Video Game Logic

[The Lawgiver]

Chances are if you played any games you know what "Video game logic" is by now. Mario gets a flamethrower from touching flowers, sewers are huge and not full of feces, getting a pinecone shoved in your head gets you stuck as a dog, Mike Tyson doesn't bite anyone's ear off, etcetera. This thread is pretty much solely to mention/discuss some of the odd ones.


Here's a slightly lengthy example:

In "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's mask" There's a guy named Tingle. Tingle wants to be a fairy, but also wants to have a fairy like Link does. The problem is he supposedly doesn't know how to get one. This makes no sense when you take into consideration the fact that Termina is a country with a serious fairy problem. You can find fairies by cutting grass, breaking pots, and of course, there is a fairy fountain right next to where you first meet him.

Considering how much Tingle travels, and the fact he probably knows where the fairies tend to gather, the fact he's never found a fairy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. On the other hand, since it's just a video game, and NPCs are pretty much required to not be able to do anything right, it makes perfect sense.

TLDR: Tingle can't find a fairy to own even though he more than likely knows where the fairies are.

 

[c-no]

Here's my question on video game logic: we all hear arguments of how boob-plate is actually shitty in protection considering the blow being diverted toward the area between the breast. While one can say it's ridiculous a person in boob-plate can't get 1 hit killed by the foot stomp or bite of a dragon, why does it also apply to those in full body plate as well? Wouldn't either one be fucked since they're going up against a large creature? Speaking of full plate, how is it possible for the Nerevarine/Champion of Cyrodiil/Dragonborn to equip a full suit of steel plate armor? Taking it on and off would require about maybe 10 minutes or more.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Chances are if you played any games you know what "Video game logic" is by now. Mario gets a flamethrower from touching flowers, sewers are huge and not full of feces, getting a pinecone shoved in your head gets you stuck as a dog, Mike Tyson doesn't bite anyone's ear off, etcetera. This thread is pretty much solely to mention/discuss some of the odd ones.


Here's a slightly lengthy example:

In "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's mask" There's a guy named Tingle. Tingle wants to be a fairy, but also wants to have a fairy like Link does. The problem is he supposedly doesn't know how to get one. This makes no sense when you take into consideration the fact that Termina is a country with a serious fairy problem. You can find fairies by cutting grass, breaking pots, and of course, there is a fairy fountain right next to where you first meet him.

Considering how much Tingle travels, and the fact he probably knows where the fairies tend to gather, the fact he's never found a fairy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. On the other hand, since it's just a video game, and NPCs are pretty much required to not be able to do anything right, it makes perfect sense.

TLDR: Tingle can't find a fairy to own even though he more than likely knows where the fairies are.

I think that healing fairies and fairies like Navi were a different species and a healing fairy wasn't what he was looking for

 

[Overcast]

I was watching my brother play Banjo Tooie, and I couldn't help but think, how is Banjo able to fit an entire baby triceratops into his backpack?

Now that I think about it, Banjo, being a bear, is actually really small compared to a lot of things in the game.

I get the games aren't supposed to be taken seriously, but it's fun thinking about how generally odd the Banjo-Kazooie games were.

 

[TheAmazingAxolotl]

>ocarina of time
>jumped from highest possible point in game
>equip iron boots
>no fall damage

 

[Anchuent Christory]

Every jrpg ever: The main character is free to just walk into peoples houses, open their storage and take whatever they find. Also, whatever you do, do not get hurt during a cutscene.

Commander Shepard, you're the best humanity has to offer and the only hope the galaxy has for survival. So naturally, we'll send you into battle with only the most basic weapons and equipment. What's that? You want access to funds that you can use to upgrade your arsenal? I'm sorry, you'll need to raise your own funds by opening containers on the battlefield or doing banal errands for other people.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in the final dungeon, everyone knows that Rayquaza is going to destroy the world and you are the only one who can stop him. There is a Keceleon store next to the stairs to the final dungeon and the keceleons will completely curb stomp you if you try to steal from them but don't ever think of just killing rayquaza themselves

 

[Lapras]

EarthBound/Mother 2
>Be Ness
>Carry baseball bat
>Encounter runaway dog
>Beat the shit out of it
> "The Runaway Dog became tame!"

Oh yeah, and let's not forget your dad, who serves no other purpose other than to save your game and casually deposit thousands upon thousands of dollars into your bank account.

 

[ASoulMan]

 

[AnOminous]

>be FPS guy
>get shot in face point-blank repeatedly with no apparent ill effects
>touch water
>die instantly

 

[Watcher]

Spoiler

 

[Another Fellow]

Just Cause 2:
>falling from really high up
>do nothing
>hit the ground
>die

>restart
>fall from same height
>grapple-hook straight to the ground this time
>going twice as fast now
>hit the ground
>perfectly OK

 

[Whiskey Foxtrot]

The fact that Cole Phelps can only open doors with gold door knobs in L.A. Noire is my most favourite example of this ever.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Life is Strange:
Gain the ability to time travel to a time in your life a few minutes ago mentally
When you time travel you stay in the same spot

It is the most egregious example I have seen because the game is unbeatable without it and a plot critical even occurs due to it

 

[StallChaser]

I love when the game mechanics make you do really weird shit as the optimal strategy for something. It's not something explicitly intended by the developers, but simply by how the game is constructed, a weird, unintended strategy emerges. My favorite has to be in Skyrim. Let's say you want to find a specific item from a merchant, and you have to cycle through merchant inventories a lot. You could travel, rest, or whatever, and wait however long for it to refresh, but it takes a really long time. Something like a week of ingame time, I think. It's just a pain in the ass. If you save and reload, you just end up with the same inventory as was there before. But, if you kill the merchant, there's no inventory to save because of how the game works, and the game creates a new one the next time you load the save. So basically, you check if they have what you want. If they don't, you kill the merchant, and then reload.

So if you've ever seen those Kaizo mario runs where they superimpose all the attempts onto one screen

Spoiler: Example

That's basically the armor merchant from all my attempts at getting boots with the silent footsteps modifier that I forget the name of.

 

[_blank_]

Let's see...

Way too many FPS/ Third Person Shooters:
Get shot repeatedly, start seeing red, sit behind a wall, think about what led you to this point in your life, red disappears, pop out of cover, return to mass murder until the voices on the other side are silenced.

Division Crafting:
Be a level 3 scrub - start collecting and breaking down handguns, rifles, whatever. Play until you're in the mid-20s, level 30 cap, take all those busted down PoS handgun pieces and create a death incarnate Marksman rifle.

Assassin's Creed:
Historically, your assassin didn't murder civilians... but apparently it's perfectly okie doke for them to have murdered like 500 guards.

Fallout 4:
"Come here Dogmeat! I need you to carry these five typewritters, six fans, a minigun, a rocket launcher and a half dozen nuclear bombs UP YOUR ASS!"

Hitman:
Mysterious, tall, bald dude with a barcode on the back of his head walks into a bathroom. A few seconds later, same guy with the same barcode walks out wearing some other uniform. No one cares.

Mortal Kombat (2011 & X):
Perform an X-Ray move on your opponent and watch as their skull gets cracked, ribs shattered, spine splintered, organs ruptured, etc. , but if they still have any life bar left, they are still perfectly able to hop back up and keep fighting.

 

[BALLZ-BROKEN]

Crates in FPS games. Old Man Murray did an article about crates a long time ago, but it bears repeating. You always find some random crate in a level, but you can't break it open. Or if you do break it open, there's just one tiny box of bullets or a health kit inside this 9 foot tall fuckin' crate. At least in Half Life, when you break open the crate you find one battery for your HEV suit, and dozens of CD's, spray cans, and circuit boards which evaporate when they're exposed to air.

Or in beat-em ups like Final Fight or Streets of Rage where there's perfectly edible hamburgers and apples or bags of money inside trash cans and phone booths.

And don't even get me started on adventure games...

 

[c-no]

Fallout 4:
"Come here Dogmeat! I need you to carry these five typewritters, six fans, a minigun, a rocket launcher and a half dozen nuclear bombs UP YOUR ASS!"

Hitman:
Mysterious, tall, bald dude with a barcode on the back of his head walks into a bathroom. A few seconds later, same guy with the same barcode walks out wearing some other uniform. No one cares.

The Dogmeat thing rings very true. The fact that it's just a dog holding a lot of objects really reinforces video game logic much like with a human companion holding a fatman, minigun, and three rifles. As for Hitman, the guards at least challenged the logic when you got close enough for them to see through your disguise in the classic games before Absolution.

 

[John Titor]

Having a lot of money does not influence the world's economy.

 

[c-no]

Having a lot of money does not influence the world's economy.

And in most games, it doesn't even weigh you down. Only game that defied that logic was Daggerfall where a gold coin does have weight.