Nonsensical Situations in Games

[Moonface]

I was looking at the Resident Evil subreddit yesterday night to see if there was anything interesting being pointed out about the RE4 Remake, since I'm far into the game enough now that I don't need to be too concerned with spoilers, and came across a post that displayed this image and accompanying text:

Just me, or is this the single most illogical thing in any game ever?… like… just push the button lol you don’t need the key in order to push it

I thought this was kinda funny to realize, since the only reason this keypad requires a button to press the 3 key is for the purposes of gameplay. If you could just push it like you could in reality, then there's no longer a puzzle or choice involved.
I guess the developers could have made it require a keycard or something which would also make the security lockers actually secure, whereas this system of security lockers is a glorified vending machine. I also like that if you put the blank button on the 2 key like in the screenshot, you can't use it on the 3 key, but surely Leon could just pop the button back off and put it on the 3 when he's done with the 2. XD


What other situations in games that emulate something we could do in real life have you seen that make no sense because they have to adapt for the purposes of a video game? Or just gameplay moments that exist for gameplay but don't actually make sense to be happening otherwise due to the characters or story?

[Maniakkid25]

I've talked about it before, but I will never shut up about how Gabriel Knight 3 has one of the stupidest puzzles seen in Adventure games, to the point that the puzzle has a wikipedia page, putting it on the level of the Goat from Broken Sword for sheer WTF-ery!

So, the set-up is very simple: you need to rent a motorcycle, but the motorcycle you need is reserved for someone else. So first off, you make the incredible leap that the only sensible solution to this is that you need to impersonate the person who it's reserved for. Already, this is a nonsensical situation, but we have not gotten CLOSE to the insane part!

The solution

So first off, you need to steal his passport. You do this by placing a piece of candy that you have in the path to reception, and then faking a phone call for him to come to reception. The candy will then distract him long enough to sneak into his room, and steal his passport. Awesome. But you look nothing like this guy, so you need a disguise, and here comes the roller coaster, everyone!

First off, you take a marker, and draw a moustache on the passport, for no explained reason. No, seriously, you don't even get a hint as to why you would do this. (Edit: forgot to mention that the guy you are impersonating does not, in fact, have a moustache) You'll also need double-sided tape, maple syrup, and a squirt bottle for the next part. First, you find a fence with a hole in the bottom that a small furry animal can fit through. Stick the tape on the top of this hole. Oh, hey, there's a cat nearby! Spray it with the squirt bottle for no particular reason; it was probably being a little s*** anyway. This cat will skitter through the hole you just trapped, and rip off a pile of fur so massive, you could make a coat out of it thanks to the tape. Despite this, the tape is now no longer strong enough to just stick on your face, so you attach it with maple goddamn syrup. Because as we all know, anything goopy is a glue. Combine this with a ballcap and jacket, and you now have the disguise that will get you your bike. You also have earned a one-way trip to a mental institution, because only a mental patient could come up with such a moon logic puzzle solution on their own.

This kind of crap was the lifeblood of 90's Adventure games, to the point that there was one essay who said, on being asked who killed adventure games, said "I think it should be pretty clear at this point that Adventure Games committed suicide."

[Moonface]

Seeing that sort of stuff in old adventure games just reminds me of how a lot of the industry back then would purposefully make games intended to extend the amount of rentals someone would need to beat a game if they didn't bother to buy it straight up.

A few others that came to my mind that make no sense but exist solely due to videogame logic:

IO's Hitman Trilogy
Enemies in IO's Hitman trilogy can drown in any depth of water, including the shallowest of puddles. Puddle drowning will at least only occur if the NPC makes contact with it face-down, but it's still obviously silly. Furthermore, shooting an NPC in the leg to make them fall over in any body of water will result in an instant drowning accident kill, even though nobody would drown the instant their mouth touches water. I'm surprised the entire world in the IO Hitman universe hasn't died from taking a sip of water from a bottle.

Resident Evil 8
Those ridiculous ball puzzles in the safe rooms. Nothing seems to be stopping Ethan from just dunking the ball into the hole at the end instead of putting it through the maze, except for the fact Ethan is demonstrated to be a complete buffoon throughout RE7 and RE8.

Phasmophobia
Want to turn all the lights on in a house? Whoops, the breaker can't handle more than like 4 lights being on at a time and trips if you try to do more!


Also, this image from Fallout that I came across is on par with the RE2R one when it comes to the protagonist just being empty headed:



Climb through, break it down, surely there's options available here besides picking the lock at this point.

[Moonface]

Just had another one of these come to mind after @Dragon Lord pointed out in our Phasmophobia session today that the security panel in the truck is only on the inside which means you can't ever close it without trapping someone inside. XD

The one I had come to mind was the back of the truck also has no seats, so when everyone leaves a site after a job they all have to stand up with nothing to hold onto and no seatbelts, so they'd better pray the driver never takes a sharp turn or suddenly brakes.
"It appears everyone left in a hurry." Yes because everyone got yeeted out the back of the truck when it came to a sudden stop and died so now they haunt the truck they rode in.

[Moonface]

I was watching some gameplay of the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered trilogy from Game Informer and one of the commentators made a hilarious point that reminded me of this thread.

So in the opening cutscene of Tomb Raider I, Lara and a guide are travelling up a mountain and arrive at this huge stone door. The switch to open it is above, so Lara uses a rope to scale the door and pull the switch. Doing so opens the door, and four wolves come out and proceed to maul the poor guide before Lara can jump down to help him. Now here's where it gets silly; Lara is simply holding this rope. She isn't tied to it or anything, but for whatever reason she decides to cut the rope in order to drop down and deal with these wolves and until one of the commentators pointed out she didn't need to cut the rope at all I had never realized that despite having seen this cutscene so many times before. I probably wouldn't have even picked up on it now.

[Maniakkid25]

So I've been playing RE4R again, and recently beat Separate Ways, and while I have MANY things to say about it, one of the most amazing changes of the story completely blows a plot hole wide open in the entire damn story. Spoilers incoming for RE4R DLC.

RE4R Separate Ways spoilers

Not once, but twice in the tale, WESKER HIMSELF appears to give Ada a verbal bitch slap about how bad at her job she is! IN PERSON! Hell, the first time he shows up, he rescues you from capture! If Wesker is able to just be in the locale the game takes place, then WHY IN GOD'S NAME did he hire Ada to get the Amber (the replacement for the Plaga sample)?! He's goddamn Wesker! He doesn't need to hire Ada for this crap!

Don't even get me started on the ending, by the way! Just... Oh my God! I'll be straight, I was SEETHING from this version of the game, and Ada's VA was the LEAST of her problems!

[Moonface]

I'd be curious to see more of your thoughts on the Separate Ways DLC in the RE4 thread @Maniakkid25 since what you wrote has got me well... curious.

On what you did mention though:

RE4R Separate Ways DLC

I don't get why they needed to have Wesker appear in person, besides the rescue part (which could have probably used someone else like Luis to do it). He could just scold her over comms. It seems like Capcom really wanted to give Wesker actual screen time for the sake of fan service but without any proper consideration for how to do it.

[ShiraNoMai]

This. I know it's hard to put perspective in Pokémon games when nothing is to scale because of the small screens/platform style, but this is just silly. Walk around that thing!

[Moonface]

I've never liked the tree blocking mechanic in Pokémon because of how unconvincing it looks compared to the other obstacles in the same games like the boulders or Snorlax. Should've been like a large bush or some other overgrowth that can better fill the entire space rather than a stage four sapling from Stardew Valley.


Now for a moment from my session in Fallout 3 last night:

"Ooh, Enclave Power Armor. Dang, it weighs too much to carry or use it right now. Oh, I know! I'll take it off the guy wearing it and store it in the mailbox they died next to."
proceeds to stuff a full suit of armor into a tiny mailbox

I know that it's just because no game is going to put logic on storing items of varying sizes but I still found it funny imagining my character actively shoving this thing into a mailbox and walking off with the thought of "perfect, safely stored where I can come back for it later" as if nobody else in the Wasteland would notice it if that mailbox didn't function like the Tardis.

[Moonface]

I'm just randomly scrolling through the RE subreddit because I'm bored and got reminded of this moment from the RE2 remake.

Shout out to all of the recent RE games also having a system where you collect keys to unlock drawers, but for whatever reason each key is only single use yet all the drawers use the same type of keyhole. I guess one could argue the keys break every time you use them?