Critical Existence Failure: Difference between revisions

* Averted in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', as every creature works off a surprisingly complex wound-handling system, in that every hit does a certain amount of damage to a certain part of the body. Many of the kills are done with blood loss, usually either from severed limbs or hacked out chunks. This means that even if the creature is comparatively healthy, it could take a random gash and die rather slowly, or that a creature missing most of its limbs, eyes, and internal organs can still take a few hits if it hadn't bled out already. Not to mention (most) creatures feel pain, and thus a single wound in the right spot (like a broken leg) can effectively cripple a creature and make it almost completely defenseless in a fight.

** Played straight in the case of the game's undead. Since they lacked most of the components (including most importantly a circulatory system which would let them bleed to death), of the game's ridiculously complicated combat system, they tended to be both buggy and invincible, so they were patched to have hit points.

* Averted in the ''[[Carmageddon]]'' series, where the damage system indicates damage on different parts of the car - the chassis, engine, drive shaft etc. A critical level of damage to the engine would cause the car to explode, while damage on the drive shaft would cause the vehicle to simply stall. At the same time the vehicle gets visibly and functionally shaken up starting with the bodywork and windows, and with the help of only a few land-mines it will become so mangled up the only direction you will be able to drive in will be a circle. How a vehicle takes damage also depends on the shape of the car. A long and narrow vehicle like a drag racer is less likely to survive a high speed head on collision as the damage would directly transfer along the body to the engine. It doesn't help that naturally the drag-racer in the game has the highest acceleration stat and even the slightest mistake will cause its front wheels to lift off the ground rendering it uncontrollable. Also if pushed into a sharp edge like the corner of a building an opponent's vehicle can be split in half.

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' is legendary for a particular use of this—Solid Snake has cigarettes, which allow him to see hidden laser traps and keep his hands steady while sniping, at the cost of his HP bleeding down slowly. It's impossible for Snake to smoke himself to death—a small blip of health will always remain—but then, if he gets so much as touched, he dies (presumably of spontaneous lung cancer).

* In the online game ''[[League of Legends]]'', there is a Champion, Trynmadere, whose Ultimate ability gives him a buff which prevents him from dying.

** To expand on this; it doesn't prevent him losing health or getting hit by status effects, it simply prevents him going below 1 health. So the lightest tap when it wears off means he's dead. Ideally, you use his heal before this happens.

* Played straight with the title character of ''[[Metal Arms|Metal Arms: Glitch in the System]]'', but done to [[Dead Baby Comedy|hilarious]] effect with the enemy [[Mooks]]. While enemy robots only die ([[Explosive Instrumentation|explosively]]) when they take maximum damage, their bodies become increasingly damaged if you fire at specific limbs, often flailing about uselessly; you can even sever arms or decapitate them, and they'll keep running around helplessly until you deliver the final blow. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] by the fact that they are robots (the fact that Glitch remains fine until out of energy can be explained by the fact that it is implied he is a piece of [[Lost Technology]] left behind by [[Ancient Precursors]]).

* The opposite of this trope happens in the original ''[[F-Zero]]''. If your racer has less than 1/3 of its HP left, it starts going more slowly.

* A bit of both in the old DOS game ''[[Video Game/Terra Nova|Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri]]''. You and your [[Powered Armor]] had three health meters: Armour, which would recover over time when not getting horribly shot, suit systems which could be damaged or destroyed under heavy fire, resulting in effects like your weapons no longer functioning, your sensors or video display glitching out, and health, which generally only took damage in the same way as your suit systems, i.e, if you sustained several hits. Only by losing all your health would you die; the suit was seemingly able to survive the most ''unholy'' poundings. It wasn't totally averting the trope however: Certain teammates carried an ASF (auxilliary suit function, basically a special weapon or device) called the PBA Repair Kit which allowed them to fix up your suit systems but ''not'' your health. You could be down to your last hit point but have your suit repaired good as new, but one bad hit and you die (and dying always equals your suit exploding and roasting you alive inside regardless of how damaged it itself was). The only way to recover health was through a different ASF called the aptly-named Auto-Doc.

* Averted in ''[[Betrayal at Krondor]]'' and its [[Spiritual Sequel]] ''[[Betrayal in Antara]]''. In those games, characters have stamina points and health points (Which cannot be reduced until all stamina points are gone). Once a character starts losing health points, their base statistics for all skills drop proportionately to simulate the character being wounded. This means that the lower your HP gets in a fight, the less likely that you will be able to defeat your opponents unless you take some action to treat your injuries.

* Averted in ''[[X (video game)|X2: The Threat]]'' and later games in the [[X (video game)|X-Universe]]. Once the shields go down, the ship starts taking damage to the hull. When hull integrity goes below ~85%, the ship starts to lose speed, and upgrades and weapons randomly break.

** The Boron-designed [[Lightning Gun|Ion Disruptor]] takes advantage of this mechanic, using its single point of hull damage to maximize the time to strip equipment from the target to clear the way for [[Boarding Party|boarding parties]].

* In ''[[Thwaite]]'', even if all ten villagers have to crowd into a single house, the game goes on.

* In ''[[FHBG]]'', after the player takes five hits, [[Game Over|the game is over]].

 

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