10 Most Bizarre Gaming Features We Just Accept

If gamers wanted ultra realism, we'd go outside.

By Chris Joyce /

Gamers are a curious bunch.

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Video games are the ultimate form of escapism, putting us in control of a wizard, a star football player, or a Jedi Knight to live out our dragon slaying, Champions League winning, lightsaber wielding fantasies.

We often consider ourselves 'Pro' or 'Hard core' players, who don't go in for that colourful kiddie stuff, and wouldn't be seen dead playing Candy Crush on a mobile phone.

Yet gamers are also perhaps the most gullible, forgiving, and easily influenced group in the pantheon of modern day fandoms, accepting the questionable and ignoring the ridiculous.

Virtually every genre in gaming has within it countless elements which are so outlandish or just plain weird that their existence and continued usage in our favourite titles would definitely be pointed out and remarked upon by others.

Gamers, though, do not question them; we take them in our stride and play on, continuing our love affair with games of all genres.

The real world can be a difficult and depressing place at times, so it is no wonder gamers are so happy to swallow illogical logic and nonsensical common sense with every new game we play.

With that in mind, here are the ten most bizarre gaming features we just accept.

10. Blood Spattered Camera

A modern example, this one, and a mainstay of the FPS genre.

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Upon removing the classic health bar system of old from modern FPS titles, developers needed to decide upon a new visual representation of incoming damage.

Cue the advent of the blood spattered camera, and variations on the theme such as the screen becoming increasingly red in vignette as our field of vision is similarly obscured.

While this undoubtedly does the trick as it is pretty difficult to misinterpret a screen covered in blood, if you think about it, it doesn't actually make much sense.

For one thing, there's no actual camera (Seriously, who has a camera for a head?).

Okay, it is true that being shot will likely result in blood spatter, even blood spatter to the face, but it would not linger in your eyes like a carton of milk thrown at a car windscreen.

Gamers, of course, do not question this and just accept it as the norm.

A drop or two of blood on the camera lens is okay, we can take it.

But when the camera is covered, and the blood not only obscures our vision but is accompanied by the tell-tale rumble from the controller, yeah... now we're screwed.

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