It's My Character, and I Need It Now!

Variety is the spice of life. It may be just a saying, but it is also true. Meeting someone new at an event can be exciting, learning a new skill can be fun, something new can enhance the otherwise dull walkthrough of life. The games we play only confirm this fact, as many games offer a diverse cast of characters, and everyone has different tastes.

Many fighting games, whether it is Super Smash Bros or Tekken, offer a wide variety of characters, each with their own moveset to further their individual appearance. Mario, for example, has a far different moveset from Captain Falcon. While Mario uses objects like capes and fireballs, Captain Falcon uses a series of punches and kicks. Players of these types of games may choose characters they like or characters they are good with. If a player is more comfortable with Jin's moveset, but really like how Kuma looks, they may still choose Jin, simply because they will have a better chance of winning. This type of variety has both good and bad qualities for this reason. On the positive side, it opens a whole new dimension for gameplay, since no two players play the same, giving the game an incredible amount of variety. However, this can also discourage players from being who they really like, or even trying something new. A friend of mine only uses 3 characters in Super Smash Bros, and he refuses to use anyone else because he is not good with them. He may like other characters from different series, but because he does not know their quirks, he will not use them. Another issue with these kinds of games is balancing. If you read one of my previous posts, Gamer Circus Presents: Balancing Act, or have played games with "broken" characters, you may understand the importance of balancing in a game. In short, if a character is far better than many other characters, players may be discouraged from playing the game, since they have little chance of winning against an opponent who has a better moveset, and in turn, the upper hand, before the match even begins.

However, some games, such as Monopoly, only offer variety on a cosmetic level. A player has no advantage choosing the dog or the shoe. Players of these kinds of games can whichever character they like the best. Similar games include Mario Party, or Fuzion Frenzy, which are mini-game

oriented, and no player has advantage over the others. This type of variety helps with the issue of balance, as everyone is equal at the start of the game, and a player's ability is what "makes that character good". The problem, however, lies in the lack of depth for these characters. The cast of 6 in Fusion Frenzy all have the same running speed, strength, etc., so choosing Jet over Dub won't offer any advantage. However, it also will make the choice of character mean nothing, the character selection becomes a matter of "What is your favorite color?"

What's important here is the factor of choice. No matter which of these games you play, you are given choice of your character. Although it may seem trivial, choice is important to players. If we were going play Monopoloy and I made you be the thimble, without giving you any say, you might be upset about the "dictator" I would be in the game. Even if from there on, you could do what you wanted, the lack of choice would leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Whenever variety is present in a game, it is vital to include the power of choice, no matter how insignificant those choices it may be.

More Players, Less Interaction

With wireless technology being the staple of the world as we know it today, it's almost hard to remember a time when "2 player" was only an option if you had a brother or had a friend come over. Now, there is a plethora of games that have an online multiplayer feature available, all of which letting you play with any amount of friends (or people you've never met) at any time. While this seems great in the advancement of games, it also has its own flaws, as games are becoming less and less social.

Let's take it back to the arcade days, back when Pac-Man was causing coin shortages. An arcade cabinet was only available in a public location, so if you wanted to blow your allowance on game, you had to go to the game, not just order it online. While there, you may have to wait in a line to play your favorite game, and you might meet some people, usually the ones waiting in line with you. This added a social element to games, as people were all gathered to play a few games and were interacting with each other. The important thing here is the number of players vs the amount of social interaction. Street Fighter let 2 people play at a time, while other games only allowed for 1 player, yet there was still a large amount of social interaction due to the atmosphere.

Now let's jump to your childhood, the original Playstation or Nintendo 64 was the hottest toy on the market; if your childhood dates back further than this, even better! The home console took away the hassle of driving or walking to an arcade and even cut down on the cost of games by letting customers purchase their own copy of a game, rather than requiring them to pay a small cost to play a game once. I started playing on an NES, and since I was too young to be any good at anything, whenever my dad came home from work, we would turn on the NES and play some Mario Bros 3. Up until the Playstation, only 2 players could play at a time, and many games still were exclusively 1 player. When the Playstation introduced the Multi-tap, games like Crash Bash sold like hotcakes because they encouraged the 4 person play. While the social element was cut down incredibly, as there was only the people in the household to socialize with, the multiplayer encouraged gamers to play with others.

Bringing it back to today, we see that online multiplayer is in nearly every game for the current-gen consoles. Even games that were originally single player, such as Uncharted 3 or Metal Gear Solid 4, had a multiplayer element thrown into them. Although we can have 16+ people playing a single game at the same time, the environment has changed so much, that there is hardly any social interaction at all. Even if there is interaction, it usually involves a child screaming profanities, racial slurs, etc. or a butt-hurt player blaming their team, their weapon, the other team, etc. as to why they are losing. Despite all the players available, the environment of game has changed, as it is mostly now in a bedroom or den of sorts, with only 1 person per room. Multiplayer isn't a social concept anymore, its become a way to play against a better AI character.

Even games that supposed to be social are suffering from the lack of interaction as well. Facebook games are known for their "Ask a Friend" button, allowing the player to post on their friend's wall that they need some sheep, a gem, extra lives, etc. While it may sound nice that the games are kept in a community closer to the player, it often proves to be annoying to anyone who receives these notifications. However, even if someone absolutely loves getting these notifications and sending their friends material and other goodies, there is still no social interaction, except for a possible "thx" in a Facebook message.

Does this mean all hope is lost for social gameplay with others in the future? Of course not. Is the lack of social factors going to sink the game industry? Nope. Many players prefer to have it as is, as it allows for a simple way of getting what a player wants, that is, a game and someone to play it with. Although I personally enjoy going out of my way to play a game with multiple people in the same room, there are still times where I want to play my games by myself or pseudo-socially. Technology changes constantly, as does society, so although it may be uncomfortable, change is inevitable, all we can do is adapt and overcome. There are still plenty of ways to play in the same room with a group of people, the sociality of games hasn't been obliterated, it has just become easier and more comfortable to stay in and use online multiplayer.

RIP Whoever You Were

Death in video games is a commonly seen trend. We watch grunts get decapitated by a hero's weapon in Dynasty Warriors, we watch a Goomba get stomped into oblivion when Mario jumps on top of it's head, we watch Aerith die in our hands as Sephiroth ambushes her with his sword. Were those chills that just ran down your spine on that last one? Why was it this death made you feel something?

Although death is not a light subject, how it is presented can be brushed aside easily. In games where killing leads to success, we will gladly shoot a lowly grunt, it doesn't seem so bad when we are rewarded for our killing behavior. Even when a character is killed in a grotesque way, we don't think to much of it. Dead Rising 2 is an excellent example of carefree killing. One of the main mechanics of this game is to use weapons (or combine them to form new weapons, such as Boomstick in the picture above), and use them to kill hordes of zombies to further the plot; the player also has plenty of killing methods, anything from guns to chainsaws to moose heads. But despite the gallons of blood and tons of lost limbs, this game doesn't make a player feel bad about killing any of the zombies, simply because they are enemies that stand in the players way, and the player is rewarded by killing them.

But sometimes it isn't so easy to kill off someone because out enemy isn't a run-of-the-mill grunt. Many boss battles demonstrate this fact, but the goal is still the same, they must be killed. Not because they are mindless zombies in the way that give us power-ups, but because they threaten our character. If an object in a game poses any sort of threat to the player, they will naturally want to fight back. In Megaman X, before the player even knows what is going on with the game's story, they are threatened by Vile, a purple Reploid (humanlike robot) inside a huge robot suit. If his presence alone wasn't enough to pose a threat to the player, Vile immediately begins attacking the player with the robot suit. The player can't run away, or even defeat Vile, but they will fight back to the best of their ability. Towards the end of the game, the player is able to kill Vile, and at that point, the killing is enjoyable, not because we are psychopaths, but because we can finish a struggle we had with someone who had threatened our survival.

From the topics stated above, it would seem that killing off an enemy is alway easy to do. If someone stands in our way, we should always blast them into the ground, but this isn't always the case either. If you have ever played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, you may understand the difficulty of killing off an enemy.

In Snake Eater, the player has to kill "The Boss", Snake's mentor who has turned her back on America and is fighting with the Russians. After the player knocks down The Boss's health to zero, a cutscene plays, where The Boss reveals everything to Snake. In the end, she tells Snake to shoot her with her gun. Snake picks up the gun, and the player decides when to shoot. Because The Boss was so close to Snake's heart, and someone he looked up to, it is hard for him to do the deed. The game also spends a lot of time developing characters, making the death even more dramatic. The difference between The Boss and Vile lies on a personal level, while Megaman and Vile are sworn enemies, The Boss and Snake are very close.

However, sometimes we don't do the killing. Scripted events in the game are sometimes the reason a character gets killed off. In The Witch's House, the player has to navigate through a house as a young girl named Viola, solving puzzles while feearing for their life, as any mistake can easily kill off the player. Once the player solves all the puzzles, they have to escape from the witch who created all of the deadly puzzles by running out of the house without the witch catching them. If a player manages to escape the house and grab a knife before they leave, the discover the heart-breaking truth of the game. At the end of the game, the player learns they were the witch the entire time, and the girl they thought they were saving has been put in the decaying body of the witch. Not only is this shocking in itself, but shortly after, when Viola's father comes to save her, she shoots the witch (actually her daughter) and makes sure his "daughter" is okay. The witch quickly assumes the role of the scared little girl, and the game ends, with the player in shock (and possibly tears) at the tragedy of the poor girl. This death, although physically similar to the Dead Rising scenario (a decaying body getting shot), is gut-wrenching and saddening, because we liked, who we though was, Viola, and thought we were helping her, only to have the game's reality slammed in our face.

Death is portrayed in such an odd manner in games. It is inevitable in some games, and even then, it can be heart-breaking or enjoyable, sometimes both in the same game. When a story is added to a character, we begin to develop feelings about that character, and when something like this happens, it can be a real tear jerker, even if it is a peaceful death. Presentation is everything in these digitalized deaths, as it can be the difference between killing a worthless grunt, or an innocent girl.