A History of ViolEnc3

E3 has come and gone and left us with a trail of assorted shooters, shootem-ups and shooteries. You know what Spiderman used to say: With great shooters comes great amounts of copious violence (something along those lines); and it is in this scape of never ending bloody releases that I wish that phrase was closer to what Spiderman actually said. That is: With great shooters comes great responsibility. I wish devs would cling on to words akin to this as if their own dying uncles were laying in their arms exhaling a final addendum to a history of good, fatherly, gamey advice such as: ‘Don’t put an un-skippable cut scene right after a frequently reloaded checkpoint’ and ‘Quick time events are bad’. Mind you none of these loudly complained about ideas seem to permeate through the apparently thick walls of many design meetings.

Call me a new-age indie hippy gamer, I don’t care. But I feel like we’ve been rinsing and repeating the same formula since 1992. When I glance over a few pages of comments left behind by our dearest youth after watching a Far Cry 3 E3 demo on Gametrailers, I die just a little bit on the inside. “GOTY!”, “Ubisoft is the best!!1”, “This is one of the bst things ive evr seen.” These comments make me sad and all this commotion for what? Because we can run around a titillating tropical island, stab people from under water, approach an objective stealthily but then have the effort it took to sneak around not even matter because two minutes later a scripted event will trigger a manhunt on you anyway, oh and now you can chain together knife kills. I am all for anything that adds to the diversity of a typical shooter experience, from what I have seen Far Cry 3 implements these new systems and more rather well. In fact I will more than likely have a blast playing it. I know what you’re thinking reader, ‘So what’s the deal idiot? Why are you complaining?’

I want to be challenged by the encroaching prospect of death in a game; whether it is me at the end of another’s shotgun, someone at the end of my shotgun or the end of another’s shotgun being forced into the face of another poor sod. I do not mean the challenge of whoever has the quickest reaction time to pull the trigger. I mean the challenge of having to handle the weight of responsibility and the consequences of my actions or inaction. ‘Consequences’ is a heavily loaded word thrown around at many a press conference and interview alike; and usually the end product does not superbly represent the profoundness or complexity of what was promised. Bioshock would be an elementary example of the whole ‘choices and consequences’ mantra. Choosing to kill or free a little sister is hardly the deep choice the game makes it out to be. The results are purely physical – numerical; the after effects of your game shattering decisions being extra resources or fewer resources followed by a binary good or evil finale.

The Deus Ex games are great examples of profound consequences through player actions and choices; down to the most minute and seemingly unimportant decisions the player makes. For example: You and your brother Paul are under attack in an apartment room. Paul tells you to leave out the back window so you can escape unharmed, he doesn’t leave you any other options. What the game doesn’t tell you and what many players do out of pure empathy for Paul, is that you can stick around and fight it out with him until you are eventually captured. Both situations will result in your capture, but leaving the apartment means your brother will die alone to a sea of enemy agents. Battling it out with him means he will actually survive; which the player only finds out an hour later into the game. Paul will then continue to be a reoccurring character throughout the game. The player’s decision to fight or flight in the face of Paul’s death is crucial to the evolving narrative. It’s situations like this, where there is profound consequence, which I wish had more precedence in shooters these days. After all what makes games such a unique medium is the opportunity to weave mini narratives for ourselves or affect broader strokes of the story.

It seems the only game at the show that dared to differ from the normal sea of somewhat senseless violence was Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. What was shown during the gameplay presentation was hopeful. It appears to be an action-adventure much in the same vein of Uncharted, albeit a more tense and gradual experience. What I found most impressive was that the enemies the protagonist and his young sidekick were disposing of were not just blank slate baddies simply present for our murderous enjoyment. These ragged men were quite clearly individuals driven to desperation given the post-apocalyptic setting and it showed; through their facial expressions, their actions and especially through their voice acting. These men are so intent on killing you, yet when put in life compromising situations they showed more human emotion than any NPC I had ever seen in a game. When using one as a human shield he suddenly beckons the player to be calm: ‘take it easy, take it easy’. But the end of the demo was most striking when a smothering competition turns against the AI opponent. He starts pleading for his life: 'NO DON'T! -' but not before he receives a prompt load of shotgun pellets to the face.

I wonder what would happen in the final build if I were to let that last enemy live. I’m going to assume if I did he would simply start swinging at me again as you walk off, but I hope I’m pleasantly proven wrong. I hope there is either a benefit or ramification for letting that guy go after he tried to strangle you to death. Even if their isn’t though, it is still refreshing and wonderful to know that the AI at the end of my iron sights has been crafted with the depth and emotion of a human; that he fears death just as much as I do as a player and as a living entity. What I saw in that demo was a breath of fresh air and hopefully representative of how all of the AI (or the humans at least) will react and behave in encounters, hopefully with some personal accountability thrown in there as well.