25 Video Game Mechanics That Simply Don't Work In Real Life

15. Catastrophic Lag

real life lag
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You've been waiting for this all year. Finally, you're off to see that music gig, where you'll be packed like sardines with thousands of other people in a stadium or arena.

There's only one problem - the system can't possibly cope with so many people in being in one place and the same time, and the framerate is slowly to an absolute crawl. Your favourite band are up there singing their hearts out, moving jankily from place to place with distorted audio, and it's all very, very horrible indeed.

Lag's never an intended gameplay mechanic (well, not usually anyway), but it's certainly been part of more than a few games over the years. Whether it's shocking framerate or a bad internet connection, you'd be hard-pressed not to find someone who's suffered this at some point.

It's not so much the case in real life.

Contributor
Contributor

Dan Curtis is approximately one-half videogame knowledge, and the other half inexplicable Geordie accent. He's also one quarter of the Factory Sealed Retro Gaming podcast.