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* During ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'''s single-player campaign, Agent 1 tries to communicate with her radio upside down, which somehow [[AchievementsInIgnorance manages to make her unintelligible on the other end]]. This is represented by having her dialogue box shown upside down. A mysterious stranger ends up doing the same thing while trying to contact you during [[VideoGame/Splatoon2 the second game]], [[spoiler:clueing you in that [[NoOneElseIsThatDumb it's secretly Agent 1]].]]
**DJ Octavio also speaks in upside-down text in both games, this time to represent being physically upside-down after being knocked back into his HumongousMecha. [[spoiler:Commander Tartar delivers his last words the same way in the ''Octo Expansion''.]]
**DJ Octavio also speaks in upside-down text in both games, this time to represent being physically upside-down after being knocked back into his HumongousMecha. [[spoiler:Commander Tartar delivers his last words the same way in the ''Octo Expansion''.]]
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* When you first meet the Undead Wizard in ''VideoGame/MonsterBoyAndTheCursedKingdom'', he speaks entirely in solfege-based gibberish and you are unable to progress until you figure out how to understand him. Which is done by... adjusting the language options in the Options menu.
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*** Two ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' games also allowed you to do this.
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*** Two ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' ''VideoGame/SlyCooper'' games also allowed you to do this.
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*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, no-nonsense personality as opposed to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
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*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, no-nonsense personality as opposed to the fun-loving jokester Sans. Their fonts are also written in the local equivalents to their namesakes, with Sans in particular using the infamous Soueikaku Poptai.
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* The main menu of ''VideoGame/{{Knights Of The Old Republic}} II: Sith Lords'' will be one of the titular sith lords depending on how far your current game has progressed: Darth Sion, Darth Nihilus, or [[spoiler:Darth Traya]]. If you're severely dark-sided, though, ''your'' character will be standing there instead.
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* The main menu of ''VideoGame/{{Knights Of The Old Republic}} II: Sith Lords'' ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' will be one of the titular sith lords depending on how far your current game has progressed: Darth Sion, Darth Nihilus, or [[spoiler:Darth Traya]]. If you're severely dark-sided, though, ''your'' character will be standing there instead.
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* In ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'', the player can upgrade one of the playable androids' capabilities through plug-in computer chips. All HUD elements are attached to a chip that you start playing with. Which means that if you want, you can free up some RAM for a hot new Weapon Atk Up chip by unplugging your health bar. The androids also have an OS chip, but unplugging that gives a NonStandardGameOver.
** The game's visuals also turn black and white and get distorted when near death, showing the current android's systems beginning to fail.
** The game's visuals also turn black and white and get distorted when near death, showing the current android's systems beginning to fail.
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** The sequel 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.
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** The sequel 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.
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*** Up until that point, you've been manipulated by your superiors and heard numerous references to a "simulation" of some kind. In this last area, the idea of [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the game being a simulation]] starts getting pushed harder and harder, with [[FissionMailed a fake Game Over screen]] that can kill you for real if you're not paying close enough attention. Mission Control also starts to call you with [[MissionControlIsOffItsMeds increasingly deranged messages]] that reference the first three games and mock the main character/[[YouSuck player]] for thinking he's some kind of hero. In short, it uses the very conventions of the game to mock both you and itself.
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*** Up until that point, you've been manipulated by your superiors and heard numerous references to a "simulation" of some kind. In this last area, the idea of [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the game being a simulation]] starts getting pushed harder and harder, with [[FissionMailed a fake Game Over screen]] that can kill you for real if you're not paying close enough attention. Mission Control also starts to call you with [[MissionControlIsOffItsMeds increasingly deranged messages]] that reference the first three games and mock the main character/[[YouSuck player]] character/player for thinking he's some kind of hero. In short, it uses the very conventions of the game to mock both you and itself.
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* Canonically, nothing in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is painted to the fourth wall, it's all real to that world. It really is black-on-white line art populated with stick figure people.
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* Canonically, nothing in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', or its spinoff ''VideoGame/WestOfLoathing'', is painted to the fourth wall, wall; it's all real to that world. It really is black-on-white line art populated with stick figure people.
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* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen]]'', [[PinkGirlBlueBoy females speak in red text and males speak in blue.]]
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* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen]]'', [[PinkGirlBlueBoy females speak in red text and males speak in blue.]] The Japanese version does something similar, but without the colors; [[MasculineLinesFeminineCurves male characters speak using a fairly standard font, while female characters use a curvier, "softer" font that resembles handwriting.]]
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* In '' VideoGame/PocketMirror'', when [[spoiler:Goldia]] thinks her name is Enjel, she gains a name box with that same name in her message lines. When Harpae disilludes her about it, the name box fades away.
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* 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]].
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* The chaos of the Iron Republic in ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'' is represented in many ways, but one of them is that the Bazaar tab offers you Fuel and Supplies from ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'' - reality is so far out to lunch that you can buy items ''from a different game''.
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** In ''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.
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** In ''FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'', ''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.
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* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', cutscenes before the start of a mission are presented as the networking and information system used by the protagonists' various orginizations displaying relevant information while important characters speak over it, although the presentation itself is a heavy dramatization of what anything like this in reality would be displaying, it takes up the entire screen and the characters speaking are never seen, as if they're standing right next to you, watching it just like you are. And then it's taken up a notch in ''Modern Warfare 2'' when one entire cutscene is, with no elements recognizable from the game itself, the [[spoiler: emergency broadcast system of Washington DC, telling you where to go for evacuation as the Russians invade the city.]]
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* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', cutscenes before the start of a mission are presented as the networking and information system used by the protagonists' various orginizations organizations displaying relevant information while important characters speak over it, although the presentation itself is a heavy dramatization of what anything like this in reality would be displaying, it takes up the entire screen and the characters speaking are never seen, as if they're standing right next to you, watching it just like you are. And then it's taken up a notch in ''Modern Warfare 2'' when one entire cutscene is, with no elements recognizable from the game itself, the [[spoiler: emergency broadcast system of Washington DC, telling you where to go for evacuation as the Russians invade the city.]]]]
** In both ''Modern Warfare'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyGhosts'', allied characters generally have their names colored green in subtitles while they are speaking, while enemies have red. [[spoiler:General Shepherd]]'s name turns from green to red after the EvilAllAlong reveal at the end of ''Modern Warfare 2'', while Gabriel Rorke's name turns from red to green during a flashback mission showing his StartOfDarkness during ''Ghosts''.
** In both ''Modern Warfare'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyGhosts'', allied characters generally have their names colored green in subtitles while they are speaking, while enemies have red. [[spoiler:General Shepherd]]'s name turns from green to red after the EvilAllAlong reveal at the end of ''Modern Warfare 2'', while Gabriel Rorke's name turns from red to green during a flashback mission showing his StartOfDarkness during ''Ghosts''.
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** At one point Mettaton traps the player in a room full of bombs disguised as all kinds of innocuous objects (such a movie script, a glass of water, a basketball and a dog.) As he lists off all the objects that are actually bombs he ends with "Even my words are-" before the text suddenly falls out of his text box and explodes.
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** At one point Mettaton traps the player in a room full of bombs disguised as all kinds of innocuous objects (such a movie script, a glass of water, a basketball and a dog.) As he lists off all the objects that are actually bombs he ends with "Even my words are-" [[NinjaProp before the text suddenly falls out of his text box and explodes.]]
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* 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.
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** At one point Mettaton traps the player in a room full of bombs disguised as all kinds of innocuous objects (such a movie script, a glass of water, a basketball and a dog.) As he lists off all the objects that are actually bombs he ends with "Even my words are-" before the text suddenly falls out of his text box and explodes.
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, serious personality in contrast to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, serious personality in contrast to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{
{{Wingdinglish}}.
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy,serious no-nonsense personality in contrast as opposed to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy,
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*** ''MGS 3'' also gives us the scene with Ocelot. Not only are [[BeeBeeGun bees]] all around after the fight, they usually ''stick to the screen''. Enough to make some players [[{{Squick}} feel]] [[NightmareFuel paranoid]]
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*** ''MGS 3'' also gives us the scene with Ocelot. Not only are [[BeeBeeGun bees]] all around after the fight, they usually ''stick to the screen''. Enough to make some players [[{{Squick}} feel]] [[NightmareFuel paranoid]]
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{Wingdinglish}}.
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{Wingdinglish}}.{{
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, serious personality in contrast to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
*** In the Japanese version of the game, Sans still uses a curvy, goofy-looking font to contrast with Papyrus's, which is designed to look like handwriting... but while Sans's dialogue is written in the same left-to-right way as the rest of the text in the game, [[https://twitter.com/LordMune/status/918120499644858373 Papyrus's dialogue is written in the traditional top-to-bottom, right-to-left style]], showcasing his stuffy, serious personality in contrast to the fun-loving jokester Sans.
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* The classic {{Infocom}} text adventure ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has a scenario whereby you cause a TemporalParadox, which, in typical ''HHGTTG'' style, destroys the universe in a most thorough fashion. The game explains in literary detail the havoc which ensues, ending with "The universe ceases to have ever exis" -- cut off just like that, in mid-"existed".
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* The classic {{Infocom}} Creator/{{Infocom}} text adventure ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has a scenario whereby you cause a TemporalParadox, which, in typical ''HHGTTG'' style, destroys the universe in a most thorough fashion. The game explains in literary detail the havoc which ensues, ending with "The universe ceases to have ever exis" -- cut off just like that, in mid-"existed".
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* Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona:
** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' uses the law of NominalImportance by [[spoiler:giving a seemingly-incidental character her own portrait when she's revealed to be far more important than initially thought]].
** In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', the traitor is revealed as such when they gain a [[TraitorShot much more sinister-looking]] CharacterPortrait than their usual set. Also, near the end of the game, Morgana is [[spoiler:revealed to have lost his humanoid form by his own dialogue portrait switching from the aforementioned humanoid appearance to his housecat one]].
** ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' uses the law of NominalImportance by [[spoiler:giving a seemingly-incidental character her own portrait when she's revealed to be far more important than initially thought]].
** In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'', the traitor is revealed as such when they gain a [[TraitorShot much more sinister-looking]] CharacterPortrait than their usual set. Also, near the end of the game, Morgana is [[spoiler:revealed to have lost his humanoid form by his own dialogue portrait switching from the aforementioned humanoid appearance to his housecat one]].
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Stands for Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{Wingdingish}}.
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Stands for Wingdings)]] (Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{Wingdingish}}.{{Wingdinglish}}.
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*** There's also the possible third relative [[DummiedOut W.D.]] [[OnlyKnownByInitials (Stands for Wingdings)]] [[TheProfessor Gaster]], who literally speaks in {{Wingdingish}}.
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I want to cut the Main redirect.
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* The vintage adventure game ''ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' represents the eponymous character's eponymous treatment by emptying his set of commands and having them gradually return as he recovers.
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* The vintage adventure game ''ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' ''VideoGame/ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' represents the eponymous character's eponymous treatment by emptying his set of commands and having them gradually return as he recovers.
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That's a Call Back. Moving to game page.
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** Dialogue cut from the first game would have had Griggs comparing the two player characters to one another. Likewise in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'', the player can find a hidden text file where the main player character of the game, Mason, recounts his time in a Russian gulag; he notes early on that Reznov told him stories about Dimitri Petrenko, the player character of ''World at War'' that this game is a sequel to, and mentioned that he and Mason were much alike.
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** Messing with Lantry's cerulean ink [[MushroomSamba causes quite a synesthetic trip]], with the tooltips offering bizarre commentary and potentially prophetic hints.
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** Messing with Lantry's cerulean ink [[MushroomSamba causes quite a synesthetic trip]], with the tooltips offering bizarre commentary and [[HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs potentially prophetic hints.hints]].
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* Malkavian players in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' have an alternate, jumbled-up font for their alternate, jumbled-up dialogue options.
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* Malkavian players in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' have an alternate, jumbled-up font for their alternate, jumbled-up dialogue options.
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* ''SonicTheHedgehogCD'' has a subtle one concerning its soundtrack, tying with the time travelling gimmick: in the original Sega CD release, the music tracks for Present and Future areas are in Redbook Audio, while the Past songs are in analog PCM (and thus, of lower quality).
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* ''SonicTheHedgehogCD'' ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'' has a subtle one concerning its soundtrack, tying with the time travelling gimmick: in the original Sega CD release, the music tracks for Present and Future areas are in Redbook Audio, while the Past songs are in analog PCM (and thus, of lower quality).
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----
* The vintage adventure game ''ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' represents the eponymous character's eponymous treatment by emptying his set of commands and having them gradually return as he recovers.
* ''Captain Blood'' represents the degenerative disease the main character quests to cure with an increasingly jittery mouse cursor.
* The DOS installation program of the first ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Command & Conquer]]'' pretends to be an elaborate setup sequence of the AI interface.
** In the ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries Red Alert]]'' games, the installer pretends to be a highly classified program that contains an intelligence briefing on the current situation. Your CD-key is called a "security clearance code" by the "secret program".
*** The setup process ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'' pretends to have hacked into the Allied network, requiring you to use your CD-key to disable the security measures. The installation itself plays out as a slideshow briefing.
*** It also takes the liberty of informing you that a Navy SEAL team has been dispatched to your location.
** In ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun Firestorm]]'', Nod's CABAL taccon AI [[AIIsACrapshoot goes rogue]] and tries to kill the player. For the next mission, you have none of the usual voice responses from your HUD, because those are all generated by CABAL; the mission after that is to steal a GDI EVA as a replacement, and the player's UI is changed to the GDI voice for the rest of the campaign.
** In an interview with the developers, they said worked on the idea that you were a "telegeneral" leading your troops through communications links from a control centre -- you're supposed to be sitting in front of a computer guiding your forces in the manner of someone playing a real-time strategy game.
*** The actual interface shows up in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRenegade Renegade]]'', and the idea of "battle commanders" comes up a few times throughout the series.
* ''The Rats'', a 1985 Spectrum horror strategy interspaced with scenes of text adventure (unfortunately written years before this concept became feasible), depicts the encroaching presence of rats by having teeth marks, claw marks and actual vermin appear on the screen, and being killed by a rat by having one [[AC:TEAR THROUGH THE TEXT WINDOW AND LUNGE AT YOU!]]
** ''The Prisoner'', a 1980 [=Edu-Ware=] game, upped the ante by having the game over scenario involve entering in a specific secret code at any point in the game. [[spoiler: This includes at least once scenario where the game apparently crashes to the operating system prompt and a recovery program asks for the line number of the crash... which just happens to be your secret number.]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' and ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' actually include items whose entire purpose is to block the players' view of the playfield. (which, incidentally, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard doesn't affect the AI at all...]])
* ''[[VideoGame/KaneAndLynch Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days]]'' is presented as if someone just decided to start filming right behind a madman with a gun. Brutal headshots (and nudity) get censored, [[CameraAbuse the camera drops if you die, digital artifacts are everywhere]], a timestamp appears, and during one explosion in the demo, the frame rate drops incredibly, the camera gets almost entirely pixelated, and the fake camera man almost gets knocked off his feet.
* The fourth ''Tropico'' game has a ''Modern Times'' ExpansionPack that unlocks new buildings and edicts as time passes in-game. After 1986, you can enact Ban Social Networks to increase productivity, disabling the integrated Twitter and Facebook functionality of the game in the process.
* The DS game ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'' has a puzzle that requires an emblem to be "stamped" upon the player's map from an inverted map. The solution? Move the inverted map to the top screen, open your map on the bottom screen, and [[spoiler: physically close the Nintendo DS.]] Problem solved!
** The same puzzle is used in Cing's two DS Adventure games: ''Another Code'' (also known as ''Trace Memory'' in North America) and ''Hotel Dusk: Room 215'', and is the way to defeat a MetalSlime in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' gives important characters their own colored texts, as do the two Zelda games for the Nintendo 64. Navi from ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' always spoke in blue, and some other characters had their own color.
** In addition to that, important [[color:red:keywords]] in dialogue had a different colour to make sure the player noticed them.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', Fi gets a purple, cloudy text box with a diamond pattern. [[spoiler: As does Ghirahim, albeit a much darker one, once his true form is revealed.]]
* It's debatable if the ''[[Franchise/MetalGear Metal Gear Solid]]'' series actually has a fourth wall.[[note]]"Hit the Action button, Snake!"[[/note]]
** Most famous example is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayZG-RJCUYs#t=1m41s the fight against Psycho Mantis]].
** Not to mention the entire last hour or so of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2''. It's one massive MindScrew.
*** Up until that point, you've been manipulated by your superiors and heard numerous references to a "simulation" of some kind. In this last area, the idea of [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the game being a simulation]] starts getting pushed harder and harder, with [[FissionMailed a fake Game Over screen]] that can kill you for real if you're not paying close enough attention. Mission Control also starts to call you with [[MissionControlIsOffItsMeds increasingly deranged messages]] that reference the first three games and mock the main character/[[YouSuck player]] for thinking he's some kind of hero. In short, it uses the very conventions of the game to mock both you and itself.
*** When using the Directional Microphone, subtitles will get larger and smaller depending on how on-point you are listening in.
*** [[SchmuckBait "Raiden, turn the game console off right now!"]]
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' gets in on the act with the fake death pill, which causes a [[FissionMailed fake game over screen]]. Not to mention the fact that, if you kill someone important to the plot in the first two games (it's a prequel), you are informed by NonstandardGameOver that you're creating a [[TemporalParadox time paradox]].
*** ''MGS 3'' also gives us the scene with Ocelot. Not only are [[BeeBeeGun bees]] all around after the fight, they usually ''stick to the screen''. Enough to make some players [[{{Squick}} feel]] [[NightmareFuel paranoid]]
*** MissionControl also tells Snake to utilize all of his senses to their fullest, including taking in the scents of the environment. The obvious difficulty, as Snake points out, is that he can't smell. At all.
---> ''"Well, then I guess you'll just have to trust your instincts as a gamer."''
** ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots Guns of the Patriots]]'' has a flashback to the first ''Metal Gear Solid'' [[spoiler:which appears with [=PS1=] graphics, including a dream sequence that you actually ''play'']]. Also, [[spoiler:Psycho Mantis is back: when he tries his old tricks, you realize you can't change controller ports and changing controller order doesn't work, he realizes there isn't a memory card anymore, and he gets pissed if you're using [=SixAxis=] controller, which doesn't vibrate]].
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' often used a cartoonish thought bubble over the characters' heads reading '?' whenever something confused them. When Galuf meets [[spoiler:his granddaughter Krile]] in the Ronka Ruins, the bubble appears again. Then it bounces away across the floor as he regains his memories.
** High concentrations of [[AppliedPhlebotinum Mist]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' produce distorted reflections of the characters, their surroundings, and their status bars.
** In ''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.
** 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...
* The main menu for each ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' space sim is a mock-up of the inside of the carrier the player character is stationed on. To play a mission, click on the ready room doors. The atmospheric impact well makes up for the fact that changing carriers in the plot means that the player won't even know where the exit button is.
** ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' also used that mechanic, but in 1990 on the SNES.
* The main menus of ''VideoGame/XWing'' and ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' do this as well. The game opens up with a pilot selection screen presented as a roster. An officer will ask you to enter your identity, and if you try to skip ahead, armed guards will block you. Once you get inside, the main menu is presented as the interior of a Rebel or Imperial base. In ''X-Wing Alliance,'' the main menu becomes the ship the player is based at ala ''Freespace.''
** In ''X-Wing Alliance'', this "hangar menu" is more than just a menu styled like the hangar--it actually is the hangar, as becomes especially apparent when, during a mission when your ship is under attack, you can enter the hangar to rearm and the red alert lights will be flashing and the battle going on ''even though you're at the menu screen.''
** In the pilot entry screen in ''X-Wing'', the computer will refuse to let you play if you enter "Vader" as your name, since the Alliance doesn't admit "known Imperial agents".
** Flight sims love to play with this trope, living up to their "simulation" status. For example, ''VideoGame/F15StrikeEagle III'''s main menu is a recreation of a hanger at the Nellis, NV air force base, with pilot selection being done by clicking on a locker, mission selection by clicking on a map or officer, and starting the mission by clicking on a plane just outside the hangar.
** ''Jetfighter III'' had a whole aircraft carrier for the player to explore. You could choose and arm your plane, read your in-game mail, paint your squad emblem and launch your plane by getting into the right room.
** ''[=AV8B=] Harrier Assault'' similarly let the player explore the decks of an amphibious assault ship. Since the game is a combination [=RTS/flight simulator=], the player transitions between the roles of Harrier pilot and task force commander by moving from the pilots' briefing room/flight deck and the command center or vice versa. Additionally, rather than simply display information such as numbers of available aircraft, ground units, and supplies on an in-game computer screen, the player could check on this themselves by visiting the appropriate deck.
* The interface of the strategy game ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'' conspicuously reconfigures itself during the final stages, down to a large section sliding aside to reveal a [[BigRedButton big red "launch" button]].
* The 1985 wargame ''Theatre Europe'' simulates conventional WWIII. Accessing nuclear weapons requires a real-world phone call. Wiki/{{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 [[http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/theatre_europe.html 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.
* There is a level of the ''VideoGame/ReservoirDogs'' game where you play as Mr Brown, the getaway driver who has been shot in the head; in the movie we cut directly to him crashing the car after several miles and shouting, "I'm blind!", to which Mr Orange informs him that he isn't blind, he just has blood in his eyes. In the ''game'', you have to drive Pink and White out of the jewelery store with your [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApyYmwTp6iw sight increasingly obscured by blood dripping down the screen]], a narrowing field of vision, and eventually flickering between black and white, colour and sepia tone.
* Ron [=DeLite=] of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'' occasionally trails off in his speech as the text fades to match the window's color. Throughout the series, characters have their text scroll faster when they're nervous or angry, indicating that they're speaking faster; three separate characters (Wendy Oldbag, Moe the Clown and Wesley Stickler) have their text move so fast it's nigh-impossible to follow when they start rambling. When someone yells, their text shoots up in size.
* In ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'', when Travis gets a call on his cell phone, it comes through the Wii Remote's speaker instead of the TV's speakers. As such, the volume is (in theory) lower and thus you're holding the Wii Remote to your ear as Travis holds his cell phone to his. (In practice, the voice coming through the remote is surprisingly loud -- Sylvia has NoIndoorVoice.)
** That's not even going into everything that happens once you finally make it to the final ranked battle. The poor, unfortunate fourth wall gets painted, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again, and then the pieces get repainted. It's the most divisive ending since the [=MGS2=] Ending.
** Speaking of ''Franchise/MetalGear'', if you have a wireless headset registered to your [=PS3=], you can receive CODEC audio via the headset rather than your speakers.
*** Two ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' games also allowed you to do this.
* The Humor [=NaviCustomizer=] Part in the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series has at least one joke in each game it appears it that paints the fourth wall, if not outright breaks it.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', the command window changes to fit the theme of each world.
* Malkavian players in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' have an alternate, jumbled-up font for their alternate, jumbled-up dialogue options.
** The oddness continues in that news broadcasts on various [=TVs=], which serve as background and interesting little recaps of your more public adventures in the game for other characters, take a more sinister turn for Malkavians. Not only does the news anchor speak directly to you, his descriptions of various stories are far more twisted and violent than normal -- the game's way of translating your character's madness into a form that the player can directly experience.
** There was a Malkavian Thin Blood on the beach in Santa Monica who offered to read your future. She actually did describe events that happened in the game (though they only make sense in retrospect), and if your character was Malkavian, your lines would add even more information. Also, if asked about how it all ends, she'd answer that it's not important whether you win or lose, it's if you bought the game that counts.
* For a time in the early 1990s, it became almost ''de rigeur'' for platform games to make the player's avatar get bored and in some way address the player if not moved for some time. We have [[IdleAnimation a trope]] for those things.
* The classic {{Infocom}} text adventure ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has a scenario whereby you cause a TemporalParadox, which, in typical ''HHGTTG'' style, destroys the universe in a most thorough fashion. The game explains in literary detail the havoc which ensues, ending with "The universe ceases to have ever exis" -- cut off just like that, in mid-"existed".
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'', the characters experience the MysteriousWaif's guilt flashback to just before she had an inadvertent hand in Armageddon. Late in this flashback, another character tells her past self to come along and begin the project. Her text box simply says "Yes," but the voice actress screams out "No!" At this moment, the viewer-character separates from the flashback-character and enters the final stage of her HeroicBSOD.
* Happens at least once in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars OriginalGeneration 2''. Normally, when you begin a mission, there's a short text explanation of what's happening, then the mission's number and name appear on a blue background before fading out to reveal the map and begin the actual gameplay. However, on some important occasions, this screen doesn't appear, and instead these details flash up onto the screen after said important occasion has occured. When this happens during episode 30, immediately after having -EPISODE 30- DYGENGUARD- appear on the screen, the level boss yells out "What was that!? ...And what does "Episode 30" mean!?".
** [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome "SHUT UP! AND LISTEN!!"]]
* 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 made a joke about it that also painted the fourth wall. 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.
* ''SonicTheHedgehogCD'' has a subtle one concerning its soundtrack, tying with the time travelling gimmick: in the original Sega CD release, the music tracks for Present and Future areas are in Redbook Audio, while the Past songs are in analog PCM (and thus, of lower quality).
* 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).
** Clicking on characters will result in the character speaking as though they are waiting for you to issue their orders. Clicking on the same person multiple times in succession causes them to get annoyed with you. Some of the characters will [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall demand to know why you keep poking them.]]
* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYmwR-sP4FQ uses]] the rather cool technique of 'projecting' elements like mission objectives and backstory onto the surrounding environment. For example, as Sam approaches a mansion the words "Infiltrate the Mansion" appear on its facade like they're being beamed from a film projector.
** At the end of the [[spoiler:Third Echelon HQ]] level, Sam learns that [[spoiler:his daughter's death was faked]] and goes into a full-blown UnstoppableRage. To illustrate this, the player is given unlimited Mark and Executes, allowing you to finish the level by headshotting everyone as soon as they appear.
** ''Blacklist'' continues this trend, with images appearing on the walls whenever one of [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection Sam's teammates]] talks over the radio. It also paints the briefing menu in the final mission - instead of the normal "launch the mission?" prompt, it prompts you three times, as one by one, each of Sam's teammates agrees to launch the mission.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wet}}'' is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action films of the 80s and early 90s, along with the drive-in movies and [=grindhouse=] films of earlier decades. As a constant reminder of this, it uses phony projector tricks similar to ''Film/{{Grindhouse}}'' -- fake fading and scratching, the film slowing down when you're near death and catching and burning when you die, loading screens composed of in-film advertisements, etc.
* This is the primary gimmick of the ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' series, except that the player controls them, and it's cinematic tropes that are used. Slow motion lets our hero dodge attacks and punch more dramatically (and punch bullets), zoom in temporarily stuns foes, mach speed lets him move very fast, Silvia's Replay lets her attack for triple the damage, and sometimes Joe will smack foes so had they bounce off the screen.
* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', cutscenes before the start of a mission are presented as the networking and information system used by the protagonists' various orginizations displaying relevant information while important characters speak over it, although the presentation itself is a heavy dramatization of what anything like this in reality would be displaying, it takes up the entire screen and the characters speaking are never seen, as if they're standing right next to you, watching it just like you are. And then it's taken up a notch in ''Modern Warfare 2'' when one entire cutscene is, with no elements recognizable from the game itself, the [[spoiler: emergency broadcast system of Washington DC, telling you where to go for evacuation as the Russians invade the city.]]
** Dialogue cut from the first game would have had Griggs comparing the two player characters to one another. Likewise in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'', the player can find a hidden text file where the main player character of the game, Mason, recounts his time in a Russian gulag; he notes early on that Reznov told him stories about Dimitri Petrenko, the player character of ''World at War'' that this game is a sequel to, and mentioned that he and Mason were much alike.
* The main ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games are masters of this trope: the FramingStory takes place near the end of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt 2012]], and you only play as the Assassins through accessing their genetic memories through a device called the Animus. The game uses this to {{justif|iedTrope}}y several standard video game tropes, most obviously why the HUD is laid out the way it is -- because the Animus is letting Desmond control his ancestors like a video game. Losing health is called "desynchronizing," and fully desynchronizing (i.e., dying or failing mission objectives) simply restarts the genetic memory from the last checkpoint.
** The sequel 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.
*** ''Black Flag'' and ''Unity'' go even further, referencing the development of, and eventual release of, a Templar-developed video game console based upon the Animus technology.
* The ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' games tend to avoid this, with the exception of the final battles in both games. Just as the fight starts the screen appears to ''shatter''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5wR4WdsaOc&feature=player_embedded This trailer]] for ''[[VideoGame/JustCause Just Cause 2]]'' uses Website/YouTube's feature of embedding links in videos to turn itself into ChooseYourOwnAdventure.
* During the [[spoiler:Little Sister sequence]] in ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock 2}}'', the city of Rapture becomes significantly more serene and dream-like. White satin and roses adorn everything, and the bloom is cranked up to eleven. The game occasionally flashes back to the normal view to remind you how much of a hellhole Rapture really is. And that was the creepiest part of the entire game.
* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'', if you kill an enemy {{Mook|s}} with the [[ChainsawGood chainsaw bayonet]], the 'camera' gets sprayed with ''lots'' of blood.
* Speaking of chainsaws: In ''VideoGame/BrainDead13'', if Lance gets killed during Fritz's sword-versus-chainsaw battle, pieces of Lance's skin will fly and land onto the camera. Messy!
* And again, in ''VideoGame/{{Splatterhouse}} 2'', when you defeat the boss in the tool shed, blood pours all over the screen. This is the only time in the series when it happens.
** That is, until the remake came along where blood spilling on the screen is quite common, and some enemies will be splattered against the fourth wall during the 2-D sections when whacked with a blunt weapon.
* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen]]'', [[PinkGirlBlueBoy females speak in red text and males speak in blue.]]
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', the character, N, is chastised by Cheren for [[MotorMouth speaking too fast.]] This fact is highlighted by the fact that the text appears in the dialogue box much more quickly than they do for other characters, even when one has their text speed set as fast as it will go.
** In the ''Explorers'' installments of ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'', upon encountering Primal Dialga in a cutscene, he will roar so loudly that your screen will shatter.
* The old Cinemaware game ''VideoGame/RocketRanger'' introduces TheManBehindTheMan by having it slash the victory screen in half.
** ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' also does that by having the boss make his entrance by ripping apart the victory screen (or if you continued, the character select screen) from behind as if it were paper. Likewise, the super move background is also papery --- slashing moves leave marks on it and fire moves burn it away at the end instead of the background ripping itself apart.
* Canonically, nothing in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is painted to the fourth wall, it's all real to that world. It really is black-on-white line art populated with stick figure people.
* Many 3D ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' [[FinishingMove fatalities]] involve body parts hitting the camera and splattering blood on it.
* In the early ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games, there are places where you can shoot the fourth wall/camera, causing bullet holes to appear momentarily.
* With regard to the entries about cases where blood spatters the screen (which also happens in some ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games, by the way), many racing games feature similar effects such as water or dirt hitting the screen if the player chooses to place the camera outside of the car, to convey a similar sense of being in the driver's seat.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', the Aperture Laboratories logo on loading screens changes depending on the part of the facility you're in; in decommissioned old chambers it changes to the old Aperture logos the company had at the time those chambers were built, and when the player returns to the modern facility after [[spoiler:it was taken over by Wheatley, the logo reads "Wheatley Laboratories"]]. Some of the tutorial's on-screen prompts are mislabeled, cheerfully implying that the main character may have "a very minor case of serious brain damage."
* ''VideoGame/TheDeadlyTowerOfMonsters'' purports to be a cheesy sci-fi B-Movie from the early 1970's, with bad effects. At one point you acquire a pair of scissors and use them to cut the strings that monsters are suspended by.
* In ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness: Sanity's Requiem'', as you lose sanity, the game will do things to screw with the player, such as turn the volume down or pretend that your Gamecube has been reset.
* The original version of ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' predated digitised speech so each alien race spoke to you in a different font, matched to their personality. For example, the Ur-Quan had a heavy, declamatory font, while the terminally depressed Utwig have a spiderey one.
* In the iOS game ''The Heist'', you regularly recieve phone calls from the PC's partner in crime. During said calls, the game actually mimics the iPhone "incoming call" interface to give the illusion that you're recieving an actual phone call. The final call even has the partner using Facetime. However, this has the drawback of looking silly when you're playing on an iPod touch...
* The Mr. Saturns in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' are the only characters in the game to speak in a different font from everyone else, highlighting how strange and different they are. This continues in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fahrenheit}}'' has a [[PressXToNotDie quick-time event]] where the on-screen cues light up like a Christmas tree, and it becomes impossible to win. This represents the way the main character has panicked and is franctically hammering on a keypad. There's also a scene where the solution is to fail a series of quick-time events, since they're for making the main character shake off a horde of glowing hallucinatory spiders, actions which the not-hallucinating policeman interrogating you will take as proof of violent intent.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the various starting menus and character creation scenes are invariably part of some in-universe computer system. Also, the BulletTime effect in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', in addition to being used for standard action sequences like the shootout with Dr. Eva, pops up whenever Shepard suffers health damage or is stunned by attacks.
** Outside of the game, in quotations, discussions, and especially fanfic, the Reapers' [[EvilSoundsDeep distinctive style of speech]] is generally rendered in either '''bold''' or [[AC:smallcaps]] to emphasize their [[EldritchAbomination monstrous...ness]].
** Doors in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' have either a red (locked), yellow (hackable), or green (open) symbol in the middle that serves as your interaction point with the door. During the Overlord DLC adventure, the symbols start blinking different colors or giving false information, culminating in one of them sliding across a wall to another door, to demonstrate just how much the AI has screwed up the base systems.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', MissionControl is injured before the last mission, and many of the voice notifications stop working.
* 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 Wii U console features context-sensitive audio. For starters, the instruments in the menu music are divided between the TV and main gamepad's speakers. The player holding the gamepad will also receive special audio based on the game they're playing or the menu they're looking at.
* The main menu of ''VideoGame/{{Knights Of The Old Republic}} II: Sith Lords'' will be one of the titular sith lords depending on how far your current game has progressed: Darth Sion, Darth Nihilus, or [[spoiler:Darth Traya]]. If you're severely dark-sided, though, ''your'' character will be standing there instead.
* iOS game ''VideoGame/{{Device6}}'' uses this as its main draw, forcing you to turn the device as the character moves.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' actually has the player looking through Samus' helmet instead of just being a disembodied camera where her head should be like in many FirstPersonShooter interfaces. DiegeticInterface aside, this also results in effects like the player being able to see Samus' reflection on the inside of her visor when something flashes nearby. The second game also has a mechanical enemy that can infect Samus' suit with a computer virus, one of the many ill effects including an intentionally choppy framerate.
* While ''VideoGame/ComixZone'' doesn't paint the medium in a video game sense, it does do so in a comic book sense. The main character is a writer trapped in his own comic while the comic's villain is transported to the real world and tries to kill him. Each level is laid out like a comic book page, with the protagonist jumping between panels, and ripping open pages can be done to do things like find hidden items or form giant paper airplanes to throw at your enemies. Meanwhile, the main villain is actually ''drawing'' enemies into each fight scene, and at one point actually ''sets fire to the page''.
* Done very subtly in ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron III'', where the nation selection screen has a map of the world with Axis members in a Germanic gothic font, Allies in a sans-serif, neutrals in a typewriter-style font, and Comintern members in FauxCyrillic.
* In the second game of the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series, which takes place a year after the first ended with Zero stranded in a desert, the Start menu initially appears as a battle-damaged version of the Start menu from the first game. It is only after Zero is reunited with the Resistance that the menu design changes to the one used throughout the second game.
* ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' had the memorable cutscene in which Guybrush is attempting to steal the Idol of Many Hands from the Governor's mansion, and a fight ensues between him and Fester Shinetop. Most of it takes place in another room that the camera doesn't cut to, so Guybrush's unshown actions are represented using the UI's command bar, with items appearing and disappearing from his inventory as appropriate. The result is much funnier than actually seeing what's going on would have been.
* After the introduction of ''MIND: Path to Thalamus'', [[spoiler:the PlayerCharacter notes that he can't feel or see his actual body. Neither can the player, despite being able to interact with the world, but that was probably chalked up to standard video game conventions until it was pointed out.]]
* At one point in the Imperial Agent storyline in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', the player is [[spoiler: {{brainwashed}} by Imperial Intelligence, rendering them [[ManchurianAgent unable to disobey any directive]] given with a specific code word]]. This is represented in conversations (which use the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' convention of tagging each dialogue option with a "paraphrase") that have different ''paraphrases'', but the same actual line, [[spoiler: as the Agent ''wants'' to disobey but isn't able to]].
* In the final battle in ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'', Kirby inhales so strongly that he inhales the boss's ''health bar'' along with everything else.
* In ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'', Sion's ability to partition her brain is represented by having a scene from her perspective with three dialogue windows covering different subjects. The text advances in one box at a time, and often will stop mid-sentence to jump to another one.
* The Deluxe FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' uses a different font for text in each time period. [[spoiler:Odio also has a font of his own.]]
* VideoGame/{{Undertale}}:
** There are a pair of skeleton brothers named Papyrus and Sans. Papyrus has all his dialogue displayed in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_%28typeface%29 Papyrus font]], while Sans has all his dialogue in Comic Sans.
** The game also contains a group of [[CloudCuckooLander strange]] monsters called Temmies. Their text uses the same typeface as every other ordinary NPC, but it is filled with bizarre spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors. For example, instead of saying "Hi!", they greet you with "hOI!". And it only gets worse when they try to string together complex thoughts.
** [[spoiler:At the end of a No Mercy playthrough, the Fallen Child's destruction of the world is represented by a slashing attack animation covering the screen, followed by a wall of repeating 9's (implying an infinitely high amount of damage) as the game window shakes from side to side in the same way a slain monster does in-game.]]
* The tutorial level in ''VideoGame/TheFairlyOddparentsShadowShowdown'' is supposed to take place in an old fairy training film, and as such, everything (except the main trio) is colored in sepia tone, film grain and spots pop up all over the place, and even the music sounds as if it's coming from a phonograph.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'', when the Siren boss uses her [[CharmPerson Song of Desire]] attack, the background battle music is altered to include a quiet OneWomanWail humming along the tune for a short time.
* How does ''VideoGame/NekoAtsume'' simulate the shyness of real-world cats, especially towards humans? The game only lets cats come to your yard while the app is closed.
* Dying in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' will cause your view to be displayed in black and white until you respawn.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' Story Mode cutscenes, the presence of [[EldritchAbomination Double]] in the form of another character is sometimes represented by that character's name followed by a question mark at the top of their speech (eg 'Big Band?').
* In ''VideoGame/{{Tyranny}}'', green text in dialogue or a description usually indicates a tooltip describing something [[PlayerCharacter the Fatebinder]] should already know, but the player may not know or immediately recall. Bits of lore an educated person like the Fatebinder would have been taught, memories from before the game's start, and so forth. But there's two other uses:
** The Voices of Nerat can also use the same text to telepathically communicate to the Fatebinder. Usually [[TwoFacedAside quips at Graven Ashe's expense]].
** Messing with Lantry's cerulean ink [[MushroomSamba causes quite a synesthetic trip]], with the tooltips offering bizarre commentary and potentially prophetic hints.
----
* The vintage adventure game ''ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'' represents the eponymous character's eponymous treatment by emptying his set of commands and having them gradually return as he recovers.
* ''Captain Blood'' represents the degenerative disease the main character quests to cure with an increasingly jittery mouse cursor.
* The DOS installation program of the first ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Command & Conquer]]'' pretends to be an elaborate setup sequence of the AI interface.
** In the ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries Red Alert]]'' games, the installer pretends to be a highly classified program that contains an intelligence briefing on the current situation. Your CD-key is called a "security clearance code" by the "secret program".
*** The setup process ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'' pretends to have hacked into the Allied network, requiring you to use your CD-key to disable the security measures. The installation itself plays out as a slideshow briefing.
*** It also takes the liberty of informing you that a Navy SEAL team has been dispatched to your location.
** In ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun Firestorm]]'', Nod's CABAL taccon AI [[AIIsACrapshoot goes rogue]] and tries to kill the player. For the next mission, you have none of the usual voice responses from your HUD, because those are all generated by CABAL; the mission after that is to steal a GDI EVA as a replacement, and the player's UI is changed to the GDI voice for the rest of the campaign.
** In an interview with the developers, they said worked on the idea that you were a "telegeneral" leading your troops through communications links from a control centre -- you're supposed to be sitting in front of a computer guiding your forces in the manner of someone playing a real-time strategy game.
*** The actual interface shows up in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRenegade Renegade]]'', and the idea of "battle commanders" comes up a few times throughout the series.
* ''The Rats'', a 1985 Spectrum horror strategy interspaced with scenes of text adventure (unfortunately written years before this concept became feasible), depicts the encroaching presence of rats by having teeth marks, claw marks and actual vermin appear on the screen, and being killed by a rat by having one [[AC:TEAR THROUGH THE TEXT WINDOW AND LUNGE AT YOU!]]
** ''The Prisoner'', a 1980 [=Edu-Ware=] game, upped the ante by having the game over scenario involve entering in a specific secret code at any point in the game. [[spoiler: This includes at least once scenario where the game apparently crashes to the operating system prompt and a recovery program asks for the line number of the crash... which just happens to be your secret number.]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' and ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' actually include items whose entire purpose is to block the players' view of the playfield. (which, incidentally, [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard doesn't affect the AI at all...]])
* ''[[VideoGame/KaneAndLynch Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days]]'' is presented as if someone just decided to start filming right behind a madman with a gun. Brutal headshots (and nudity) get censored, [[CameraAbuse the camera drops if you die, digital artifacts are everywhere]], a timestamp appears, and during one explosion in the demo, the frame rate drops incredibly, the camera gets almost entirely pixelated, and the fake camera man almost gets knocked off his feet.
* The fourth ''Tropico'' game has a ''Modern Times'' ExpansionPack that unlocks new buildings and edicts as time passes in-game. After 1986, you can enact Ban Social Networks to increase productivity, disabling the integrated Twitter and Facebook functionality of the game in the process.
* The DS game ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'' has a puzzle that requires an emblem to be "stamped" upon the player's map from an inverted map. The solution? Move the inverted map to the top screen, open your map on the bottom screen, and [[spoiler: physically close the Nintendo DS.]] Problem solved!
** The same puzzle is used in Cing's two DS Adventure games: ''Another Code'' (also known as ''Trace Memory'' in North America) and ''Hotel Dusk: Room 215'', and is the way to defeat a MetalSlime in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou''.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'' gives important characters their own colored texts, as do the two Zelda games for the Nintendo 64. Navi from ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'' always spoke in blue, and some other characters had their own color.
** In addition to that, important [[color:red:keywords]] in dialogue had a different colour to make sure the player noticed them.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', Fi gets a purple, cloudy text box with a diamond pattern. [[spoiler: As does Ghirahim, albeit a much darker one, once his true form is revealed.]]
* It's debatable if the ''[[Franchise/MetalGear Metal Gear Solid]]'' series actually has a fourth wall.[[note]]"Hit the Action button, Snake!"[[/note]]
** Most famous example is [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayZG-RJCUYs#t=1m41s the fight against Psycho Mantis]].
** Not to mention the entire last hour or so of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2''. It's one massive MindScrew.
*** Up until that point, you've been manipulated by your superiors and heard numerous references to a "simulation" of some kind. In this last area, the idea of [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the game being a simulation]] starts getting pushed harder and harder, with [[FissionMailed a fake Game Over screen]] that can kill you for real if you're not paying close enough attention. Mission Control also starts to call you with [[MissionControlIsOffItsMeds increasingly deranged messages]] that reference the first three games and mock the main character/[[YouSuck player]] for thinking he's some kind of hero. In short, it uses the very conventions of the game to mock both you and itself.
*** When using the Directional Microphone, subtitles will get larger and smaller depending on how on-point you are listening in.
*** [[SchmuckBait "Raiden, turn the game console off right now!"]]
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' gets in on the act with the fake death pill, which causes a [[FissionMailed fake game over screen]]. Not to mention the fact that, if you kill someone important to the plot in the first two games (it's a prequel), you are informed by NonstandardGameOver that you're creating a [[TemporalParadox time paradox]].
*** ''MGS 3'' also gives us the scene with Ocelot. Not only are [[BeeBeeGun bees]] all around after the fight, they usually ''stick to the screen''. Enough to make some players [[{{Squick}} feel]] [[NightmareFuel paranoid]]
*** MissionControl also tells Snake to utilize all of his senses to their fullest, including taking in the scents of the environment. The obvious difficulty, as Snake points out, is that he can't smell. At all.
---> ''"Well, then I guess you'll just have to trust your instincts as a gamer."''
** ''[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots Guns of the Patriots]]'' has a flashback to the first ''Metal Gear Solid'' [[spoiler:which appears with [=PS1=] graphics, including a dream sequence that you actually ''play'']]. Also, [[spoiler:Psycho Mantis is back: when he tries his old tricks, you realize you can't change controller ports and changing controller order doesn't work, he realizes there isn't a memory card anymore, and he gets pissed if you're using [=SixAxis=] controller, which doesn't vibrate]].
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy''
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' often used a cartoonish thought bubble over the characters' heads reading '?' whenever something confused them. When Galuf meets [[spoiler:his granddaughter Krile]] in the Ronka Ruins, the bubble appears again. Then it bounces away across the floor as he regains his memories.
** High concentrations of [[AppliedPhlebotinum Mist]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' produce distorted reflections of the characters, their surroundings, and their status bars.
** In ''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.
** 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...
* The main menu for each ''VideoGame/FreeSpace'' space sim is a mock-up of the inside of the carrier the player character is stationed on. To play a mission, click on the ready room doors. The atmospheric impact well makes up for the fact that changing carriers in the plot means that the player won't even know where the exit button is.
** ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' also used that mechanic, but in 1990 on the SNES.
* The main menus of ''VideoGame/XWing'' and ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' do this as well. The game opens up with a pilot selection screen presented as a roster. An officer will ask you to enter your identity, and if you try to skip ahead, armed guards will block you. Once you get inside, the main menu is presented as the interior of a Rebel or Imperial base. In ''X-Wing Alliance,'' the main menu becomes the ship the player is based at ala ''Freespace.''
** In ''X-Wing Alliance'', this "hangar menu" is more than just a menu styled like the hangar--it actually is the hangar, as becomes especially apparent when, during a mission when your ship is under attack, you can enter the hangar to rearm and the red alert lights will be flashing and the battle going on ''even though you're at the menu screen.''
** In the pilot entry screen in ''X-Wing'', the computer will refuse to let you play if you enter "Vader" as your name, since the Alliance doesn't admit "known Imperial agents".
** Flight sims love to play with this trope, living up to their "simulation" status. For example, ''VideoGame/F15StrikeEagle III'''s main menu is a recreation of a hanger at the Nellis, NV air force base, with pilot selection being done by clicking on a locker, mission selection by clicking on a map or officer, and starting the mission by clicking on a plane just outside the hangar.
** ''Jetfighter III'' had a whole aircraft carrier for the player to explore. You could choose and arm your plane, read your in-game mail, paint your squad emblem and launch your plane by getting into the right room.
** ''[=AV8B=] Harrier Assault'' similarly let the player explore the decks of an amphibious assault ship. Since the game is a combination [=RTS/flight simulator=], the player transitions between the roles of Harrier pilot and task force commander by moving from the pilots' briefing room/flight deck and the command center or vice versa. Additionally, rather than simply display information such as numbers of available aircraft, ground units, and supplies on an in-game computer screen, the player could check on this themselves by visiting the appropriate deck.
* The interface of the strategy game ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'' conspicuously reconfigures itself during the final stages, down to a large section sliding aside to reveal a [[BigRedButton big red "launch" button]].
* The 1985 wargame ''Theatre Europe'' simulates conventional WWIII. Accessing nuclear weapons requires a real-world phone call. Wiki/{{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 [[http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/theatre_europe.html 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.
* There is a level of the ''VideoGame/ReservoirDogs'' game where you play as Mr Brown, the getaway driver who has been shot in the head; in the movie we cut directly to him crashing the car after several miles and shouting, "I'm blind!", to which Mr Orange informs him that he isn't blind, he just has blood in his eyes. In the ''game'', you have to drive Pink and White out of the jewelery store with your [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApyYmwTp6iw sight increasingly obscured by blood dripping down the screen]], a narrowing field of vision, and eventually flickering between black and white, colour and sepia tone.
* Ron [=DeLite=] of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Trials and Tribulations'' occasionally trails off in his speech as the text fades to match the window's color. Throughout the series, characters have their text scroll faster when they're nervous or angry, indicating that they're speaking faster; three separate characters (Wendy Oldbag, Moe the Clown and Wesley Stickler) have their text move so fast it's nigh-impossible to follow when they start rambling. When someone yells, their text shoots up in size.
* In ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'', when Travis gets a call on his cell phone, it comes through the Wii Remote's speaker instead of the TV's speakers. As such, the volume is (in theory) lower and thus you're holding the Wii Remote to your ear as Travis holds his cell phone to his. (In practice, the voice coming through the remote is surprisingly loud -- Sylvia has NoIndoorVoice.)
** That's not even going into everything that happens once you finally make it to the final ranked battle. The poor, unfortunate fourth wall gets painted, destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again, and then the pieces get repainted. It's the most divisive ending since the [=MGS2=] Ending.
** Speaking of ''Franchise/MetalGear'', if you have a wireless headset registered to your [=PS3=], you can receive CODEC audio via the headset rather than your speakers.
*** Two ''Franchise/SlyCooper'' games also allowed you to do this.
* The Humor [=NaviCustomizer=] Part in the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' series has at least one joke in each game it appears it that paints the fourth wall, if not outright breaks it.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', the command window changes to fit the theme of each world.
* Malkavian players in ''VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' have an alternate, jumbled-up font for their alternate, jumbled-up dialogue options.
** The oddness continues in that news broadcasts on various [=TVs=], which serve as background and interesting little recaps of your more public adventures in the game for other characters, take a more sinister turn for Malkavians. Not only does the news anchor speak directly to you, his descriptions of various stories are far more twisted and violent than normal -- the game's way of translating your character's madness into a form that the player can directly experience.
** There was a Malkavian Thin Blood on the beach in Santa Monica who offered to read your future. She actually did describe events that happened in the game (though they only make sense in retrospect), and if your character was Malkavian, your lines would add even more information. Also, if asked about how it all ends, she'd answer that it's not important whether you win or lose, it's if you bought the game that counts.
* For a time in the early 1990s, it became almost ''de rigeur'' for platform games to make the player's avatar get bored and in some way address the player if not moved for some time. We have [[IdleAnimation a trope]] for those things.
* The classic {{Infocom}} text adventure ''VideoGame/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' has a scenario whereby you cause a TemporalParadox, which, in typical ''HHGTTG'' style, destroys the universe in a most thorough fashion. The game explains in literary detail the havoc which ensues, ending with "The universe ceases to have ever exis" -- cut off just like that, in mid-"existed".
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'', the characters experience the MysteriousWaif's guilt flashback to just before she had an inadvertent hand in Armageddon. Late in this flashback, another character tells her past self to come along and begin the project. Her text box simply says "Yes," but the voice actress screams out "No!" At this moment, the viewer-character separates from the flashback-character and enters the final stage of her HeroicBSOD.
* Happens at least once in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars OriginalGeneration 2''. Normally, when you begin a mission, there's a short text explanation of what's happening, then the mission's number and name appear on a blue background before fading out to reveal the map and begin the actual gameplay. However, on some important occasions, this screen doesn't appear, and instead these details flash up onto the screen after said important occasion has occured. When this happens during episode 30, immediately after having -EPISODE 30- DYGENGUARD- appear on the screen, the level boss yells out "What was that!? ...And what does "Episode 30" mean!?".
** [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome "SHUT UP! AND LISTEN!!"]]
* 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 made a joke about it that also painted the fourth wall. 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.
* ''SonicTheHedgehogCD'' has a subtle one concerning its soundtrack, tying with the time travelling gimmick: in the original Sega CD release, the music tracks for Present and Future areas are in Redbook Audio, while the Past songs are in analog PCM (and thus, of lower quality).
* 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).
** Clicking on characters will result in the character speaking as though they are waiting for you to issue their orders. Clicking on the same person multiple times in succession causes them to get annoyed with you. Some of the characters will [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall demand to know why you keep poking them.]]
* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYmwR-sP4FQ uses]] the rather cool technique of 'projecting' elements like mission objectives and backstory onto the surrounding environment. For example, as Sam approaches a mansion the words "Infiltrate the Mansion" appear on its facade like they're being beamed from a film projector.
** At the end of the [[spoiler:Third Echelon HQ]] level, Sam learns that [[spoiler:his daughter's death was faked]] and goes into a full-blown UnstoppableRage. To illustrate this, the player is given unlimited Mark and Executes, allowing you to finish the level by headshotting everyone as soon as they appear.
** ''Blacklist'' continues this trend, with images appearing on the walls whenever one of [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection Sam's teammates]] talks over the radio. It also paints the briefing menu in the final mission - instead of the normal "launch the mission?" prompt, it prompts you three times, as one by one, each of Sam's teammates agrees to launch the mission.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wet}}'' is heavily influenced by the Hong Kong action films of the 80s and early 90s, along with the drive-in movies and [=grindhouse=] films of earlier decades. As a constant reminder of this, it uses phony projector tricks similar to ''Film/{{Grindhouse}}'' -- fake fading and scratching, the film slowing down when you're near death and catching and burning when you die, loading screens composed of in-film advertisements, etc.
* This is the primary gimmick of the ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' series, except that the player controls them, and it's cinematic tropes that are used. Slow motion lets our hero dodge attacks and punch more dramatically (and punch bullets), zoom in temporarily stuns foes, mach speed lets him move very fast, Silvia's Replay lets her attack for triple the damage, and sometimes Joe will smack foes so had they bounce off the screen.
* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', cutscenes before the start of a mission are presented as the networking and information system used by the protagonists' various orginizations displaying relevant information while important characters speak over it, although the presentation itself is a heavy dramatization of what anything like this in reality would be displaying, it takes up the entire screen and the characters speaking are never seen, as if they're standing right next to you, watching it just like you are. And then it's taken up a notch in ''Modern Warfare 2'' when one entire cutscene is, with no elements recognizable from the game itself, the [[spoiler: emergency broadcast system of Washington DC, telling you where to go for evacuation as the Russians invade the city.]]
** Dialogue cut from the first game would have had Griggs comparing the two player characters to one another. Likewise in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'', the player can find a hidden text file where the main player character of the game, Mason, recounts his time in a Russian gulag; he notes early on that Reznov told him stories about Dimitri Petrenko, the player character of ''World at War'' that this game is a sequel to, and mentioned that he and Mason were much alike.
* The main ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games are masters of this trope: the FramingStory takes place near the end of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt 2012]], and you only play as the Assassins through accessing their genetic memories through a device called the Animus. The game uses this to {{justif|iedTrope}}y several standard video game tropes, most obviously why the HUD is laid out the way it is -- because the Animus is letting Desmond control his ancestors like a video game. Losing health is called "desynchronizing," and fully desynchronizing (i.e., dying or failing mission objectives) simply restarts the genetic memory from the last checkpoint.
** The sequel 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.
*** ''Black Flag'' and ''Unity'' go even further, referencing the development of, and eventual release of, a Templar-developed video game console based upon the Animus technology.
* The ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' games tend to avoid this, with the exception of the final battles in both games. Just as the fight starts the screen appears to ''shatter''.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5wR4WdsaOc&feature=player_embedded This trailer]] for ''[[VideoGame/JustCause Just Cause 2]]'' uses Website/YouTube's feature of embedding links in videos to turn itself into ChooseYourOwnAdventure.
* During the [[spoiler:Little Sister sequence]] in ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock 2}}'', the city of Rapture becomes significantly more serene and dream-like. White satin and roses adorn everything, and the bloom is cranked up to eleven. The game occasionally flashes back to the normal view to remind you how much of a hellhole Rapture really is. And that was the creepiest part of the entire game.
* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'', if you kill an enemy {{Mook|s}} with the [[ChainsawGood chainsaw bayonet]], the 'camera' gets sprayed with ''lots'' of blood.
* Speaking of chainsaws: In ''VideoGame/BrainDead13'', if Lance gets killed during Fritz's sword-versus-chainsaw battle, pieces of Lance's skin will fly and land onto the camera. Messy!
* And again, in ''VideoGame/{{Splatterhouse}} 2'', when you defeat the boss in the tool shed, blood pours all over the screen. This is the only time in the series when it happens.
** That is, until the remake came along where blood spilling on the screen is quite common, and some enemies will be splattered against the fourth wall during the 2-D sections when whacked with a blunt weapon.
* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen]]'', [[PinkGirlBlueBoy females speak in red text and males speak in blue.]]
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', the character, N, is chastised by Cheren for [[MotorMouth speaking too fast.]] This fact is highlighted by the fact that the text appears in the dialogue box much more quickly than they do for other characters, even when one has their text speed set as fast as it will go.
** In the ''Explorers'' installments of ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'', upon encountering Primal Dialga in a cutscene, he will roar so loudly that your screen will shatter.
* The old Cinemaware game ''VideoGame/RocketRanger'' introduces TheManBehindTheMan by having it slash the victory screen in half.
** ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' also does that by having the boss make his entrance by ripping apart the victory screen (or if you continued, the character select screen) from behind as if it were paper. Likewise, the super move background is also papery --- slashing moves leave marks on it and fire moves burn it away at the end instead of the background ripping itself apart.
* Canonically, nothing in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' is painted to the fourth wall, it's all real to that world. It really is black-on-white line art populated with stick figure people.
* Many 3D ''VideoGame/MortalKombat'' [[FinishingMove fatalities]] involve body parts hitting the camera and splattering blood on it.
* In the early ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games, there are places where you can shoot the fourth wall/camera, causing bullet holes to appear momentarily.
* With regard to the entries about cases where blood spatters the screen (which also happens in some ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' games, by the way), many racing games feature similar effects such as water or dirt hitting the screen if the player chooses to place the camera outside of the car, to convey a similar sense of being in the driver's seat.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', the Aperture Laboratories logo on loading screens changes depending on the part of the facility you're in; in decommissioned old chambers it changes to the old Aperture logos the company had at the time those chambers were built, and when the player returns to the modern facility after [[spoiler:it was taken over by Wheatley, the logo reads "Wheatley Laboratories"]]. Some of the tutorial's on-screen prompts are mislabeled, cheerfully implying that the main character may have "a very minor case of serious brain damage."
* ''VideoGame/TheDeadlyTowerOfMonsters'' purports to be a cheesy sci-fi B-Movie from the early 1970's, with bad effects. At one point you acquire a pair of scissors and use them to cut the strings that monsters are suspended by.
* In ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness: Sanity's Requiem'', as you lose sanity, the game will do things to screw with the player, such as turn the volume down or pretend that your Gamecube has been reset.
* The original version of ''VideoGame/StarControlII'' predated digitised speech so each alien race spoke to you in a different font, matched to their personality. For example, the Ur-Quan had a heavy, declamatory font, while the terminally depressed Utwig have a spiderey one.
* In the iOS game ''The Heist'', you regularly recieve phone calls from the PC's partner in crime. During said calls, the game actually mimics the iPhone "incoming call" interface to give the illusion that you're recieving an actual phone call. The final call even has the partner using Facetime. However, this has the drawback of looking silly when you're playing on an iPod touch...
* The Mr. Saturns in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' are the only characters in the game to speak in a different font from everyone else, highlighting how strange and different they are. This continues in ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fahrenheit}}'' has a [[PressXToNotDie quick-time event]] where the on-screen cues light up like a Christmas tree, and it becomes impossible to win. This represents the way the main character has panicked and is franctically hammering on a keypad. There's also a scene where the solution is to fail a series of quick-time events, since they're for making the main character shake off a horde of glowing hallucinatory spiders, actions which the not-hallucinating policeman interrogating you will take as proof of violent intent.
* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', the various starting menus and character creation scenes are invariably part of some in-universe computer system. Also, the BulletTime effect in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', in addition to being used for standard action sequences like the shootout with Dr. Eva, pops up whenever Shepard suffers health damage or is stunned by attacks.
** Outside of the game, in quotations, discussions, and especially fanfic, the Reapers' [[EvilSoundsDeep distinctive style of speech]] is generally rendered in either '''bold''' or [[AC:smallcaps]] to emphasize their [[EldritchAbomination monstrous...ness]].
** Doors in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' have either a red (locked), yellow (hackable), or green (open) symbol in the middle that serves as your interaction point with the door. During the Overlord DLC adventure, the symbols start blinking different colors or giving false information, culminating in one of them sliding across a wall to another door, to demonstrate just how much the AI has screwed up the base systems.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'', MissionControl is injured before the last mission, and many of the voice notifications stop working.
* 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 Wii U console features context-sensitive audio. For starters, the instruments in the menu music are divided between the TV and main gamepad's speakers. The player holding the gamepad will also receive special audio based on the game they're playing or the menu they're looking at.
* The main menu of ''VideoGame/{{Knights Of The Old Republic}} II: Sith Lords'' will be one of the titular sith lords depending on how far your current game has progressed: Darth Sion, Darth Nihilus, or [[spoiler:Darth Traya]]. If you're severely dark-sided, though, ''your'' character will be standing there instead.
* iOS game ''VideoGame/{{Device6}}'' uses this as its main draw, forcing you to turn the device as the character moves.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' actually has the player looking through Samus' helmet instead of just being a disembodied camera where her head should be like in many FirstPersonShooter interfaces. DiegeticInterface aside, this also results in effects like the player being able to see Samus' reflection on the inside of her visor when something flashes nearby. The second game also has a mechanical enemy that can infect Samus' suit with a computer virus, one of the many ill effects including an intentionally choppy framerate.
* While ''VideoGame/ComixZone'' doesn't paint the medium in a video game sense, it does do so in a comic book sense. The main character is a writer trapped in his own comic while the comic's villain is transported to the real world and tries to kill him. Each level is laid out like a comic book page, with the protagonist jumping between panels, and ripping open pages can be done to do things like find hidden items or form giant paper airplanes to throw at your enemies. Meanwhile, the main villain is actually ''drawing'' enemies into each fight scene, and at one point actually ''sets fire to the page''.
* Done very subtly in ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron III'', where the nation selection screen has a map of the world with Axis members in a Germanic gothic font, Allies in a sans-serif, neutrals in a typewriter-style font, and Comintern members in FauxCyrillic.
* In the second game of the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series, which takes place a year after the first ended with Zero stranded in a desert, the Start menu initially appears as a battle-damaged version of the Start menu from the first game. It is only after Zero is reunited with the Resistance that the menu design changes to the one used throughout the second game.
* ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' had the memorable cutscene in which Guybrush is attempting to steal the Idol of Many Hands from the Governor's mansion, and a fight ensues between him and Fester Shinetop. Most of it takes place in another room that the camera doesn't cut to, so Guybrush's unshown actions are represented using the UI's command bar, with items appearing and disappearing from his inventory as appropriate. The result is much funnier than actually seeing what's going on would have been.
* After the introduction of ''MIND: Path to Thalamus'', [[spoiler:the PlayerCharacter notes that he can't feel or see his actual body. Neither can the player, despite being able to interact with the world, but that was probably chalked up to standard video game conventions until it was pointed out.]]
* At one point in the Imperial Agent storyline in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', the player is [[spoiler: {{brainwashed}} by Imperial Intelligence, rendering them [[ManchurianAgent unable to disobey any directive]] given with a specific code word]]. This is represented in conversations (which use the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' convention of tagging each dialogue option with a "paraphrase") that have different ''paraphrases'', but the same actual line, [[spoiler: as the Agent ''wants'' to disobey but isn't able to]].
* In the final battle in ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'', Kirby inhales so strongly that he inhales the boss's ''health bar'' along with everything else.
* In ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'', Sion's ability to partition her brain is represented by having a scene from her perspective with three dialogue windows covering different subjects. The text advances in one box at a time, and often will stop mid-sentence to jump to another one.
* The Deluxe FanTranslation of ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' uses a different font for text in each time period. [[spoiler:Odio also has a font of his own.]]
* VideoGame/{{Undertale}}:
** There are a pair of skeleton brothers named Papyrus and Sans. Papyrus has all his dialogue displayed in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_%28typeface%29 Papyrus font]], while Sans has all his dialogue in Comic Sans.
** The game also contains a group of [[CloudCuckooLander strange]] monsters called Temmies. Their text uses the same typeface as every other ordinary NPC, but it is filled with bizarre spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors. For example, instead of saying "Hi!", they greet you with "hOI!". And it only gets worse when they try to string together complex thoughts.
** [[spoiler:At the end of a No Mercy playthrough, the Fallen Child's destruction of the world is represented by a slashing attack animation covering the screen, followed by a wall of repeating 9's (implying an infinitely high amount of damage) as the game window shakes from side to side in the same way a slain monster does in-game.]]
* The tutorial level in ''VideoGame/TheFairlyOddparentsShadowShowdown'' is supposed to take place in an old fairy training film, and as such, everything (except the main trio) is colored in sepia tone, film grain and spots pop up all over the place, and even the music sounds as if it's coming from a phonograph.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'', when the Siren boss uses her [[CharmPerson Song of Desire]] attack, the background battle music is altered to include a quiet OneWomanWail humming along the tune for a short time.
* How does ''VideoGame/NekoAtsume'' simulate the shyness of real-world cats, especially towards humans? The game only lets cats come to your yard while the app is closed.
* Dying in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' will cause your view to be displayed in black and white until you respawn.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Skullgirls}}'' Story Mode cutscenes, the presence of [[EldritchAbomination Double]] in the form of another character is sometimes represented by that character's name followed by a question mark at the top of their speech (eg 'Big Band?').
* In ''VideoGame/{{Tyranny}}'', green text in dialogue or a description usually indicates a tooltip describing something [[PlayerCharacter the Fatebinder]] should already know, but the player may not know or immediately recall. Bits of lore an educated person like the Fatebinder would have been taught, memories from before the game's start, and so forth. But there's two other uses:
** The Voices of Nerat can also use the same text to telepathically communicate to the Fatebinder. Usually [[TwoFacedAside quips at Graven Ashe's expense]].
** Messing with Lantry's cerulean ink [[MushroomSamba causes quite a synesthetic trip]], with the tooltips offering bizarre commentary and potentially prophetic hints.
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