The entirety of Second Sight. The psychic powers you get are so much fun to play with, I particularly enjoyed taking control of enemies and having them all kill each other while you hide away safely round a corner.

Replayable games where you unlock new starting options. This tends to be a roguelike or roguelite thing, but I really enjoy unlocking new races, character classes etc. and having numerous ways to play the game. FTL and Into the Breach are both excellent examples of this, Tales of Maj'Eyal is too.


Edit: Oh, and pointless counters of things you've done in game. Like how many miles you've walked, or a tally of enemies killed. The Spiderman game on GameCube (a tie in to the Tobie McGuire movies, that was surprisingly excellent for a movie tie in) had all kinds of stats like longest fall and I remember spending ages trying to get it as high as possible.

I usually enjoy shapeshifting mechanics that change your abilities and areas you can visit.

Oh yes I was relieved when I noticed that :) Imo cockpit views should be mandatory for space flight sims

Off the top of my head, a good grenade launcher. I like projectile dropoff and hitting things I couldn't with a hitscan weapon, whether with indirect fire, bouncing the projectile off a wall or splash damage.

I have not played it in ages, but I reinstalled it recently. Another game that was mentioned in this thread is Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy where you also have fun psychic powers. Do you know any other games that remind you of Second Sight? I actually enjoyed the story and the way it was presented.

A more modern game of this sort is Gemini: Heroes Reborn. I was very surprised I would enjoy that game because it was released after I had ended up in some emotional twist where I didn't enjoy games (too much time and too many games) but what a surprise. Catching bullets midflight and throwing them back is very satisfying.

I don't think I've played anything quite like Second Sight, the story is indeed excellent, the twist at the end is one of my favourite in any story.
The closest I can think is actually Jedi Knight as the force powers do give quite a similar feel to the psychic powers in Second Sight.
It lacks any of the psychic stuff but the Timesplitters games by the same devs are great FPSs (and the last one actually had a reasonably interesting story if I remember correctly).

There was another game out at the time that had psychic powers and was supposed to be quite good, but what little I played of it didn't really impress me like Second Sight did, I can't quite remember what it was called though... (actually a quick Google suggests it was probably Psi Ops I'm thinking of)

I remember there was some thread a month or two ago about the owners of that IP being bought by some company that already have games (also Second Sight) so maybe they will arrive here in a near-ish future. I never played them so that would be great.

Yeah, Nordic bought the IP so hopefully we might see them all rereleased soon.

Ragdoll physics for me.
There's just something profoundly entertaining about the often imperfect or exaggerated simulation of virtual bodies reacting to artificial gravity.

Another one would be bullet time.

RPG elements. Whether action adventure or tower defense or FPS or match 3 - they make everything better.

Independant factions, with occasional infighting. I don't like very much universes where everything (all factions and all wildlife) is against you personally and just you alone. And you get simultaneously chased by a guard, a brigand, a zombie and a hornets swarm, who ignore each others.

I like the possibility to lure them to each others, or stumble upon their infighting, etc. It gives me the impression that they are their own characters, with their own conflicting agendas, and not reskins for the same lines of codes.

And it makes the game look A BIT less like real life.

Edit :
And ricochets. I like ricochets.

Gimmicks don't really do it for me.

I think I just want meaning (which could manifest in a variety of ways) and a polished experience in general.

If I really had to name one, I'd say powerful melee options in a first person game are something I find myself occassionally drawn to. Berserking through Doom E2M2 is a blast, and whacking people in the face with a sword only gets old sometimes in Deus Ex. System Shock 2 is quite melee-friendly. That said, there are games that try hard and fail. Like Shadow Warrior 2013. It begs you to use the sword but it just doesn't feel that powerful.

Speaking of first person shooters, I love shotguns. What I hate though is that they're nearly always portrayed as horribly inaccurate weapons that can't hit the side of a barn unless you're standing five feet from it. I'd like to see a powerful and accurate shotgun for once. (I don't think shotguns are a "gimmick")

Time travel, or alternatively "dimension shifting". Meaning visiting the same place in different conditions/times/realities. I love it when this is really well done.

Also, in FPS, the opportunity for rocket jumping without breaking the game.

In all action games: reactive AI, like int the original Half-Life, FEAR and other games (HL2 dropped this sadly).

How would you feel about a hybrid: You get experience by just letting the game idle, but if you decide to interact with the game, you can gain experience much faster than if the game were idle? (For this purpose, consider the active gameplay to be constant interaction, rather than the occasional interaction approach of games like Cookie Clicker.)

Like Zelda: Majora's Mask?

Have you played Undertale? That game does something interesting with its pacifist gameplay. (No, it's not stealth; you still engage the enemies, you just find a way to avoid killing them.)

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon does this nicely; beat the game to unlock a new character class, and there's more than one.

Have you played Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap?

OK, as long as:
* The RPG elements are reasonably balanced.
* The game is not a competitive multiplayer game; giving more experienced players more powerful characters is not fair to newcomers.

Timespinner (recently released Metroidvania in the style of the GBA and DS Castlevanias) does this.

As for older games that do this:
* Zelda: A Link to the Past. Also the Oracle games.
* Dragon Quest 6 and 7. (In DQ6, it's really neat when you realize you can finally visit your hometown, but in the other dimension. I won't spoil what happens there, but this particular event is mandatory.)
* Chrono Trigger (you have played this, right?) and Cross.

I like damage boosting in general. (The original Castlevania is a good example of this; early on, you can skip the area with mermen just by getting hit in the middle of your jump. Watch a speedrun if you want to see this in action. Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 (NES), particularly pacifist runs of those games, are also fertile grounds for damage boosting.)

In fact, I like any mechanic that turns health into a resource you can use to your advantage, rather than something you need to avoid losing at all costs.