Following last week’s discussion about realism’s role in games, I have been thinking about another aspect of what immerses more into a digital world. This week the topic is details; not how well the grass is reproduced in the video game world, not how realistic and pimply the protagonist’s face looks when the camera is zoomed right in on it, but those little things that add nothing to the plot. The sort of thing that you might overlook completely first time through a game, or that would never have been stumbled upon had the player not decided to wander from the travelled path.
Most games nowadays are big when compared with ones from previous generations. That makes it harder for developers to keep a player’s interest in the world they have created. Some developers try to create a rich, beautiful world that will take the player’s breath away and push the boundaries of a console’s capabilities. Others will spend more time focussing on the player’s experience in the world at the expense of the world around them. The best developers can do both of these things at the same time whilst still bridging the gap between the passive role of seeing the game world and the active role of participation in the world’s events. What do I mean by this? Well, a good example of this (and the very first I remember seeing) is in Duke Nukem 3D when the player is poking around in a secret area and finds a body on the floor. “That’s one doomed space marine”, quips Duke. Immediately, the player knows this is the body of Doom’s protagonist. Yet what purpose does this serve?
In this particular instance the player has to rely on his knowledge of Doom to learn something about the world where good old Duke is hopping about and kicking monsters in the face; while he gets on with that just fine, the hard-assed space marine has been killed to death by the monsters inhabiting the surrounding area. He got a long way in, but the Duke got further. Thus, the player knows that while the space marine was tough, the Duke is tougher and still has time to make one liners when he sends bits flying everywhere. It adds nothing to the narrative (insomuch as DN3D had one) and was completely missable. What it does do is show (not tell) the player something about the game world and also about the people who created the game. Details like this show how much the developers love their creation, which is especially good to know in these times where the so much of the gaming industry is controlled by financial motives.
Actually, it shows more than that. A shrewd developer knows that these instances are what really makes the game world come alive for the player. In Crysis 2 a player spending his time poking around in dark corners and unassuming corridors is eventually rewarded with a brief scene where some soldiers are having a little disco rave in the lift (or elevator). At first I thought this was rather frivolous and spoilt the game’s tone rather, but upon reflection it seems I might have overlooked the human insight this gives the player into the nameless, faceless soldiers he is running around the city killing. They need downtime too and even while aliens invade the city they have time for a bit of fun, much, I suppose, like real people. I’ve often wondered where video game characters might go when not on screen and I like to imagine a sort of ‘staff room’ for them where they let their hair down and play some air hockey before they get back to trying to kill the protagonist.
I spotted a similar light-hearted moment in the otherwise over-serious world of Call of Duty: Black Ops. On the single player mission in the snow, where the player is in Reznov’s shoes there are a line of people being executed. The first time through I noticed this and moved on. The next time round, I stopped out of a sense of pity for a fellow man (or maybe it was to see some more killing, who knows?) and watched them being executed one after the other when, oh no, the executioner runs out of bullets and can’t shoot the last prisoner. Throwing an annoyed and slightly confused look at his weapon he proceeds to beat the prisoner using the pistol as a club. Still gruesome, but that moment where the gun makes an empty ‘click’ forced me to do a double take because I was not expecting that. It also, like the moment in Saving Private Ryan when the young soldier takes off his helmet, unable to believe it saved his life, is hit by a second bullet that takes his life, reinforces the idea of inescapable violence and ruthlessness.
Rockstar are particularly good at giving the player greater understanding of their worlds through innocuous details or small events. Red Dead Redemption is jam-packed with moments that add nothing to the plot, but the best ones involve men being chased by mountain lions whilst shrieking for help, and lone women begging Marston to stop and help, only to have several bandits appear from behind the rocks. These events, while not necessarily that rare in this game’s case, can be ignored, but will show the player the sheer brutality of the old west and how no one can be trusted. It’s a dog eat dog world out there. Or, in the case of our poor victim there, a mountain lion eat man world. Marston can intervene, but at what cost? He could be next and it does not take a genius to work out what happens in the event of an animal attack like that.
Similarly, Grand Theft Auto games are littered with random encounters. These are not, however, my favourite aspects of GTA:IV. There were literally hundreds of lines of dialogue in that game that might go unheard by most gamers out there. Whenever the player accepted a mission that involved driving people to a destination, Nico would chat to them or hear them chatting to pass the time on the journey. This is passive but I can forgive that as the player is driving the vehicle and usually has the option to skip anyway. I was amazed the first time I failed a mission, restarted and was about to skip to destination when the passenger came out with a completely different set of dialogue. It was, of course, along similar lines to the previous time round, but phrased differently and showed a different side to the passenger’s personality. On all the missions I tried this I was rewarded with new strings of dialogue and different jokes. That level of crafting made Rockstar rise in my estimation considerably; I have a healthy respect for any developer willing to dedicate such time and resources to things not everybody will get to experience by dint of being good at the game. Plus, in light of that, how much must they have spent on the rest of the game? I am now beginning to understand why it cost so much money to make!
Previously it has been tradition to tell the player important information and tell them about the world they have arrived in. Looking forward, I hope games continue to find new ways to involve the player in experiencing their world empirically rather than hearing things second hand or being forced to sit through cut-scenes. Speaking of which, where would an article like this be without giving an honourable mention to Valve? Masters, it would seem, of sculpting worlds that impart information to the player about the nature of the environment and the characters inhabiting it.
So it’s true, then, that god is in the details, yet a game without such things can still be a fantastic creation. It is, however, my feeling that games willing to take the time to show something more to the player, to go that little bit further and go beyond my expectations are far superior works of… dare I say it? Art! As such, when I experience little details like those discussed, I can’t help but feel that the people making the games are still doing so primarily because they love it. Long may it stay that way!
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