Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Difference between revisions

** 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.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' also contains some particularly irritating examples of this. They don't mark the end of the game world, nor are they a plot element - they just make it take a couple more minutes to get from place to place.

*** 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|FFXI]] knows what I'm talking about.

** 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...

* 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|Invisible Walls]] by the game designers becomes apparent, e.g. when the player cannot cross some pieces of rubble, despite obviously clearing them by a huge margin. On the other hand, even an unmodified Acrobatics skill, in the upper ranges of what is normally attainable, enables the player to reach the roof tops in several of the cities, and from there the city walls and thus the outside of the city - which should have been kept inaccessible, since this reveals that outside world is only an empty, low-resolution copy of the proper game world, which one reaches by exiting through the gates. In the expansion pack ''Shivering Isles'' some of the guardians patrolling the landscape are stymied by a combination of ankle deep water - which they refused to cross - and a slope that was ''just'' too steep to be climbed at their normal walking speed, so that they ended up treading in place for minutes on end.

** This is a major step backwards from ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'', where you could climb, jump, or levitate over any barrier, and wade, swim, or walk across any body of water.

** 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.

** Averted in [[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]--there aren't any doors with inexplicably broken locks, and Harry can climb just about any ledge.

*** 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.

** 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.

* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', if you attempt to exit the first area of the game (which is the area around Alec's home), or try to go to Argilla Pass before you're supposed to, you will bump into an invisible wall and receive a message that reads, "There are ants at your feet. You might accidentally step on them, so please don't continue in that direction." ''Ants.''

** This is just an example of the series' quirky humor. It's parody if anything.

* 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.

* 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.

** 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.

* To people confined to wheelchairs, their whole surroundings can seem like one of these, especially in places that lack handicapped-friendly architecture.

 

 

== Film ==

** 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."

 

== Webcomics ==

** Another one from the same comic features [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''.

** 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.

 

* 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!"

{{quote|'''Matt:''' I'm not super enough or soldier enough to go up these one foot tall sandbags! ''50 million dollars well spent!''}}

* Lampshaded in ''[[Freeman's Mind]]'' on multiple occasions as Gordon complains about bullet-proof glass in exit doors, invulnerable doors, and the many other inconveniences he faces.