I like the idea that Marcus Fenix gets so pissed off that he squeezes the bullets out of his body using nothing but his own bad-assitude.

I'm not being facetious, either: the idea appeals to me on the same level that Gears itself does.

I addressed this in the two bolded sections. If COD was based on real life then the soldiers would comment on my ability to heal in such a way, would they not? If it were not completely based on real life, then unrealistic things would happen in the game. Since unrealistic things happen, then it's not completely based on real life. It's merely an alternate universe that in many ways mirrors our own but has it's own rules of physics, healing, etc. GTA is based on real life also, but it's still a game and has it's own videogame rules. COD is no different. It's a videogame over a war simulator, and that should be obvious to anyone that plays it.

Whoa. A million replies. Looks like I've got some reading to do...

EDIT: Oh... it seems most people that were quoting me weren't actually addressing me...  seems we're all in agreement that the "crouch behind something to heal" is the dumbest way to heal in any game.  Except for the guy who sicked Wolverine on me.

The hookers from GTA are ridiculous and intentionally lulzy, but still an active healing method.  You have to find a hooker and pay them.  In God of War you have to find the babes and do your little button-tapping dance to gain health from them.

And yeah, Onyxmeth is right.  None of these are about realism at all.  The only realistic way to take a bullet to the face is to immediately die and never come back.  So with realism out the window, I go for the healing methods that reward me for either beating up baddies and stealing their health, or finding health somewhere (usually in the back of a room full of baddies).

I just can't stand games where players are rewarded for hiding (aside from stealth games of course).  You are being rewarded with bonus health for being a coward.  It hurts multiplayer.  People who hide to recharge should at least have their usernames as yellow as their bellies.

If a game gives me the option to aim for the crotch, I don't see a reason not to.  Especially if the game is of the variety that shows blood on the wounded areas.  Old habits die hard.

@The Ghost of RubangB

I take it that you used to be a crotch shot master on GoldenEye? :P


OT - In terms of videogame healing, nothing comes as close as insanity as to collect rings so you won't die, and then when you run out of rings, everything from big bad robots, to tiny little babies, will kill you xD
Also, my runner up is having your team-mate die and having him appear on a barrel a few meters down the level xD

GoldenEye is the very game that gave me my problem!

I'm guilty of that too... xD Nothing was more refreshing on the Dam level than to snipe the guards on the crotch and see them succumbing to the pain xD

Clearly hiding and healing is the most ridiculous and non-realistic (not that any healing method in games is massively realistic) however it's also the method that makes for the least breaks in gameplay and appeals to the higher number of people - who want to keep shooting and not looking aroud for health.

I don't care too much except when you see it used in the wrong type of game. For Uncharted, CoD, etc. I'm comfortable to crouch and heal (TBH I just take the view that, like in a film, I haven't actually been hit at all, or just lightly grazed and keep going) but when I play something like, say, Mass Effect, I want some form of high tech healing to be required, or if I play something Fallout 3 I want to have health packs, etc.

Mostly developers get it right, thankfully.

My favourite healing (out of games I've played) was Dark Corners of the Earth, where you have to essentially open the kit and your character goes through a protracted and slow healing application. Tense, really made you feel you were injured and sloping off somewhere to fix yourself, etc. On the other hand, with splints and bandages you were patching up broken limbs then running off!

In other words, the funny dynamic is that while games may make certain things feel more realistic, for example feeling you are in the middle of a huge firefight, they nonetheless remain games and actually massively unrealistic.

I wonder though, how a game would feel where if you got badly wounded or killed you had to literally go right back to the beginning and start again - i.e. the only way to win was to genuinely get through the whole thing without taking a bullet. I suspect there would be a small but interested market for such a title. In reality, a small firefight can last hours, because those involved are really trying to stay alive while win. This would be interesting to simulate I think vs trying to have firefights that feel real but in reality last like 15 to 20 minutes.

Thats also in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, although from what I recall, you stab others to heal them. It was kinda funny

And I'm for #2.

Number 2 is obviously the least realistic. But quite a few games would be impossible without it. Uncharted with health packs would be a pain.