Breaking The Cycle Of FPS Baddies

By Barffly79

I finally got Gamefly and went on a short FPS binge. I played through the single-player campaigns for the first two F.E.A.R games and found them to be pretty satisfying. I also took the time to finish the single-player campaign of BF: BC2. F.E.A.R (meaning both of them from here on after) and BF:BC2 are drastically different in theme and style, but they got me to thinking about my overall video game philosophy. The story in BF:BC2 was not exactly earth-shattering or cathartic; it was pretty much par for the course for military shooters. If you stripped it of its referential sense of humor, it’s little more than a Call of Duty clone. I enjoyed it, sure. *SPOILER* I liked the skydive sequence at the end *END SPOILER.* Other than that, it was kind of stale. F.E.A.R was sort of a mish-mash of the X-Files, a Half-Life 2 mod, and The Ring. Familiar territory executed fairly well.

But after playing F.E.A.R, BF:BC2, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Metro 2033, and Bioshock 2 in relative short order, I realized something. I prefer sci-fi oriented shooters over military ones.

I don’t know what it exactly means, but I’d rather blast aliens, zombies, demons, and robots than other people. F.E.A.R had “replica” soldiers for the bulk of the game, but there’s sci-fi variety thrown in to keep the gameplay from getting stale. Still, even with the advanced AI, I felt like I was fighting the Combine guys from Half-Life 2, minus the satisfying flat-line radio squawk when you killed one. In all it’s one of my biggest criticisms of the two F.E.A.R games. There wasn’t enough variety in the enemies and you just shoot cookie-cutter soldiers most of the time. However, the designers made up for this by providing a genuinely creepy atmosphere and some legitimate scares. There were long sections where nothing would happen but a few noises in the dark and some flickering light. The tension mounted and you were almost glad to hear the radio squawk of some clone soldiers. Even if the enemies literally came off the rent-a-goon assembly line, you never knew when Alma would show up. If you’re not familiar with Alma, she’s the creepy little girl in the red coat that stalks you throughout F.E.A.R. Let’s just say she has some interesting plans for the protagonists, and some gruesome means of implementing them.

Speaking of generic enemies, what do endless waves of Russians, Koreans, Chinese, Terrorists, domestic militants, Nazis, Half-Life marines, and M&Ms all have in common? They come in different colors, they’re sweet at first, but then you figure out that they all taste the same.

I wish developers would exercise more creativity in their enemies. This was one of my main complaints with both Bioshock games. The splicers were crazy and disfigured enough to qualify as some sort of mutant, but in the end they boiled down to a few types that had different skins. It was somewhat of a waste that so much effort and ingenuity went into creating the setting and mood, only to populate it with a handful of different foes. And military shooters? These are starting to wear thin on me. You shoot wave after wave of bad guys who can’t aim. They may be from different nations and they may wear different clothes, but the odds are they carry some AK-47 variant and take two or three bullets to kill. Sometimes they might bring a tank along, but only if there’s a conveniently situated anti-tank weapon nearby. Blast through them until you reach the next cut scene.

Rinse.
Wash.
Repeat.

This formula works in action movies, and games are constantly mimicking that success. But after playing games for over twenty years now, I am looking for something different and inventive. It’s refreshing when enemies have personality and distinctive visual styles. The first time a Grunt ran away from me in fear yelling “WE’RE GONNA’ DIE!” in Halo, I almost hesitated at gunning him down. The first Half-Life also had a great approach to its enemies. You start with the ‘zombies,’ graduate to the Vortigons, and then you face the badass marines about a third of the way through. But the variety is maintained throughout, and new enemy types are introduced steadily throughout the massive story. It had scripted sequences and set-piece battles, but it never got stale because Valve used its whole ‘rogues gallery’ through the entire game. Prey came close to Half-Life’s epic sci-fi scale, but it also had a limited set of enemies. It made up for that with ingenious puzzles and a fresh respawn system. I can only hope that more developers follow these models. Either provide us with an interesting variety of enemies, or supplement the gameplay with puzzles and sequences that make sense within the context of the narrative.