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[Parsely]

Super Castlevania III

Super Castlevania 3 is srs bsnss. Tried for years off and on to finish it, but it'd all seem to fall apart after the Clock Tower.

Honorable mentions for one of the most amazing 16-bit tracks in my memory.

Oh. Actually it was IV, the one that you linked to. But yes, best music ever, but Megaman X is the greatest of all time. If my brothers or my dad are in the house and they hear the opening stage music, they all come into the room and watch me play.

[Parsely]

I thought by hitmarkers people meant the visual indication at your crosshair when you hit someone.

I couldn't figure out what this was referring to and wondered if it was something common in newer games I hadn't played or something.

Regarding directional indicators for getting hit though, I'm now curious how realistic that is.  I've never been shot, but I wonder if it's really that easy to tell whether a shot hit you from one direction or another considering how fast bullets travel.

Well you don't figure out where you're being shot from by the sound the bullet makes when it passes you, rather by the sound of the gunshot after the firearm hammers down. It's really easy to tell where someone's shooting you from as long as you're not actually struck by the round. It's easier to understand if you watch people being startled by a noise. The instant after the trigger is pulled people are already instinctively ducking and turning their heads because guns are really really loud when they're fired. This is why silencers are ever used, not because it makes the gun quiet, on the contrary even silenced guns are startlingly loud at close ranges and especially if they have an automatic action (klack klack klack klack klack!), but because it makes a very different noise that's less instantly recognisable, causing listeners to likely be confused for a possibly crucial moment as well as muffled and thus less likely to be honed in on.

[MODcrazy]

Health bars and health as a numeric value in general
Unfortunately, this applies to almost every game, and as I dislike any modern weaponry, everything but Bushido Blade and some Roguelike(like)s are nothing but an annoyance to me.
I especially hate it if those numbers even jump around.

[alexandertnt]

Health bars and health as a numeric value in general

I stated this one earlier and couldn't agree more.

[MadMalkavian]

Health bars and health as a numeric value in general
Unfortunately, this applies to almost every game, and as I dislike any modern weaponry, everything but Bushido Blade and some Roguelike(like)s are nothing but an annoyance to me.
I especially hate it if those numbers even jump around.

You might like Fable: The Lost Chapters as the only numeric value related to your health is the amount of Resurrection Phials you have, and it uses medieval weaponry and optional fantasy magic. Outside of that I'm not certain what you might like, unless if you like fighting games.

Personally I'm not bothered by numbers being used to measure things as it's human nature to want to measure and label just about everything. I'm more bothered by repetitive themes in series of games at this time, such as most Elder Scrolls games having you start out as a prisoner and an orphan for example. It gets old having to put up with Bethesda's S&M fetish.

[Virtz]

Kind of on the same boat with simplistic health systems. Just that some are more bearable than others, like when health goes down so fast it comes down to 1-3 hit kills.

[Biag]

Personally I'm not bothered by numbers being used to measure things as it's human nature to want to measure and label just about everything. I'm more bothered by repetitive themes in series of games at this time, such as most Elder Scrolls games having you start out as a prisoner and an orphan for example. It gets old having to put up with Bethesda's S&M fetish.

I agree with "repetitive themes" being annoying, but personally I give Elder Scrolls a pass. There are only four major titles in the series, after all. Honestly, I love the feeling of starting up a newly-released TES title after several years' wait and suddenly I'm an unknown prisoner again.

Health as a number bothers me sometimes as well. Although I know that even the most complicated injury systems are dependent on some kind of numeric calculation, so I try not to let it get to me too much.

[MODcrazy]

Health bars and health as a numeric value in general

I stated this one earlier and couldn't agree more.

Hmm, I'm sorry for repeating something, I have actually read that whole topic but have most likely forgotten about it being mentioned already.

About Fable: The Lost Chapters:  I took a look at Youtube and it seem to actually DO measure your health in a bar 

About compicated injury systems: It is okay I think as long as it stays logical. You could for example have an integer that measures how much blood you still have, or how well it circulates in your brain. Once it is down at a certain value, you lose consciousness, for example.
Bleeding out is actually something that Bushido Blade misses.

Well, maybe i am just too critical, but as a video game I mostly want a simulation, and if it is fighting that is being simulated, which it is in most video games for... "adults" , I want it to be simulated properly. And don't tell me RPGs are not about fighting. Not even a hunter is killing so much as it happens in them usually.

[Squill]

Know what? I think it would be awesome if there was a game, that rather than relying on a numerical health bar or chunky salsa, the health would be both very complex and very nonsensical at the same time. Just ridiculously abstract.

[itisnotlogical]

Personally I'm not bothered by numbers being used to measure things as it's human nature to want to measure and label just about everything. I'm more bothered by repetitive themes in series of games at this time, such as most Elder Scrolls games having you start out as a prisoner and an orphan for example. It gets old having to put up with Bethesda's S&M fetish.

I agree with "repetitive themes" being annoying, but personally I give Elder Scrolls a pass. There are only four major titles in the series, after all. Honestly, I love the feeling of starting up a newly-released TES title after several years' wait and suddenly I'm an unknown prisoner again.

Health as a number bothers me sometimes as well. Although I know that even the most complicated injury systems are dependent on some kind of numeric calculation, so I try not to let it get to me too much.

IIRC, you actually weren't a prisoner in Daggerfall. I think you were a friend or agent of the Emperor and you just happened to wash up in a noob cave (what I call starter dungeons).

[Neonivek]

I am too old of a gamer to really have anything against health bars as they are a gaming convention that really works.

[SealyStar]

I am too old of a gamer to really have anything against health bars as they are a gaming convention that really works.

I don't see anything wrong with health bars/counters as a convenient abstraction of health, I'm just annoyed that the alternate systems of video-game health all tend to be bad, and that little effort seems to be put into devising more innovative ones. Modern FPS duck-and-cover mechanics mean that a well-played game has to be slow-paced and repetitive, and are even less realistic than bars when you think about it. The notion of having wholly realistic health sounds good, if difficult, until you apply it to a game and watch as people rrrage about dying in two shots.

Pretty much all FPS systems (even though I know we're not just talking about FPSs) have a health system that fits neatly on three axes:  recovery, quantity, and indication. Half-Life, for example, has pickup recovery, high quantity, numerical indication, so "unrealistic". Call of Duty from 2 onward has regen recovery, medium quantity, visual indication, so "semi-realistic". Planetside 2 (I've just been playing it recently, and it's the most modern FPS I have) is harder to classify, since it has "semi-regen" recovery, low quantity, and definite but non-numerical visual indication. But it still fits generally on those axes.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I've always thought that starting off as a prisoner can be a really good trope for helping to rationalise RPG mechanics.
It makes sense that you start off extremely weak no matter what your past was due to (presumed) torture and malnutrition which in turn helps to explain why you can grow much stronger in a relatively short period of time. It can be used to give populations a predisposed suspicion while also making the character notable enough to warrant this suspicion. It also helps to railroad the story due to the character not being able to fit into society until they are redeemed and therefore forces the completion of the rest of the hero's journey.
Now whether Bethesda is capable of really capitalising on that particular trope is a different debate completely. 

I also have to agree with Neonivek on health bars. I haven't found many good alternatives and I'm of the camp that regenerative health mixed with BLOOD ON THE SCREEN SO REAL is not a good way to go about it.
One particularly interesting way I've remembered health being done differently was Cryostasis. The game still had a health bar but instead of being called "health" it was simply labeled "heat". Spending too long in cold environments would sap your heat as would being hit by enemies. The only way to restore health/heat would be to find warm areas near fires.
It really helped to make the player fear the cold and actually gave a feeling of attrition as they marched through the colder parts of the level. Fires seemed to play into almost primeval emotions and really conveyed the message that heat was not only your friend but also your only lifeline in the cold. 

[serephe]

I would play the **** out of any game that had realistic injuries and death. The same as I'd play the **** out of any game that had tanks fighting at realistic ranges with realistic penetration calculations and damage, ships with realistic ocean and sinking, planes with realistic airflow... because it's fun to be able to see how you would do at something without the dangers reality places us in.

[Tsuchigumo550]

Mecha games with weak single player/weak characterization.

Sometimes, the mecha is more memorable than the pilot. I'd love to create the single player to a mecha game- I feel that not enough mecha games have a strong single player where things happen and people die, a lot of things aren't explained, and the entire experience almost feels like "these are the things that would be cut from a game".

I'm looking at you Armored Core. I'm OK with never seeing a human, but in ACV, you had all these interesting people (there's one guy in a MASSIVE PINK MECHA who says things in latin (As you are, I was, as I am, you will be, iirc) and has a teammate who says "I never know what you're saying..."

And that's it. I'd like to know so much more. Hell, AC:FA had fanart based around one character simply because she was the only one to be nice to you.