Friday, February 11, 2011

Let me Be the Bad Guy...

So I was at a friend's house recently during our regular Saturday gaming night  (Think poker night with keyboards and LCD panels) and during one of the breaks he was telling me about his progress through Dragon Age.  Dragon age is an Role Playing Game (RPG) in the vein of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Dungeon Siege and the like.  Anyway he  was lamenting the apparent one-sided view of game development in such titles ie; always being the good guy.  Now don't get the wrong idea, my friend doesn't have goat skulls hanging above his mantle or run around in black robes chanting bible verses backwards.  His observation shines a light on the undeniable fact that RPG's follow a preset formula that hasn't changed since the first incarnation of  Zork on a DEC Mainframe.

It seems all these games want to cast you as the squeaky clean hero or at best a Clint Eastwood-esque anti-hero.   Regardless of the spin, you're the good guy out to foil  the nefarious plans of the stereotypical bad guy.
Some RPG's allow more depth and character development than others such as Dragon age's inclusion of a type of character relationship engine that influence your game experience as a direct consequence of your interactions with other players.  Still, the balance is tipped in favor of being the bearer of all things nice.

There have been RPG's that allowed you to take the good or evil path but it's just shades of grey.  Dungeon's and Dragons online, Fallout, etc.  The question is where is the real character development?  Pick the good side and you're on some great quest to save whatever.  Pick evil and your goal is to screw up previously mentioned good guy quest.  Yay...  Is there no more depth to being the bad guy than egotistical monologues and a bad attitude?

How bout an RPG that has nothing to do with the aforementioned "good guy" quest?  Architecting the downfall of civilization takes an effort!  Mostly because of the efforts of those pesky good guys running around.  To be honest, I cannot think of a single RPG that has developed the dark side of gameplay beyond just being an obstacle to the hero character.  Even if you have the choice to be an "evil" hero you are still just playing a slightly modified version of  the hero's quest.  It's the same basic experience except your character gets to wear cooler clothes...

Ever notice how cool the bad guy's digs are?  They always have complex dungeons, massive castles or impenetrable fortresses.  How'd they get all that?  What adventures did they undertake to acquire such bounty?  Chances are you'll never find out.  OH yeah, maybe some 20 second cutscene here and there but where's the fun in that?

Perhaps there's some fear of societal backlash against becoming involved in a game that demands large amounts of time thinking about how to do bad things to nice people.  I remember a time when the original Dungeon's and Dragon's RPG (with dice not computers) was accused of being affiliated with Satanism and all things unsavory.  Never mind that most of the character types were variants from pagan, roman and greek mythology.  Show one big Red guy with horns and everyone is suddenly at risk of losing their mortal soul I guess.

I'd hope that as a society we were beyond such judgements but in a world where video games have been blamed for everything from petty theft to murder it's understandable why this spin on the typical RPG is less common.  Of course I'd argue that society can't grow without exploring ALL sides of the human condition and that includes the undeniable truth that deep inside all of us is the desire to explore the darker side of our nature and beat up on the nice guy.

A different but similar type of gameplay is the First Person Shooter or FPS.   The big difference here is of course the point of view while playing.  Instead of what I call the "helicopter view" you play as though you are on the playing field.  That big gun is YOUR big gun in YOUR hands.  No "God Games" here.  It's mano y mano soldier!

Most of these games involve some variant of armed conflict ranging from the stone age to some far-flung future with anti-grav boots.  This type of game is primarily concerned with action and less about inventory or character interaction beyond shooting or being shot.  Still some of the same biases apply.   In almost all cases you start out as the good guy going after the bad guy with whatever weapons you can procure.  Perhaps you're an allied GI in World War 2 pursuing a Germain soldier across a battlefield.  Maybe you have the option to play as the German soldier.  Other than a change of uniform and weapons it's still the same experience either way.

I have noticed a recent (albeit small) change in this type of game however.  Specifically, I am referencing the relase of Dead Space 2.  In their Multiplayer campaign you can actually play as the evil bad guy(s).  Now granted, it's not the same amount of committment as an RPG game but it's the first time I can remember where you can actually play as something you would normally be mowing down with your super turbo minigun.  Yes, I know that in most FPS games you could always play one side or the other but from the point of view of an FPS, sides don't involve morality just a change of uniform.  Even in World War 2 themed games you may play as a german soldier but there will  never be any perks or achievements for genocide.  In my view that's as it should be.  Exploration of that dark of a psyche is better left out of the realm of a game and placed squarely in the office of your psychiatrist.

What I'm getting at is that you can now BE the zombie death machine instead of just mowing down waves of waves of staggering AI baddies with the intelligence of a rotten banana.  So what's the big deal?  Well if you ARE the zombie you have to be at least as much of a threat as the good guy.  In fact I remember another recent conversation after playing another FPS game my friend and I enjoy called Killing Floor.  It's a zombie shooter that doesn't try to be anything more than that which in my view makes it far superior to the Left for Dead franchise which I personally find boring.  Theres' only one thing that could make Killing floor even better.  The ability to BECOME a zombie.  Say, for instance you die in a cooperative multiplayer mission.  So now your character is dead from the zombie attack.  Well, what if you actually became a zombie with all the abilities and weapons you had when you were so hastily cut down.  Now your former teammate has to deal with an equal instead of the aforementioned waves of AI.  That would add an entirely new dimension to the game.  In that case you go from good guy to bad guy which could be very entertaining.

I'm not advocating some kind of virtual evil academy in the guise of a video game.  I'm just looking for a little creativity in game design.

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