And how exceptionally easy it is to knock every single person you hit out without a single failure.

I think I get what you're saying; I just find it kinda funny - again, just my opinion - that if we're discussing "real world" as it relates to gaming, that pretty much knocks out the many of games simply based on their setups. Robots, space explosions, dragons, magic, etc.

Like gamefood I agree that animals dropping loot that they couldn't possibly have inside them is kind of odd, but at the same time, how realistic is it that I'm wandering the countryside slaughtering random animals?

Or, like Melhelix says, he's killed twenty-seven goblins and finds a four-hundred-year-old book that doesn't fall apart. To me, the "realism" is lost after killing those goblins. When's the last time anyone's actually done that?

I guess my point is, most games require some sort of suspension of disbelief in order to get into the game world; or perhaps I'm just looking at it too literally and see it more as "things you don't like in games" as opposed to "things you don't like in games because they don't fit with the way the real world works." I hope that makes sense. Not picking on anyone.

And now you know why the Mass Effect series is so popular. It's a sad, broken reminder of what we've become... space conquering apes with itchy trigger fingers and short attention spans.

Oh yes I forgot to mention that. I remembering reading that that is in fact a very difficult thing to accomplish, along with takedowns in general.

Here is another one that really irked me: exhibit A managing to destroy exhibit B. I'm looking at you Civilization!

My kids, 4 and 6 year old, love playing Enchanted Cave on my Nexus 7. The 6 year old accepts the rouge-like setting, but the 4 year old needs to rationalise it. There are levels with no monsters, just treasure, so he says "there was no food so all the monsters died". He asked me where all the money in the dungeon came from, and I said that it was from people who died while going down. Not a great explanation, but he accepted it.

I'm sure that some years from now he'll be making threads like this on the interwebs.

I wonder how your kids would react to the French fries in red carton boxes one finds in Darkstone's dungeons, it's very atypical food for a high fantasy RPG, not that it's any weirder than finding fresh cherries lying around on the dungeon floor but french fries? In a red carton? Gimmie a break!

When they give things the wrong name in general. An obvious example would be most fantasy games, where they give weapons the wrong names. Swords are exceptionally bad.
What most fantasy games seem to call a longsword would be an arming sword, or they could just call it a "1-handed sword", and be done with it (thus not differentiating between different types of 1-handed swords, as naming conventions for swords can be rather confusing). A longsword is a 2-handed sword. It can in a pinch be used in 1 hand, but it is not meant to be used that way. Also, bastard sword. That's another tricky one, as we don't quite know what constitutes a bastard sword. The few places that actually did use that term don't use it quite the same way. Most historians that I've either talked to or head talking about the subject seem to think that they should just call them longswords, as all bastard swords were longswords.

I have less of an issue with mail being called chainmail tough, even though that seem to have been a term invented by people playing/making roleplaying games. The reason for this is quite simply because it seem to be referring to a sub-type of mail and thus makes things a tad bit clearer. Also, there is nothing else called a "chainmail", thus there is no real confusion to be found here.

Also, while we are on the subject, why does weapons & armour seem to be so incredibly heavy in games? A simple arming sword would weigh just over 1kg, a longsword about 1-1.7kg. In some games they weigh several times that.

I believe the entire mushroom thing was something lost in translation. The sidekick was hungry and wished for sun to help the mushrooms grow (in flavor - sun dried shitake are more flavorful than fresh). Okami misunderstood and believed that sunlight would literally make mushrooms grow. Of course the mushrooms grew when exposed to sunlight because of Okami's nature (she can determined what thrives in the light and what is banished from it - and can change such designations at will). I remember it being pretty funny in the original Japanese - not so much in English.

Have you ever played a little indie game called Crypt Worlds?
It kind of parodies and exaggerates issues like these in old video games. It's disturbing, yet intriguing.

XD that's hilarious!

Well... There are spots on skull which, when hit, cause various degrees of brain trauma - of course, hitting them in real conditions is difficult, and they can have effects from just dazing the opponent to knocking him unconscious. I would like to see that implemented in a game - Thief actually implemented knocking out by hitting enemies in a specific location, but it was still too reliable. See, in most games, knocking enemies out tends to be the most efficient way of getting around them, as opposed to just... Well, sneaking around, whereas I believe that should be the last resort. Oh well.

I'm fairly sure there was a bug in the original civ where spearmen could destroy a plane :-P

Thorton: ‘What the hell… are you doing? Knocking people out by hitting them over the head, that’s movie stuff.’

Madison: ‘That’s why I have one of your shock traps too.’

Thorton: ‘Arrrragh!’

damn ti now i need to read all those fucking comics and im only in 2012 !