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What’s better: a ‘put back’ action, or standing atop another player’s head in an FPS?Vote now as we continue deciding the single best thing in games
Vote now as we continue deciding the single best thing in games
Image credit:Pubmasters/Valve
Image credit:Pubmasters/Valve
Last time, you decided thatgliding powers are better than Dragon’s Dogma 2’s Unmaking Arrow. Honestly I’m surprised it was that close (66% vs 33%—don’t sweat the rounding), and I’m proud of your ability to weigh a whole concept against a single-game implementation. We are so good at this. Onwards! This week, I ask you to choose between placing things in two very different ways. What’s better: a ‘put back’ action, or standing atop another player’s head in an FPS?
A ‘put back’ action
I am always mortified when a video game lets me enter someone’s home, pick up and examine their most valuable and treasured possessions, then… not give me an option to gently set them back down where I found them. It’s a surprisingly modern development, which I think I first encountered in 2013’sGone Homeand still find absent from many games where it would fit.
For many, many years, you couldn’t help but be messy, destructive, and rude. Perhaps you’d examine a framed family photo then spend 10 minutes trying to correctly rotate it so it sits right. Or you’d try to put someone’s mug back down but end up watching in horror as game physics made it judder across the kitchen table, activating other objects along the way until an entire chorus line of supper is goingput-pt-pt-pt-pt-pt-ptptptowards the edge before bouncing so violently that it launches through the ceiling and vanishes. Or you’d go to respectfully return grandma’s ashes to the mantelpiece but have no option other than attempting to delicately hurl the urn against the lounge wall and hope physics worked in your favour. It’s just not on.
‘Put back’ is perfect. You picked this up, you know where it was, now put it back down in the same spot. A simple, elegant, and much-needed verb. You might still be able to lob grandma at the dog if you really want, but ‘put back’ won’t force you.
Don’t just throw this glass at a record player in Gone Home. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Fullbright
Standing atop another player’s head in an FPS
I have such fond memories of stacking up in games likeQuake2 and Counter-Strike. It’s simply a joy to stand on someone’s head, a little playground prank you could pull to make your pal laugh when they look up before getting back to the violence. You and some pals might take stacking a step further up and try to play a round or two that way, camping a corner like a human sentrypede. You might even try to walk around like that, a precarious and often-toppling tower that will not win you the round but will give everyone some laughs for a kill or two. And the very coolest people could coordinate movements to roam and stunt around the map together like an armed and leggy motorcycle display team. That was always a fun genre of trick video, like the Pubmasters:
Pubmasters - The MovieAny excuse to watch the stunting superstars of Pubmasters.Watch on YouTube
Pubmasters - The Movie
Look, ultimately, I just think it’s funny it stand on top of someone’s head.
But which is better?
Ach, I’m torn between my twin loves of tidy tchotchkes and top bants. I can’t decide. This one is on you, reader dear. Which do you think is better?
Disclosure: Some pals worked on Gone Home.
