Setting the tone of the game via gameplay mechanics and meta-mechanics.
For example, Eternal Darkness conveyed the insanity of the player characters by having weird shit actually happen to the player. It started with just the camera shifting around, but escalated to things like your character suddenly dying, bugs running across the screen, your game crashing and restarting...
Likewise, Psycho Mantis' fight in Metal Gear Solid; he displays his abilities by reading the memory card to find out what games you've played and then commenting on them, or vibrating the controller with the power of his mind. During the fight itself, he predicts all of your moves, making it exceptionally difficult. This can be countered by using the second controller port, which he is unable to read.
I'd like to see level design, gameplay mechanics and the like that can convey emotion, story or tone without having to tell you point blank. If the enemy you're fighting is deceptive, the level preceding him should be full of deceptive gameplay mechanics (invisible platforms, illusions, enemies that appear to be dangerous but aren't, etc.)
Mouse/Keyboard required tactical party based wrpgs.
Real-time plane shifting and parallel realities.
Soul Reaver (yeah I know, I'm mentioning it again) had this awesome concept that there were two parallel worlds - the living material realm and the dead spectral realm. The main character would shift from one to the other in real-time, the world distorting around him.
The material realm was all decayed architecture and faded browns and greys. The spectral realm was a distorted blue and green version of this, with pillars and walls contorting during the transition, cracks expanding to passageways, walls transforming to stairs, and outcrops turning into bridges. Rivers, lakes and all water bodies were locked into the material realm, turning a pond for example into a deep explorable spectral pit. Torrential subterranean rivers in material would become explorable caves in spectral.
In story terms, statues, murals and art from the material realm would always reveal an innate truth when viewed in the spectral realm. Murals of human warriors - who would later become vampires - showed fangs when viewed in spectral. Stained glass windows depicting a romantacised historical event in material - would creepily show the dark truth when viewed in spectral. Altars to divination, would show the demonic undercurrents beneath the religious veil.
Time also froze when entering spectral, allowing the hero to enter the realm in battle, and re-emerge in material behind his adversary.
The series neglected to explore this absolutely brilliant concept in the sequels, unfortunately. A shame as it was so expertly done, with the visible transition between the realities making the experience far more immediate than even Metroid Prime 2 and Link to the Past.
Same here. Everyone other type of surrender/fleeing I can think of is scripted. MGS put so much care into its game mechanics; MGS3, you could shoot their radios before they had a chance to call an alert, they'd slowly lower their hands if you didn't aim your gun at them, and if they got a few words out over their radio before being knocked out/killed, more guards would com eot check it out, but only on "Caution" status, I believe.
It should be in more games, even straight up action ones. I'd love to be able to rell enemies to drop their weapons or run, even if the game's a pure shooter.
No fail states should be explored more. Arbitrary "Oh no you got seen and now the mission is over forever" moments are lazy and completely immersion breaking.
Time loops as found in Majora's Mask.
Panzer Dragoon Saga's battle-system and real-time dragon morphing.
I believe it's pretty unique, especially the morphing element. Such a shame.
Look into Hardware by Blackbird Interactive - the guys behind Homeworld.I recently made a thread about I was befuddled no one has made an open world RTS.
I really, really wish there were more games like Elite/Privateer/Freelancer. Space sims with a heavy element of exploration, trade, upgrading, bounties....
If we never see a sequel I will die a little inside.
No fail states should be explored more. Arbitrary "Oh no you got seen and now the mission is over forever" moments are lazy and completely immersion breaking.
All of the online mechanics from Chromehounds. An amazing title, deep, and teamwork was a REQUIREMENT.
If we never see a sequel I will die a little inside.
A crime scene simulator that I hoped LA Noire would be.
Enemies surrendering/fleeing after being disarmed/overpowered/caught off-guard
Asymmetrical co-op gameplay. Basically co-op campaign design where the player characters all have defined strengths and weaknesses. Things they can and can't do that the other character/s can compensate for, creating a dependency on the other player for progression through those limitations.
I think something that's lacking in alot of modern co-op design. You have games like Borderlands where every class can solo, or games like Peace Walker where the game content was designed primarily to be completed in single player. Basically either the characters themselves are designed to work independently of any other involved characters, or the content itself is designed and balanced around being able to be completed by any one of the possible player characters alone.
As a result it often feels like playing a game next to someone rather than there being any meaningful interaction between the players.
I think there are alot of games out there that do actually explore gameplay like this as well. Like Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. but I'd like to see someone explore that kind of co-op design with more complex mechanics than the ones present in that game.(where, in single player, Lara just gets the abilities of both characters. That's how short the list of differences between the two is)
I always felt like Viewtiful Joe was going in towards the direction of something like this. One of the reoccurring design problems the developers of those games would speak of was that there wasn't enough buttons on controllers for all the powers they could come up with. They addressed that somewhat in the sequel by splitting abilities between Joe and Sylvia, requiring the player to switch between the two for puzzle solving. I always felt that the natural progression from that point was to give another player control of the 2nd character who would have access to even more unique powers to be used in combination with the first player's.
and that's kind of the game I want to see made more than anything. A really complex co-op game with unique playable characters with a really deep set of differences between them, and the game content to really challenge and force the players to work together and utilize their unique abilities in order to complete the game
Play portal 2 coop, you don't have different abilities but you are as codependant as it gets, and in a meaningful way not 'both press a button at the same time'.
All of the online mechanics from Chromehounds. An amazing title, deep, and teamwork was a REQUIREMENT.
If we never see a sequel I will die a little inside.