Reading around I got to thinking about clichés in computer games and some things I might do to explain them or dodge them. You can do things like RPG shops (every weapon better than the last) if you want but that is more of an implementation or maybe resources issue and some games wave unobtainable things in your face (loads of recent RPGs), transport things back (loads of things but skies of arcadia and recently Resonance of Fate*), reworking and improving weapons (summon night on the GBA to name a game that takes this as a main mechanic for the game but loads of others feature improved weapons by some mechanism).
*it is not that good and does not have much in the overt "just another hour" but I still seem to have sunk loads of hours into it in recent times- to that end if you like RPGs give it a spin or indeed just to say you did.
Some lists (yes I just grabbed the top three from a search)
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
http://www.ugo.com/games/top-50-worst-video-game-cliches
http://www.enweirdenment.org/cgi-bin/topbot?list00411
My favourite one is the grind aspect of games when coupled
To start with I will pick the classic example of
Bullet sponge. You all know the setup- the character can take enough punishment by means of bullet despite not wearing all that much armour to probably do a fair line in atomising the player or if nothing else seeing someone jump back up (via medpack* or health) for something that would lay someone else out for months due to it (it was sci fi but bulletstorm had a nice story mechanic it seems).
*one nice thing and whether it was intentional or not I have no idea is something I saw in redneck rampage- by pressing the ` (next to the 1 button at the top of the keyboard) your character would take a leak and gain a fraction of health as a result. It could not be abused so much without serious boredom but it did allow for a minimum health type arrangement upon entering a new section- seemed like a nice halfway house between sit for 5 seconds and carry on and "hope I missed a medpack back in the level a bit" and a possible mention of Halo 1 at least that also had medpacks and I guess a mention of left4dead. Half life has a measure of this as well.
Possibilities-
The enemies/character being supernatural by some means and able to take punishment as a result works but feels like a cop out of a sort.
Time dilation- presumably only viable in sci fi or maybe swords and sorcery you get surrounded by a time dilation field that
I saw something similar in a film called Outpost
It is one of the two good examples of the Nazi zombie films in recent times (the second obviously being dead sno) so I felt the need to spoiler it
The film is a re imagining of Chip and Dale rescue rangers-- last chance to avoid spoilers
The film sees a group of mercenaries on an easy mission ultimately fend off Nazi zombies of a sort who maintain immortality by way of a frozen time field around them (bullets do not work and it cuts the other way as well- their weapons age incredibly as they leave the field).
Might also want to couple it with a shield working to eliminate incoming slowed material- too much stuff to handle and you get hit somehow.
Probability
I once saw something like this in Star wars KOTOR- try to shoot the Rancor as you get towards the end of the introduction planet. Assassin's creed does something similar (albeit in instruction manual) and says despite everything only minor injuries were sustained not to mention the general "sync" concept (something that might have instead been pioneered by Hitman or some other game "as told by someone after the fact" depending on how you look at it).
More thematically Max Payne could be said to work in a similar manner.
gun kata
If you want to go gun kata (see Equilibrium and Ultraviolet) you can- resident evil cutscenes and quicktime events seem to flirt with this a lot but realism if you are after that sort of thing tends to suffer a tad.
Quantum leap-
Super meat boy's every attempt thing works here. You might mention something like unreal tournament or perhaps the recent battlestar galactica robots as part of this as well but that is a tough call.
Feel free to add to those, expand on them or choose another one entirely.
*it is not that good and does not have much in the overt "just another hour" but I still seem to have sunk loads of hours into it in recent times- to that end if you like RPGs give it a spin or indeed just to say you did.
Some lists (yes I just grabbed the top three from a search)
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html
http://www.ugo.com/games/top-50-worst-video-game-cliches
http://www.enweirdenment.org/cgi-bin/topbot?list00411
My favourite one is the grind aspect of games when coupled
To start with I will pick the classic example of
Bullet sponge. You all know the setup- the character can take enough punishment by means of bullet despite not wearing all that much armour to probably do a fair line in atomising the player or if nothing else seeing someone jump back up (via medpack* or health) for something that would lay someone else out for months due to it (it was sci fi but bulletstorm had a nice story mechanic it seems).
*one nice thing and whether it was intentional or not I have no idea is something I saw in redneck rampage- by pressing the ` (next to the 1 button at the top of the keyboard) your character would take a leak and gain a fraction of health as a result. It could not be abused so much without serious boredom but it did allow for a minimum health type arrangement upon entering a new section- seemed like a nice halfway house between sit for 5 seconds and carry on and "hope I missed a medpack back in the level a bit" and a possible mention of Halo 1 at least that also had medpacks and I guess a mention of left4dead. Half life has a measure of this as well.
Possibilities-
The enemies/character being supernatural by some means and able to take punishment as a result works but feels like a cop out of a sort.
Time dilation- presumably only viable in sci fi or maybe swords and sorcery you get surrounded by a time dilation field that
I saw something similar in a film called Outpost
It is one of the two good examples of the Nazi zombie films in recent times (the second obviously being dead sno) so I felt the need to spoiler it
The film is a re imagining of Chip and Dale rescue rangers-- last chance to avoid spoilers
The film sees a group of mercenaries on an easy mission ultimately fend off Nazi zombies of a sort who maintain immortality by way of a frozen time field around them (bullets do not work and it cuts the other way as well- their weapons age incredibly as they leave the field).
Might also want to couple it with a shield working to eliminate incoming slowed material- too much stuff to handle and you get hit somehow.
Probability
I once saw something like this in Star wars KOTOR- try to shoot the Rancor as you get towards the end of the introduction planet. Assassin's creed does something similar (albeit in instruction manual) and says despite everything only minor injuries were sustained not to mention the general "sync" concept (something that might have instead been pioneered by Hitman or some other game "as told by someone after the fact" depending on how you look at it).
More thematically Max Payne could be said to work in a similar manner.
gun kata
If you want to go gun kata (see Equilibrium and Ultraviolet) you can- resident evil cutscenes and quicktime events seem to flirt with this a lot but realism if you are after that sort of thing tends to suffer a tad.
Quantum leap-
Super meat boy's every attempt thing works here. You might mention something like unreal tournament or perhaps the recent battlestar galactica robots as part of this as well but that is a tough call.
Feel free to add to those, expand on them or choose another one entirely.
like a 250 dollar kit back when DDR4 was Intel only
