The Great Video Game Paradox

**jim5cents** · 10-08-2010, 10:15 PM

Why is it that touching an enemy hurts you, but never hurts the enemy?

**Mareeps** · 10-08-2010, 10:16 PM

It hurts the enemy as well as you in Kirby, depending on the enemy.

**Kugyince** · 10-08-2010, 10:40 PM

**Slime Slayer** · 10-09-2010, 10:36 AM

I don't think the game would be very fun if you went around hurting bad guys by touching them.

**jim5cents** · 10-09-2010, 03:42 PM

I'm talking about the simple physics of it. Lets say you are playing Contra and you are this jacked up super solider. If you run into a weak enemy peon, suddenly he is Steve Atwater and you are dead.

The way I see it, if you run touch an enemy and it kills you, he should die from the same contact.

**Demon-Mask** · 10-09-2010, 04:55 PM

Some games actually let you do damage by touching an enemy, but not many.
Allowing either or both characters in the situation of normal contact (no one shoots or punches) getting damaged severely or killed is a pretty bad representation of physics. It treats the situation as if you were a car crashing into a wall at 250 Mi/Hr, that is not how walking into a guy on the street is at all.

**elrod21** · 10-09-2010, 05:24 PM

Yes this is always one of the things that I find funny about a lot of games, but is is just the nature of the beast I suppose.

**Demon-Mask** · 10-09-2010, 05:52 PM

But there is a line where the physics of something is so far off it isn't any longer plausible.
It's like in Castlevania where you don't die when you collide with an enemy, but super-buff Simon get's knocked back about one meter by a skeleton who has almost no body mass and is moving at a velocity less than Simon is approaching with.

**Dudebro** · 10-09-2010, 09:55 PM

I don't mind taking damage on impact with enemies but I get really annoyed with enemies that don't even react to the collision and just keep moving and hitting you. If I'm bouncing back from a hit the enemy should at least slow down so I can recover a little. I can't think of any examples but it's pretty common I think, at least with retro games.

**Demon-Mask** · 10-10-2010, 11:24 AM

The best example is Castlevania, somehow you are massively affected by the collision, and the enemy keeps on walking towards you, sometimes hitting you before you recover.

There is a point where the collision mechanics are just nonsense.

**Slime Slayer** · 10-10-2010, 03:05 PM

I don't even understand what the heck is going on here.
Are you guys suggesting that 8-bit Nintendo games should have had realistic physics?
That's no different than saying Super Mario Bros. should have been rendered in full 3-d.

**Demon-Mask** · 10-10-2010, 06:38 PM

No, what I'm saying is that there is a point where it becomes ridiculous, it is fine with 8-bit, 16-bit and the likes, but the point is that games can have slightly more realistic physics and still be fun, and not too difficult to create.

Wouldn't it make sense if the enemy was somewhat affected by the collision, not just the player? That is really all the realism I could want in the physics of an 8-bit game. The enemy doesn't need to get hurt, but it needs to be affected, maybe slowed down or knocked back like the player.

And actually, expecting realistic physics on 8-bit hardware is much more reasonable than expecting fully-rendered 3D models on 8-bit hardware that isn't even capable of 3D rendering of any sort.

**Dudebro** · 10-10-2010, 08:42 PM

I was just taking the opportunity to complain about how annoying it can be.

**fenrir1887** · 10-10-2010, 09:29 PM

Annoying is right. Especially in the Super Mario Bros. games.

**Dudebro** · 10-10-2010, 09:33 PM

I guess that's one of the main reason I don't like platform games that much. Mario Bros games seem to be ok to me though but maybe I'm just so used to them.

**fenrir1887** · 10-10-2010, 09:38 PM

I've got them all on emulator, plus Super Mario Advance, a re-do of SMB 2.

**joz** · 10-11-2010, 09:30 AM

Another thing I notice is how in some games, the bosses get stronger and faster as they get closer to dying. After taking enough damage to almost kill you, wouln't you get weaker and slower instead?

**Mareeps** · 10-11-2010, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jozman3000

Another thing I notice is how in some games, the bosses get stronger and faster as they get closer to dying. After taking enough damage to almost kill you, wouln't you get weaker and slower instead?

I remember that happening in this one game to a spider boss, after the boss took so much damage, it would lose a leg, and move faster. With 1 leg, he was at his fastest.

**fenrir1887** · 10-13-2010, 11:57 PM

Then you have the mechanics of the X-Men games for Sega. Touch an enemy, they keep going and you take the damage.

**DrunkN** · 10-13-2010, 11:59 PM

Why are you rewarded points for murdering and not for nonviolently avoiding the situation?

**Kong** · 10-14-2010, 12:13 AM

Why are there so many identical clones that you must kill.
How can one person take on an entire army of bad guys.
There should be a game where you control the thousands of bad guys trying to kill the one unstoppable good guy.

**Dudebro** · 10-14-2010, 12:33 AM

Quote:

There should be a game where you control the thousands of bad guys trying to kill the one unstoppable good guy.

I played a mode in Halo called Juggernaut the other night and it has that feel to it. The round starts with one guy as the juggernaut and everyone else has to gang up on him and try to kill him. He's got double normal shield strength, a huge hammer that kills with an aoe gravity attack and many people die before he's even hurt. Whoever gets the kill is it and it starts over until someone gets to the points goal. When I was juggernaut it was like a different game and I was fighting against weak AI controlled enemies that stood no chance.
I got 10 kills and they were all awesome.

**joz** · 10-14-2010, 08:30 AM

@ DB: that sounds incredibly fun! so you play that online with other people right?

**Dudebro** · 10-14-2010, 04:21 PM

Oh yeah. Offline isn't really that fun imo, just campaign mode. I wish I could share my video of that match but I believe I have to pay for them to host it on their site. If someone has a 360 and Reach they can watch it though.