy at some point in the story and then later on he joins your party and is weaker then when you fought him.
I never asked for this!
It's the same with most adventure games, text or graphical.
You might be stuck at the top of a cliff and want to get down to the bottom... so you try:
"Use rope with tree"
Then the game tells you:
"I don't think that would work"
Then you scream at the monitor: "Try it bitch, I bet it would!".
Then you find out you actually needed to use the rope with the boulder, or use a vine or something. The rope would have worked damnit.
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King: "Tell me of your adventures so I can record them in the Imperial Scrolls of Honor."
Hero: "Uhh... yeah. So I totally got to like Level 99. Plus I found this sweet armor that... uhhh... gives me infinite MP 'n'stuff... Yeah."
King: "It has been recorded in the Imperial Scrolls of Honor. Please hold reset while turning the power off."
*Reboot, awesomeness ensues.*
Same thing goes for if you save in a Diary, or Adventure Log. Nobody's watching, can't you just LIE and write down all sorts of shit you haven't actually done?
Max Payne I stab at thee, but then again that game went by the philosophy of 'If it doesn't hurt, it can't kill you', hence the overdoses of painkillers you feed Max.
Edit: out of curiousity, was there ever any explanation offered for the Resident Evil random item hunts? Find a widget to fit into the clock so you can access the stairwell, which is the only way into the kitchen?
Somehow I don't think that a terrorist organization using surplus Soviet AK-74s would be using this technology, though. It's a suspension of disbelief thing.
Of course, this is MGS2 we're talking about.
Hey, I just crash-landed on a technologically-backwards planet. Let's create a sword so I blend in. Let's NOT make the best sword in the game; the weakest sword looks much cooler.
/die
Yeah, I think the game tells you that the windows were bolted shut or something. Besides, I always let stuff like that slip by in Silent Hill, because it was pretty much established in the first game you can't leave the town until it LETS you go.
Since I just got to this part last night (FFXII)....
(many, many hours later)
Reddas: "This stone will help you get to the Lighthouse. Equip it on the Strahl and you can make the trip easily."
Nono: "Boss, guess what! I just finished repairing the Strahl! Oh, you got a stone, kupo!"
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I love how it tries to explain all those little minor details then just goes 'lol bisexual ninja vampires'.
"Colonel, how does this super advanced doohicky work?"
"Well you see, it destabilises particles that radiate from your body to create a subatomicly generated feild that amplifies your reverse trust all power to the main deflector shield"
"Nuh-huh, and how can this woman keep deflecting all my bullets?"
"I dunno. Magic?"
that's the game telling you directly that it won't work, like saying 'You don't need to use the word 'lightbulb' to complete this story.'
shade changes it so that the error messages help you to identify further with the protagonist
considering shade is all about identity, that's pretty important
I still think I'd be tempted to yell at the screen "No, really, I do want the dark, stop telling me I don't".
But I haven't played Shade, so maybe it actually works well in practice.
As for the rest of the series, Umbrela are a bunch of evil pricks.
(this is from the plot analsys and reguards to the reason about the lack of bathrooms)
"...there might be a *secret passage* somewhere... that leads to
the toilets. Since about every room in [Raccoon City] is initially
locked and requires the fetching of numerous objects in previously
unlocked areas, why shouldn't the can be the same? But due to
memory shortage, the necessary items weren't included in the [games].
"So the cops never had to 'hold it.' They did have to plan in
advance though... 'Hey, Charley, there's a chance that I might
need to go to the little boys' room in about 45 minutes. I better
quit and head for it right now. You cover me.'"