# Little things in computer games that really do it for you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2007, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239 "2007-08-11T09:31:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/21 "2007-08-14T02:32:14Z")
[QUOTE=elfkin477] I bought Sims 2: Seasons because it added fireflies to the gameplay. [/QUOTE] Likewise, I appreciate the the butterflies and bees that fly around in the flowers in plain ol’ Sims 2. And the way the vampires stalk around and go “bleh!” in Nightlife. And the way Sims in love spoon in bed together, but not if they’re angry at each other. And the weird positions the little kids get into while they’re sleeping. Ah, man, I just like all the little details in The Sims 2. For RPG-type games, I like it when the armor/weapons you equip your character with are reflected in how they look in the game. I also like it when the female characters are actually covered in a fashion that makes sense – no tender underbellies exposed to the world by navel-baring tops. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/22 "2007-08-14T02:57:13Z")
[QUOTE=Sapo] indeed. [hijack] what is a Myth fan to play these modern days? [/QUOTE] I just keep playing _Myth_. ---
**Author:** ![fusoya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecccb3/32.png) [@fusoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fusoya)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/23 "2007-08-14T04:07:07Z")
speaking of **Metal Gear** , this was one of the first games where the enemy wasn’t a brainless goon following a pre-programmed path, even if you’re standing to the side of it. If you walk into an enemy’s line of sight, he goes batshit and will start attacking you, and might call for backup too. Also, you start the game with NO weapons other than your fists. Once you find a gun, it’s unloaded. Fucker. And once you find ammo for it, you can barely use it cuz the sound of it firing alerts all other enemies in ear sight who will track you down before you have the chance to shoot them all, so you have to find a silencer. And since there’s no way to silence grenades or rocket launchers, the effect with those remains. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/24 "2007-08-14T04:11:38Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington] Likewise, I appreciate the the butterflies and bees that fly around in the flowers in plain ol’ Sims 2. And the way the vampires stalk around and go “bleh!” in Nightlife. And the way Sims in love spoon in bed together, but not if they’re angry at each other. And the weird positions the little kids get into while they’re sleeping. Ah, man, I just like all the little details in The Sims 2. [/QUOTE] That’s the game I thought of when I saw this thread. My favorite moment was when I found out that the more playful Sims could pretend to play pirates in the bathtub. ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/25 "2007-08-14T13:27:22Z")
Even better, the enemy soldiers in MGS are [not always fooled by the mystical box](http://zarla.deviantart.com/art/Stories-of-an-MGS-Retard-1-36021673). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/26 "2007-08-14T14:53:20Z")
When your character is really, really drunk in World of Warcraft, the level of mobs or opposite faction players shows to you as quite a few levels lower than they actually are. I.e., you really are feeling “ten feet tall and bulletproof.” Ha! ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/27 "2007-08-14T15:12:02Z")
NPCs with real personalities do it for me. The character interaction in the Baldur’s Gate series was good, but the mods really made it great. I remember bring in awe of the scale of the game first time I flew in City of Heroes. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/28 "2007-08-14T16:04:53Z")
**Fallout** was the first CRPG I played where the townspeople would actually take offense to you entering their homes and rifling through their drawers and bookshelves while they stand 3’ away. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/29 "2007-08-14T16:31:38Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I just keep playing _Myth_. [/QUOTE] saves a ton on upgrades, too. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/30 "2007-08-14T17:21:09Z")
[QUOTE=Darkhold] What I enjoy most is when you kill an enemy he drops the weapon he was using and when you search his corpse you find his armor. None of that kill a guy with a flaming sword with full plate and they drop a health potion but not their arms and armor. Same with animals you don’t have wolves dropping brass rings or some nonsense. Makes you feel like these are actual creatures in the world. [/QUOTE] True, when you search a wolf you get a wolf pelt worth 20 gold or so. But there are some giant rats that when searched produce rat meat (which I think damages you) and LOCKPICKS. Not sure about that one. One of the many things I love about Oblivion is seeing far-off mountaintops and actually being able to WALK there. Or standing on a mountain and looking down at the roads, forests, bridges, towns, and being able to go to any of those places. Plus the nice looking skies, the day and night cycles, weather, all the variety of plants to harvest. And the buildings aren’t just scenery, they are actually inhabited by NPCs at appropriate times of the day. When you’re trying to find someone, if it’s night they’ll probably be in their house. If it’s day they’ll be in their place of business or at a bar, or just walking around town. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/31 "2007-08-14T18:48:38Z")
I’ll second all the Morrowind and Oblivion mentions. I’ll add that I love how in Lord of the Rings online that the grass and tree branches sway to the wind. And at night the moon is full and bright and the stars are modeled after the real night sky. You can see the Big Dipper, Orion and the Pleiades clearly brighter than the other stars. Those two things make the game feel more real. Also getting drunk like you can in World of Warcraft. The screen gets blurry and your character can not run in a straight line. I have to mention how being 14 and playing Street Fighter 2 on my Super Nintendo and winning a match with Chun-Li and she would do her little dance and then raise one of her arms exposing her boobie really made that game totally awesome. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/32 "2007-08-14T19:17:07Z")
I remember one of the Test Drive or Need for Speed games (maybe NFS2?) you could drive off a cliff and it would cut to an animation of your car tumbling downwards. For some reason that always cracked me up, I guess it was the jarring transition from speeding down a highway to a third-person view of your car falling. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/33 "2007-08-14T19:37:53Z")
Ooh, I just remembered one. I can’t for the life of me remember the game, but it was a kind of horror FPS (from what I remember, this was years ago.) I remember that in addition to all your health/ammo monitors you also had a ‘‘sanity’’ monitor, and when your sanity ran out, crazy shit would happen. Like, for example, your character would suddenly put his gun to his head and blow his own brains out. Or the screen would go black and a message would flash telling you that your controller was unplugged. I thought that was pretty badass. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/34 "2007-08-14T21:22:38Z")
A Game Cube game, Eternal Darkness? ---
**Author:** ![psiekier](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psiekier/32/116_2.png) [@psiekier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psiekier)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/35 "2007-08-14T21:38:13Z")
[QUOTE=Soul] Last one: In Civ IV, the different auras Great People give off when you use them (gears for engineers, for example) just set me all aflutter. I don’t know why, but they really do it for me. [/QUOTE] In Civ IV, there are icons that represent the Wonders of the World, from ancient times (Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse at Alexandria, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, etc.) all the way up to the present (Statue of Liberty, Three Gorges Dam, The Manhattan Project). **The icon for the invention of the Internet is a tiny portrait of Al Gore.** ---
**Author:** ![Sofaspud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@Sofaspud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofaspud)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/36 "2007-08-14T21:40:06Z")
The game has been mentioned, but not my reasons. 🙂 I really like _City of Heroes_, more than I’ve liked any other MMORPG. I knew I would like it about five minutes after creating my first character. Why? Because the trees sway in the breeze. Litter drifts and flutters on the wind. If you throw a bad guy into a tree, or fly through yourself, _leaves drift down, shaken loose by the impact_. Oh, my, yes. It’s the details that really hook ya. ---
**Author:** ![Dunawake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dunawake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunawake)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2007, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/37 "2007-08-14T23:51:05Z")
I’m always slightly glad when I play an FPS where I can look down and see my actual **FEET**. A couple games that do this that I can think of off the top of my head are Dark Messiah and No One Lives Forever. ---
**Author:** ![Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bites_when_provoked/32/18073_2.png) [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2007, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/38 "2007-08-15T10:13:22Z")
[QUOTE=Sofaspud] Because the trees sway in the breeze. Litter drifts and flutters on the wind. If you throw a bad guy into a tree, or fly through yourself, _leaves drift down, shaken loose by the impact_. [/QUOTE] If you have a kinetics char, put on Repel and stand by a trashcan - it throws a storm of rubbish into the air! (I literally \*squealed \*with excitement when I first saw this happen. 😃 ) The other fantastic thing about City of Heroes/Villains, I think, is the spent shell casings when mobs fire at you - and the fact that the casings are affected by in-game effects like players/mobs running through them, or wind, or player effects (particularly the Gravity Controller type ones). Similar to the tree interactions you mentioned, **Sofaspud** , is the effect on hanging signs. Did you know that you can jump or fly into them and set them swinging? I did it by accident to the one outside the HeroCorps store in Steel Canyon and had to go back and try it again to see if I’d imagined it! [Edited to add bolding to **Sofaspud** ’s name.] ---
**Author:** ![Baffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/dec6dc/32.png) [@Baffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baffle)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2007, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/39 "2007-08-15T10:39:22Z")
The brilliantly-written ambiance in _The Eternal City_’s dream ruins, the offal-ridden sewers, and how a picture map can be completely and 100% accurately translated into a simple grid system and then to text, never fails to amaze me. ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2007, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239/40 "2007-08-15T11:01:17Z")
It appears in most RPGs nowadays, but I still love those little books and manuscripts you find that fill in the history and culture of the game world. In Divine Divinity, I really dig reading about Dugal, a famous orc freebooter, who has a whole 9-book series written about his ill-fated quest to steal treasure from a lethal wizard’s tower. I have no idea if Dugal’s tower will be in the game, but that’s part of the fun. It may just be useless (but enjoyable) folklore, or it may provide valuable clues. Some books are quite relevant, filling you in on item creation or place info. A few even start quests when you read them! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-in-computer-games-that-really-do-it-for-you/415239.md?page=3)