Basically what’s a game that you’ve played that seemed so mind blowingly unique at the time but for one reason or another the game never took off and other developers didn’t pick up and run with it either.
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The HUD being at the back of your car rather than in the corner of the screen in Split/Second. It feels like a no brainer that the important information is where your eyes are already focused, but I’ve never seen another racer do this.
This reminds me of Trackmania. The “license plate” in the current title is your speed and the number on your car changes with your position.
That’s pretty clever.
You reminded me of The Getaway (PS2) a GTA style open world game set in London that was completely HUD less and they pulled it off well.
Navigation was done using car indicators, damage/health was done visually, bullets/ammo was tricky but there were always enough guns lying around to not be a huge issue.
God I love that game so much, I’ve put so many hours into it with friends. Anyone who reads this, if you’re looking for a fun split-screen racing game, look no further. 10/10
Dragon’s Dogma Pawn system
Everyone has a Pawn, an NPC companion you create. The other two party members are also Pawns, but downloaded from other players.
Need a mage that knows a fire spell to fight a Griffin? Pop online and download one. One of your pawns too squishy? Download one with better armor.
The cool thing about this system is pawns retain knowledge from what they see and have done. If someone has finished a quest you haven’t, they will help lead you to the next location, or call out an enemy’s weakness.
Pawns also take back what they have learned to the player who owns them. And when you return a pawn, you can give it an item that goes back to the pawn’s owner.
It’s a great way to help other players in a single player game.
Pawns are stupid, why would I roleplay a friend playing beside me. At that point just add co-op and multiplayer. I hated and still hate dragons dogma for that decision.
WB’s nemesis system.
And sadly we’ll never see it go anywhere.
The upcoming Wonder Woman may have it according to leaks.
Simultaneous sound and light meters in Splinter Cell. Yes, some games have the enemies respond to fast/slow walking sounds differently, but having an actual volume readout was next-level.
I thought it would suck but it’s honestly an amazing feature
Ah Chaos Theory, such a good game.
On Xbox live you had to watch how loud you talked over the headset or gaurds would hear you.
Last time I saw a light meter was the Theif games.
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory is still my favorite stealth game.
It’s a goddamn shame that Ubisoft owns it. In the right hands, it could have had a second wind, but we all know that them rebooting the series would destroy it.
“Purchase your Thermal Vision Goggles for 4.99!”
“Purchase this invisible suit for 29.99!”
Dude I’ve waited years for a game to live up to Chaos Theory but nothing has and I doubt anything ever will.
The entirety of Death Stranding. The whole thing works perfectly but nobody has dared to copy it
I’ve never played it, but I can tell it’s not my thing from looking at it. That’s not really a mark against it.
I think with something like Death Stranding, it’s less a collection of cool mechanics and more the entire package. And I mean the whole thing, which takes a monster level of dedication on the development side. Mechanics, story, characters, atmosphere. Even down to HUD elements.
Like I said, I know I wouldn’t love the game, but even being an outsider looking in, I can tell it’s truly unique in every way.
Kojima reminds me of Queen. Every Queen song sounds different from the vast majority of other Queen songs, but they’re all distinctly Queen. Same way I feel about Kojimas’ game franchises
This, I want to see inventory weight distribution and physicality + terrain angle taken far more seriously in certain kinds of open world games the way Death Stranding does it, they lead to interesting things that actually feel like an adventure you’re going on, with stories to tell not of your destination, but the journey.
I feel like Death Stranding’s movement is like, a first-ish (do car-based delivery sims like MudRunner count? Feels like something that would be up for debate.) baseline for something other games can elaborate on.
Evolve
I fucking love the idea of being this big ass monster fighting alone against a team of players but sadly people didn’t like it and it shut down
I played it a lot again after it got a semi revival when devs gave out keys so people played it again but because the game is discontinued it just didn’t have much staying power for me
I did put a solid amount of hours in tho and i just wish someone would reattempt it
Dragonball: the breakers is using this idea. I also really enjoyed it back in the day, they really destroyed the game’s reputation with the dlc model, unfortunately.
The thing Evolve really had over all the other 1v4 style games is that mid game switch of who’s hunting who. Like in DBD, the killer is always chasing down the survivors. In Evolve, if you play as the monster, you are absolutely terrified of the hunters in the beginning, but then it completely flips on its head and the monster is terrifying to the hunters.
Yeah but that was also one of the weaknesses of the game. If the hunters caught up to the monster early they would curb stomp it with no problem. And in the late game the monster could just run in and tank all the damage with very little fear. So either way the actual fight is already determined just by when it occurs in the match, making it less satisfying. The chase was the best part of the game but once both sides committed to fighting my enjoyment dropped considerably.
The sight jacking mechanic in siren games. Tbf it’s the core mechanic,so copying it would be obvious .
The ability to basically tune in a perspective from the enemy to see from their perspective. You can see if you are near or facing you and what their routine is as well as game objects or puzzle solutions.
A wonderful and terrifying mechanic.
Given that logic puzzles are hard to make and it’d be for a relatively niche audience, I’m not entirely baffled by no one ripping it off, but I’m surprised we haven’t had at least one developer copying Return of the Obra Dinn.
Haven’t played it but chants of sennaar feels pretty similar from what I’ve seen you’re just deducing words instead of people identity
If you like Obra Dinn, Check out Curse of the Golden Idol! It has comparable detective / event reconstruction gameplay
The Dead Front mechanic from 2 moons (Deakron).
Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
Don’t think I have really played anything too similar and it was quite a great game with good story.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. Playing different characters over thousands of years, the magic systems , it had a lot of unique mechanics!
Haha I loved when they did stuff like mess with your TVs volume bar or pretend to turn the TV off just to mess with you. Agreed, super unique.
Nemesis system from shadow of mordor.
I really liked need for speed undergrounds system of challenging random cars to races.
I had a ton of fun with Sunset Overdrive when that came out.
Unfortunately it never got a sequel or major updates
repeated 3 days, like Majoras Mask or Dead Rising
Nemesis system from shadow of war/Mordor. I thought that would be in everything…. I wish