Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
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{{quote|'''Soldier:''' It's a chest-high wall, Mr. Smarty Pants. Got any more dumb ideas? Maybe we can ''crowbar'' it away? Or ''kick'' under it? Or ''gravity gun'' through it?
'''Frohman:''' Or climb over it?
'''Soldier:''' Or ''climb over'' it?
|'''''[[Concerned]]'''''}}
The phenomenon, found in countless video games, in which a seemingly trivial
The basic Insurmountable Waist Height Fence is an obstacle, usually between ankle and chest height, that the character(s) can't climb or step over simply because the game doesn't include such an action. Other common variations include:
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In the most [[Egregious]] cases the level designers don't even bother with a token obstacle and just use a straight-up [[Invisible Wall]].
Many examples could also be thought of as ordinary, non-insurmountable obstacles combined with [[Invisible Wall
In extreme cases, a ''ramp'' might be used to make a one-way crossing over the obstacle to prevent backtracking, as if the player character was in an invisible wheelchair. This type of structure is called a ''Sawtooth'' by game designers; it applies to anywhere that stops the player going back after passing, and is often logical to the point it's hard to notice (a ladder collapses after you climb down, an elevator is disabled by a powercut, etc). Extremely shallow sawteeth are likely to be obvious, jarring and extremely ridiculous.
Compare [[Solve the Soup Cans]], [[Border Patrol]]. Contrast [[Cutting the Knot]], [[Absurdly Ineffective Barricade]]. See also [[Broken Bridge]], [[Dronejam]]. Not to be confused with the [[Naruto the Abridged Series|one-foot-tall brick wall]].
----
{{examples}}
=== Video Games ===
* Most [[
* ''[[Star Trek Online]]'' has one prominent example. On the Starfleet Academy map you are not able to access the waterfront which is only seperated by literal waist-height fence. Under normal circumstances your character would even be able to jump over it. However, when the area was first released there was a bug that transported you on the other side of the fence and let you explore the area beyond it - including the Golden Gate Bridge and the normally inaccessible shuttlebay atop one of the Academy's buildings.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by Guybrush in ''[[Escape
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' has a couple of puzzles where the door can only be opened by solving two puzzles. However, solving the first opens the door to just under head height, making the completely land based characters seem even more stupid. Its easy to justify with the fat characters and [[Squishy Wizard|squishy priest]], but the more physically active characters have no excuse.
** Also justified by the doors of impassibility in that either the characters don't ''want'' to leave or are physically incapable of manipulating the door or getting to the exit.
** They also have very liberal use of the ''Unclearable Debris'' type, although since you spend half your time in crumbling temples, its a bit more justified.
* ''[[
* ''[[Just Cause (
* ''[[Phantasy Star Universe]]'' has waist high fences in lobby areas regularly. What makes them so evil? Unlike most insurmountable waist high fences, where there is a way around, or nothing on the other side of interest, these fences REALLY DO have content on the other side that you can't get to. SEGA unlocks content, which already exists and was installed with the game, over time, letting them profit on your monthly fees; so you pay money for a few months in the hopes they'll yank down that fence. It's just cruel.
** In a less evil sense, there are the laser fences on the field. Which are about waist waist high, and often positioned in a way where, even if your characters forget how they were jumping around like lunatics during their photon arts, may still be easily bypassed by either climbing over the control panel used to open them, or in some cases, just stepping around it onto a slightly higher part of the staircase than you'd normally use.
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** ''Black'' almost has more invisible walls and insurmountable fences than plot. Every mission is filled with situations like the one described above. In one mission you descend a staircase, only to notice that the last step is missing when you get down to the floor below. This missing step, only about 10 centimeters high, makes it impossible to go back the way you entered. The fact that you can't jump in the game only makes these situations more ridiculous.
** ''Black'' takes the silliness to further extremes. Many of the waist-high fences can literally be destroyed (by you or the bad guys)... but passing over them is still impossible. And the enemies can jump over whatever the heck they want.
* The game ''[[
** The sequel goes even further with this concept, as heavily damaged structures can collapse completely, killing anyone inside. Often this is a quicker way to destroy a key objective without having to arm and defend a bomb.
** Although on the singleplayer level "High Value Target" there is a part where all of the two-story houses have random bathtubs blocking the stairways, preventing you from going to the second floor. Even if you destroy the houses, the normally climbable rubble becomes this trope.
* Countless examples of [[Locked Door|locked doors]] seemingly made of flimsy wood being impervious to explosives of all kinds. In ''[[Half Life]]'', Gordon Freeman couldn't knock down locked doors with any of the explosives he was carrying, which included grenades and demolition charges. In its expansion pack "Opposing Force" the character of Adrian Sheppard, despite being a trained marine, cannot breach doors unless he enlists the help of an NPC with a blowtorch. Even worse, the NPC must be kept alive during an [[Escort Mission]], if he's killed, the game ends. Sheppard apparently can't just take the blowtorch from the fallen man and use it himself.
* [[Patapon]] has a strange (and often outrageous) variation of this.Toripons fly very high when in Fever mode; high enough to don't be hit some spear and megapon attacks,and to completely ignore some of the bosses's attacks.But for some reason,they cannot fly over any obstacles;be it stone walls or the low wooden fences or even enemies,so you have to destroy said obstacle in order for them to advance.
* The old RPG ''[[
* The ''[[Brothers in Arms]]'' games feature highly physically fit paratroopers who are unable to surmount fences and earthen walls that seemingly only reach them to the waist. Curiously enough, during scripted attacks some enemies are capable of jumping over said fences.
** In the second game Sergeant Matt Baker, an NPC who was the player character in the first game, can be seen climbing over one of those low fences that he could not traverse when he was controlled by the player.
** Finally, in the third game, Hell's Highway, vaulting over obstacles was implemented. There's also a lot of destructible cover and terrain. Nothing beats blowing an MG out of his nest with a bazooka. The only things you can't go through are buildings - pretty much everything else is vaultable.
* [[Shadow of the Colossus]] averts this trope brutally, but has some instances where it's played straight. Wander can climb mountain-high monsters and still be unable to scale a few mountains in the valley with relatively gentle slopes.
* The 3D ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games generally lack any kind of [[Le Parkour|parkour]] or jumping, making even the slightest ridge an effective
** ''[[
*** Like that accursed rock in Qufim Island that doesn't let players pass between it in the wall, despite there being clearly enough space to do so, and forces them to instead go around the other side and just hope they don't get killed by the living weapon waiting within hearing range. Anyone who plays [[Final Fantasy XI
**** Worse than the accursed rock in Qufim Island, there is the tiny, almost unnoticeable ledge by the final Notorious Monster tower in Dynamis - Xarcabard that while being only two or three ilms (in game term for an inch) high, far smaller than any character's stride, somehow it is as insurmountable as it it were the tallest cliff face.
** Inverted for NPC enemies, which can actually walk up VERTICAL CLIFF FACES to reach your player.
** In ''[[
** ''[[
** In the 5th year of ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'', the Jegon River is dried up, so the boat can't ferry you across it. However, it becomes so narrow that you should be able to easily jump it or even ''wade through it.'' Instead, you have to go all the way north to Veo Lu Sluice and revive the flowers that provide the river with water.
** ''[[
** The Besaid coast in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', in which a magical invisible wall is apparently present ''in the ocean''. Especially grim since the mini-map goes significantly beyond this point.
* Each ''[[Star Wars]]'' game in which the player can use a lightsaber. In the movies and various other media, these have been used to cut through several-inch-thick [[Unobtainium|Unobtainium-steel]] doors. In the games, they typically have no effect on any barriers whatsoever. ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2'' actually allowed you to bash open doors with your lightsaber, but there were still "magnetically sealed" doors that resisted all force.
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** You could probably build Mount Everest out of the ''Frictionless Hills'' and ''Gentle Slopes of Unclimbability'' in the [[Lego Adaptation Game|Lego Star Wars series]].
** Not to mention completely cover Coruscant with vegetation from the various ''Impassable Forests''.
** Justified somewhat in ''Knights'' during the Tatooine
* The player character's behavior in the ''[[Myst]]'' series would seem to indicate that you are an extremely polite crippled geriatric... If not for your ability to rocket up and down flimsy ladders at absurd speeds.
* Related, in ''[[Myst]] III: Exile''. How many players out there have suspected that they could have taken Saavedro hand to hand? This situation was avoided in ''[[Myst]] II: Riven'', as Gehn and his goons always had you behind bars, or covered by lethal projectile weapons, or both.
** Saavedro even left a spare mallet lying in an accessible part of J'nanin. Of course, you aren't allowed to pick it up.
** ''Riven'' contained a great subversion as well: early on you encounter a flimsy wooden door sealed with a padlock. This door is insurmountable... unless you crawl under it.
* In ''Uru: Ages Beyond [[Myst]]'', the player can climb or
** At least Uru allows your character to swim (and makes up for it in one area by introducing currents so strong you can't fight them). Myst and Riven are fond of blocking the player from interesting areas using water of various depths.
* The ''[[
** An even stupider combination of this and [[Broken Bridge]] appears in ''Xenogears''. A small child accidentally leaves her stuffed animal in front of the door to the bridge of your sandship. This makes it completely impossible to enter the bridge until you find her and get her to move it. Even worse, the characters ''immediately declare this to each other.''
*** Even worse is the Tower of Babel. A large, tall, ''completely hollow'' tower that your characters have to ascend in their Gears, which, of course, are capable of ''flight''...and yet they make the entire ascent ''on foot''. It is official: the cast of ''Xenogears'' is [[Too Dumb to Live]].
* With [[Lampshade Hanging]], when you encounter a certain unopenable door in ''[[The Journeyman Project]] 2: Buried in Time'', your [[Exposition Fairy|AI Sidekick]] comments, "I've got a feeling that the room behind this door has neither been modeled nor rendered." Similarly, the original ''Journeyman Project'' makes you take the lift straight from your 4th floor apartment to the ground floor transporter booth that takes you to work. Pressing floors 2 or 3 receives a reply of "Access denied; this floor was never modeled nor rendered."
** And if you pick the wrong transport destination, [[Have a Nice Death]], as you are [[Ret
* The Sims in ''[[The Sims]]'' and its sequel cannot pass between squares separated by walls or fences, which led to the ridiculous experience of surrounding a Sim with an ankle-high white picket fence and watching him starve to death, unable to cross it. As a means of a "fix", ''[[The Sims]] 2'' includes higher-than-waist fences only.
** ''Sims 2'' sims cannot climb out of a pool without a ladder. They would sooner drown than simply climb up the ledge that's only inches above the water line.
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** ''[[My Sims]]'' has a number of areas blocked off by being boarded up, having a fallen log across the path, having a random pile of rocks in the way, or there being a metal door there. You start the game with an axe. You cannot use it to chop down the boards or chop up the logs; you have to wait until you get the crowbar and saw, respectively. You cannot climb over the rocks, or over the fence into the desert. You have to earn the pickaxe first. At one point, a door blocks a bridge with no rails on it. You ''can'' enter the water in most places where it exists, but you cannot pull yourself out of it onto the bridge. Looks like earning the blowtorch is the only way to go...
** [http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ This] article greatly illustrates the absurdity of the waist high fence on a couple different occasions. Surrounding his Sim's home with said fence, Firefighters are unable to reach the house when it catches on fire and are forced to stand around and watch it burn. Later, Child Services arrives to remove a child from the home. The Child Services agent is able to teleport into the home to remove the baby, but then is unable to leave because of the fence.
* In the ''[[Halo]]'' series, our hero does not normally have [[Super Drowning Skills]], but some bodies of water, especially in the third game, are "instant-death water of uncrossability". Even in the games that lack falling damage for normal falls, falling in the wrong place kills you, preventing [[Sequence Breaking]]. There's also Frictionless Hills and [[Invisible Wall
* The two ''[[Red Faction]]'' games not only made strides to avert this trope by making much of the environment destroyable, but also sometimes required brute-force breaching to progress with the game. This feature, however, caused those points in the game that were obstructed by indestructible architecture (i.e. most of the game) to become only that much more conspicuous.
** Ironically, the third Red Faction game, with its enhanced ability to destroy anything waist-sized and up, and jetpacks and sprinting that allows the player to reach just about anywhere, there are several [[Ledges Of Instant Death]] and [[Invisible Walls]], usually at the bounds of the map. The player can find even greater heights to jump from without fatality, or even sometimes without major injury, and still die when jumping off map-edge ledges, while the little posts with bleeping lights on them tell you that the dastardly EDF have erected an invisible wall in the middle of this empty field.
* Notably avoided (somewhat) in ''[[
* There is a certain room in a cave in ''[[
** This room, as well as every other similar room in the game, is used to allow the game time to load the next area; using a Gameshark to hover over the grass, then walk through the tunnel on the other side, results in you seeing an area of nothing but sky, then the game freezing.
* In the game ''[[Koudelka]]'', the titular character [[Justified Trope|justifies]] her unwillingness to go over a relatively short fence due to her modesty, one of the very few instances where this phenomenon is addressed in a way consistent with the setting and explained plausibly. Still, you'd think somebody so concerned about modesty wouldn't have [[Stripperiffic|dressed like that]] to begin with...
* In ''[[Marvel
** This also comes up in the boss fight against the giant Arcadebot, {{spoiler|which requires players to shoot themselves out of a cannon to reach the robot's weak point, rather than simply flying up there.}}
* In one level of ''[[Tomb Raider]]: Anniversary'', you come across several cages. With vertical and ''horizontal'' bars, which look like they could be climbed like a ladder. Which you nevertheless cannot climb, for a game which features all sorts of climbing (and actual ladders) in other situations...
** The series as a whole frequently uses frictionless hills, indestructible fallen logs/doors, uncrossable water/quicksand, and impassable foliage.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion'' it is possible, through the use of multiply stacked buffs, to attain superhuman "Acrobatics" skill levels, at which point the use of [[Invisible Wall
** This is a major step backwards from ''[[The Elder Scrolls III
** In ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV
* In ''[[Nehrim]]'' (a game based on total conversion of Oblivion), not only the transparent walls are quite prevalent, the authors were quite fond of using "Ledge of Instant Death", sometimes becoming a "Gentle Slope of Instant Death" of "Flat Path of Instant Death". (after the initial cave, as the only path transfers from ledge to ravine, you can turn right crossing through some knee-high bushes (without even jumping), walk towards the waterfall and die for no visible reason at all.)
* Tony Montana in ''[[
* In ''[[
** Although since Cave Story is a 2D game, it probably has something to do with the fact that no matter how he tries your poor little protagonist can't actually point his missile launcher at the door.
** Later in the game, the entrance to the waterways is initially blocked by a grate which can't be opened even with an [[NPC]]'s help. If it could, a difficult [[Boss Battle]] and a major plot twist could have been avoided.
* The 2-D ''Zelda'' games provide many obvious examples of this, with a plethora of simple obstacles that nevertheless require you to find a powerup first. Move past a bush? Not without your sword. Step over a small rock? Forget it unless you got your power glove. A small tree? Nope, only if you got the fire wand. One of the most ridiculous is in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Oracle
** The fences in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
** Both ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
*** Kingy does this if you try to go anywhere but the row of three map tiles between Windfall and Dragonroost Island, and the column from Dragonroost to Tree Haven before you clear the dungeon on Tree Haven. So if you want to get back to Windfall Island from Tree Haven, you have to go north and then west, rather than just cutting through diagonally...
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
* In the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' game series the protagonists, even though they are either well trained members of the Raccoon City Police's special task-force S.T.A.R.S. and/or are able to perform insane stunts like jumping down stairs while fetching a gun in mid-air and shoot gas tanks to take out an entire team of evil grunts one-handed, are overstrained when facing old, battered wooden (read: adamantium) doors they don't have the right key for. This trope becomes especially comical if the player is circled by a pack of zombies who will tear him apart any second and his only escape route would be through an old rusty garden gate, but he'd rather stop any attempts of escaping saying to himself "It's locked. I don't have the right key to open it". Further, in numerous cut-scenes the protagonists find themselves in exactly the same situation, but will then suddenly remember their training back at the police academy and simply breach the door which leads to their escape route.
** This gets even more ridiculous in the first Resident Evil game, where Jill Valentine, ex-Delta Force and current S.T.A.R.S member, complete with pistols, machine guns, and even rocket launchers, is equipped with a lock-pick and has been dubbed "The Master of Unlocking", still cannot go through the very same wooden doors. It gets even more absurd when a cut-scene in the game which shows Jill trapped in a locked room, ie the "Jill Sandwich" [[Descending Ceiling]] room, being rescued by another member who promptly just shoots the lock off the door to rescue her.
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** Not to mention the doors that require ''obscure objects'' to open them. Why would the protagonists go searching for a blue jewel or a silver crest, when they can just kick the door down instead?
** ''[[Resident Evil]] 4'' however, with its redefined control scheme, makes it easy to just [[Action Commands|hit the Action button]] to jump over any sufficiently low fence when prompted. Of course, this only serves to make the game's proper insurmountable waist height fences more jarring when you have to perform an irritating [[Fetch Quest]] for a gate key instead of just jumping over the gate. On the plus side, a lot of non-plot-critical locked doors can be kicked down or blown open with a weapon, so it's a small step in the right direction.
*** Even worse was the 'Separate Ways' bonus chapters present in the [[
** In ''[[Resident Evil]] 5'', there's a [[Light and Mirrors Puzzle]] wherein the light ''kills'' you, and you have to figure out a way to point it where you want without blocking yourself in, ignoring the fact that you could easily get on the ground and crawl under the light.
** There's the scene where you have to wander around on a moving conveyor belt leading to an incinerator and littered with half-dead zombies, in order to get round a metal crate ''that barely comes up to shoulder height'' on the protagonist, who is strong enough to {{spoiler|move a boulder several times his size by punching it}}, but apparently can't lift his own body weight a few feet. To make it worse, the only thing preventing the heroes from going around the box is a ''handrail.''
** After the second battle with the Grave Digger worm in ''[[Resident Evil 3: Nemesis]]'', a fallen piece of fencing conveniently allows you to climb over a previously insurmountable rock. Although the rock looks like she could have climbed over it without the aid of the fence.
* The literal insurmountable waist-high fence in ''[[Paper Mario (
** Or how about even earlier, in Goomba Village? Kammy taunts Mario, and drops a Yellow Block on the gate out. Even though Mario can easily jump higher than the nose-high fencing, he can't actually jump over. Same with the fence at the bottom of the cliff the Goomba house is built on: it, too, is blocked with a Yellow Block, and you can't jump the fence. But in both cases, this is a good thing, as if the game didn't force you to get the Hammer, you'd be stopped by later obstacles and unable to harm some of even the earliest enemies, but still, it's a good thing the Hammer didn't fall on the ''other'' side of the fence, or Mario would be stuck...forever.
* Happens a lot in ''[[Drakengard]]'', especially in any scenes involving ruins or recently-destroyed buildings.
* ''[[
** The SNES Mode 7 hardware is incapable of rendering true 3D, making this an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]].
** Averted on the SNES retro maps that appear in ''Mario Kart DS'', as all barriers from those levels are changed to cubes from squares.
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** In ''[[Alpha Man]]'', a comedy game similar to ''[[Nethack]]'', if the player has a jackhammer, he/she can sometimes jack through the exterior walls of a building. When that happens, the player can walk the black void of the outside of the house, and if they leave the screen, they're taken out of the house to the land near the house. Also sort of an example of [[Super Drowning Skills]], because without a wetsuit, raft, kayak, or something similar, the player drowns in deep water.
* In ''[[Terranigma]]'', you can jump. Sometimes you can jump over gaps. Other times, you run into an invisible wall. Sometimes you can jump down deep holes in the ground. Other times, you just take damage and are put back where you fell from. Still other times, you hit invisible walls. [[Try Everything|The only way to find out is to try]].
* ''[[Sid
* Sometimes justified in [[Urban Chaos: Riot Response]]. Sometimes the obstacles make sense, like the fact the alley way is on fire, or the stairs are blocked by burning debris. Other times he can't climb over a single row of crates. But that could be because he is carrying a small armory by that time.
* Most racing games have the track walled in by insurmountable adamantium barriers; even the "plastic netting" is impenetrable. Sometimes, as in the ''[[
* ''[[Gran Turismo]] IV'' has particularly strong plastic fences. On the Grand Canyon rally course, part of the course travels along the very edge of a cliff with only a foot-tall plastic home depot orange netting keeping a runaway car (or Truck) from careening off the edge. Somehow this flimsy-looking fencing handles the task incredibly well, even so far as bringing a full size Dodge Ram truck doing well over freeway speed to a dead stop.
** On some tracks in ''[[Gran Turismo]] 3'', you can glitch your way through the barrier. If you go too far out of bounds, the game freezes.
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** ''Eternal Wings'' makes a flimsy justification, then ''Origins'' explains it better; the wings used to be powerful enough to fly around all the time, but they have atrophied greatly over the years. Trying to use them for anything more than a few seconds results in the wings giving out. There's a reason these people use flying boats to get around. Granted, this still doesn't excuse Kalas turning around in Moonguile Forest because a log is blocking his path.
* Partially justified in the game ''[[Oddworld]]: Munch's Oddysee''. Munch is a Gabbit, a one-legged amphibian, and though he can jump more than six feet out of the water, any attempt to jump on land just makes him fall flat on his face. Abe, on the other hand, is a ground-dwelling Mudokon, and can jump really high on the ground (though he has [[Super Drowning Skills]], and can only touch water for a few seconds before dying). However, other Mudokons are too stupid and lazy to jump over a waist high fence, they have to be picked up one by one (by the ''ass'') and thrown over fences. Munch can also clear small fences by jumping over them in his wheelchair, or getting a boost from Abe.
* Apparently, this is so well-known that audiences at GDC '08 actually laughed when they saw a character in the upcoming ''Fable 2'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20111113104519/http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/741361/fable-2/images/fable-2-20080220003911257.html simply jump over a waist-high fence.]
** Which will be a relief, as the original ''[[Fable]]'' was absolutely full of insurmountable fences, rivers, edges, invisible walls, weeds, etc.
** The fence problem may be largely gone but I've run into quite a few Gentle Slopes of Impassability.
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** Specifically, it forces you to {{spoiler|go through the [[Guide Dang It]] that is the Desert of Death to get to the final dungeon because your party, who often hop down cliffs exponentially taller than then, can't hop down off a crate barely as tall as Garr.}}
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in the online game ''[[Graal Classic]]'', when Kull's Castle blocked certain doors with impassable Bottles. Your character is even heard to remark "I can't go this way - there's a bottle in the way!"
* In ''[[Diablo]]'', the town of Tristram is delimited on all sides by these. A waist-high stone wall to the northeast, a river to the southeast that's maybe a metre wide and 30
* In the ''[[Metroid]] Prime'' series there are some ''just too high'' cliffs that, if you exploit some cheap tricks (like jumping onto inch-thick vines) you can actually get over (and into glitch worlds, in order to do some sequence breaking).
** Most of Other M is in corridors and such, taking place in a large research ship and all. So for the most part the railroading and paths being blocked by reinforced doors is justified. But then there's this one missile tank, well, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_nS1ADTJY0 see for yourself].
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*** In 3, you can open a few doors. It's just that terrible things happen every time you do.
*** In multiplayer, hosting a dedicated server lets you, among other variables, set jump height much higher than in normal gameplay. This doesn't really let you go anywhere you couldn't normally get to, as pretty much every prop in the game even half as tall as a player character has an invisible wall around the top.
** Some parts of ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops
* Every ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' game until ''San Andreas'', along with the later PSP sequels, leading some reviewers to comment on their inferiority.
* ''[[College Saga]]'' parodies this (just like it parodies everything else). "A huge chair is blocking your path". Once Jesus joins your party, he averts the trope by simply blowing the chair up.
* ''[[Twisted Metal]] 2'' has a level set in a Dutch tulip field. The field is bordered by a small wooden fence which cannot be destroyed or jumped over, whereas the two sturdy windmills in the field go down easy.
* In the ''[[
** To be fair, the pebbles are supposed to be much bigger than that, and those that are slightly smaller are used to keep puzzles from being too simple, for example moving a log or something of the like.
* The MMORPG ''[[Ryzom]]'' is full of these, both of the waist high fence and invisible wall varieties. The invisible walls can be particularly aggravating, as anything steeper than a very gentle slope seems to have one.
* The hero in the maddening old Nintendo game ''[[Spelunker]]'' died if he fell into a pit that was half the size of his body.
* ''[[
* ''[[ZOMG]]'' features several Insurmountable Waist High Fences. The stairs out of the Train Station are chained off, forcing you to fight your way through the Sewers (Which also serves as the game's tutorial). Of course, the doors out of the station are locked too, and jumping the gate would mean missing out getting the rings you need to get any farther than Barton Town. Though when you can't step over a 2 inch ledge in the Zen Gardens, you start to suspect something...
* It's not waist-high, but the rubble/debris piles in ''[[Fallout]] 3'' are arranged in such a way that any normal person could climb over them. You, however can't.
** There are also innumerable Adamantium Doors, many of which appear to be made of wood... some even with large holes through which a normal person could just reach and unlock the other side. Aggravatingly, the trope is partially inverted in that you ''can'' force many doors with your bare hands... but you only get the option if you've got enough Lockpicking skill to open it anyway via the lockpicking [[Mini Game]]. The fact that you get nuclear weapons early in the game never enters into consideration.
** There's even an ''actual'' insurmountable waist high fence, in a backyard in Takoma Park. Never mind that the 200-year-old white picket fence is likely so flimsy it could be pushed over, you can't get past it even if you ''build yourself a ramp''. Stupid [[Invisible Wall]]...
** ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has some particularly lazy examples of this; the overworld is cut into cells to ease loading times, and one can only transit between cells at passes. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell this to the designers who made the visual landscapes, meaning the Courier is often unable to climb two-degree slopes at the edges of cells. In particularly buggy areas such as the area around Nelson, the Courier can end up several dozen feet off the ground by skimming a cell edge.
** There are enough insurmountable gentle slopes in the game world that some players decided to take matters in their own hands, and [[Game Mod|modded them out]]. This makes the game considerably easier to [[Sequence Breaking|sequence break]], as with the mod installed the only thing preventing the player from reaching the top of the tallest mountains is a whole lot of hopping. There are also mods that make the lockpicking minigame an option if you happen to have explosives in your arsenal - but they still can't blast open doors not explicitly meant to be openable.
** There's even an ''Impassable Head High Hole'' in a hallway in the East Central Sewers by "Sweet" Jill's corpse. There's a ''knee-high pile of rubble'' in the way, that you can't climb over, because the ceiling is about 6 inches too low. [[Invisible Wall|You still can't climb over it even if you're crouching]]. Made worse by the fact that the giant sewer rats can get over it no problem.
** The earlier Fallout games play the trope much more directly. Because of how the game deals with shop inventories many of the merchants in the game have their items stashed in containers on the map just beyond the player's vision and, thanks to various waist-high obstacles, beyond their reach as well. At least one of these inventories in Fallout 2 can be accessed with patient skirting of a waist-high fence, not that it really breaks the game at all.
* The insurmountable waist-high fences (and sometimes [[Die, Chair, Die!|other obstacles]]) felt [[Egregious]] in the ''[[Crusader:
** See also Sigmateam's ''[[Alien Shooter]]'', an isometric shooter where the final weapon is some sort of [[BFG|shoulder-fired nuclear-powered gatling gun]]...which still cannot seem to destroy basic office equipment. Perhaps the aliens should have made their armour out of cheap Chinese plastic instead.
* ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' features some insurmountable sticks on the ground, especially in [[Stealth Pun|Mt. Rock]]. Oddly enough, standing behind one of these sticks will cause an enemy on the other side of the stick to be seemingly unable to see you.
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* In ''[[Condemned]]'' it's not uncommon for a tipped-over shelf to completely block a door, preventing Ethan Thomas from passing when he could have easily shoved it out of the way. In the sequel, it's made even more frustrating in that Ethan can now climb through windows, slip through gaps, climb boxes, and jump down pits, but only when demanded by the very linear level design. It makes it very frustrating to be in a hotel and see a luggage cart and reception desk blocking your path, requiring you to find the small, foot-wide area where you can press the magic button to slip through. Of course, Ethan can never do this in other circumstances, such as climbing over a few cardboard boxes and a couch instead of needing to use a conveniently-placed ramp. The worst part is that oftentimes players will struggle to find a context-sensitive area that allows them to progress, or spend time searching for an alternate route when Ethan can just climb through the hole. He can't even climb fences or gates that are locked behind the people he's pursuing, yet attacking enemies can vault over them no problem.
** Also, Ethan lacks the ability to jump (again, unless it's part of the level design). The issue? Physics objects, like garbage cans, can easily fall in the player's path, yet Ethan can't jump over them and will be stopped in his tracks by an ankle-high cardboard box, requiring the player to kick it out of the way.
* Integral to much of the level design in ''[[Doom (
** Although you can jump in ''[[Doom (
* According to the Official Playstation Review of ''[[Killzone]] 2'', there's a particularly bad example. The player's squadmates can climb over a fence with no problem, but the [[Player Character]] needs their help to get over ''the exact same type of fence''.
* ''[[Crysis (
** ''[[Crysis Warhead]]'' doesn't. While you can drive down trees with your Armoured Personnel Carrier and blow up whole buildings with nothing but a grenade, you will still get stuck (sometimes permanently) in the same flimsy wood fences that you could kick down even if you ''weren't'' a nano-suit augmented super soldier.
* Parodied in ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]: Magna Cum Laude''. When Larry examines a road construction site, he says it's a cheap way to block off the player from wandering off the level.
* Fences in the MMO ''[[
** And the uncrossable water appears as well. The several rivers that appear in the game are all uncrossable despite being a few feet wide and inches deep. And the PC is shown many times in the game to be capable of swimming, including in a couple of fairly large areas that are ''underwater'', yet cannot cross these very small rivers. On the other side, the PC claims that every accident including falling into water causes him/her to drown, even with the Diving Apparatus on. And, luckily, monsters also can't cross such obstacles, but some can be shot over. Coupled with the mobs' lack of any sophisticated pathing mechanics, you can get them stuck on the other side of a rock that is perfectly possible to walk around and shoot them to death.
*** One of the most awkward examples is on the border between a "[[F 2 P]]" area and a "
* Mostly whenever you see a fence in From Software's ''[[Evergrace]]'', it's to keep you from dying as the other side is either a puddle of water or a drop off a cliff. This in turn, marks one of the few times you'll wish for this trope's existence, since falling off of anything means your doom. In the bonus dungeon, there are no fences, but there are a HECK of a lot of enemies with knockback. Which turns a simple challenging dungeon [[Nintendo Hard]] instantaneously. Later on, it gains floors which turn from invisible to visible and back, slowly, enemies can come onto them, and there's STILL no fences to save you.
* Since you can't jump in the ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' games, any object taller than ankle height is insurmountable, e.g. overturned furniture blocking a hallway.
** The same goes for ''[[Mass Effect]]'', and generally most games where you can't jump.
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', while driving the Mako on story worlds the ''Gentle Slope Of Unclimbability'' was made the more obvious, since on non-story worlds you could make it climb almost any mountain no matter how steep, while on story worlds you were confined to narrow valleys with walls much gentler and you still came rolling down from them. On time, there was even a Insurmountable Waist Height Fence in the form of a big boulder, that should have made you impossible to go further with the Mako, but with some good positioning you could jump over it, leading to a glitch.
** In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''
*** On the other hand, apparently the Lazarus Project ''finally'' taught Shepard how to jump over waist-high obstacles. But, of course, only in places where you're supposed to do so.
* While the world of ''[[Saints Row 2]]'' is fairly open to the player, 'homies' can't climb, meaning that they can't get past an insurmountable knee high fence.
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** Major example: After Central Silent Hill changes into the [[Dark World]], Harry is [[Railroading|Railroaded]] through town by larger and larger sections of the map being blocked with [[Bottomless Pits]], until there's nowhere to go but up, where you fight a boss.
** In SH 2, the above-ground path to the boat launch is blocked by a literal waist-height fence. To get around it, you must go through... the Abyss. And there's a [[Locked Door]] barring entrance to that.
*** Possibly justified in that you do not know that the boat launch is your destination. Your next goal is supposed to be inside the Historical Society building.
** Averted in [[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]
*** One truly bizarre example is when you stop at the ranger station in the woods. It shouldn't take less than 8 seconds to get out of the car, but in the time it took for you to pull up to the cabin and get out, a waist-high snowbank has formed over the back part of your car and in front of you, blocking you from driving either direction. Strangely, the snowbanks tend to be high, but formed in a way that Harry could scale them with a little climbing.
* ''[[Pikmin]] 2'' has short rocks in some of the caves. <s> Justified</s> But in this game, you can't jump.
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** Fans of ''[[Thief]]'' 1 and 2 were unpleasantly surprised by Thief 3: Deadly Shadows turning bodies of water more than ankle-deep into deathtraps, surprising because in Thief 1/2, not only could master thief Garrett swim, it was ''required'' for several missions. Somehow Garrett '''forgot how to swim''' in his journey from Thief 1/2 to Thief 3.
** In ''[[Thief]]'' 3, once you acquire the climbing gloves you can climb brick or stone walls till your hearts content, unless there is a wooden beam thicker then four inches blocking your way.
* ''[[Sweet Home (
* ''[[Need for Speed]]'' series: In most of the games, you hit an invisible barrier if you try to jump the fence, but in the later tracks of ''II'', there are spots where you can jump the barrier and fall into [[Bottomless Pits]].
** In ''[[Need for Speed]] Hot Pursuit'' (2010), some of the tracks have shortcuts blocked off by glowing force fields. While this could be hand waved as a gentleman's agreement amongst the racers, the police chasing them are similarly barred from using them for not good reason.
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** [[World of Warcraft]] also has bizarre movement behavior related to PCs being either being able or not able to walk up gradients of differing slopes. While some slopes are always far too steep to ever be climbed by a PC, other slopes will either be passable or impassable simply based on whether or not the PC should be able to pass over that area, regardless of the fact that two terrains might have the exact same slope. In fact, there are passable terrains in the game that a significantly greater in slope than many impassable terrains.
** In Ironforge, the pit part of the forge is only blocked by an invisible barrier from the perimeter, but not pathway going over said pit.
** In an example of the "Ledge of Instant Death", there are several places where the game limits your ability to explore by killing you instantly if you fall below a certain
** The ''Cataclysm'' expansion averts and plays straight the trope. During development, the developers admitted that a lot of the geometry in the original [[World of Warcraft]] simply wasn't there, and they had to put unclimbable terrain in the way so players couldn't get there. With ''Cataclysm'', players can now fly in the original world, so Blizzard had to completely rebuild it from the ground up in such a way that the entire world was accessible via flight. However there are still unclimbable slopes if you are not riding a flying mount.
*** Of course, even with a flying mount, there are still a handful of invisible walls, like in the mountains north of the Plaguelands, which blocks players from entry for no specific reason.
* At one point in ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]] 5'', Passionate Patti is [[Locked in
* In ''[[
** This is just an example of the series' quirky humor. It's parody if anything.
* In the MMORPG ''[[Mabinogi (
** Fences we can understand. Fences that a paper airplane cannot go over, not so much. Especially since the best places to launch the airplanes are always blocked by fences.
* In Spiderweb Software's ''[[Geneforge]]'' series of games, no matter how powerful your character gets, he is never able to break through/into relatively flimsy doors and cabinets. However, he is still able to pick the locks on such, using a combination of mechanical skills and [[Applied Phlebotinum|"living tools"]].
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* Played so very straight in Robert Ludlum's "The Bourne Identity" where most every object is an impassable barrier despite the player being JASON BOURNE. At one point it got so bad that a stairway was blocked by a simple red rope barrier forcing the player to go all the way round.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' has one specific moment where this is gratingly apparent. The protagonist Solid Snake, a veteran special forces soldier, runs down the stairs in a tower for several floors, only to be thwarted when the bottom five feet of the stairs have collapsed. Any normal adult could easily drop down that height without injury. Rather than doing so, Snake opts to climb back to the top of the tower and fight a Hind-D while Otacon fixes up the elevator.
** [[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]] has [[Player Character|Raiden]] winding his way through a labyrinthine machine for several minutes when the actual goal, a button or lever of some sort, would have been reachable by stepping over a pipe on the ground and leaning in.
** In one level of the fourth game, choosing to back track into the building you just exited is physically impossible. Apparently, this one side of the building is capable of withstanding bullets, grenades, C4, missile launchers, and even rail gun fire.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in Privates, where the player is frequently informed that "We can't get past these little velvety ropes just yet."
* In ''[[Mario
** It also has a pretty wide spreading example in Bowser himself as a playable character, since he can't jump, half his adventuring has you try and figure out ways round very small ledges that Mario and Luigi themselves can simply jump right over.
** Actually, Bowser can jump when he gains the Shell Slam ability, but only straight up into the air, and several times higher than the ankle high ledges.
* ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' is basically ''based'' on this. If there's a huge, open door in front of you but the room within it isn't displated on the map. You CAN'T get in. There's even a part where, after crossing a very long maze-like path across a mine you come to a point where the short way can connect directly to the elevator leading to the next level, but you have to turn around and take the longest possible way 'cause there's a ''rock'' on the way.
** Also, in the dessert planet Rosa, you have to get to some ancient ruins that are visible from the city's gates. And you are forced by [[Invisible Wall|invisible walls]] and
* ''[[Syphon Filter]]'': Grate blocking subway ramp? You can't use grenades on it, only C4 will take it down, from the other side. Hedge maze in Washington Park? No, you can't climb over the hedges. Cars blocking the road? Forget about climbing over them. And outside of cutscenes, falling more than about 10 feet kills you instantly (no falling damage in between).
* In ''[[Vette
* In the first ''The Lord of the Rings'' jump-and-run for the [[
* ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'' lets you vault over fences and climb any house that has a flat roof. But you can't climb over crates, tables and pretty much everything else that isn't either a fence or a flat topped building.
** This is more a coding issue than intentional blockage for the most part. Fan-mods fix this up some.
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* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' pulled this one. Particularly [[Egregious]] in the Human Noble origin story, when your path was blocked by ''Insurmountable Ankle-Height Rubble''. Even "better", the collision detection with said rubble is off ''just'' enough that, when you try to cross it, your feet are coming down on top of the very obstacle that "impedes" your progress.
* [[Assassin's Creed]] justifies it somewhat with areas of the map blocked by blue mist rendered inaccessible until certain events have transpired: the player character is expressly trying to re-visit memories in a way similar to the original, so [[Sequence Breaking]] isn't allowed. It's even improved in Assassin's Creed 2, where it is physically possible to cross these barriers, but staying on the far side gets you "desynchronized" from the original sequence of events. However, it's played painfully straight with any and all doors in the games, which are never opened by the player character unless he's invited in. Apparently, the best and only way to defend yourself from the best assassins in imagined history is to simply stay behind closed doors. You don't even have to lock them. The need to assassinate one's targets only during specific events in which they are in the open and assassins' guild branches always having an open rooftop entrance may imply that the assassins are somewhat aware of this limitation.
* Used sadistically straight in ''[[
* ''[[
** In ''[[
* [[Black and White]] 2 creatures, despite being over one hundred feet tall when fully grown, cannot step over houses less than a quarter of their height.
* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' and its sequel feature a variety of these. There are a number of occasions where the survivors' path is blocked by apparently surmountable obstacles: the truck on the bridge after it is bombed in "The Cemetery" level of ''The Parish'' campaign and the short fence before the running panic event in "The Barns" level of ''Dark Carnival'', both in ''Left 4 Dead 2'', are outstanding examples. The survivors are also incapable of scaling drainpipes, columns and the like, despite the Infected (which are just humans with a mutant strain of rabies) being perfectly able to use them, and there are a large number of handle-less doors that are impervious to chainsaws, fireaxes, crowbars and explosions despite all of these objects being able to demolish and/or damage all the "usable" doors throughout the game. Also, when playing as the Infected in Versus mode, the limits of the player's range are often baldly indicated with a literal invisible wall, marked only with a string of floating "no entry" signs. The survivors' initial spawn point in a campaign is often surrounded by an invisible wall (as at the beginning of ''The Parish'', where the players are prevented from running off the side of the dock or off the short gangplank leading up to the waterfront).
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* Almost every level in the ''[[STALKER]]'' games (at least, the first two). Most of the exterior levels are bordered by flimsy barbwire fences. You can jump over higher things during the game, including climbing a stack of crates over a concrete wall (twice in quick succession) during one of the plot missions in Clear Sky, but the border fences are unjumpable. They do jingle when you bump them, though...
** To be fair, beyond those little barbwire fences is a very quick and painful radiation death.
* ''[[Just Cause (
* ''[[
** Similarly, if you anchor or fly across the space behind the spawn point and land on the other side, there's an invisible wall which you can't move through but oddly enough, you can shoot through it.
* Multiple games in the [[Tales
** ''[[
*** Also, when the Ymir fruit drops off a tree. It's only a couple of feet away in some seemingly shallow water, one of the party characters ''has wings'', and you STILL have to go through a ridiculous animal-calling puzzle to push it to shore halfway across the map.
** ''[[
*** Also, when walking around as Arche (possible in later remakes), she seems to float around on her broom when "running." She still gets hurt by tiny floor spikes.
* The ''[[Medal of Honor]]'' series [[No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom|railroads the player]] with just about every type; standard insurmountable waist-height fences or walls, barbed wire, minefields, [[Invisible Wall|invisible walls]], indestructable fallen logs, impassable foliage, unclearable debris, adamantium doors, and unclimbable slopes. Even the more non-linear ''Airborne'' often uses these, and no, you can't parachute over them either. One of the most egregious examples is the insurmountable brick wall in the first mission. Subverted in the Sniper's Last Stand: Outskirts level of ''Allied Assault'', where you get to blow open a gate with a bazooka. The Nebelwerfer Hunt has an impassible window where you have to trick a Tiger tank into destroying the wall, as you can't blow it up with your own rocket launcher either.
* ''[[
** The sequel, however, fixed this, even offering an achievement/trophy for climbing on one of said fences.
* Happens in your favour in Lego Rock Band. Your band knocks down a narrow tree which stops a
* There's an interesting case of this in ''[[Castlevania (Nintendo 64)]]'', where the main character can jump around and grab ledges just fine, until they have to carry an explosive material across several rooms, where jumping or falling even a few feet suddenly results in instant death. A usually quick walk to the area in question turns into a nightmare of side-rooms and death traps. All because our trained vampire slayer couldn't slowly lower himself down those last few broken stairs
* Probably the oldest case of this in video games is [[Zork]]. Yes, the waist high fence even existed before graphics to -see- it.
{{quote|
** In the same vein, a large percentage of [[Interactive Fiction]] games involve locked doors that must be unlocked or
*** Lampshaded in ''Zork: Grand Inquisitor'': using a sword against most objects will result in Dalboz informing you, "Violence never solved anything. Well, not everything. Okay, not this thing!"
*
{{quote|'''Let's Play''': There's a Chryssalid here that's completely stymied by a two foot tall hedge. It's totally boxed in! It's too dumb to jump over the hedge! }}
* ''[[Onimusha]]: Dawn of Dreams'' is littered with flagrant examples of this, but none more aggravating than a point where your characters are faced with a ladder that descends from the top of a ledge to two feet above ground level. The bottom rung is no further from the floor than the protagonist's knee, but he must still wait for another character to lower it the rest of the way before he can climb it.
* ''[[Prince of Persia]]'' 2008 has the ''Ledge of Instant Death''. Despite the Prince being an excellent acrobat, he can't jump down more than 2 meters. At some points, Elika catches the Prince even though his feet already touched the ground.
** Same with ''Sands of Time''.
* ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' has plenty of these. Firstly [[Super Drowning Skills|the main character can't swim]], or indeed walk in it if it's above waist height. Then our main character has a pitiful jump which can often lead to your painly attempting to get over an something if John doesn't automatically climb over it. This becomes very clear when the game bars you from areas of the map by placing them behind a river but it still has bridges across, the only thing keeping John out are a couple of small wooden barriers with plenty of room to the side so you could just walk around them. Then the game is littered with slopes that just a bit too steep to climb up which circles the [[
* [[Time Splitters]] has a few instances of this. In one level of the third game, your path is blocked by a few strips of police tape and a hole in some boards. A little strange in that your partner Jo-Beth has no problems climbing under the tape. ''Very'' strange after she falls through the floor on the other side and instead of climbing under to check on her, you go a much longer path.
* ''[[Odium]]'' has plenty of these, making its turn-based battles somewhat ridiculous. Small piles of junk block movement and bullets alike. You cannot even shoot across gaps.
* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' is literally founded on this as there is no jump mechanic, meaning a pebble will stop you in your place.
* ''[[Agarest Senki]]'' plays with this trope. Instead of just climbing, or going around the rock, [[What Do You Mean
* The second [[Star Trek Elite Force]] has a very annoying one of these moments, where the main character and his team are in a sewer system and he gets separated from them. Shortly thereafter, they find each other in the maze of tunnels only to be stopped from continuing on together by barrier resembling the bars on a jail cell. Only the bars are about two and a half feet or so apart. One team member even places a hand on each one and leans forward through the bars, only to say "We need to find a way to link up." As if the team or the leader simply couldn't step between the bars.
* In ''[[Donkey Kong Country]] 2'''s Krazy Kremland area, the heroes find themselves outside a [[Circus of Fear]]. They enter and pass through all obstacles, only to emerge in a swamp about twenty in-game feet from the entrance. Separating them is nothing but a grassy knoll.
* ''[[God of War (
* ''[[Minecraft]]'' allows players to ''build'' these in survival mode. However, it is also averted, if the player is standing on a block even half a block high and tries to jump, they will be able to get over the fence. This is because the fences act as being 1.5 blocks high when checking for collision, whiel only looking to be one block high. It is also somewhat literal, since the player characters are 2 blocks high.
* ''[[
* Justified in ''[[Disaster Report]]'' and ''[[Zettai Zetsumei Toshi|Raw Danger]]'', there tend to be police near police tape, and in the middle of disaster areas your characters are rightly afraid their weight will cause even bigger collapses, endangering those below or themselves. The fact one NPC is killed this way doesn't help confidence much. Also, much in the same way as older adventure-type games, [[FP Ses]], and [[PS 1]] survival horrors, the movable/destructible bits look obviously 'loose' or shaky or a different colour to draw attention to them. Also similar to those adventure games, the ones you can't currently pass that you need to will give you a vague hint as to why. "This looks like a two person job" or "The edges look sharp. I don't want to touch it with my bare hands."
* You can't climb anything that isn't a ladder in ''[[Dark Souls]]''.
** Same with ''[[Winback]]''.
* Sam Fisher in ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' is a master infiltrator who can surmount most obstacles with ease... unless said obstacle is door with cleaning equipment in front of it. In some cases, the high-tech pick of Fisher is hindered by nothing but a mere ''broom''.
* ''[[Xenoblade Chronicles]]'' has a ridiculous one where the characters must fabricate a bomb to blow a way through a grid blocking a corridor. That is, despite the main character ''having [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|a sword able to cut through anything]]''. And even without that, your other characters have [[BFS
* In [[Orcs Must Die]], you can build insurmountable waist height barricades to channel the orcs.
* ''[[Rage (
* The ''[[Marathon
* The western half of Peasantry in [[Homestar Runner|''Peasant's Quest'']].
* Literally within seconds of ''[[Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (video game)|Rainbow Six Vegas 2]]'''s tutorial teaching you about how your character can leap over obstacles you are blocked off from a potential alternate path by a sign on a flimsy chain saying keep out.
* ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'' has several of the types in the trope description. It's particularly egregious since your party can comprise monsters of a wide variety of races, so even obstacles that would actually be a barrier to humans end up fitting this trope. A party of flying monsters can't fly over anything, a party of aquatic monsters can't swim over rivers or the sea, a party of fairies or slimes can't squeeze through small gaps, and of course a party of people who should logically be capable of levelling buildings can't break through a locked door. For the last of these, the game sometimes hand waves it as the doors being magically sealed, but of course none of the mages in your party can do anything about them. On one occasion, examining a jail cell door with the ditzy slime Lime in your party will cause her to squeeze through the bars... only for the others to point out that the door is still locked so they still can't free the prisoners.
=== [[Real Life]] ===▼
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
* In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zJv0gssH2s this example], a little dog is seemingly not able to escape a cage made out of empty Pepsi cans.
** Similarly, horses and other large animals are sometimes kept in non-electric, unbarbed fence enclosures; they could knock down a fence section without even trying...so, naturally, they only ever break fences by mistake, because ''trying'' to knock a fence down doesn't occur to them.
* Seligman's original [
* Many insects get trapped behind the window even if some of the window squares are open, trying desperately to fly against the glass. Of course this is due to their inability to see the difference between air and transparent glass.
** Insects also tend to move up when they can't move horizontally, to the extent that an upside-down, uncovered cup will usually keep them trapped for quite a while until they fall out by mistake.
* Guineafowl have demonstrated a remarkable inability to get around an ''open'' farm-gate. Sometimes it takes as long as 15 minutes for them to realise they can ''fly over it'', so actually managing to walk around it doesn't tend to occur.
* [[Dave Barry]] wrote about his dogs who waited in front of a door to be let outside, even though the door was the only part of the porch that was still standing after a hurricane. Thus, they could have simply walked ''around'' the door.
** There was a video that appeared on [[
* Pronghorn antelopes are apparently unable or unwilling to jump over even short fences (quite different from deer or true antelopes)
** [[Not So Different]]. The gas and oil pipelines laid across the northen Russian plains became a serious problem for the migrating deer herds there. Although the animals should technically be able to get over them, they are too afraid of an unfamilliar obstacle.
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** That's because most cattle grids are made wide enough that the animal's leg could slip through the gap, potentially crippling it, and they can't watch where they put their feet like humans do. It doesn't look like much, but a cattle grid is a very real barrier to its intended target.
* To an office chair, a guitar cable is one of these.
** Or a fold in the carpet.
* To people confined to wheelchairs, their whole surroundings can seem like one of these, especially in places that lack handicapped-friendly architecture.
----
=== Film ===
* In the film version of ''[[The
** Note that he locks the gate by ''reaching over to their side and locking it.''
* Seen in ''[[Hot Shots Part Deux]]'', wherein the crack squad of commandoes are stymied by a backyard gate, which has been "locked from the inside."
=== Video Games ===
* ''[[The Simpsons Game]]'' [[
* Lampshaded in the [[
* ''[[
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140820150745/http://lolbot.net/index.php?content=viewer&id=24493 This] door in [[
* Parodied in ''[[
=== Webcomics ===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100623075724/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0266.html Parodied] in ''[[Adventurers
** Another one from the same comic features [https://web.archive.org/web/20130615073612/http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0047.html a chair].
* Episode [http://www.hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-07-17 #172] of the webcomic ''[[Concerned]]'' made fun of this trope as it applies to the game ''[[Half Life]] 2''.
* Parodied in [[Gold Coin Comics]], when [http://www.goldcoincomics.com/?id=56 Lance encounters a log in the road].
* There is an [https://web.archive.org/web/20131210130235/http://gprime.net/images/gifanimation/movie9.gif animated .gif] floating around the internet where someone wants to open a door. It proceeds to summon mecha, fire missiles, bash at it with oversized swords and hammers and finally drop a nuke whose explosion can be seen from space. When he is exhausted, the door finally swings open inwardly.
** The Japanese words at the start say say "Door won't open! Smash it down!!!" At the end, it says "if it doesn't work when you push it, try pulling it". Wise words, indeed.
* ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'': the one thing the [[Physical God]] Cole McGrath from ''Infamous'' can never defeat? ''[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/5/27/ A chainlink fence]''.
* ''[[
* ''[[The Way of the Metagamer]]'' parodies this [http://wayofthemetagamer.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/33451 here], although it's technically a justified example.
=== [[Web Original]] ===
* According to ''[[
{{quote|
** Not even ''ladders'' can let them bypass the fence! {{spoiler|They have to use footstools instead.}}
** A deleted scene had LordKat look at the fence...and then walk to the gate and enter there.
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* The short film ''[[College Saga]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPutYwiiE0o parodies] this (among many other video game tropes) by blocking the character's progress with a chair standing in the middle of the road.
* In a College Humor parody trailer for a [[Sims]] movie, a cop is standing on one side of a chest high, chainlink fence and literally calls in backup because, "There's no conceivable way to get past this fence!"
* In ''[[Two Best Friends Play]]: [[Captain America (
{{quote|
* Lampshaded in ''[[
{{quote|
** The basic trope is averted; the author occasionally uses cheats to let Gordon lift himself over a head-height barrier or up onto a slightly higher platform.
* They have fun with this in the [[Legend of Zelda the Abridged Series]] in Majora's Mask, even showing a clip where he climbs up a higher wall.
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* Referenced in [[The Best Page in The Universe|Maddox's]] [http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=signs review of] ''[[Signs]]'':
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* ''[[Cracked
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[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]
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