Mine would have to be the wall-jump or double-jump. Look at games like Megaman X and Castlevania. These abilities added a new dimension of timing and skill requirements that, combined with great design, escalated the games to classic levels. Though the double-jump is still featured in newer games, it''s a shame that the essence of the wall-jump has lost its place in this 3D gaming world. Sure, you could cite Devil May Cray, which tries its best to be the 3D answer to Castlevania, but it''s not the same. It''s easier to use it to get to secret areas nowadays. I better stop before I burst into a nostalgia rant. So what are your favorite moves, features, skills?

I agree with the wall-jump, but my favorite move is the Bullet Time in Max Payne. You slow down time, but you can aim in real-time. It rules! And in Multiplayer on 007: Agent Under Fire I like the low gravity so you can fight Matrix style.

Wow. I don''t think I''ve ever heard this question asked!

I think I like any well implemented sneaking and stealth. Sneaking, to me, adds so much more to a standard combat game, especially a shooter. I like the idea of having to worry about noise, positioning, line of sight, etc., as it gives me more than one way to approach a problem. It''s also especially fun when these factor in in a co-op multiplayer game.



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has some wall-jumping. Once you get level 2 Force Jump, you can do spinning jumps off the walls by running into them and double-tapping jump just as you touch them.
I think that, if your timing is really good, you can do this to people, too.
Plus, you can run along the walls (run forward + strafe into the wall + hold down jump). The acrobatics in JKII are quite cool indeed. You can also do the whole bullet-time thing using Force Speed, although it''s disorienting as hell.

I wasn''t a big fan of wall jumping in Mega Man X. I liked the game in general, and the wall jumping wasn''t inherently bad, but most of the bosses were finger-torturing wall-jump-fests, where you constantly had to stay in one of the corners of the boss room to avoid getting splattered.
That is, of course, as long as you killed the boss using only the X-Blaster, like all 1337 players did.

Am I the only one who thought the wall-jumping in Super Metroid was one of the worst parts of the game? EXTREMELY frustrating.

Yeah, I liked the wall jumping in Castlevania much better. It''s always good to see games using the walls. Hopefully they''ll do the wall-running well in Shinobi, but it is Sega so I''m not too worried.

Aiming.

I actually haven''t played too many shooters, but I really liked Operation Flashpoint.

You run towards a target, drop yourself down onto the ground, take aim... wait a few seconds until you can calm down your breathing, because it disrupts your aiming. Then, when you finally get a steady aim, you focus your aim a little more (zoom in)... and fire away.

I''m not sure why I liked this so much, but I think it''s because it felt so real. Not that realism equals good, but aiming became so much more a part of the game than just ''move mouse around and shoot''.

My favourite gameplay feature is "world switching". Solving puzzles and advancing through the game by going to a distorted other world. Examples: The Snes Zelda and the Soul Reaver series.
Actually when I think about it, those are the only examples I can come up with.

- DarkIce

Wall walking in alien vs predator as the alien, nothing beats coming at an enemy from a great hieght straight down a wall.




"Making it up! Why should I be making it up. Lifes bad enough as it is without wanting to invent more of it."

In Battlezone, when you get blown out of your tank, you have a sniper rifle you can use to take out pilots in other tanks, and hop into them.

I was fighting against a fellow that had his base so pumped up with defenses that my only choice was to pick off targets with my sniper rifle. He was very good at spotting snipers, too, and came after me regularly.

The final battle was between him and me hopping frantically to get to a tank equidistant between us Luckily I got there first, and ran him over!

It was an interesting dimension to add to the game - when your tank blows up, your game isn''t over yet.

Personally, I don’t think that any game has provided the amount of freedom to do what you want in the game as the Elite series of games. I played Frontier: Elite 2 (FE2) for years - heck, I still pull play it from time to time...

Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser †