Aim & Shoot

The act of taking aim at something and then shooting at it.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

Using the grappling hook in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Just Cause 2

Taking photos in Dead Rising

Aim & Shoot is more or less a defining trait in first-person shooters such as the Quake, Doom, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Crysis series. It is also important in many other games with first-person views, e.g. the Deus Ex series and the Thief series as well as the latter installments of the Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series.

Using the pattern

The pattern can be said to occur in some war games (e.g. Warhammer 40K) where one first declares attacks and then checks if one has Line-of-Sight.

Real-Time Games Extended Actions Exaggerated Perception of Influence Enemies Freedom of Choice Alignment Capture No-Ops Line of Sight

History

An updated version of the pattern Aim & Shoot that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.