Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,864
edits
Enemy-Detecting Radar: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
m (clean up, replaced: Category:Pages Needing Example Sorting → Category:Examples Need Sorting) |
No edit summary |
||
| (9 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{Video Game Examples Need Sorting}}
{{quote|''"I also invented your radar, which somehow knows which direction enemy soldiers are looking and even when they yawn."''|'''Mei Ling''', ''ToastyFrog.com Thumbnail Theater: "[[Metal Gear Solid]], Part 1"''}}
A few real life combat vehicles have radar support (and all seafaring vessels are required to have at least one) that can help the pilot navigate the battlefield and avoid enemies, so it's no surprise that this is often part of video games that feature such systems. Sometimes it's justified as your character's equipment or psychic abilities or [[Hand Wave]]d as [[A Wizard Did It]]; other times it's just there with [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|no explanation]] except to [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|make the player's life easier]]. It may also partially model non-visual cues that humans tend to get like positional sound location (an aspect of the [[wikipedia:Cocktail party effect|cocktail party effect]]) which are difficult to implement in video game sound systems which often lack the ability to create true positional sound. Alternately, the "radar" is used to detect hidden items instead.
In some games, you will encounter enemies who can interfere with your radar in some way or other. Some jam the radar, filling the screen with static, others just don't show up at all or only show up randomly for a split second. This is usually justified with stealth technology and almost never affects visual detection or lock-ons.
In cases where both enemy and friendly units will be shown, they will be [[Color-Coded Armies|color-coded]] [[
A common variation is for the radar to only display enemy units that are attacking. It's also often tied to [[Fog of War]], showing only enemies that you actually see normally.
Line 13 ⟶ 14:
{{examples}}
* There's a literary example to be found in ''[[Dark Future (novel)|Krokodil Teares]]''. Smug Californian Op Bronson Manolo's mobile command centre has a readout showing him exactly how many living people there are in the town of Dead Rat [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|with enemies in red and friendlies in blue]].
▲* There's a literary example to be found in ''[[Dark Future (novel)|Krokodil Teares]]''. Smug Californian Op Bronson Manolo's mobile command centre has a readout showing him exactly how many living people there are in the town of Dead Rat [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|with enemies in red and friendlies in blue]].
* ''[[The 7th Saga]]'' gives you a crystal ball that allows you to detect enemies, among other things. This functionality seems present mostly for the game to taunt you, as it's nearly impossible to avoid running into them.
* The ''[[Ace Combat]]'' series has a radar system that varies a little between games. In some games, the color of a target indicates its point value or whether it's critical to the mission, in others how close it is to going down. Stealth planes generally fade in and out, making it difficult to keep track off them.
Line 30:
** The Scrambler perk also makes enemy radar more static-filled the closer to enemy personnel you get. Unfortunately, this can also act as an early-warning system to said enemies.
** ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' also has Heartbeat sensors available for certain weapons - and these can, for some reason, distinguish between friendly and enemy heartbeats. However, these can also be defeated by the 'Ninja' perk, which makes you invisible to such sensors.
** Finally, all enemy electronics can be disabled by using an EMP, which makes the only method of detection the Mark One Eyeball. (Oddly enough, this only affects the enemy team - not yours.This is, however, averted in Hardcore mode where an EMP will disable ALL electronics.)
* ''[[Catacomb 3-D]]'' and its sequels have you collect crystals throughout the game; each crystal allows you to see one specific type of enemy on your crystal ball (like a radar, it shows enemies at some distance all around you, though it isn't an automap)
* ''[[Command
** In the original games, you didn't have a minimap unless you built a Radar Dome, which would then show off the entire map (though areas covered by the shroud would appear as black space). Additionally, the later games added ways of detecting stealth units (typically, light vehicles might have sensors which would revealed their location, meaning that players would be well advised to keep a few stealth detecting units around to avoid being ambushed).
** Though there were a few missions in the series that gave you the minimap even without a Communications Center (though those missions usually were the ones before you could build a Comm. Center, or those with no base at all).
Line 40:
* ''[[Dawn of Mana]]'' has one that's even [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: blue enemies drop items, red ones are just there for you to kill and abuse the [[Ragdoll Physics]] with their bodies, and yellow indicates the direction in which you need to go.
* The scanner in ''[[Defender]]''.
* The top-down automaps in ''[[Doom]]'' and ''[[Doom]] II'' allow you to see enemies (and other objects) with the proper cheat codes on.
* Dragon Age Origins has a Survival skill, and as you gain levels in it, more detail about enemies and higher level enemies will show up. The sequel had all enemies visible on the minimap, but only after you encounter them.
* ''[[Dune II]]'' had the Outpost building, which gave you a radar screen that tracked your enemies (including [[Sand Worms]]).
* Available in the Morrowind and Oblivion ''[[Elder Scrolls]]'' adventures although both required a spell to have the monsters show up. Also available were magic detection (which showed magical items) and key detection ([[Mundane Utility|presumably the result of a mage losing his tower key once too often]]).
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' has two spells, Detect Living and Detect Dead, which do what they sound like, letting you determine where people are located. The latter is a must-have for draugr ruins to spot where those sneaky undead might be hiding. There's also a [[Make Me Wanna Shout|Dragon Shout]] called Aura Whisper that detects ''everything'' that can move, living or undead, and has a very wide range and fast cooldown. Once you've got Aura Whisper, you will ''never'' fall into an ambush again.
* ''Enemy Zero'', an old first-person adventure game for the Sega Saturn. Picture this: you're on a spaceship out in the middle of nowhere, and a bunch of nasty aliens have come aboard and murdered everyone save you and a few others. Problem is, the aliens are '''completely invisible''', and you get to roam the corridors of the ship, completely unable to see them. Your only way of knowing they're around is a sonar-ish device that starts pulsing louder and faster depending on how close the aliens are, all of which is absolutely nerve-wracking. The slightest peep will have you spooked, to say nothing when the aliens can be heard growling close by. [[Bring My Brown Pants]], please.
* ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' has a radar screen. Buying an IFF Decoder will give it colors: enemy ships are red, disabled ships are gray.
Line 57:
* The 3-D [[Grand Theft Auto]] games has a minimap (sometimes called a radar) ingame. At times, it will show a mission objective or a moving enemy.
** The [[Freelance Astronauts]] made fun of this in their [[Let's Play|Vice City LP]], coming to the conclusion that most missions involve "Killing the pink dot on the radar."
* In ''[[Guns of Icarus]]'', this feature is absolutely vital for tracking the position of enemies, since your vision will be obscured by clouds and weather conditions, and you'll be attacked from all
* ''[[Halo]]'' puts one on the player's [[HUD]] in both single- and multiplayer modes.
* [[Harry Potter]] has both the Marauder's Map (a real-time map of people and where they are on school grounds) and the Sneakoscope.
Line 66:
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has a radar function in the ''[[Metroid|Meteoid]]'' subgame. It doesn't begin detecting enemies until it's been upgraded, though.
* The Compass in ''Zelda'' only pointed out the location of the boss and item boxes (starting from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]''); it wasn't until the 3-D titles that it also showed the direction you were facing.
* ''[[Mafia]]'' despite being set in the 1930s before [[World War II]] and the invention of Radar had one for detecting vehicles in the top left of the screen that showed civilian cars as white, Police as blue and enemies as red blips.
* The ''Alien'' one was dutifully cloned by ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'''s motion tracker, and has since followed Bungie through the ''[[Halo (series)|Halo]]'' series as well. In ''Marathon'' humans and defense drones appear as green squares, aliens as red triangles, and hostile players during net play as yellow squares.
** We have recently sensors that can detect someone's heartbeat and therefore determine how many people are in a vehicle, room, etc. Assuming that your enemies have different heartbeats than humans, this technology probably will be used in the sensors of the future.
Line 90:
* ''[[Project Eden]]'' has a radar that beeps when enemies are near, which can get ''a little annoying'' when there is a nearby enemy you can't reach.
* The Heartbeat Sensor in the ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' series functions like this.
* ''Red Faction:Guerilla'' has an in-built radar that shows enemy vehicles. You can purchase an upgrade later on that allows you to see the location of enemy soldiers, too.
* [[Real Time Strategy]] games have a mini-map that shows enemy buildings and troops once the [[Fog of War]] has been lifted.
** ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' even made a distinction between "radar" and "visual range". Radar buildings and units have a large radius and will show incoming enemy units as dots on the minimap, but don't uncover [[Fog of War]].
Line 98:
* Since [[Spider-Man]] has a [[Spider Sense]] that alerts him to danger, games featuring him has it as part of the gameplay.
* ''[[STALKER]]'''s HUD is partly related to the lead character's PDA, which includes a map that marks the locations of other PDA-users and identifies whether they are friendly, hostile, or dead. However, enemies can "cloak" themselves, only appearing on the map when you can see them.
* A staple of the "All Range Mode" in ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star
* The ''[[Star Ocean]]'' games have a radar when battling the enemy to show the relative positions of your team and the enemy's.
* Long-range scanners in the ''[[Star Trek Text Game]]'', possibly the [[Ur Example]] from 1971.
Line 104:
** This is often known as an IFF (Identify Friend/Foe) system. They exist in [[Real Life]], but those can only tell you if a signal is coming from a known friendly or not. It can't distinguish between enemies, civilians, or allies whose codes haven't been registered as such.
* [[TimeShift]]: Your radar can detect enemies (Red), allies (Green) and usable vehicles (Yellow). It also helpfully tells you if they are above, below or on the same level as you.
* As mentioned above, this is [[Truth in Television]]: There is also a widely-used military system called a Radar Warning Receiver, which (in many, but not all cases) identifies the type of radar emissions (i.e. SPY-1, "High Lark", Agave) and can determine the likely threat of them. A general
** Want a real life Motion tracker? The closest you'll get in the civilian market is the T-Cube sensor. 500 metre maximum range, with an SOS function, encryption and real time motion detection, the only catch is that you can only see friendlies on your screen. And that it's $500 for two. [https://web.archive.org/web/20121102071307/http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airsoft/Combat_Gear_Electronic_Positioning_Devices_T_Cube_Motion_Tracker_Unit_Dual_Pack.htm Take a look.]
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile 2]]'' has a radar when battling the enemy to show the relative positions of your team and the enemy's, as well as each enemy's range of attack when zoomed in. The field map also shows the location of enemies, and changes their color depending on whether they're active (red), defeated (grey), or frozen in place by Alicia's photons (purple).
* All of the ''Warriors'' series ([[Dynasty Warriors]], [[Samurai Warriors]], [[Warriors Orochi]], the [[Gundam]] spinoff) has an overworld map that [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|colors]] allied units blue, enemies red, and neutrals yellow.
* ''[[Wild
* The Hunter class in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has a feature that allows you to see all of one type of mob within the range of your minimap.
** This was previously limited to only tracking one type of thing at a time, which was fairly useless if the Hunter was also a miner and didn't want to miss out on collecting shiny rocks. Currently, the number of things that can be simultaneously tracked is limited only by the player's ability to sort through all of the dots.
** Paladins can track undead, warlocks can track demons, and druids in cat form can track humanoids.
*** And herbalists can track ''plants'', and miners can track ''rocks''....
*** And rogues can track treasure chests.
* In ''[[X-COM]]'', radar arrays (or sonar in the case of ''Terror From the Deep'') are used to locate UFOs near a base.
* Usually averted in ''[[City of Heroes]]'', but oddly, when you're almost done with a mission, the very last enemy or two will suddenly appear on the map.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Older Than the NES]]
[[Category:Video Game Tropes]]
| |||