Best. Game. Mechanics. Ever. Thread! (Worst mechanics too)

[Erik_Twice]

Racketboy needed this thread. Basically talk about a game mechanic and say why it's good or bad.

One of my favourite game mechanics is the Medigun from Team Fortress 2. The Medigun is a "weapon" that let's the Medic heal teammates. You aim at them and a colored stream is formed between you and the target, healing them. The cool thing is that you don't need to keep the aim after you aim the first time, you can turn around to see enemies on your back and keep healing your mate. It's very much like a rope.

However healing is boring and somewhat of a dirty job, so you can overheal members of your team! You can overheal them for a 50% more of the life points their have, making them a much more resistant adversary. Overheal fades after 20 seconds so you have to keep the Medigun on.

This creates a very strong bond between you and your teammate which is fun. The medic makes the teammate stronger so he can kill more enemies and the teammate gives protection to the medic. The medic is not neccesary but ugly like in other games, it's common for other games to have players crying for stronger weapons for their medics, so as to make them as strong as other classes 1vs1, this doesn't happen in TF2.

The medic also protects the teammate he is healing by being another pair of eyes. The cooperation between a medic and his medic buddy is really fun and brings a lot of teamwork into the game.

However it may seem that there's no reason to heal anybody but your chosen medic buddy. This changes thanks to the Übercharge meter. By healing you get Übercharge points and when the meter is full you are able to make you and your medic buddy invulnerable for 10 seconds allowing you to crush your enemies. You get more points if you heal damaged teammates instead of sane teammates making it good for the Medic to be a good Medic. In other games you get nothing but gratitude which is not as fun even if you are really useful.

Now, if two players want to kill a lot they must cooperate, save each other so as to get the Übercharge meter up and crush the enemies. Teamwork is the best choice and it's obvious. And more importantly, it's fun.

There are also other minor adjustments to the Medigun. The Medic is faster than all classes (Except the Scout which is not a good Medic buddy) so you dont' have to tell your buddy to stop because he's moving at the same speed as you. It also makes dodging easier which is important because every Sniper is going to try to cut your head off!

You also heal faster to those who got damaged long ago. This means an ally who has been wounded can keep playing without making healing the same person all the time overpowered.

Ah, and it uses no ammunition, leave that for the Engineers.

In the end you get a very fun class and a very fun mechanic. It was also a good improvement over Team Fortress Classic where you just dropped medikits on people with a similar effect but less fun effect.

Discuss.

[Jrecee]

Mario sunshine. That stupid water gun felt so pointless and tacked on. It was like miyamoto going "All my games have to somehow be completely different than what came before them and this is how crappy I'm willing to make them just for this to happen"

[jp1]

Best.
Metal Storm. Everything in Metal Storm.

Worst.
I don't know...Corpse Killer (a light gun game with no light gun) OR Everything in Demolition Man for 3DO.

[J T]

You make good points about Team Fortress 2. That game is very smartly designed so that every character really serves a different kind of function in battle.

My favorite game mechanics though are from the Zone of the Enders (ZOE) series. You pilot a giant sword wielding, gun toting, missile launching robot named Jehuty. Jehuty is fast, agile, powerful, and looks extremely cool while kicking ass. This last point is why I like the mechanics so much in ZOE. They have designed the game in such a way that you can pull off complicated maneuvers very easily. The fighting looks incredibly intense with camera angles swirling around you and zoooming in an out as Jehuty hacks and slashes through enemies with ninja-like ease, then kicks back and unleashes some massive firepower. The stylish animation you see is way more complicated than what you are doing on the controller, but the controls are still fairly challenging because you have so many options: shoot, slash, dash, throw, block, use special weapon. Fly up, down, left, right, forward, and back. It's greatly aided by a lock-on targeting system that keeps Jehuty focused on the enemy of your choice. The controls are easy enough to allow the player to learn cool maneuvers easily, yet deep enough that you can fairly substantially increase your skill over time.

Another thing I like about the game mechanics is that the blend in perfectly with the storyline. In the first ZOE you are a little boy who is otherwise powerless except for his ability to deftly pilot Jehuty. What determines a person's success in battle is not who they are, what they look like, or how old they are-- it is their skill as a runner. The parallels between the boy Leo and the actual person playing the videogame are quite clear and it really adds to the enjoyment of the experience (despite the fact that Leo is an obnoxious character and the storyline is almost good, but never really goes anywhere).

Zone of the Enders has my favorite game mechanics because they make you feel awesome for playing them through wicked animations based on simple controls and a storyline that focuses on your ability to control Jehuty.

[Original_Name]

The drifting from OutRun 2 has made it into easily the most satisfying driving game I've ever played; the feeling of drifting right through two cars on an enomormous, near-circular turn just feels incredible and hyper-intuitive.

The battle-system from Panzer Dragoon Saga is the best I've ever played in an RPG; it's the only turn-based RPG that doesn't make me feel like hurtling a controller across the room every other time I get into a battle. It feels equal parts action and puzzle-oriented, being just as much reaction-based as it is making a quick search through the menus in order to find the desired action.

The Chao-breeding system from Sonic Adventure added about two years of game-life or more to the game for me and my sister. It's highly addictive and you really do get attached to those little things - plus there's a TON of things to do; I don't think me and my sister ever were able to breed a damn Chaos Chao... although that's more because of the VMU's short battery life than anything. I've been meaning to create a good Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure 2, but with Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue II, Ecco the Dolphin: DOTF, OutRun 2006, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, and college on my plate, it'll likely be some time.

EDIT: Wow, I'm such a Segaphile.

[darthmunky]

Bioware games like KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect all have awesome mechanics. I don't want to explain it so if you've played them, you know what I'm talkin about, lol.

[classicgamer5]

Best

-Metal Gear Solid Series- Pressing L2 and R2 to change items/guns is really cool. You have alot of choices (unlike CoD where you get 2 or 3 weapons at a time) and it freezes time

Worst

-Old Resident Evil Games- The aiming just sucked, extremly hard to get a precise shot. RE4 was great.

[AwesomeMonstar]

Best
Worst

-Old Resident Evil Games- The aiming just sucked, extremly hard to get a precise shot. RE4 was great.

Be glad you joined after the times of Mozgus.

Anywho, Jetpack from the tribes series. Takes practice, but once mastered, man is it fun to just jet through the massive levels infront of you.

[BoringSupreez]

Best
Worst

-Old Resident Evil Games- The aiming just sucked, extremly hard to get a precise shot. RE4 was great.

Be glad you joined after the times of Mozgus.

Yes, he would have yelled at you for 7 pages over that.

My most hated game mechanic would be RPG's were all traveling is done on foot. There is no way to teleport over long distances that you have already traversed many times, or they have a way and it has to be unlocked, usually after it isn't really helpful anymore. I can't tell you how much time I spent in Paper Mario walking between Toad Town and that desert town. They really should have let you find that warp tunnel much earlier. Fallout 2 got this one right, letting you find that car. Too bad it was so glitchy and easy to lose.

I don't know what my favorite mechanic is, but I did like MGS2's game mechanics a lot.

[AmishSamurai]

favorite mechanics would have to be Link's Awakening for the Gameboy. Simple, yet effective.

As much as I love the game to death, I hate the mechanics of The World Ends With You. I simply cannot keep track of both characters at once, which makes all of the chapters with Beat a pain in the butt because he has zero defense, and does absolutely nothing on his own. At least Joshua and Shiki could fight somewhat by themselves.