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Cool Features in Mediocre Games?

R

Roland Hood

Member
Any gameplay elements that were pretty cool but buried in an obscure or mediocre game - a feature you wouldn't mind seeing in higher profile games?

The two that come to mind for me:

Total Immersion Racing - the game is so obscure I can't even remember the name of the feature now :D - I think it was called 'racing coach' or something. Basically you did a few practice laps and the game would adjust your car settings based on the way you drove - gear ratio, brakes, etc.

Dead to Rights - I guess disarms make an appearance here and there, but I think this was the first game that used 'em. Plus the ability to throw a cannister in the air over some enemies and shoot at it. I never could pull that off effectively when I needed it though.

Any others?
 
I will be crucified for mentioning this series, but cancel attacks are probably the best thing about Grandia games. Snuffing attacks just adds so much strategy to the battles. I kind of wish Final Fantasy games used something like it (closest you can get is using Arm Aim/Leg Aim in Tactics)

And the entire approach to field exploration in Wild Arms 4. Dear God, I hope they make the fifth one just a straight up side scrolling ARPG and ditch the turn based stuff (which ain't as deep as people say it is once you start getting good attacks)
 
Earthbound - Being able to avoid battles when you were much more powerful than enemies.

earthbound isn't a mediocre game ;)
 
What about the racing game for the Playstation where you could make a movie of your chase afterwords. You could choose camera angles and everything. It was pretty awesome. Getaway I think it was called.
 
jarosh said:
GEIST. no need to say more, really.
Click to expand...

Maybe you could, I don't know, point out the cool feature(s)?

Edit: Nevermind, I forgot that Geist was the shooter where you were a ghost. I thought it was an older, more obscure game.
 
blame space said:
Maybe you could, I don't know, point out the cool feature(s)?
Click to expand...
i was assuming everyone knew about the possession stuff.

well, you move around as a ghost and you can enter bodies and certain objects. while in "ghost mode" everything around you moves in slow motion and you can scare people by possessing random things like trash cans and moving them around or making noises with them. eventually, when they're scared enough, you can possess their bodies.
 
FlameOfCallandor said:
What about the racing game for the Playstation where you could make a movie of your chase afterwords. You could choose camera angles and everything. It was pretty awesome. Getaway I think it was called.
Click to expand...

Isn't that Driver? Getaway is the one about cockney brits.
 
Halo 1 had some great combat features that really added to the genre. The recharging shield system and grenade button, foremost, along with some excellent console control innovations, and the 2-weapon limit.
 
I always liked being able piggyback and carry your partner across gaps and difficult obstacles in the Goemon (Mystical Ninja) series because a lot of times I play with people who aren't as good as me and can never jump over the stupid wholes or traps in the game.

Goemon isn't mediocre either though ;)
 
Ok, well, this is actually a bad game... but this specific concept is cool to me. Unfortunately the game still managed to do a bad job with it, but I think it would be a cool feature if done right.

In Samurai Musashi Legend, a lot of the chicks you're forced to save suddenly can't "walk" when you meet them. So you carry them to the exit or whatever. The cool part comes with the fact that you can fight enemies while holding them. Throwing the chick up in the air and slicing a few foes is totally badass. If it was done right. Unfortunately in the game you can't move when you throw the chick up, so you can only do a single slash in place. And the only other move you can do while still holding the girl is shoving her into an enemy.

But man, that would be totally badass if I can fuck up everyone's shit with good gameplay while saving a chick in my arms.
 
Long reload animations found in Killzone. They're cool as hell plus they force you to take cover when reloading. Makes a firefight much more tactical.


Should be in any fps.
 
ToxicAdam said:
Why don't more console games have this? It should be standard in all shooters.
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I'm glad they put that back into DMC3. And this time they made a game that doesn't blow. :D
 
Some elements of the Enter the Matrix fighting system were pretty cool.
 
I really like the line shading effect in Stretch Panic.
 
The Q Claw in 007: Agent Under Fire. I really liked just constantly grappling around.
 
Yoshi's Touch and Go
Dual Hearts dual weapon system
Shadowman Left/Right hands and dead/living worlds
Illbleed had a number of cool things
Speed Kings doing the bike slide under things was totally awesome
 
epmode said:
FEAR's incredible combat deserves to be in a game with good level design. A better story wouldn't hurt either.
Click to expand...

The engine should be combined with Condemned's melee action, Riddick's stealth/adventure/RPG elements, and Valve's graphic and level design.
 
Morph ball in Metriod Prime. That was an nice little gameplay addition

Edit: Riddick done melee far better than condemend
 
Dungeon Siege is a great example. It's been a few years since I played it but it had:

1.) No load times once you started playing.

2.) The donkey who could take your items back to town and save you a trip.

3.) If you bought an item you could sell it right back to the merchant without the value of it being halved.

4.) Very easily customizable engine.

Unfortunately, it was still a boring experience. :-|
 
Earthworm Jim - Picking up own body for use as weapon, hamsterback riding, whipping a puppy with afformentioned self to make it jump over pits, Professor Monkey-for-a-Head... Almost all features of that game were cool. It was mediocre only because it was way too hard.
 
Fable is another game that had cool features lodged in a game that was pretty unremarkable when taken as a whole...

Of course, part of the reason it was so underwhelming is because so many cool features that were promised were cut.
 
Mark of Kri had some cool features. Being able to fly forward with the bird to scope out the area and the way that the game handled sneak attacking an enemy and the kills you would perform.

Advent Rising has some very cool features. The way the powers were implemented and how you could be shooting a gun in each hand, doing a sideflip and causing the ground around you to explode with a special power was very very cool.

Phantom Dust. Period. No description needed.
 
hybrid heaven- the more you used certain moves the stronger you got with the part of the body used. IE If you throw left punches, all moves using left arm are stronger.
 
WWE Wrestlemania X8 - The special system. Best special system in any wrestling game I've ever played. It's just a pity that everything else is easily the worst wrestling game I've ever played. :(

The 7th Saga - Seven playable characters, slightly branching storyline paths depending on who you pick, a radar that gives you a rough idea of where the random battles are, and some of the longest overworld journeys ever seen in an RPG. The game balance was downright broken, though, and the amount of necessary level-grinding was just depressing.

Wild ARMs - Awesome music, great Lufia 2-style attack system. Battles were still too slow, though.

Breath of Fire III - The fishing was good. A lot better than the actual game, anyway.

Bomberman GB - The motorcycle upgrade was really cool.

Suikoden II - 108 characters.

Rad Racer - 3D glasses.

Kirby 64 - Combination powers were great. It was everything else that was mediocre.

Secret of Evermore - I'll give this game credit in only two areas. One is the alchemy-based spell system, and the second is the fact that the dog becomes an eye-laser-shooting robot dog with a toaster on its back in the last of the four worlds.

The Bouncer - Great idea, horrible execution.
 
I don't consider it a mediocre game, but it certainly not an excellent one either, so Enchant Arm could get a nod for the automatic battle system and the way you can speed up the battles. So instead of having to do all the random battles manually, and believe me this would be horribly tedious, you can press the right trigger then A and the CPU will do all this turn's actions automatically, then during the action Y will double the speed. The CPU is not really smart, but it's enough to win most random encounters without taking too much hits.
Makes a 2 minutes borefest into a 15 seconds one.
 
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