Small touches you appreciate in games?

What are some of the small touches you appreciate in games, I really like it when belt fed weapons ammunition completely depletes when the ammo counter reaches zero. COD never seems to get this ammo reaches zero but there's always ten left on the belt.

Detailed and unique textures.

Musical embellishments applied to in game occurrences. Stuff like this.

Oh, you mean this.

Yeah, pretty much. Any type of musical sound that occurs in tandem to an event in the game. It's nice to know there's an entry on Giant Bomb for that.

When traversing a game world and you come to stairs, I really appreciate when the character modifies their stride realistically.

I'm playing through Alien Isolation right now (slowly... it's definitely a "in short sessions" kind of game), and I immediately noticed how effective the physics on the Xeno's tail is. Looking at a doorway or corner and seeing that tail slide away is unnerving and distressing as hell. What a great extra touch, when a more static tail would have done just fine and been less of a risk for glitches.

In fact, Isolation is basically "Great Little Touches: The Game".

In melee-action oriented games I appreciate it when your weapon interacts (bounces, breaks, etc) with the environment, rather than simply clipping through it. It adds a another fun element to consider during fights.

When games make reloading a spectacle instead of a chore.

I like when a game with a night/day cycle includes the cycles of the moon. It seems like 70% of games take place during a full moon. Having a moon cycle is like the no brown M&Ms rider; if the details that small are looked after then it's safe to say the big stuff was too.

The classic modes in Geometry Wars 3 have added a slight tilt to the game board. This doesn't seem like much at first but the camera shift increases your field of view slightly and this allows me to see the edge of the screen easier.

when you top up your ammunition and you get an extra round as theres one in the chamber.

When you try and pop an estus flask in Dark Souls and you go through the motions like an idiot, trying to find any last drops out of the flask. If the player does something like a moron, fun to see the game recognise it :P

I remember one thing that fucking blew my mind, and still does TO THIS DAY, is NPCs running for cover whenever it rains in The Witcher.

That was some next level shit when I first saw it.

@theht: Been playing the witcher 2 and the way the NPCs cower away when you pull a weapon in towns I thought was very nice.

Hah, I love it, that's a perfect way to describe that game, it wasn't just one thing that made me love that game, it was a mix of all of the little "That computer looks right out of Alien, the sound that thing is making is so good! That door looks just right! The Alien moves just right, that thing there is good! And that thing there! That thing there too!"

I'm always a fan of the great little thing in games so its hard to choose, but I am fond of sound design that gets it just right even if it doesn't need to, a banged my character up against some ancillary chain link fence in Left 4 Dead and when I did the fence made the noise it would in real life where as in other games they may not have put in the noise at all.
Noticing that a walk or run step noise isn't just the same sound effect over and over, I saw Tommy Tallarico on a Reviews on the Run back when I was a kid and he mentioned how lazy some games get and I've just been keen on being aware of that ever sense. So people getting the noise of a foot step right is pretty cool, at least the sign they aren't lazy about it.

Also hands on walls is nice to, like with Uncharted where you are near something and the character will just touch it or lean onto it, thats cool.

@shagge: Isolation wasn't really a short session kind of game for me. I loved it a lot, and couldn't really put it down. If you mean in the sense that it's scary, I didn't find it that scary, so maybe that's why it's different.

Being able to pet your horse in Shadow of the Colossus.

I am a big fan of flavor text. I love all the little snippets of lore on items in Dark Souls.

Nah, it's not especially scary, just tense. But the sometimes half an hour or more between save points mean that I worry about locking myself in to a longer session than I have time for. Plus the stress of knowing that it's been a while since your last save, and the Xeno is on your ass. I love that feeling, but it really takes it out of me after a while.

Speaking of the scare factor: I would love to introduce this game to somebody who has never seen any Alien stuff and watch them play it. I think Xenos still have the ability to be ball-squeezingly scary, but over-familiarity has kind of neutered the character.

I really love the dumb little lean animation in Dragon Age Inquisition when you are walking on uneven terrain and your character puts his/her hand out to the ground for balance. They totally didn't have to do that animation but now I am going to be disappointed in every game that doesn't have it.

I remember playing through REmake and when you're running through the carpeted floor in the mansion little plumes of dust would rise up when you took a step. I remember that blowing me away back then. Just recently I finished Far Cry 3 and the detail in that game is amazing. The shanty towns and little beachside shacks have such intricate details about them if you stop and look around. That really impressed me.

I like the vapor that rises of your arm cannon in the Metroid Prime games.

I like it when a character finds notes and they'll comment about what they had just read. I don't know why I've always liked that, it's just nice when those notes bring something to the story more than being just dumb collectibles.

The battlefield games get the distant shot sounds down pat, the distinct sound of automatic fire at varying distances is scary good.

Metal Gear.

In the last of us if you have your flash light on and turn your body so that the light shines in Ellie's face or another story character they will actually shift their head away and squint. I think Ellie even raises her arm in front of her face. It was a very small detail that didn't even need to be included and I love that. Also if you walk Joel over water that is pouring from a ceiling he will raise his arm to stop the water from falling on his face. I love little stuff like that

Yeah, I noticed that too ... that was a cool little thing. Also the way the animation adapts to how steep the surface you are standing on is.

I just started Dragon Quest VIII, and it's brimming with these little touches. When you go into a cave, your main character will carry a torch around. There's a day and night cycle that really matters. Items that characters carry, that they can use during combat, will not stack; but in the party bag, which can't be used during combat, they do stack, so you have to make hard choices about what you want to have available. Your MC will be shown with his current weapon sheathed on his back when he's running around.

There are lots more that I can't remember off the top of my head.

Edit: Ooh! Ooh! When you fight fire spirits, their light will reflect both from characters attacking them and any monsters standing next to them! Oh, and the dancing devil animation. And the characters dancing when they get hit by the dance spell! Goddamn!!

In PES 2015, the opposing fans actually react to goals. One set of fans will rise whilst the other put their head in their hands. Its nicely vocal about it, too. Being booed off at full-time because you're on a run of bad results is great to hear. Also, the advantage rule. The fact that managed to get implemented correctly.

Whilst we're at it, players appealing for offside and being caught out because they expect a whistle.

Anything of that nature in MGS games. Both in terms of inconsequential little details added to environments or dumb easter eggs or instances where creative use of items or weapons or something like that is actually accounted for and the game facilitates clever strategies.

Everything in Guilty Gear Xrd that makes it look the way it does. There's SO much crazy stuff going on there beyond what you would think that really helps cement that look.

I'm playing Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood at the moment, because I can only play those games at about 1/5th of the rate at which they put them out, and it bothers me probably way more than it should that I can't do this. Obviously, you can't put something like that in without a chance of having issues with action overlap with whatever button you assign it to, like 'oh whoops, I was trying to give my horse a sugar lump and instead stabbed that guy in the throat' but I still just really want to pet my damn horse.

Being able to do weird, out of the way things that aren't part of the intended roller coaster experience. Bonus points fore being rewarded for it.

I think the internet may have ruined this for many people, as they find lists of all the weird, unnecessary out of the way collectables in a game and get pissed when it's not something easy to do.

Shoot out lights, flush toilets, find working and playable pinball/arcade machines, jumping.

duke nukem games where always good for that stuff, I remember playing DNF and loving all the weird little crap you can do in the game. The bar level specifically, pinball, air hockey ect.

I remember when duke 3D gave you health for drinking water, blew my young mind.