10 Awesome Video Game Mechanics Introduced WAY Too Late

Making a video game that keeps players enthralled from start to finish sure isn't easy, but one of the safest ways for developers to sustain interest to the end is to keep introducing fun new mechanics.

This might be unique twists on the core gameplay, some nifty new weapons, or an ability that makes your enemies tremble before you in pant-wetting fear. Re-shaping the player's experience mid-game is a dead-cert way to keep them glued to the screen throughout.

But sometimes developers perhaps don't quite appreciate just how awesome these mechanics are, and so end up introducing them far later than most players would like in retrospect.

While balancing is a crucial part of any video game, it's safe to say that just about everybody wishes these awesome mechanics showed up much earlier and players were given more of an opportunity to make meaningful use of them.

Obviously it'd require some tricky re-working of the game's design in each case, but these elements are just too damn fun for how little time we're given to use them in the main story.

Thankfully, at least, modders have worked their magic and allowed us to unlock some of these weapons and abilities early...

There's no denying that Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun is one of the greatest weapons in video game history.

Gordon Freeman receives the weapon relatively early on in the game, and its physics-manipulating potential ultimately became one of Half-Life 2's most-praised elements.

But in the game's penultimate level, the Gravity Gun receives a nifty dark energy upgrade, allowing you to manipulate considerably larger objects and, best of all, use it against organic matter, letting you throw Combine Soldiers around like toys.

It's insanely fun, even if it's also a massive shame that such a ludicrously inspired upgrade is reserved for a relatively brief passage near the tail-end of the game.

Unsurprisingly it wasn't long before enterprising fans released their own mods which allowed players to use the Supercharged Gravity Gun for the entirety of Half-Life 2, because its official, canonical use is just too damn short.