13. Realistic Damage
Picture this - you've racked up a four-star wanted level, and things are getting a bit hairy. You're in a stolen Comet being followed by three squad cars, two FIB Buffalos, and a Police Maverick. Suddenly, the Maverick clips an overhanging billboard. The chopper blades can never survive something like that in real life, so it's immediately (and violently) crippled. The remaining blades are still spinning wildly as it plummets onto the Buffalo, and the impact completely shears off the front end of the car, causing a fantastic explosion of auto fluids and metal. The severed front end of the Buffalo, ablaze, continues to follow you for nearly another 100 yards before its momentum finally fails it. The demolition behind you has created a wall of fire, blocking all other vehicles from the pursuit. You're free. To achieve this, Rockstar would have to implement an entirely new way to render vehicles. One where the car (or truck, helicopter, boat, etc.) is made from separate parts that can be independently destroyed, but have an impact on the vehicle as a whole. The game Carmageddon replicated this pretty well for a late-90s PC racing game. If a fender got smashed, it might fall off. Hit a building sideways at a high rate of speed and your car is torn in half. GTA IV had some elements of this; smashing a wheel hard enough would jam it up into the fender, making it impossible to drive the car. Doors could be ripped off. But I propose taking it further than that. A vehicle rollover in real life would absolutely tear a car apart at high enough speeds. I'd like to see that in the game. It would up the ante and force the player to really focus on the driving task at hand, but in the right situations it could help by creating a debris field in the road behind a play if they successfully cause a pursuing vehicle to roll. And it would look awesome.