History PaintingTheMedium / VideoGames

* ''Franchise/StarWars'':

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'':

** When using the Directional Microphone in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'', subtitles will get larger and smaller depending on how on-point you are listening in.

* In the first two ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games the character's dialogue options depend on his intelligence. A sufficiently stupid character will only be able to say "Duh." In the second one, they make a joke about it that also paints the medium. Early in the game, you meet a very dull-witted man (Torr). If you try to talk to him as a character of average or higher intelligence, he'll just respond with grunts and short words. If you are also of low intelligence, you will have a conversation of "Duh!" and "Grr bad man" translated into verbose and elaborate speech, in which you discover a very helpful piece of information much quicker than usual.

* ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}}'' and [[VideoGame/Kindergarten2 its sequel]] emphasises a character yelling particularly loud by doubling the font size, and sometimes even making the screen shake. The game also sometimes uses the text scroll in the dialogue box for this, such as by stopping the scroll for a second after every word to indicate the sentence is PunctuatedForEmphasis

** A delusional gardener's early-60s era turns the view into a Cinemascope-esque widescreen, shown in the oversaturated color of B-movies he liked.

''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' takes it up a notch with the Animus 2.0, which adds several gameplay refinements and subtitles, which were absent in the first game. A note in the game's manual from Lucy is a reminder to fix the nasty bug in the Animus 1.0 software that [[SuperDrowningSkills prevented the ancestor from swimming]] (and indeed, Ezio is a very prolific swimmer), and a side conversation has Desmond thanking a member of his MissionControl for the subtitles. 2.0 is also the explanation for why the historical characters suddenly acquire regional accents. ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag'' and ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity'' go even further, referencing the development of, and eventual release of, a Templar-developed video game console based upon the Animus technology.

* The level map of ''Videogame/DeBlob 2'' shows all of the locked levels as their normal names with the Blanc-symbol attached. After [[spoiler:INKT takes over]], the symbol changes to [[spoiler:the INKT-logo]], and the names of the levels change to match [[spoiler: the new INKT-regime]].

* iOS game ''VideoGame/{{Device6}}'' uses this as its main draw, forcing you to turn the device as the character moves.
* When Laharl first encounters Vyers in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' he decides to start calling him Mid-Boss instead of his real name. Apparently this counted as an ''official'' name change, as not only does everyone start calling him Mid-Boss without batting an eye, but even his own text boxes start referring to him as such.

** The makers of ''VideoGame/CrisisCore'' promised that their slot-machine-inspired "Digital Mind Wave" combat system, which seems like just a game mechanic, would somehow prove to be a pivotal, emotionally intense plot point at the end of the game. Anyone who doesn't believe them obviously hasn't played to the final battle...

* Used to [[PlatformHell kill the player]] in ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy'' - in [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Guy's Castle]], the [[VideoGame/NinjaGaiden Ryu]] room has a Windows XP error message pop up... [[spoiler:then drop down and kill you]]. Amusingly enough, the game has a tendency to actually crash.

* The pause menu of ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'' is presented like a VHS tape, and whenever the story goes [[AnachronicOrder forwards or backwards in time]] the tape "skips" and goes FFW or REW respectively.

* In ''VideoGame/ThePedestrian'', the pause screen is displayed diegetically on a TV screen in the vicinity of the current puzzle. [[spoiler:This remains true even in the first-person sections of the final area.]]

* In the final battle of ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'', Sora appears to get knocked out as if it's a GameOver... except you hear Donald and Goofy shout "Sora!" through your controller's speaker ''and'' it vibrates.

** In the Light World, text boxes are black with plain white borders, and menus once again take after the ones in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', being segmented into multiple of these text boxes. In the Dark World, a more advanced menu divided into drop-down tabs is used, and text boxes have a fancy silver border.

*** After getting ATasteOfPower during the opening, the protagonist gets arrested, and [[PoliceBrutality interrogated]]. What follows is a pure example of ControllableHelplessness. "Sign here. [[FalseConfession It's a confession, under your name.]]"
---->[[HelloInsertNameHere Sign your name.]]
*** The traitor is revealed as such when they gain a [[TraitorShot much more sinister-looking]] CharacterPortrait than their usual set.

---> [[HelloInsertNameHere Sign your name.]]

* In ''The Sacred Armour of Antiriad'', the health bar and lives counter don't work before the PC finds and wears the PoweredArmor suit, gaining high-tech tracking for those things.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' games have a subtle detail. The UI has a sword on the button for "attack", a shield on "stop," et cetera, so upgrading equipment makes those buttons fancier. This is also true of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s auto-attack and auto-shoot buttons, which use your currently equipped weapon's icon (or cat or bear paws, for druids in those forms).

* The 1985 wargame ''Theatre Europe'' simulates conventional WWIII. Accessing nuclear weapons requires a real-world phone call. Website/{{Wikipedia}}: "The telephone number connected the player to a recorded message, which started with the sound of air raid sirens and dramatically built up through various sounds of war to a huge explosion, followed by the sound of a crying baby. As this faded out, a voice stated "If this is really what you want... the code is 'Midnight Sun'"." Global thermonuclear war is a complete loss; for single strategic missiles, the player has to remember to turn off automatic retaliation for nuclear attacks with equal or stronger force, a system that both sides use and which responds to retaliations. At the hardest difficulty level, it's impossible to win as the Warsaw Pact.

** Another example is when you see Snake's HP and Psych gauges drop to zero in the [[SignatureScene microwave hallway]]. Without this tiny detail, the player wouldn't be able to appreciate just how much damage Snake was taking [[{{Determinator}} while still pushing forward]]. He wasn't merely close to death but ''[[BeyondTheImpossible should]]'' [[BeyondTheImpossible have died]].

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'', the game's spritework is of higher quality than the original game; in general, everything is larger and, as a result, more detailed and more smoothly drawn. This is especially noticeable on people. Whenever the story calls for a flasback (flashing back to the destruction of Mist, for example), the spritework reverts to the original squat style of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV''. A copout to avoid remaking the scenes with new sprites? Not quite, as the style also reverts when flashing back to events not in the original, like Ceodore's birth.