Many games have very specific mechanics, such as the need to wash in Metal Gear Solid 5 or the need to wash a suit in Deadly Premonition. But, since summer has arrived, and many did not have time to “pump up” on time, I had a question: are there games, outside of sports simulators and fitness hacks from the Wii console, with the ability to change the physical state of the protagonist? Let’s figure it out.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Our selection opens with a recent bestseller from Rockstar – Red Dead Redemption 2. Rock stars have always been famous for their attention to detail. The second part of the series about the wild west was no exception in this regard. In addition to mechanics with the possibility of weapon contamination, beard growth, and the influence of temperature on the character, the ability to change the weight of the main character was added.
Grandfather Mazai and Van Der Linde.
In his travels and misadventures, Arthur Morgan will be forced to take breaks to eat, in order to avoid debuffs and negative effects that negatively affect the gameplay. With excessive food consumption and low mobility, the character will gain weight. How does this appear visually in the form of a double chin and a hanging belly?.
Well-fed Arthur in his prime.
The game has several gradations of the character’s weight status, such as: insufficient, average, ideal and excessive. Moreover, weight affects the amount of damage a character receives and his endurance. So a fat character can absorb more damage without dying, but can run noticeably less without running out of steam. And if weight gain occurs quite quickly, then weight loss will take about 10 hours of real-time jogging.
Arthur’s gradations of physical form.
Everything is like in life. You may also get bored while jogging, but Arthur, oddly enough, doesn’t have headphones or a player. In this case, I advise you to achieve the maximum wanted level and run away from the bounty hunters on your own two feet. This is it, fitness in the wild west.
Prison Break: Conspiracy
Prison Break: Conspiracy – a game based on the TV series Escape. The action takes place in parallel with the first season of the series and tells the story of Tom Paxton, a secret agent tasked with going to Fox River prison and learning about the true plans of Michael Scofield, who, in turn, initiates that very escape.
Characters from the series are present in the game.
Both of these activities improve our melee damage. The pumping mechanics look extremely primitive, in general, like the whole game. In my opinion, it was possible to expand the mechanics by adding a couple of parameters that would be influenced by training.
Fable is a fairy http://bonniebingocasino.co.uk/ tale told to players by famous game designer Peter Molyneux, who promised before release many amazing features that were supposed to be present in the game upon its release. For example, they promised a seamless open world, the ability to bring a child and trees growing in real time. Of all the above, only Peter Molyneux’s nose grew in real time, but a couple of interesting game mechanics still made it to release.
One of them is the aging and physical development of the main character. At the very beginning, we play as a little boy who will age little by little with each skill he learns.
We start the game for the child.
If you focus on magic and long-range weapons, then your character will look like a prisoner of Auschwitz. And by investing stat points into parameters such as physique, health and stamina, the protagonist will gradually build up muscle mass and ultimately become a two-meter tall bully, instilling fear in everyone around him.
This is what a hero looks like right after graduating from the Guild of Heroes.
And this is what a hero looks like, having pumped up his health, physique and stamina to the maximum.
And if in real life the measure of strength is the bench press, deadlift and squat, then in this game the litmus test for determining your power is a legendary sword stuck in a stone, which can only be pulled out by a hero who has pumped all three physical parameters to the maximum.
Punch Club – a game developed by the Russian team Lazy Bear Games and is a collection of cliches collected from sports dramas and action films of the 80s-90s. We are in the role of a nameless boxer, trying to take revenge on the killer of our father, shot in cold blood in a dark alley. To do this, we have to go from underground fighting tournaments to the top of this sport, while training, training, training.
The game is filled with references to popular culture.
Training management is what we have to deal with in this game. The character has three skills that need to be maintained and upgraded for successful completion. These include strength, determining the effectiveness of a character’s strike, dexterity, necessary to deter the opponent, and endurance, determining the reserve of forces required to strike.
As you progress, you will have the opportunity to create a basement room at home.
The character also has other indicators that the player needs to monitor: health, hunger, happiness and energy points. To maintain these parameters, we need to eat right, sleep, go to the gym or work out at home, and to earn money for all this we have to go to work. A kind of The Sims starring Rocky Balboa.
In the hall, the characteristics grow a little faster.
You also need to sleep, because the main character is not a robot.
In 2003, the Maxis team and game designer Wil Wright launched the now successful life simulator series The Sims. Over time, the series developed, new mechanics appeared, but what do we guys care about that if you can sell a ladder in a pool while a character is swimming in it, and watch him beg for mercy, splashing in a puddle of his own urine.
Normal players could get to the bottom of mechanics that were not obvious at first, such as a visual change in the physical state of the character and the impact of this on the gameplay. A character eating the wrong foods such as ice cream, pizza and pastries could gain weight. Overeating could also have contributed to this.
For example, a character who ate food when the “nutrition” scale was filled would certainly suffer the same negative effect “overeating”, which in turn influenced weight gain.
The mechanics of changing physical state have been expanded and deepened with the advent of a series of character traits. For example, the “accelerated metabolism” trait allowed the character to quickly gain muscle mass and lose fat. The “glutton” character trait, on the contrary, made life difficult for those who tried to keep the character in ideal shape, since our ward began to want to eat faster and needed more food, which directly affected the gameplay and complicated management.
What methods can you use to get your character in shape?? And there are a lot of options here, from swimming and treadmill, to weight training machines and rock climbing. Moreover, strength training equipment grows muscles faster, and burns fat more slowly. So if you don’t want your character to turn into a pumped-up donut, then choose the type of load wisely.
GTA: San Andreas
Well, the last game in this collection was GTA San Andreas. Before the release of this part, everything was very scarce with customization in GTA. We could, perhaps, repaint the car or completely change Tommy Vercetti into a different suit, one of which was awarded for completing and collecting everything on the map.
“I beat Vice City and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
With the release of San Andreas everything changed. We added car tuning, tattoo parlors, hairdressers, clothing stores and mechanics, which we are considering today – the ability to change the physical condition of the protagonist. Almost at the very beginning, his brother calls CJ and says that he is in completely inappropriate shape for a real gangster and invites him to go to a gym nearby. There we can run on a treadmill and exercise on an exercise bike, pumping up endurance and reducing fat mass, which Karl can easily gain if he repeats the famous order of Big Smoke.
At the same time, CJ will not gain weight if he eats salad. Even such a small thing was taken into account. Also in the gym we can lift dumbbells and press barbells, which improves our damage in close combat and builds muscle mass, which in turn affects the “attractiveness” parameter. With all this, the physical state of the character affects the gameplay.
For example, a fat character runs slower and climbs over obstacles, which can affect the success of evading the police. Also, a high level of the “endurance” parameter will allow Karl to run longer without running out of breath, which is of great importance given the scale of the game world here. The “strength” parameter affects the damage inflicted in melee combat and the character’s ability to learn new melee techniques, which also has a positive effect on the gameplay.
CJ can become a real ninja.
It’s a pity that in the last parts of GTA the mechanics of changing the character’s physical state were greatly curtailed.
This is a selection of games with the ability to change the physical form of the character. Perhaps I missed some games. Video version below.