I want to start this article with a story…the story of a little alien named Tiny Tim.
Our friend Tiny Tim
I have always been sympathetic to my teammates in video games. If we’re all in the fight together then that means nobody gets left behind. On many occasions I have come across my friends killing their comrades in arms for anything as low as they needed more ammo to the shear novelty of it. On these occasions I have asked them to stop and if they continue I stop playing. It sounds a bit ridiculous but when I’m engaging a form of storytelling (books, graphic novels, movies, games, etc.) I have a rich imagination and completely immerse myself within the story. Therefore when I see “my” friends being needlessly slaughtered I simply won’t stand for it. There has been a great many times I have died over and over again to make sure a friend survived the battle. Tiny Tim is one of those stories.
My friend and I were playing Halo 2 some years back. As the Arbiter and his nameless friend we fought the Brutes, decimating their forces. While fighting I came across a grunt who joined the battle. Being so small and cute I deemed him Tiny Tim (his true name unspeakable in human tongue). My friend and I played each section of the level dozens and dozens of times making sure Tiny Tim would stay alive. We even gave him the most powerful gun (the fuel rod cannon I think is what it’s called) and we, the three of us, crushed our opposition. However most times we would see our brave battle brethren Tiny Tim fall in the battle, having very little armor. Sometimes he would kill himself, the fuel rod cannon proving to powerful for such twitchy trigger fingers. Other times we were so engrossed within the moment of the battle we would bask at the mountains of dead bodies we had produces, only to find Tiny Tim had at some point joined them.
We fought and fought and fought. Until eventually Tiny Tim survived and we completed the level. Our feelings of accomplishment had been great. We had one, but more importantly, we (my friend, myself, and another nameless meat fodder grunt) had survived, working together through thick and thin to make sure we would one day return to our families.
* * * * *
I began with the story of Tiny Tim not because it amuses me or because we were able to make something deeper out of nothing. I tell this story because we have, in the gaming community, seen countless of nameless soldiers die…and for the most part we don’t care. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but could we drive the immersion deeper and farther by trying to get the player to care about his comrades? A definite yes! Below I want to explore just a few ways we could go about this.
BRAVE OR RECKLESS?: Most allies you meet within shooters and action games are nothing more than bodies to give the illusion of a bigger battle. The other service these nameless men, women, and strange creatures fill is that of meat shield. Don’t know what a meat shield is? It’s basically a sack of meat (in this case a human) used to distract that machine gun nest. In other words they are created to die. Now I don’t want to get into a huge philosophical debate over the nihilism about these meat shields, but I do want to point out the reckless abandon to which these characters will throw themselves. Like Tiny Tim these characters often throw themselves against impossible odds. Brave? Hardly. Insane? You bet!
POSSIBLE FIX: Instead of loading these characters on PCP and letting them die by the score full perhaps we could design them to engage various threats differently. Most just shoot, some vying to go melee despite fighting a monster six times their size with a chain gun. Lets use Halo as an example.
The marines in Halo are just a little more effective than grunts. They drop down in a level to help you for about three minutes, which ends in all of them being dead and Master Chief carrying on. Wouldn’t it feel better if the marines knew they were taking on too large a threat and they cheer you on as their champion? “Go get em’ Master Chief.” “Wipe that smug smile off his face.” “Kick his ass!” They all go for cover while you kill the threat.
If you fall during battle they respond. “No…not a spartan.” “It can’t be.” “I’ll kill you for that you !$@#.” Perhaps one of them is so angry he charges in trying to avenge you. Another might check to see if you really are gone. One marine hides, not wanting to die.
Now imagine killing the stronger alien. They praise you, shooting into the air, hootin’ and hollerin’. “You did it!” “Sure showed him.” “That’s how Spartans do it!” This would lead the player into a much deeper sense of immersion. They are linked to their battle buddies. If they are victorious they reap the cheers of their friends. If they fail they realize how much their life and effectiveness affects the team. You grow as a team, a unit. Instead of being one unstoppable soldier you become something more. No longer a group of men you are almost one being. Sure their would be players that don’t care but I think you would find more players retrying certain sections of the levels, trying to make sure their squad makes it out, together.This is perfect for Halo because the game has an amazing save system (which I wish more games utilized) that saves a different chunks that aren’t too frustrating to play over and still offer enough time to go back and make sure you really look out for the battle buddy that fell.
Want to make it even more heart-wrenching? Add some backstory to these characters. Lets explore…
CLONE WARS: As I played Arkham Asylum it became distracting how there seemed to be only two guard skins (in other words they all look the same). I understand that there’s a limitation within a game and making mass copy versions of marines is easier. But seeing the same guy over and over again breaks the immersion. Instead the player begins to see them as not real (related to the other characters). How can you expect the player to care about the other characters (his allies) if they look like a bunch of clones and have no names or no story?
POTENTIAL FIX: As Arkham Asylum did so well, there were a great many character bios. The player was not forced to read them, it served as an added extra for those players that were looking for more. What if we added not only individual personalities and skins to the battle buddies, but we also gave them some backstory? How about a quick bio delving into their story some more. Through these stories you could come to realize why they fight and what they have to return home to. It could even explain the way they fight.
The Colonel is a long time marine who lost his family in the war some thirty years back. He’s brash and the first to charge but he’s effective when not out manned. Then there is Garret. He hopes to see his son and daughter after his service ending in the next month. He is often more reserved when fighting but is very sneaky when it comes to subterfuge. The bios would be longer than that but that’s just a taste. Now these characters could spread their backstory even further within the various levels. Even just quick voice over when moving in a momentary non-hostile area.
After an intense firefight, the squad moves in to check for ammunition and supplies before they move out over the next crater.
The Colonel: “Hey Garret, you heard from that peach of a wife of yours?”
Garret: “Ya, she tells me Celeste lost her first tooth yesterday.
The Colonel: “No kidding.”
Garret: “I can’t wait to get back and see those big brown eyes of hers. I’m gonna take them all to the beach, we haven’t done that in-”
The Colonel: “Cut the chatter. We have enemy hostiles inbound.”
That whole dialogue took only a few moments of down time within the game and I think (when built upon the bios and more talking between the soldiers) will lead to a greater investment in your team, instead of paying them no mind. What if at some point (and not bound by an in game cinematic like the end of Call of Duty 4), you get to a save point but its nigh impossible to save one of your team members? You’ve played over and over again and can’t save everybody. What if you had to choose? As the leader you need to decide what the acceptable loss is. The lone Colonel who is a better fighter or Garret who has a family back home.
These kind of moments (especially with the random chance of battle as opposed to a scenario programmed into the game) elevate the pathos within the game, and greater pathos almost always leads to greater immersion. Greater immersion leads to an overall better gaming experience. I think these are just a couple of many things that can be done, and I don’t think they are out of the realm of possibility. The amount of voice over recorded for Arkham Asylum was massive (and incredible ta boot!), so the added dialogue can be done, and the short bios are not particularly hard.
If players are going to pay a good sized wad of cash, we should make sure that we are delivering the best entertainment and immersion for their dollar. And sometimes this better entertainment isn’t better graphics but something as simple on building what we already have.
Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
