Health Pack

 

Where are Health Packs Now?

'Health Packs' can now be considered obsolete, since the "new" regenerating health has become popular amongst developers, and gamers alike. This doesn't necessarily mean that you won't see the health pack appear ever again. There are in fact, some games that still do have this function, and the appearance of the Health Pack hardly renders a game outdated. Today, the nature of a particular game is often tied to the presence of health packs. Games that aim for a more realistic approach tend to avoid health packs, some even circumventing health completely (like "CounterStrike"), turning every round into a one spawn elimination. Contrarily, Health packs are more likely to be found in 'arcadey' game types (Team Fortress 2, for instance) that concentrate on pure gameplay mechanics rather than realism or any sense of 'cinematic' immersion.  

Medics?

In some games, your are able to be a medic (usually in multiplayer). Which in some forms/versions of the medic class are able to give med/health packs to their ally. Even some recent games use this method of dispensing health packs through out the multiplayer match (such as the Battlefield series, and more specifically Bad Company, along with Killzone 2). So this most certainly proves health packs still works in today's entertainment, and fabulously I might add.

Dynamic Health Packs

Valve, the creators of Team Fortress and Half-Life, have always used and continue to use health packs in their games. Instead of just placing in spots where they might be deemed necessary, however, most items including health packs are inside supply crates the player must open to reveal their contents. The contents (and subsequently health) available to the player from these crates changes depending on the player's needs. If a player is about to die, the chances that a crate they break will contain health are drastically higher than if that player were at full health. While this method has been critiqued as a regeneration mimic with health packs that simply auto-adjusts the difficulty, supporters of this form of health distribution feel that auto-health regen encourages players to camp by allowing them to remain in one place indefinitely so long as they are not completely killed by any aggressor.