Do VG heroes get lucky too often?

[Hybrid-Of-Souls]

Ever feel like your favorite hero doesn't survive on badassery, more guns, and intellect alone, but that luck also plays its hand?

Halo 3: while looking for Cortana inside High Charity, MC comes across a crash-landed pelican (with stuff like rockets & a flamethrower), with a bonus that it can still fly, which MC and Arbiter respectively use to escape being tentacle raped by Gravemind or something.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica: there's the infamous scene where Claire is surrounded and looks like she's ready to surrender when there so happens to be an overpacked amount of flammable containers behind the numerous guards she's surrounded by. So she naturally shoots one and the guards all die.

Gears of War: Delta squad loads up into a helicopter to rethink plans after the resonator goes off. There's also an escort chopper with them. On the way back to HQ, the escort helicopter gets blasted by a Nemycyst, which had the same chance of being aimed at the helicopter carrying Marcus & co.

So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

[explodingbunnies]

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote:
So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

so the game plays through to the end.

[Jercurpac]

Let me tell you who isn't lucky, Mario. That poor sonuvabitch had to go through seven fucking castles before he found the one with Princess Peach. That's some cold shit right there.

[dmansland]

Yes, I believe that. Just look at the guy from No More Heroes. He gets blasted, grenaded, shot at, smacked with a bat, stabbed, yet he still manages to survive.

[Chumbawamba]

It's just the deus ex machina cop-out which has been around since basically the dawn of literature. Just be grateful that not everyone employs it.

[6r0undZ3r0]

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, the game would suck pretty hard if the hero died in the middle of the game.

[Sammyboy269]

Yeah. It's just pathetic. If ever such a godly game existed, that wouldn't happen

[Jerkapotamus]

At 8/2/09 11:01 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Let me tell you who isn't lucky, Mario. That poor sonuvabitch had to go through seven fucking castles before he found the one with Princess Peach. That's some cold shit right there.

He's a fat Italian plumber and he's banging at least two princesses...still pretty lucky.

[Panzer-Wolf]

At 8/2/09 11:45 PM, 6r0undZ3r0 wrote:

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, the game would suck pretty hard if the hero died in the middle of the game.

Actually, we need more storys like that.

[dmansland]

At 8/3/09 01:37 AM, Panzer-Wolf wrote:

At 8/2/09 11:45 PM, 6r0undZ3r0 wrote:

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, the game would suck pretty hard if the hero died in the middle of the game.

Actually, we need more storys like that.

God of War 1 and 2 anyone?

[ParadoxVoid]

At 8/2/09 11:01 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Let me tell you who isn't lucky, Mario. That poor sonuvabitch had to go through seven fucking castles before he found the one with Princess Peach. That's some cold shit right there.

And he still doesn't 'get lucky' if you know what I mean...

[sushi13]

This excessive luck doesn't only exist in video games, it happens in all entertainment mediums.

[AudioGmez]

How-come Nathan Hale got pass 1000+ zombie things and one that looked like a giant fucking spider that spewed explosive eggs and didn't even get a scar?

[SloppyMoe606]

No, it's not luck. The developers scripted and made the cutscenes to be like that.

[HitTheTarget]

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: Ever feel like your favorite hero doesn't survive on badassery, more guns, and intellect alone, but that luck also plays its hand?

So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, it comes from an interesting chain of logic. If the hero is too badass, has too many guns, and is way too smart, the game comes off as boring. It's all about the conflict. However, in the rush to counter this effect, many game writers go overboard, and end up having to constantly write the character out of shitty situations. Too many times, and this ends up happening.

[BananaBreadMuffin]

At 8/2/09 11:01 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Let me tell you who isn't lucky, Mario. That poor sonuvabitch had to go through seven fucking castles before he found the one with Princess Peach. That's some cold shit right there.

At the other end of the scale, who is lucky is everyone in those space-scale games where your spaceship lands on a planet, convieniently 5 minutes walk from wherever you want to be, on the whole fucking planet.

That's more than just finding a needle in a haystack, that's fucking jumping out of an aeroplane and landing on that needle with your eyes closed.

[Jerkapotamus]

At 8/3/09 08:40 AM, SloppyMoe606 wrote: No, it's not luck. The developers scripted and made the cutscenes to be like that.

Developers should start determining cut scenes with die-rolls. That would be awesome.

At 8/3/09 11:35 AM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: At the other end of the scale, who is lucky is everyone in those space-scale games where your spaceship lands on a planet, convieniently 5 minutes walk from wherever you want to be, on the whole fucking planet.

That's more than just finding a needle in a haystack, that's fucking jumping out of an aeroplane and landing on that needle with your eyes closed.

Maybe I don't quite understand what you're saying, but that doesn't sound all that difficult. As long as you know all of the paramaters (planet rotation/revolution speed, ship speed, location you want to be, etc.), it wouldn't be that difficult to calculate what needs to be done to get there. The ship probably has GPS.

[The777Demon]

At 8/2/09 11:10 PM, dmansland wrote: Yes, I believe that. Just look at the guy from No More Heroes. He gets blasted, grenaded, shot at, smacked with a bat, stabbed, yet he still manages to survive.

If he was lucky i doubt any of that would have happened to him in the first place. He sound pretty unlucky.

[AshfordPride]

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: Resident Evil: Code Veronica: there's the infamous scene where Claire is surrounded and looks like she's ready to surrender when there so happens to be an overpacked amount of flammable containers behind the numerous guards she's surrounded by. So she naturally shoots one and the guards all die.

But then that guy totally is behind her with the gun.
And then someone hits her with a rifle.
And then she spends the game fighting the undead.

Lucky.

[Sun-Wukong]

At 8/3/09 01:37 AM, Panzer-Wolf wrote:

At 8/2/09 11:45 PM, 6r0undZ3r0 wrote:

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, the game would suck pretty hard if the hero died in the middle of the game.

Actually, we need more storys like that.

"Oh my God, a nuke!"

*BOOM*

[aSquared94]

Yeah heroes always beat the odds, no matter what the circumstances are. Now imagine a video game where the hero didn't always win, wouldn't be too fun

[xscoot]

It does seem like that. I'd like a game, where the hero gets lucky a lot (bomb is disarmed at the last second, enemy with huge-ass gun steps on a landmine, guard drops a key to a locked door) and then it turns out that there was someone manipulating all these events. So it's less about luck, and more about being used.

That would be awesome. In Bioshock, you "luckily" survived a plane crash and found land, but even then that was done by Adam Ryans so he could use you to fight Fontaine.

[kidd25]

At 8/3/09 01:37 AM, Panzer-Wolf wrote:

At 8/2/09 11:45 PM, 6r0undZ3r0 wrote:

At 8/2/09 10:51 PM, Hybrid-Of-Souls wrote: So yeah, why is it always luck that propels heroes to the end sometimes?

Well, the game would suck pretty hard if the hero died in the middle of the game.

Actually, we need more storys like that.

call of duty 4. also it would make gamers mad if a new hero came in would come in right in the middle of the game. its fighting a boss only to find out their is one more level.

[Killinkyle]

Would be hilaurious if you played half way though halo only to have the master cheif be killed by a jackle with a plasma pistol from a medium distance. "LOL SORRY GAME OVER" . Or in rambo if rambo was killed by one lucky korrian who got a lucky shot at him. Or in doom after killing thousands of demons the main charrecter gets killed by an imps fireball.

[xscoot]

At 8/3/09 07:51 PM, Killinkyle wrote: Would be hilaurious if you played half way though halo only to have the master cheif be killed by a jackle with a plasma pistol from a medium distance. "LOL SORRY GAME OVER" . Or in rambo if rambo was killed by one lucky korrian who got a lucky shot at him. Or in doom after killing thousands of demons the main charrecter gets killed by an imps fireball.

Well, that last one kinda happened. At the end of Stage 1, you'd be teleported to a room full of enemies, and then the screen would fade to black, saying "This isn't supposed to happen. The good guy is supposed to win at the end, right?" It was really just their way of saying that the demo ended, and you had to buy the full game, as the space marine is perfectly fine at the beginning of Stage 2. Still, it was pretty cool.

[xscoot]

I thought I should mention this. In Heavy Rain, you can play as four characters. You start as one, and only switch if you die. If all four die, then the game ends, and is wrapped up with the appropriate end scene. It's pretty cool to play as someone for half the game, and then actually die. I'm sure some people will abuse the save system to stop this, but on my first playthrough, I sure as hell won't.

[Chdonga]

The word you're looking for is writer's convenience.

[youngrezzy23]

yes

[Jerich0]

Sorry I dont play any of those mainstream games.

[Aci6]

At 8/2/09 11:01 PM, Jercurpac wrote: Let me tell you who isn't lucky, Mario. That poor sonuvabitch had to go through seven fucking castles before he found the one with Princess Peach. That's some cold shit right there.

That's about as deep as the story for SNES/NES games went. Also, how funny would it be to go out and spend 110 dollars on an Xbox 360 game only to watch the opening cut scene and then a death scene of your character. THE END
Of course they get lucky too often but then again luck isn't really anything to them since they're pretty much indestructible.