...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Take Cover!
- 358 statements
- 67 feature instances
- 144 referencing feature instances
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For a long time, video game protagonists either relied on dodging if they were One Hit Point Wonders, or simply soaked up the damage if they were Made of Iron. Taking cover was certainly possible, but it simply consisted of stepping behind walls. Then the system changed. Cover and systems for using it effectively have become automated to an extent. The first examples of formalization like this in First and Third Person Shooters were "duck," "lean left" and "lean right" keys present for quick peeks and potshots, often inherited from Stealth Games. Pressing a button causes your character to press up against nearby objects, sidle left and right along them, and peek around corners. With another button, one can either fire blindly, or expose oneself to rapidly aim and shoot. A third person shooter with a cover system is a member of the "cover-based shooter" sub-genre. Many cover systems exaggerate the safety of cover by allowing the player to see around corners the character can't (some first person games even jump to a 3rd-person camera when sidling against cover for this reason,) allowing them to pre-aim or designate targets from behind cover, rendering them invisible to enemies while they lean around corners, or even letting them fire aimed shots from behind cover. In essence, this is an inversion of Behind the Black. Games based on this trope are guaranteed to be full of waist-high obstacles to duck behind, no matter what environment you're in, and they're all inexplicably bulletproof. In a strategy game, Geo Effects might provide a defensive bonus for units in cover, or Garrisonable Structures for infantry to use as cover. See also Corridor Cubbyhole Run, a favorite level design choice for a cover-based shooter; and Die, Chair, Die! for destructible objects, which might be good cover exactly once. And please, don't try to take cover behind the random barrels of explosives. Using a person as cover is its own trope. If you can pick up your cover and move it around, then that's Deployable Cover. While not a new concept (as certain games are made so tough you want to find a barrier between you and your enemy even if you don't have a formalized cover system), the wild success of Gears of War led to its replication in a long series of what are effectively Follow the Leader games. It's basically RPG Elements for gaming, and a reflection of changing tastes. |
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WinBack (1999) came out four years (two if you only know about the PS2 port) before Kill.Switch featuring a similar cover system, but lacking the blind-fire and move-and-shoot elements of Kill.Switch. WinBack 2: Project Poseidon (2006) combined the cover system of its predecessor with the Over the Shoulder perspective of Resident Evil 4. WinBack 2 released in early 2006, over half a year before Gears of War. |
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Batman: Arkham Asylum and its sequel use a limited cover system, but Batman, who Doesn't Like Guns and adheres to a no killing code, doesn't shoot his enemies. Rather, he can throw batarangs (and a few other gadgets) and ambush patrolling goons from cover positions. | |
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kill.switch (2003) by Namco can be credited for being Trope Codifier and Trope Namer of the whole "Third-Person Shooter Cover System"™ gameplay mechanic. However, despite being a good game and a multi-platform release, it wasn't a massive blockbuster hit and only a modest number of people remember it as the pioneer of the third-person shooter cover system. Of course, one of those people was Cliffy B. And despite him giving the game credit at every opportunity, it's still obscure. Despite not being as well known, Kill.Switch inspired the cover mechanic in not only Gears of War, but also other third-person shooters, like the 2006 shooters Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Rogue Trooper, and Rainbow Six Vegas, as well as the later Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune which were demonstrated months before the release of Gears Of War. |
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Company of Heroes has an extensive cover system for its infantry units. The hard counter is, as in real life, grenades, flamethrowers, mortars and flanking. | |
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Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has a rather nicely executed version. Walk up to, say, a crate, and your character will automatically crouch just low enough so that they can shoot over it, while exposing himself to as little incoming fire as possible, at which point you can press the crouch button to get completely behind cover. He will also lean around corners automatically, though this doesn't work as well. | |
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The Killzone series from the second game onward very prominently uses a cover system. Certainly useful, although listening to your allies yell at you to take cover can get annoying at times. | |
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Destiny and its sequel both share a somewhat rarely used, but still present system where players’ Guardians will duck in and out from behind waist-high walls and objects automatically if approached in a crouch. In the sequel, Titans (and any allied players nearby) can use their Rally Barricade this way as well. | |
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F.E.A.R. 3 uses a system similar to the one from Crysis, although the player does press a button to stick to cover and can emerge to fire, which is referred to as "active cover". | |
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Scarface: The World Is Yours also has a formalised cover system, but unlike the other adaptation of an Al Pacino-helmed gangster flick, it isn't that necessary until quite late-game. | |
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In Grand Theft Auto V, cars are much more durable, making this a more viable tactic. What's even more interesting is that in the eighth-generation ports of the game, the viewpoint still stays in first-person when the latter camera mode is used, although this can be changed to a Rainbow Six: Vegas-style third person cover mode. | |
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The first Dawn of War also had a cover system and assault units were also the great counter. That or just dropping an artillery shell on top of the cowering squad, which frequently blows them out of cover. | |
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The Bureau: XCOM Declassified takes the mechanics of XCOM: Enemy Unknown (partial or full cover that offers concealment against enemy fire) and mates it to TPS gameplay. GameInformer said the result felt like the later Mass Effect titles. | |
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While Metal Gear Solid V lacks a "snap-to-cover" button, pressing the aim button while crouched behind something will cause Snake to stand up to aim. | |
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In the 2012 remake XCOM: Enemy Unknown cover specifically makes targets harder to hit, with terrain features providing either half or full cover against enemy fire. Snipers can take a perk to double the amount of cover they get, and gunfire that misses units in cover may instead hit the cover and destroy it. Rockets are useful for destroying both the cover and units behind it. | |
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Red Orchestra 2 and its standalone expansion Rising Storm do this more realistically than most. Cover doesn't consist of a convenient series of waist-high barriers; one's head could be exposed, and blind-firing over cover is actually blind. | |
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Valkyria Chronicles, being a fantasy WWII game, has plenty of sandbag walls and trenches to crouch behind or inside. Crouching also renders a unit immune to critical hits (even if they're standing on the wrong side of a sandbag wall) and increases their chance of outright dodging attacks. One of the best uses for your tanks in the game is as mobile cover for your infantry (like real-life tanks at the time.) | |
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Space Invaders (1978), the Trope Maker of the Shoot 'Em Up genre, was the first game to use a type of cover mechanic, where the player's ship can take cover behind destructible walls. The 2002 remake Space Raiders used a similar type of cover mechanic, where the player's character can take cover behind destructible objects. |
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The Rolling Thunder games were the first Run & Gun and Side-Scrolling games to feature a cover mechanic. They were developed by Namco, who later created the pioneeering cover shooters Time Crisis and Kill.Switch. Sega incorporated a cover mechanic in some of their side-scrolling games soon after, including the Shinobi Hack and Slash Platformers from 1987 onwards, and particularly the Stealth-Based shooter Bonanza Bros (1990). Capcom's Code Name: Viper (1990) was inspired by Rolling Thunder and used the same type of cover mechanic. |
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007: From Russia with Love was doing Gears of War-style one-button-to-use cover before Gears of War was. Both Bond and enemy mooks can use both objects and walls as cover, and enough gunfire can damage or destroy it. | |
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The first two Max Payne titles don't have a cover system but the third game does let you duck behind and shoot from cover, with an option to blind fire. The Bullet Time meter replenishes while you're getting shot at in cover, making turtling an equally viable tactic to running and gunning. | |
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A later 2D Metal Gear game, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (2000), also implemented the peek-around-the-corner cover mechanic of Metal Gear Solid. The Tactical RPG Gaiden Games, Metal Gear Ac!d (2004) and Metal Gear Ac!d 2 (2005), also feature a cover mechanic similar to Metal Gear Solid. | |
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Persona 5: The protagonist can hide in the shadows behind walls and furniture while sneaking around, stopping enemies from attacking or even noticing them. | |
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GoldenEye (Wii) doesn't have an explicit cover system but if you're behind a solid object, aiming down the sights will have Bond stand up to see over the obstruction to return fire. The video game adaptation of Quantum of Solace does have a genuine cover system. When you take cover it snaps the perspective to a third-person camera. |
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Miracle of Sound had fun with it in his song "Shooter Guy". The chorus is "Cause I'm the shooter guy, shooter guy, laws of physics and logic need not apply. Cause I'm the shooter guy, shooter guy. As long as I got my wall I will never di-ie-eee". And then there's this verse. | |
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Resident Evil 4 (2005), developed by Shinji Mikami at Capcom, featured a cover mechanic at a few scripted instances of the game, in places where enemies pack heavy firepower. The game also introduced the Over the Shoulder perspective now common in third-person cover shooters. Resident Evil 5 features an improved cover mechanic in its gameplay, but like its predecessor, you only get to use it during a couple of scripted instances. Incidentally, it becomes available after you start encountering enemies that pack heavy firepower. Resident Evil 6 finally allows you to take cover whenever you like. |
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Resident Evil 5 features an improved cover mechanic in its gameplay, but like its predecessor, you only get to use it during a couple of scripted instances. Incidentally, it becomes available after you start encountering enemies that pack heavy firepower. Resident Evil 6 finally allows you to take cover whenever you like. | |
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The trailers in Serious Sam 3: BFE make fun of cover mechanics. The game's slogan is also "No cover, all man!" | |
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Cover is very important in The Godfather: The Game, as Tommygun and shotgun users show up quite early while you're still not Made of Iron and can rip you to bits quite fast if you're exposed to fire. | |
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Rainbow Six games have had peeking around corners since the first game (like in Metal Gear Solid), but Vegas added the "jump to third person" type, where the player can shoot around the corner (like in Metal Gear Solid 2) and blind fire (like in Kill Switch). Vegas 2 also had a cover penetration system like Modern Warfare and World at War, along with shields that could be used to protect yourself while on the move, at the cost of taking one of your weapon slots. | |
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In Fallout 4, you automatically peek out of cover when using iron sights, and the enemies can properly take cover now as well. | |
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Satellite Reign: If you point your cursor near a wall or barricade, it will turn into a triangle, indicating that your Agents can hide behind it. | |
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Mass Effect included a cover system where you would automatically stick to walls/waist high crates that you got close to. It was generally effective but could be annoying if you didn't want to take cover and the game decided you did. Fortunately once your powers evolved far enough you didn't need to use it. | |
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Mass Effect 2 improved this mechanic by having a get into/out of cover button. Unfortunately, at least on the Xbox 360 it's mapped to the same button as "run" and nothing cuts down your life expectancy quite like getting stuck to a wall when you try to run away from a charging krogan... Even better: jumping over the cover you were trying to get behind. The run/get-into-cover/get-out-of-cover button is also the vault-over-obstacle button. That said, when it did work, having the same button do all three things could have some awesome effects, like having Shepard sprint towards cover and slide the last five or ten feet like a baseball player. It depended partially on player reflexes and largely on the layout of the room. Also, unlike the first game, where you could ignore cover once you got powerful enough, without being in cover in the sequels you will die very very quickly. With exception of the Vanguard class, the only class in the series who doesn't need to use cover at all. Due to the fact that their combat is based around charging straight at enemies and engaging in point-blank range. PC players have it much easier given that a mouse and keyboard has a lot more available buttons than the typical controller. "Take Cover" is your "Use object" key, "vault cover" is "use"+"walk forward", and sprint is its own key entirely. |
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Mass Effect 3 finally got the formula balanced right, and its gameplay is typically heralded as the apex of the franchise. What's a bit ironic is that all three Mass Effect games not only came out after Gears had successfully codified the trope, but use the same Game Engine (the one belonging to Unreal Tournament 3) that Gears did. | |
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Speaking of waist-high cover being everywhere, the Mass Effect games seem to treat jersey barriers the way other games treat wooden crates. This is used to mess with the player's expectations on at least one mission in a massive spaceship where these waist-high barriers are everywhere, but enemies are nowhere to be found for the first ten or fifteen minutes. | |
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In Retro City Rampage, a homage to 2D retro games, there is a cover mechanic. | |
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Star Wars: The Old Republic is the first Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game to feature a full cover system. It's used exclusively by the Smuggler and Imperial Agent classes, and several of their abilities can ONLY be used if they are behind cover. It's an interesting example, as well: once the Agent and Smuggler reach level ten and gain their advanced classes, their cover ability creates a red or blue respectively Beehive Barrier for them to hide behind if no other cover is available. It provides a slightly smaller cone of cover than many of the world objects players can take advantage of, so it's for use as a last resort or if none of said objects are in the area. Boss areas, even if they're not obviously so to begin with and especially those tailored for the cover classes (i.e., those in their story areas), usually have plenty of cover available. |
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Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is not, strictly speaking, a shooter, but it does have a cover system. Monkey's ranged attack is awkward and has a low ammo count, so firing from cover is not practical most of the time. Rather, Monkey and Trip tend to take turns drawing fire and advancing under fire, so Monkey can close to melee range. In the DLC campaign, Pigsy is a ranged fighter so he plays it much straighter, and uses his grenades, traps and rifle from cover. |
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The Time Crisis Light Gun Games use a cover mechanic, operated by a foot pedal on the arcade machines. Ducking into cover is also the reload method. The game's cover mechanic predates all of the shooters mentioned above, though its creator Namco was later responsible for Kill.Switch. Razing Storm, also by Namco, uses a similar idea, except that you have a huge Made of Indestructium shield which you hide behind. The Police 911 series is an expansion of this idea, using motion sensors instead of a foot pedal. The first game got ported to the PS2. Guess how that went. |
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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine gets in on this as well, and their tagline is intended as a deliberate Take That! against Gears of War: "Cover is for the weak!" (This is probably also a sly reference to the fact that, in the tabletop game, Space Marines rarely gain any advantage for being in cover. The save it provides is worse than their armor save, and you can only use one save against any attack.) Though there are times when it is advisable to take cover at least long enough for your armor to regenerate. | |
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The Police 911 series is an expansion of this idea, using motion sensors instead of a foot pedal. The first game got ported to the PS2. Guess how that went. | |
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The Division and its sequel feature a fairly robust cover system aided by a context-sensitive button. Once you snap to cover, you can aim your crosshairs at any other valid cover and then sprint to it, during which you can also reload without pausing. | |
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In World of Tanks, buildings and other terrain features can be used to block enemy fire, though artillery can bypass some of it from the right angle. Some buildings can also be destroyed by shooting or running over them. | |
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Metal Gear Solid (1998) featured a peek-around-the-corner cover mechanic, where Solid Snake can press against walls and peek around corners. Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) expanded on its predecessor's cover mechanic, introducing a shoot-around-the-corner cover system, where Snake or Raiden can press against walls and aim from behind them, to shoot from around the corner of a wall. This shoot-around-the-corner cover system has also been employed in later stealth-based games, like the Splinter Cell series, Everything or Nothing (2004), and Tactical Shooters like Rainbow Six Vegas (2006). Metal Gear Solid 4 features an improved cover system that is more similar to the Kill Switch cover system. While Metal Gear Solid V lacks a "snap-to-cover" button, pressing the aim button while crouched behind something will cause Snake to stand up to aim. |
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Made even better in the second one, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You haven't lived until you've pulled an enemy off the cliff you're hanging from, or, even better, doing a 300 style kick to knock enemy's out of their hanging cover to their deaths. Tends to elicit curses in online matches. | |
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution, unlike its predecessor, uses a cover system for both combat and stealth. | |
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Emperor: Battle for Dune introduced dedicated areas of "infantry rock" where infantry could take cover and be safe either from sandworm attacks or being run over by enemy vehicles (this probably being a balancing decision as otherwise infantry would be too underpowered). Strictly speaking infantry rock was around in previous games — it's just that because their effects were limited to being impassable to vehicles, they didn't fall under this trope (the 'safe from being run over' thing still applies, of course). |
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The Syphon Filter series, unfortunately, had to wait until the fifth game for a proper snap-to-cover system. | |
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Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is openly inspired by XCOM 2, and uses a similar cover mechanic: High Cover and Low Cover reduce the enemy's chances of hitting your team, and your team's chances of hitting the enemy. | |
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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, from the same studio, is much the same. The additional counters in this case are the assault unit, melee-focused soldiers that can charge the enemy via teleportation, jetpacks, or just utilizing Attack! Attack! Attack! and cut them to pieces with melee weapons (like Chainswords), or smashing that cover with heavier units, frequently vehicles. Vehicles can be used in cover also! The first Dawn of War also had a cover system and assault units were also the great counter. That or just dropping an artillery shell on top of the cowering squad, which frequently blows them out of cover. For that matter, cover is supremely important in the tabletop version of Warhammer 40K, especially for units with poor armour like Imperial Guardsmen. |
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Perfect Dark Zero has an "aim from behind cover, pop out and shoot" system similar to third-person shooters. | |
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Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds allows human vehicles hide in forests, granting a few seconds of protection from Martian fire. | |
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Crysis 2 introduced a subtle example. When the player is ducking behind low cover, or standing near the convex corner of a wall, attempting to aim down the weapon's sights while looking at the edge of the cover will make the Player Character lean over or out of the cover to take shots while only exposing a portion of their profile. The player never "sticks" to the cover, which tends to make the system a little less obvious than many other examples. | |
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Infantry in EndWar need cover or buildings to garrison to survive in combat. In fact, engineers are specifically stated to be good against all vehicles in the game, but only if they're in cover or a building while fighting vehicles. | |
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Cabal for the arcade had destructible terrain that you could take cover behind from enemy shots. Of course, those damn helicopters would blow your cover away and still hit you. Blood Brothers, the spiritual sequel, was much the same, though there are entire levels with zero cover. |
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Razing Storm, also by Namco, uses a similar idea, except that you have a huge Made of Indestructium shield which you hide behind. | |
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Ghost Hunter had a cover system. In first person mode Lazarus could lean out from cover and shoot with almost no risk to himself. | |
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Phantom Doctrine: Shots never miss in this game, but cover will reduce the amount of damage taken. | |
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Cover is the main mechanic of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. It even has a cover-to-cover system that makes Matt automatically run from place to place at the press of a button. | |
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Grand Theft Auto IV , released two years after Gears of War, uses an almost identical cover system. You can take cover behind walls, barriers, and vehicles (a real-life tactic used by police) but you may want to be careful about the last one since cars will explode if shot enough times. In Grand Theft Auto V, cars are much more durable, making this a more viable tactic. What's even more interesting is that in the eighth-generation ports of the game, the viewpoint still stays in first-person when the latter camera mode is used, although this can be changed to a Rainbow Six: Vegas-style third person cover mode. |
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Cover is very important in the XCOM games since even the best soldiers in the best armour can be taken out in one shot. Grenades, bigger bombs, and powerful weapons can all be used to destroy cover and each terrain object has a number of 'hit points' that indicates how sturdy it is. Cover is also very important when avoiding explosive weaponry. Because of the way explosions are handled, a blast will destroy a wall or object, but if someone is hiding behind the wall or object, it'll still stop the blast. This is why doubling up on firing rockets or using the autocannon's high explosive rounds in burst mode is highly recommended for hunting out aliens in cover. One rocket or shell destroys the cover, the others get the alien lurking behind the wall. In the 2012 remake XCOM: Enemy Unknown cover specifically makes targets harder to hit, with terrain features providing either half or full cover against enemy fire. Snipers can take a perk to double the amount of cover they get, and gunfire that misses units in cover may instead hit the cover and destroy it. Rockets are useful for destroying both the cover and units behind it. Another Spiritual Successor of the game, Xenonauts, features more sophisticated cover mechanics than the original, as the AI loves kneeling behind boulders and other low cover (and shooting). |
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Headhunter focused on sneaking around areas by hugging the wall until the right time to strike. | |
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Despite not being as well known, Kill.Switch inspired the cover mechanic in not only Gears of War, but also other third-person shooters, like the 2006 shooters Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Rogue Trooper, and Rainbow Six Vegas, as well as the later Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune which were demonstrated months before the release of Gears Of War. | |
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The main concept behind Full Spectrum Warrior is to advance your squads from cover to cover, making them (and enemies) impervious to bullets from certain angles. Since this is a tactical game and not a shooter, your soldiers will complain loudly if they're dangerously exposed, and there's a key that'll—in theory—have them scramble to the nearest cover quickly. | |
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Vanquish, developed by Shinji Mikami and published by Sega, is a unique variation. While cover exists, you're quite a bit more robust than most cover-using protagonists, and have a number of high-speed moves that allow you to easily dodge enemy fire while retaliating. When you're dangerously low on health, Bullet Time kicks in, allowing you find the necessary chest-high walls easily. The score system also penalizes you based on how long you've spent your time in cover. | |
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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune utilizes an impressive cover system - duck behind chest-high wall, lean from behind tree, hang from cliff and chin up to shoot. The game's cover mechanic was demonstrated at E3 2006, months before the release of Gears Of War. Like Cliffy B, the creators of Uncharted have cited Kill.Switch as inspiration for its cover system. Made even better in the second one, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You haven't lived until you've pulled an enemy off the cliff you're hanging from, or, even better, doing a 300 style kick to knock enemy's out of their hanging cover to their deaths. Tends to elicit curses in online matches. |
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Infantry units in World in Conflict could take cover within buildings and forests. The former rendered them immune to all damage—until the building was leveled by enemy fire and everyone still inside died. The latter gave them a small defense bonus, protected them from being run over, and rendered them invisible to all non-infantry unit as long as they didn't shoot. That last ability gave rise to the strategy where Anti-Air players drop paratroopers into forest near enemy positions and have them passively provide targeting data for the less mobile and shorter-sighted but hard hitting units. | |
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