Gaming mechanics lost to time?

[J T]

What about Q-bert. That's another old game that I really liked, but I can't think of any game that requires you to strategically paint up the game world while being chased.

[alienjesus]

De blob is all about painting up the game world while being chased, although you can attack, and it's not exactly strategic.

KuBos on DSiWare has you walking around on an ever depletng pile of bricks to colour them. Planning your route is essential because new falling blocks can block you from colouring a whole row or floor, stopping you getting essential health (it constantly depletes) but pushng them the wrong way stops you being able to climb higher as the lower tiers of the tower drop away.

[Hobie-wan]

What about Q-bert. That's another old game that I really liked, but I can't think of any game that requires you to strategically paint up the game world while being chased.

Skweek
Zoom!
Juice!
Scrolls of Abadon

[Gunstar Green]

There's a lot of games with unique mechanics back in the day because it was before genres were set in stone. You still see some of it in indie games.

Something I miss personally is the sci-fi simulators like MechWarrior and Wing Commander with no health regeneration or re-armament. You got damaged you limped through the rest of the mission, you ran out of ammo, tough. I remember MechWarrior 3 and 4 sort of wussed out and let you repair and re-arm mid-mission though the mechanic was handled interestingly in 3 by giving you limited resources and the need to protect your supply trucks throughout the game. 4 just gave you generic repair bays occasionally that had no penalty for use which was lame.

[Xelyx]

Health packs are practically gone from FPS games, except Valve's. Everyone does the COD regenerating health thing.

Wasn't regenerating health (in first person shooters) started by Halo 2, or even Faceball 2000?

[MrPopo]

The first game I can remember with regenerating health was Gears. But I'm sure it's not the first.

[Yancakes]

I really miss the 2D backgrounds in RPGs- and this was both for JRPGs and CRPGs. They were found mostly in high budget productions and are most notable on the PS1 and PC in the late 90's. On the PS1 there was the Final Fantasy series, Star Ocean 2 and a few other games. On the PC there was pretty much every Infinity Engine Game and a few others.

I think they looked way prettier than the 3D gameworlds that have largely taken over gaming, even the exceptionally good looking ones, and I had hoped that as game resolutions got higher and higher these backgrounds would look nicer and nicer, but they've pretty much completely left us now. I've heard the argument that they are much more static than 3D ones, but realistically the really nice ones always had some movement, be it smoke coming out of a smokestack or the persistent rotating of a windmill or what have you...and it's not like you can generally actually interact with the backgrounds in 3D games.

[CRTGAMER]

What other games have mechanics or game goals that you don't see much these days?

Unique Controllers

The mechanics of using different forgotten controllers. I always like playing a game in a new way.

Twinstick
The arcade Robotron. I have not seen too many current games that utilize the move in one direction while shooting in another. I really had hoped PS2 Red Star would have gone this route. Geometry Wars is one of the newer games that utilize Twinstick gameplay.

Trakball
Centipede, Missile Command and Reactor. Any mouse controlled game can use the Trakball, but its just not widely used.

Spinner
My favorite Spinner games Omega race and Tac Scan. Another form of game control that is pretty much forgotten.

Fortunately there are ways to exploit the older forms of control through Emulation and or modding. REZ for example can be played with a Trakball with the right adaptors. It can even be played with a modded Twinstick.

[Pulsar_t]

I don't miss that when your character's sprite touched any of the 'evil' sprites it instantly cost you a life.

[BoringSupreez]

I don't miss that when your character's sprite touched any of the 'evil' sprites it instantly cost you a life.

I don't miss that either. Imagine if that was the way it worked in real life: the police grab a criminal and all drop dead immediately.