To Kill Or Not To Kill !

[FT-9]

Question:

Does a game need kills to be exciting, tense, believable and commercially successful?

 

 

 

Disclaimer:

I'm really no one to be offended by video game violence. Like in my movies I experience violence, when done right, as a catalyst for tension and drama, something that makes me feel what is happening on screen. And even when done in a silly and over the top way, I enjoy the sensations, the shock, the punishment of a villain and the relief, when the violence finally concludes into something peaceful and calm. Also when violent behavior on screen does not produce visible violence, physical or mental harm, t totally loses any hint of believability and the feeling emerges, that filmmakers and game designers in this case had to cave in and pull back. So, if you wanna bark, you also have to bite. No complains there.

 

 

Observation:

In the black and white worlds of fiction, movies and games, where enemies can be recognized by the color of their skin or their job, their hometown, or by their medical condition, often enough there is no discussion about who deserves to live and who deserves to die. You blow up a planet with your death star, you die. You are an invader from space, you die. You are a zombie, you die ...for real.

 

Classic sci-fi and fantasy fiction heavily rely on racial and regional distinctions to clarify who is evil and who is righteous. So according to Tolkien, everything that comes from Mordor, like every single Orc and Uruk-Hai, can rightfully be beheaded. In the Star Trek universe, up until Lt. Worff was recruited for the new Enterprise, Klingons, yep the population of a whole planet, was to be feared for their violent and warmongering behaviour and better shot first and asked later. In Star Wars, the race of Hutts always is portrayed as greedy, ruthless, treacherous and decadent. And of course archetypical villains in fairy tales, like the always treacherous and deathbringing Wolf can be found many.

 

The thing is, when you search for those kinds of damming generalizations in real life and history, you find anti-semitism, the KKK, middle eastern terrorism and ethnic cleansing. A big part of the world population recognizes those things as intolerable.... except when it happens in fiction and of course usually not in games, where you yourself are the one that pulls the trigger.

 

There is a widely spread sense of justification to shoot on sight in modern video games, despite the fact that technical advancements allow for a more complex and thoughtful approach to the matter. In the old days, where every character sprite was expensive in bytes and gameplay had to be handled with two buttons and a d-pad, it was understandable to play it simple. But now, with big and complex worlds full of npcs, so called civillians, and dozens of possible different enemy types, pieces of virtual equipment and complex controller input, why do game designers still fall back to an overly simplistic solution of "kill or get killed"?

Total destruction of every person, animal, device or creature possibly causing the player character to die, and by doing so causing a game over, is fair game. Or in more simple terms: If it moves, kill it.

 

 

 

Conclusion:

This of course is not in general a less favorable approach, but having to decide between taking down an enemy or killing him can add an interesting layer of depth to the gameplay and can be of strong support for the narration.

 

Challenges:

 

•Many heroes in video games are very ruthless and totally act like psychopaths, while still being mend to be relatable and likable. How do we make that more coherent?

 

•Characters and creatures that get killed, of course get erased from the game. Can we create challenging and satisfying game moments with spared enemies returning as thankful new ally or relentless more dangerous foe?

 

•Killing can have a strong impact on the killers psyche. Can we deliver significant and interesting changes to the overall game, graphics, player character behavior, depending how often he kills or spares his beaten enemies?

 

•In a lot of cultures, killing is judged as a sin. Can we create a sense of salvation versus damnation or karma in general, during the game or in the ending?

 

•Non-lethal takedowns of enemies, depending on the level of thread, can be quite tricky. What kind of interesting non-lethal techniques, strategies and satisfying non-lethal weapons can we add to the arsenal?

 

•A lot of the gaming public and interested non-gamers find the glorified killing of many titles to be kind of discusting and wrong. What kind of new audiences can we win for action titles, when killing is just an option, and how?

 

•What other advantages can gameplay and story have, when killing is not the default solution in combat?

 

Source:- http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AnjinAnhut/...Kill_part_1.php

[DevilsOwn]

most of the challenges mentioned are already being done in many new games, esp those with rpg twist.

 

and they do make the game more interesting. but this aint valid for out and out Shooters. is it?

[Tyler]

They should have mentioned Shadow Of The Colossus. It was one of the few games that made you feel very guilty while killing the colossi. It definitely wasn't on the same level as the killing in most other games.

[Aftrunner]

I felt no guilt in SotC. Infact I never feel bad about snuffing out people in games.

 

/Is ruthless and evil.

 

Also I often go out of my way to kill as many people as possible. NPCs in FPS games are my targets of choice. I would do that in RPGs as well but most RPGs tend to give out the good stuff only if you are nice.

 

It would be a very dull game if you werent allowed to go a little bit Patrick Bateman on random pixels.

[Tyler]

Now I know why reaper is missing. He has hacked Aftrunner's account!

[Bulovski]

I felt no guilt in SotC. Infact I never feel bad about snuffing out people in games.

 

/Is ruthless and evil.

 

Also I often go out of my way to kill as many people as possible. NPCs in FPS games are my targets of choice. I would do that in RPGs as well but most RPGs tend to give out the good stuff only if you are nice.

 

It would be a very dull game if you werent allowed to go a little bit Patrick Bateman on random pixels.

You will love Demon's Souls. The really really good stuff needs you to be very very bad. There's in fact a quest where you have to kill a whole list of NPCs just for a character appropriately named Mephistopheles.

[Tyler]

^^ I see what you're doing there.

 

But Afty is neither Madmage nor me.

[Bulovski]

Can you imagine reafer in Demon's Souls? I don't think the world tendency will ever be white after the first demon.

[Pushy]

They should have mentioned Shadow Of The Colossus. It was one of the few games that made you feel very guilty while killing the colossi. It definitely wasn't on the same level as the killing in most other games.

 

this people.

there's a lot of killing in GOW3, but that doesn't make me feel guilty, but what he said is true, killing innocents is just not justified, to be a bad a*s, it's not necessary to kill teh innocents...but then again, this is gaming...this is where everyone gets to do what he wishes to do, so no complaints but yeah as Milo said, game doesn't need to have Kills to be awesome....and regarding the challenges he mentioned, it's already done as of lately so why put more thought into it....oooo i c teh source now

[godspeed4476]

Grim Fandango

EDIT: dont know about its commercial success

[Phoenix Wright]

In a lot of cultures, killing is judged as a sin.

 

Really? No.. really?