Ladder Physics: Difference between revisions

 

Another frequent trope is when a ladder with free space from both sides is only climbable from ''one'' side. This is done to avoid frustration (you don't want to climb a long ladder for ten seconds only to find out at the top that you climbed the wrong side and can't get up on the platform), though it can be annoying if you want to quickly latch onto a ladder to escape something on the ground. Besides, you'd think your character could just move to the other side of the ladder... Maybe they're too afraid to do something that risky?

 

* The earlier ''[[Castlevania]]'' games, while lacking in ladders, had stairs that behaved rather frustratingly: you couldn't jump on or off of them (until the SNES ones), and often you were attacked by [[Goddamned Bats]] as soon as you were situated atop them (though they at least couldn't [[Ledge Bats|make you fall to your doom]] while you were "glued" to the stairs). Even in the SNES games, it's still possible to fall ''through'' the stairs if you don't explicitly press Up or Down to climb them; this often results in death.

** ''[[Maze of Galious]]'', which ''La-Mulana'' is largely derived from, is much the same way with ladders.

 

** ''God of War II'' ups the ante by letting Kratos also climb the ''ceiling''. Not only can he still attack, but he can also catch an enemy with one blade while hanging on to the other, pull it towards him, and smash it into the ceiling several times while sticking to the ceiling like glue.

 

** Ladder jumping isn't so much of an issue for characters that don't suffer fall damage.

* The Game Boy Advance game based on ''[[Futari wa Pretty Cure]] Max Heart'' uses an especially lazy implementation. Grabbing onto ladders is ''automatic'' if you're in position to do so and not still moving up from a jump, and there's no way to let go other than jumping or reaching one end. On the positive (if unrealistic) side, you can jump at full height on ladders, so you can move up super-quickly by mashing the jump button.

 

* ''[[Half-Life]]'' - Freeman's HEV suit evidently has magnetic feet, because even during earth-shattering explosions, he's able to stick perfectly to the ladder without even taking his hands off the weapon. It's even possible to reload while on a ladder.

** This looks ridiculously stupid in multi-player games, watching players ''walk'' up ladders - even siller if they're crouching, because the player appears to be levitating up the ladder from a kneeling position. Egregious in supposedly realistic settings like Counter-Strike.

** It's notoriously hard to grab ladders on the way down in this game. Most players have learned to quick-save before even trying to descend a ladder, because of the sheer number of ways it can go wrong. That or players approach the top of the ladder while holding down the use key, the crouch key, the walk key, or a combination.

** Even better, you can [[Diagonal Speed Boost|walk and strafe up ladders simultaneously]] for a healthy speed boost.

* ''Return to [[Castle Wolfenstein]]'' takes the above example a little further: it's possible to not only reload and fire your weapon (even the minigun!) but also ''kick'' while climbing the ladder. This presumably means that your character is attached to the ladder by one foot.

** The game avoids the 360-degree rotation bit, though: if you aren't facing the ladder, you'll promptly fall off.

* In games like ''[[Quake]] 3'' that lack actual ladder behavior, some maps attempt to get around this by just launching the player upwards when they approach the ladder.

* The ladders in ''[[Quake]] 2'' are like glue: once you're attached to them, there's no way in Hell you're going to get off unless you've reached the top or bottom. Need to jump off? Not bloody likely.

*** The ladders make a reappearance in the ''Halo 3'' campaign.

* In the original ''[[Far Cry]]'', you couldn't use weapons on ladders, but the controls on the ladder are relative to how you got on the ladder. So it was possible to go down a ladder facing away from it, which also made it possible to run ''off'' the ladder to varying degrees of pain or death depending from how high you fell off.

 

 

* ''[[Chuckie Egg]]'' allows you to jump and catch onto a ladder, but you can't step off one midway unless there's a platform there. Also, if the bottom of a ladder is in mid-air, you can't let go; you must jump up to fall off the ladder. Finally, probably a glitch, but you can climb ladders ''sideways'', so that your character retains his normal walking animation.

 

* ''[[Legacy of the Wizard]]'', where it was a matter of course just to jump up all those zillions of long ladders you face, since it's faster than just pressing Up.

 

* ''[[Hitman]] 2: Silent Assassin'' takes this to ludicrous extremes: Climbing a ladder forces the camera in to 3rd person perspective, and it doesn't restrict your firing capabilities at all, meaning you can and are ''forced'' to watch Agent 47 run up a ladder in third person while contorting his body so much that he can fire a shotgun directly below and behind him.

** Though the climb may well eat into your rations.

* The guards in ''[[Thief]]: Deadly Shadows'' are completely incapable of dealing with ladders. If you ascend one, any guards chasing you will stand at the bottom, shaking their fists at you and shouting "[[What an Idiot!|How did you get up there?]]". Unless they're armed with a bow, in which case you're in ([[Annoying Arrows|minor]]) trouble.

 

* Ladders in ''[[Minecraft]]'' are subject to all kinds of weirdness. They seem to simply slow your fall when you occupy the same square as them, and move you upwards at the same rate when you move against them. This means, among other things, moving into a ladder square while falling at terminal velocity will instantly slow you, and it's possible to mine a block while facing away from the ladder you're on. This reaches ridiculous levels when you realize, with a bit of luck, you can place a ladder segment while in freefall, and instantly cancel your momentum with it.

** [[Giant Spiders|Spiders]] can climb up vertical walls, but any overhangs can stop their progress. Ladders, which barely have any width at all, can block a spider's climbing as well as a 1x1x1 cubic meter stone block can.

 

* Ladders and climbable surfaces in general are treated very much like ''Tomb Raider'', below, in the 3D ''[[The Legend of Zelda|Zelda]]'' games.

** There are some really long ladders can take an annoyingly long time to climb, especially in ''[[Ocarina of Time]]''. ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' speeds Link up a bit.

* ''[[Shadow Complex]]'' averts this by treating ladders fairly realistically. You can climb ladders as normal, you can climb them quickly up to the limits of your stamina (which quickly increases as you level), you can slide down them (friction burns are ignored, but later on you get armor, so then it's okay), shoot from them by holding on to the ladder with one hand (but you're not climbing up or down while you do this, and it takes a moment as you stop and pull out your firearm and put it away, and this doesn't address the issues of recoil while holding an AK-47 with one hand), ''reload'' with one hand (again, you're stuck on the ladder in one spot while you reload, with a lead-in and lead-out time), and once you get the jet pack, you can even slide ''up'' the ladder. Which looks kind of awesome.

 

* ''[[God Hand]]'' has a few ladders sprinkled throughout the game, but Gene never actually climbs them, he instead just jumps up and down to where they begin and end.

 

* Ladders aren't subject to many unusual movement styles in the ''[[Smackdown vs. Raw]]'' games, or the earlier Smackdown ones. Aside from being OK to dive off them onto someone and being able to walk away, or being able to smash someone with it and have the victim be able to walk away.

** [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|Which isn't that hard to believe]] [[Professional Wrestling|when you consider what those games are licensed on]].

** What makes the ladders even weirder is if you create a move ending in a Backstabber in Create-a-Finisher, the ladder ''will actually pop up into the air.''

 

* ''[[Project IGI]]'', a FPS, did third-person, unarmed ladder climbing back in 2000.

* Any of the [[Tom Clancy]] games, especially ''[[Rainbow Six]]'', have rather realistic ladder behavior: all limbs are required for operation, and you often can't look any further than 90 degrees left or right while climbing. Since the person on the ladder is essentially a sitting duck, it's usually a good idea to have the rest of the squad cover the top and bottom of the ladder.

* In ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'', you cannot fire weapons or do anything else that requires the use of your hands (except throw grenades) while climbing a ladder. You can't see your hands, but as far as I remember you only have hands during one cutscene and while you're actually holding a weapon.

* ''[[Riddick|The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay]]'' also has good ladder physics. You cannot do anything else while climbing.

* ''[[Far Cry]] 2'' doesn't have very many ladders, but yes, you climb them pretty realistically and can see your arms grabbing the rungs.

* ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' averts any kind of ladder related weapon using nonsense despite running on the newest version of the Source engine. The fact that a survivor character can still hold onto a ladder with a couple dozen common infected standing on their head is another story.

** Ladders are still major deathtraps in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' anyway, though - especially when you have to do anything beyond reach the top of the "ladder," which is common when playing as the Infected.

** A heavy downside in ''Battlefield 2'' and 2142 is that a soldier who gets killed while holding on to a ladder is always instantly eliminated without any hope of being revived by a medic.

* In ''[[Killzone]]'', your character puts their weapon away and you actually see their hands grip the rungs of the ladder from the first person view. When going down you grab the side of the ladder and slide down. Both are activated with a use key.

* In ''[[Shadow Warrior]]'', while climbing a ladder you cannot use weapons, or even look around.

* ''[[Operation Flashpoint]]'' and ''[[Arm A]]'', being heavily-realistic shooters, require you to put your weapon away before climbing ladders. Oddly enough, at least in ''ARMA II'', your hands and feet never line up with the rungs.

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' avoids this in a rather nasty manner. In the few places where ladders can be found, the player is treated to short-but-too-long Resident Evil style animation of a ladder being ascended and stared at, while their character position remains unchanged at the base until the animation ends, and groups of aggressive monsters that see through invisibility effects wander around behind them.

 

* The ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' series has the "jump up the ladder" variant.

** Also deserving of mention: in the first two games of the series, attaching Rock/Mega Man to a ladder reversed his direction (so if facing right when initiating a climb on a latter, the character would face left when reaching the top, when reaching the bottom or when jumping off. This can make for an amusing effect if the ladder is just above ground level, but still reachable when standing on the ground (one such ladder exists in Elec Man's stage): hold "down" and Mega Man will continually switch direction rapidly.

 

* ''[[Myst|Uru]]'' had fairly realistic ladders - it's a puzzle adventure, not an FPS - though with the obnoxious tendency to shunt you into third-person when you get on or off. There's also the quirk that, to avoid making multiple "climbing" animations, all the rungs on all the ladders in ''every universe'' are the same distance apart - even the ones you improvised by breaking a rope bridge.

 

* ''[[Gothic]]'' ladders tend to interrupt long falls safely but otherwise behave correctly. Your character can't do anything but climb or let go while on the ladder and getting hurt while climbing will knock him off of it for good.

* Averted in ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]''; the player cannot take any actions while on a ladder, both arms and legs are required, and there is no automatic climbing, although being a third-person shooter, the camera can be rotated almost all the way around Vincent.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles The Crystal Bearers]]'', you climb ladders without even touching them, instead using Layle's powers to pull yourself up to the top of the ladder instantly, making you wonder why you can only do this when a ladder is present.

 

* ''[[Gears of War]]'' averts this trope in the most badass way possible. Players climb ladders with one arm, leaping from rung to rung with pull-ups, and climb down ladders by leaping off the top, grabbing the ladder half way down to slow their fall and flip back upright, then drop the rest of the way to the ground. You can't do anything else during these scripted climbing sequences, but since ladders are extremely rare, never very long and you climb them ridiculously fast it doesn't really matter.

 

* Averted in ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'': the gun goes away, and you climb the ladder slowly (though you can speed it up by pressing A).

** Even better is that climbing up the wrong side of the ladder doesn't mean you have to drop down; just hit left or right on the joystick and you swing around to the correct side.

 

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[[Category:Artistic License Physics]]

[[Category:Video Game Physics]]