Video games have gotten more complex since the 8-bit days. It’s not enough to just run left and jump or press B to shoot. Single buttons can have a multitude of uses depending on whether they’re pressed alone, held, done while moving the analogue stick, or holding another button, etc.
They’ll try to explain all their mechanics with tutorial levels or in-game manuals and glossaries. However, for one reason or another, human ingenuity ended up discovering these unexplained tips and tricks from the past decade and change of gaming.
7 Enemies In Bioshock Will Always Miss Their First Shots
Just in case any readers needed help feeling old today, this classic shooter is 15 years old now. Bioshock stood out from the crowd with its underwater setting, dieselpunk tech, and intriguing story. It wasn't another World War 2 banger or ooh-rah Call of Duty installment. Still, it wasn't particularly challenging to play, even on its harder difficulty settings. This is probably because the developers were too merciful towards the players.
In a Twitter thread about developer secrets, game director Ken Levine admitted that the enemies will always miss their first shots, essentially turning them into warning shots. In addition, designer Paul Hellquist revealed that if the player was down to their last point of health, they were invulnerable to further attacks for a second or two. Any players in trouble could use that time to make a quick getaway or replenish their health with a Pep Bar or two.
6 Attack The Ore In The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
The original Skyrim game came out over a decade ago. Not that players would know it as it’s been available on every generation of console since then, alongside multiple updates on PC. That said, it’s not all fighting dragons and Fus Ro Dah’ing anything in sight. Sometimes, the player had to go mining for precious metals for crafting. Which involves getting a pickaxe, finding an ore vein, then following the mine commands.
It’s slow-going and not particularly exciting. But players found an exploit. If they attacked the ore with the pickaxe instead, they’d speed up the process and get more minerals for their efforts. Dual-wielding pickaxes would speed it up even more, and using the Elemental Fury shout would make it even faster still. It doesn’t work for all ore veins, but it works with enough of them to make it worthwhile.
5 Resident Evil 6’s Melee Is More In-Depth Than It Lets On
Capcom wanted to make Resident Evil 6 the biggest, most bombastic entry in the series, which it was. Shame it wasn't the best. The tense atmosphere of the older games was dissipated in favor of Gears of War-esque shooting, explosions, and ridiculous plot twists. The melee attacks also didn’t click with fans at first either, with most considering them rather weak and not worth the effort.
That was because it turned out the game didn’t really show off its full potential. While it still wasn’t perfect, it was more expansive than players knew. For example, holding R2+Square/RB+X would automatically mix herbs and load pills. Taking cover or laying prone would help the player regain stamina for more fisticuffs. Chris could swipe his knife twice when doing his back dodge attack. Then pressing L1+Circle/LT+B would automatically target enemies for the AI partner to attack, which is handy for dealing with snipers.
4 Alien: Isolation Can Find You Through Your Microphone
After the disappointment that was Aliens: Colonial Marines, Alien: Isolation was seen as a step in the right direction. It skipped the guns in favor of sneaking around like the player’s life depended on it, avoiding all sorts of enemies, including the titular Xenomorph. Its programming was as intricate as its looks. The beast had two ‘brains’ as it were: one that always knew where the player was, and another that controlled the body based on the first one's 'clues'.
This would help it learn what the player would do based on how they played, making it all the more dangerous. At least it couldn’t actually hear the player, right? Well, yes…if they were playing the PC version. On the console version, if they had a headset plugged in and switched on, the Xenomorph could hear them when they spoke, cried, or screamed, then send them swiftly to the Game Over screen soon afterwards.
3 Venom Snake Becomes A Demon In Metal Gear Solid 5
The Metal Gear series is full of Easter eggs that are either right in the player’s face, or just under their nose. Advancing the console clock by a week will make The End die of old age on resuming a save game. Killing multiple enemies in Metal Gear Solid 4 will make Snake experience a Combat High and get sick. Doing the same in Metal Gear Solid 5 will produce a comparatively more subtle effect.
Whenever Venom Snake kills an enemy, it’ll raise an unseen ‘Demon Point’ meter. The more it goes up, the more pronounced his ‘horn’ (a piece of shrapnel in his head) and bloody face gets. Once it maxes out, it’ll stick out like a giant prong, and Snake’s face will be covered in blood no matter how many showers he has. He said he was already a demon. This is just one way of confirming it.
2 Celeste Has Wile E. Coyote Physics
The PC has so many puzzle platformers that it can be hard to see which ones are worthwhile. If players only needed one example of the genre ever in their lives, Celeste would be a good contender. The 2018 game offered a sweet and interesting story about anxiety and depression in an addictive game about dashing and jumping from point to point. Like Super Meat Boy with a serious plot.
The game could be challenging as players had to dash in midair, grab crystals to refill stamina, avoid spikes, switch forms, etc. Luckily, it had some features that help players out, like ‘coyote time’. Celeste can walk in midair for a bit if she steps off a ledge a la Wile E. Coyote, giving her that extra wiggle room for jumping. She can also land on ledges even if her feet just narrowly touch their upper corners. Try it out the next time a wide gap in the game seems impassable.
1 Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled Has Secret Boost Reserves
Beenox’s remake of Naughty Dog’s original bandicoot-based kart racer did more than just replicate the 1999 game course by course. It also had a way player could infinitely boost through each circuit! Usually, they could pull off boosts by power sliding and tapping the opposite drift button (e.g. tap L1 if sliding with R1) at the right time. The more perfectly timed drifts the player can chain together, the longer their boost will last.
Performing 3 consecutive drifts will give them the strongest boost. But if the player kept chaining drifts while boosting, it would build up in hidden reserves instead. With the right timing, expert players could spend a whole race firing away at max speed. If they equipped themselves with the Super Engine as well, their reserves would automatically refill on their own. It might feel like cheating to use it, but all those drift boosts still require skill to use, so get practicing!