Your favorite "Breaking-up-the-standard-gameplay" feature?

Hey guys!
 
What are your guys favorite way of breaking up the standard way of fighting in action games? For example, I'm playing Kane & Lynch: Dog days and feel like the action is basically the same over and over again, nothing to switch it up or turn it on its head. Just cutscene, shoot, fade to black over and over again. I'd love to see some break up in the action with something else to do.
 
Halo 3 had the vehicle sections, Alan Wake had the day sections (which I wanted more of!), Gear of War had some chase scenes and all that darkness stuff.
 
So, the Giant Bomb community, what kind of break is your favorite in a game?

I think MGS4 mixed up it's gameplay plenty enough (not that there's much of it^^), can't really decide on anything specific ;) 

Whenever they try to break from the core gameplay it always feels half assed and forced. I guess the best way is to build a game that relys on equipment/party management. That way you get regular breaks from the gameplay and a means to make the players mind switch gears long enough to keep the core game from getting too repetitive.

I don't know if this is just my taste in games showing, but whenever a game takes a break from the action to get all explorey or whatever, I tend to sort of forget that there was combat at all and just get totally engrossed in the environment. Then the combat starts again and I'm like "oh, right...this." 
 
I literally just rented Alan Wake on Friday and completed it over the weekend, and yeah, the daylight parts were pretty good, especially near the end of the game when the combat was just wearing so, so thin.

Modern Warfare 1 AC 130 level was pretty epic the first time.

I really liked the short sniper mission in CoD4. It changed things up without going out and doing something completely crazy. Unique things like that are usually what I like.

" I really liked the short sniper mission in CoD4. It changed things up without going out and doing something completely crazy. Unique things like that are usually what I like. "

" I really liked the short sniper mission in CoD4. It changed things up without going out and doing something completely crazy. Unique things like that are usually what I like. "

Ant-Lion turret defense, Half Life 2.

" @JJWeatherman said:

" I really liked the short sniper mission in CoD4. It changed things up without going out and doing something completely crazy. Unique things like that are usually what I like. "

SHORT?!?! That fucking level took 50% of my playtime! FUCK THAT GODDAMN EVAC HELICOPTER. FUCK YOU VETERAN. "

" @JJWeatherman: I'm talking about the part where you are by the ferris wheel waiting for the chopper to arrive and your buddy has been shot and all you have is a sniper rifle and there is no cover and literally HUNDREDS OF RUSSIANS JUST KEEP COMING AND THROWING GRENADES. Everything else about that game was manageable, if I died it took me maybe 2-3 tries tops on Veteran to figure it out. But that part? FUCK. "

Anyone played Darkest of Days? Yeah, this game. I thought the work camp bit was pretty rad...:)

i liked it when the giant tentacle monster busted through a wall and grabbed you out of nowhere and had you frantically shooting as it tried dragging you to violent and painful death in dead space.

I like the way the half life games handle it by having the ravenholms and the boat mission and the long coastal highway mission and the zombies and then the massive striders attack and you get a puzzle and then a helicopter attacks you and then your hiding from snipers in a war torn city and then your escorting survivors and rebels around said war torn city and then you defend a place by setting up turrets with a magic gun and then you get to control ant lions and then your being chased by hunters and so on and so on

I don't care what they do as long as they do it well (and as long as it's not a QTE).

Good examples would be the AC 130 level in Modern Warfare and the space shooting level in Halo: Reach.

playboy covers! Swappin the controller with a joystick or as lady gaga would call it, a disco stick.

I loved No More Heroes- both games- for doing these things. 
In the first, there was a section where you essentially played baseball against a bunch of guards, but the baseball killed them when you hit them. Then there was a sweet motorcycle section, and another where you're on a bus and start playing a really simple SHMUP game on some kind of handheld. That boss was also interesting because rather than just fighting a lot, you had to time your way up about a mile of dodging her giant laser. 
Not that far in NMH2 but there's already been the giant mech battle, and that left me so very happy.

I don't remember much of it, but I remember loving the card game in FFVIII.

I loved the vehicle sections in Assassin's Creed II.  That carriage chase was so stupidly fun I was a bit shocked that gameplay never made another appearance. 
 
Honestly, Ubisoft could spin that off into a "Renaissance Painters' Chauffeur" game and I would be on board.

I don't usually notice anything breaking up the flow of a game, and I think that's probably the best way to do it. I'm sure that most of the games I love do that, but they do it in such a fluid way that I don't really have time to step back and notice.
 
Usually I slather on the praise for Persona 4 for specifically that concept, though. It's just the right ratio of 'okay, I feel like hanging out and reading text and doing plot!' to 'I JUST WANT TO KILL SHIT FOR A FEW HOURS'. And if you don't feel like doing either one of those, hey, there's always the Velvet Room.

my favorite parts of Alan Wake were when shit went crazy in the environment like when that dam started collapsing or when that one building started to get f'ed up but then the same ol boring combat hit and it's like "ugh"
 
Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII. Could be a great PSN game in and of itself