I have always been underwhelmed when it comes to “first person shoot em’ up” games and recently have been more inclined to explore these feelings. My frustration I’ve decided stems mostly from the way in which most of these games seem unfinished and empty. You, gun and the enemy there’s no plot, no reasoning. In many cases within these games enemy is not even a word that can be fairly asserted. The dictionary definition of enemy is:
“a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent.”
There is a great deal of human emotion that is tethered to that word. The very definition leads a person to not throw it around lightly. Yet, in video games, arguably a virtual reflection of our human world that allows us to explore new thoughts, feeling and interaction, why have we skipped this human element and gone right to its result? How much more interesting could these games have been if a back story was given to the player?
Not only do these games have a lack of complete imagination for the most part but usually the reasoning behind the player wielding a gun is completely removed. There is no human element in shooting for no reason and it seems as though developers have tried to make up for that fact with weapon variation and more complicated maps. However, much like in real life, just because you get a new “toy” or move your location an obvious flaw or problem will still follow you.
Make no mistake, there is definitely a time and place for violence when it comes to video games. It’s when a game’s main focus is simply a death count that there is little to no replay value simply because the game has the feeling of an empty shell, it’s physically grinding. It is unfair and lazy of a developer to simply plop a player down in a map with a gun and say “This is your enemy, kill them.” Why do none of us ever ask “Why am I shooting?” “Who are these people I’m shooting?” “What have they done to make me want to shoot them?” . Violence is simply a manifestation of extreme human emotion that requires adequate escalation and within fiction a great deal of exposition and rising action. To remove these elements is inhuman and makes playing such games seem pointless and fruitless.
It seems as though a great majority of video games are stuck in a world of Me Vs You or Me VS AI and this is very dangerous and stifles creativity. It’s time to move past the point of a game being to simply win or “beat the computer” but rather, to foster an interactive storytelling that can intertwine naturally with human emotion. Isn’t that truly the point anyway? Are video games in their most organic definition not another form or extension of fiction with which a player ( or reader) can interact? This is why they are so different from more traditional games or stories They inspire more accurate emotions within a person because they actually become part of the story.
As we see an emergence and subsequent rise of movement technology I feel that these thoughts will weigh more on our society’s gamers. When players are truly “holding” the gun there will be more of a direct mind and emotion connection and hopefully developers will take this as a way to integrate human body language naturally with game violence. A whole new level of interactivity could be explored on a level that is honest, authentic and in great depth.
Violence is a human entity that holds a natural and deserved place in our virtual world but that place should be climbed and ascended after a series of events and actions in a tasteful and methodical way. It is much more powerful and difficult for a developer to be able to push a player emotionally to want to wield a gun or sword than it is for them to remove all reason and force a player into a violent situation with no prior instigation.
