10 Gaming Cliches You Couldn't Live Without
8. Bullet Time
The Cliche: Following the release of the movie The Matrix, it didn't take long for games to start incorporating its ground-breaking, iconic slow-motion wizardry, with the charge being led by arguably still the best game to make use of it, Max Payne.
Since then it's appeared in literally hundreds of shooters as a "power-up", such as Red Dead Redemption, the Fallout franchise (the V.A.T.S system), the Call of Duty series (any time you breach a door), Sniper Elite (where you can literally see the bullet annihilate a man's testicles) and even occasionally in racing games (namely Burnout).
Why It's Awesome: Because anything that distends wanton destruction and allows the player to savour it to maximum effect is always going to be popular. Yes, the novelty aspect of bullet time is long gone, but it's still extremely satisfying to take a breath, line up your shot and watch the bullet dismantle the mark's body in such detailed, drawn-out fashion.
Sure, it also makes games easier on the whole, but again, developers tend to increase a game's difficulty to compensate for this. Ever tried playing some of the Max Payne series' more challenging sections without bullet time? Not fun.