Death Animations - The Best & Worst. But does it matter?

[Adam Stone]

Good evening all,

While playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark again earlier it made me think about something. Death animations. Fantastic aren?t they? Goldeneye opened up a whole new dimension of multiple pain/death animations and I found myself having hours of fun aiming at individual body parts to see the response(s). A shot in the hand and they would wave it frantically, in the foot a little hop here and there, in the stomach you were treated to them clutching their abdomen and then rolling over on the floor? and in the bottom always made me laugh

Perfect Dark took things to the extreme with a great number of additional animations but then also making specific shots actually affect how that character moved. You shot a guard in the arm; he no longer used that arm to fire, or ran away clutching his wound. You shot him in the leg and he limped? Incredible

Even though I?m not a fan of EA, I was fairly fond of their Nightfire 007 bond effort. A few levels in particular kept me moderately entertained for a few moments, however one thing that really really bugged me, even to the extent of I cant play it now, is the fact that i was shooting motionless robots. They seem to be utterly oblivious to the fact that I am shooting them in the leg or arm? and it really annoyed me. It was the same in Agent Under fire too.

Timesplitters 2 is far better then EA?s efforts, however sometimes suffers from a few random reaction less impacts? yet on the whole a nice selection of death/pain animations, and the game benefits from it imo.

I like to add a little strategy in my shooting/aiming, I don?t want to have the same results if I shoot a guard in the leg or if I aim for his chest. *Shakes fist at Nightfire*

Do any of you feel the same about this sort of thing? Or can you play through quite happily shooting painless robots?

Out of interest, what other games have you played and experienced that have either shown some really impressive death animations or truly terrible? like shooting a wall with arms and legs?

Also a final question? what are the animations like in XIII? Have the developers actually taken the time and programmed the characters to act realistically to being shot? Also, has anything actually bettered Perfect Dark in this department to date? It is quite incredible how few even come close...

Kind regards
Adam

[probeater]

cant really remember anything special about the death animations in xiii tbh, although the throwing knifes/shots to the head were quite cool, If you want to see death animations to the extreme I suggest trying soldier of fortune.

[jassi singh]

Well, one death animation which immediatley springs to mind was in Super Mario 64. You know, when Mario ran out of air under water and drowned ...tbh, it looked pretty disturbing

Oh and possibly the best death move in Mortal Kombat 4 if not ever! (even though thats not sayin much) Quan chi would rip the opponants leg off and begin to beath the crap out of the legless opponant. Blood gushing everywhere ...and strangley, this is more comedic even though more brutal than the mario drowning one.

So, before i go completley mad and type out every single death animation which i thought was cool/disturbin/funny i will just end on Samus's death in Metroid Prime. No theatrics, just a quick brutal death with a blood curdling scream and damage to her visor...this one was pretty freaky when i first saw it too. i suppose having the volume up full blast when i got killed added to the "WTF" factor...and "almost falling off my chair" factor/syndrome/whatever

I do think death animations add somthing to the game, as Adam said, otherwise you might as well be shooting a moving brick wall if its just gonna fall over. As so much time is put into animating character to move realistically anyway, probably natural for developers to make characters die realistically as well.

But personally i think its sick Adam that you would torture those soldiers in Goldeneye by shooting them in variose places

[jassi goes off to attach C4 to a soldier in metal gear solid 2, shoot him in the head, and make him tumble down some stairs into some laser trip wired bombs ]

[Magnakai]

I can only remember one time recently that I've been impressed by a death animation, and that was playing No One Lives Forever 2. I shot a ninja with a crossbow when she was standing next to the wall, and she was pinned to it. Then I took out the bolt and she fell to the floor. I was very pleased.
I remember you could also do that in Alien vs Predator for the PC, playing as the Predator. You had a gun or something that could shoot sharp spikey things, and that could behead a human and stick their head to the wall in one swift shot. Violent AND decorative. Fun!

[Roost]

I can only remember one time recently that I've been impressed by a death animation, and that was playing No One Lives Forever 2. I shot a ninja with a crossbow when she was standing next to the wall, and she was pinned to it. Then I took out the bolt and she fell to the floor. I was very pleased.

I did that only yesterday

Was great to see looked very nicely done indeed.

[demon9k]

Unfortunatly I must have death animations in all the games I play! It really bugs me when an enemy just falls over with no reaction. A good example of this is Chrome on PC.

Its a perfectly good shooter and I would sit and play it through if it wasn't for the annoying fact that guards just don't see to care about being shot! Shoot them in the foot, no reaction. Ok I can handle that. Shoot them in the leg, no reaction. Ok thats weird. Shoot them in the chest, no reaction. Now this is just getting plain silly. Shoot them in the head, dead with a quick falling over animation or a retarded leap off to the side like they had been blown up. ft:

Put simply the animations blow and for all the effort they put into the rest of the graphics it would have been nice to have a bit of reaction.

Someone mentioned above that XIII had good death animations and I agree. They react to bullets and get blown away by huge machine guns and also simply fall over for a knife to the head. Pretty good imo.

[mechamonkey]

Baldurs Gate : Dark Alliance 1&2 have corking death anims.

Props to the Unreal engine rag doll physics too.

[Darwock]

Special shout out for Metal Gear Solid 2 - Sons of Liberty. Who here could resist the opportunity to shoot a hostage guard in the nuts? It's the first time I've experienced guilt over a videogame.

Metal Slug 3 deserves a mention. Comedy, with a gruesome twist. And such variety!

I can't think of any bad ones. Even Miner Willy getting stomped by a big boot was a classic death scene.

[Adam Stone]

Jassi singh, your right about that Mario 64 death animation... I was so shocked when he did that i had to drown him again to make sure I just didn?t imagine it. heh. Poor Mario, now I come to think of it, I put him through hell. Continually electrocuting him, setting on fire etc. Good times, good times?

That Mortal Kombat 4 death animation has to be my favorite too. I found the other where someone ripped at the heart or kicked off the head etc a bit boring and samey, I was most surprised when he started to use a guy?s leg as baseball bat.

demon9k, that?s exactly how I feel towards Nightfire. Graphically it is quite special I thought ? solid, detailed environments, reasonably high polygon characters, and some great little details. Therefore it is all the more a shame that no effort was put into death/pain animations. Only a small thing, yet it has a massive impact on me playing it?

Magnakai, that sounds like a great little touch. Are there more animations like that throughout the game?

The first Turok on the N64 (this is still the best Turok imo) had some impressive death animations. There were no individual body part responses like in GoldenEye, however there were a few that impressed. One that springs to mind is when a guard would hold his neck chocking. with sprays of blood erupting like a water hose? Also the raptors would roll around on the floor, spitting blood as they slowly died.

Turok 2 took this further (although graphically superior to Turok 1, failed to hit the right note imo) with a far greater set of death/blood/exposition animations. Arms, legs, heads and even holes in the chest (where u could even make out their rib cages) could all be exploded or decapitated? probably would look pants now if I went back to it, but at the time I thought it was quite impressive.

edit. Darwock, sadly i have never played MGS2 so cannot fully relate to what you mention, however i have read how good they are meant to be. Im hugely looking forward to getting Twin Snakes soon ish, and i am hoping these sorts of details will make it to the game. I'm sure they will... i hope they will.

[112]

I kinda like the way the peeps on the street die in GTA Vice city when you blow there head off with a sniper rifle.

Biohazard when a hunter dies, or when you stick a grenade in there mouth and they explode, classic!

Metal gear solid 2 when you grenade a load of guards in one go. nice.......

the way in mortal kombat when you jab them and theyfall back in a cartoon like way.

i dont know the death animations add a bit of relief to a game and satisfaction.

112

[Magnakai]

Adam - I'm not sure. I only played the first level. I did hear from a lot of people that the game is full to the brim with nice touches, and the first level certainly seemed very well made.

[DaveW]

The Fallout games (2D) had some of the most memorable death animations. I was blown away the first time I blew off some guys arm and part of his torso with a shot-gun, or the time I used a mini-gun against an unarmored civillian.

[Kieran76]

I loved The Immortal on the megadrive, but that was more gimmicky than anything else.

[dataDave]

You just can't beat unloading a full magazine into someones face on PD, then watching it bounce around like a bloody punch-ball.

Also - watching Lara fall to her death then land in a pile with a sickening crunch. That's a good'un.

Another old favourite is when you get crushed by the big rolling boulders on Resi1.

[DjSatansfury]

lol Bashido (sp) Blade

Since when did you fly back onto the floor when being hit with a sword