History Main / CrosshairAware

* In StarcraftII, the final Zerus mission of the Heart of the Swarm campaign has a boss battle with Kerrigan (your hero unit) against an ancient Zerg. You can see in advance where the major area attacks are going to fall, marked with bright glowing outlines.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', that frog-thing uses the "shadow that tells you where it's going to land" variation. Hopefully, it misses by at least a tad.

* ''VideoGame/CarrierAirwing'': the boss of the Mediterranean stage will attempt a LockOn on your jet. If it's succesful you'll hear a warning klaxon and a fast-moving missile will attempt to hit you.

* The battle with Razoff in ''VideoGame/Rayman3HoodlumHavoc'' involves parts where you are locked in a room and forced to hide behind furniture while a giant crosshair of his rifle dominates the screen and follows you.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}: Half-Genie Hero'', crosshairs appear during the boss fight with Wilbur (a giant memory-eating SandWorm) to indicate where it will shoot its eye at you.

* Some of the Final Smash attacks in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' (Snake's in ''Brawl'', Pit's and Bowser's in ''Ultimate'', Duck Hunt in all the games they appear in, Zero Suit Samus in ''4'') have the affect of producing a crosshair which the player using the final smash can toggle to aim at the opponent, allowing the intended victim to try to escape. The dragoon also has a crosshair effect once you collect all three parts.

** In ''Double Spoiler'', Satori is crosshair aware, knowing where the crosshair for your photo viewfinder is and avoiding it. Justified in that she's a mind reader.
** ''VideoGame/CarrierAirwing'': the boss of the Mediterranean stage will attempt a LockOn on your jet. If it's succesful you'll hear a warning klaxon and a fast-moving missile will attempt to hit you.

** Sentries controlled with a Wrangler project a team-colored laser beam which is visible not just where it points but also in mid-air [[JustifiedTrope so the Engineer, who doesn't have a Sniper's first person view of the weapon, can tell where exactly the thing is pointing]].

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', if you're aiming at a Ganados head it'll cover their face with its hands or move out of the way. Justified in this case as they can probably see the laser sight shining into their eye -- or the gun being pointed at their face.
** Ashley also seems to know whenever you're pointing your gun at her, as she'll duck or move away.

* In most of ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games post-NES, there is a shadow that appears to warn the player of the WallMaster that is about to drop down from above.

* Speaking of Sonic, in later games such as ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' a targeting reticle will appear over nearby targets to let the player know which one Sonic will rocket towards when using the Homing Attack.

%% * The Death Egg Robot from ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'', seen above, uses this with its jump attack.
%% * Both of the mecha bosses in the Dark story ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' use this with their laser.

[[AC:Fighting]]

A video game trope, most often seen in platformer bosses. The enemy will be preparing some sort of attack, and a crosshair or some other target marker will appear on the screen and follow the player around, showing where the attack will land. Sometimes this can make sense when used with JawsFirstPersonPerspective, but usually there's no reason for the target marker to be there apart from making the attack easier to avoid. May also manifest as a LaserSight. It's one of the AcceptableBreaksFromReality provided by video games, because an attack that's impossible to know where/when it's coming would be FakeDifficulty for the player.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' AoE markers work in a very similar way to the ''World of Warcraft'' example above. Unlike WoW, the forecast time for AoE markers is generally the same throughout the whole game, and the difficulty instead ramps up by having bosses spam AoEs in challenging patterns, or by using markers that need to be interacted in different ways besides "don't stand in the bad". It's implied that your character's ability to see (most) of your foes' attacks in advance is [[CombatClairvoyance part of their gift of the Echo]].

* In one level of ''VideoGame/Rayman2: The Great Escape'', an out-of-range robot pirate is [[ExplodingBarrels throwing explosive barrels at you]], and a crosshair appears on the ground where one's going to land. You actually need to get the robot to throw a barrel onto a certain breakable section of the ground in order to move forward, which makes the crosshair quite useful for determining whether it's going to land there or not.

* The titular ''VideoGame:TrillionGodOfDestruction'' telegraphs its attacks like this. Squares start with a white crosshair, then yellow, then red right before the attack lands. Complicating things is the fact Trillion can launch many attacks at once and carpet the area with overlapping threat zones. On the other hand, training your Overlord's speed stat makes the warnings last longer, giving more turns to thread the needle.

** Burai from ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce2'' takes it a step further. If you lock on to him, he will actually break the targeting cursor.

** Burai from ''[[VideoGame/MegaManStarForce Ryuusei no Rockman]] 2'' takes it a step further. If you lock on to him, he will actually break the targeting cursor.

** Blast Hornet from ''VideoGame/{{Mega Man X}}3'' will use this as a DesperationAttack, making bees home in on you. Cyber Peacock from ''X4'' locks onto you before he fires his [[HomingProjectile homing]] explosive FeatherFlechettes.
** Deerburn the Gazelleroid of ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent'' points out the exact location where he plans to do his rocket headbutts and diving kicks. It's supposed that he's a [[WarmupBoss tutorial on attack patterns]] for newbies to the genre.

[[caption-width-right:350:You really don't want to shop at ''[[VisualPun this]]'' target.]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crosshair_aware_8.png]]

[[quoteright:320:[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sonic_2_target_but_not_for_some_reason_transparent.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:320: See that crosshair? Yeah. [[GoombaStomp Something's going to fall there.]] ]]

* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'': When sniping enemies who have their backs facing the player said enemies sometimes "hear" the gunshot from the sniper rifle, despite the rifle firing a super-sonic bullet, and turn to engage the player, sometimes avoiding the bullet or shooting Max before dying.

[[quoteright:320:[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Sonic_2_Target.png]]]]

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Shinobi}} Shinobi III]]'': In Round 3 (Body Weapon) Joe will eventually travel through a fairly squicky WombLevel to reach and confront the grotesque and huge bioweapon boss Hydra. Along the way the Hydra will surface in the background and target Joe with a computerized array. If the crosshair touches Joe it locks on and the Hydra blasts him with a energy beam breath weapon. If Joe blocks the Hydra's line of sight though, the targeting array temporarily shuts down as the Hydra submerges and waits for him to become visible again.