Zoned in

October 19, 2007

Gaming cliches: Rounding up the usual suspects
By Angelina Sandoval

Taking a look at some of the clichés that keep showing up in today’s games

Is it the blue wire or the red wire? The clock is ticking on the bomb as you hold a pair of wire cutters while all around you innocent civilians are being evacuated. Just a couple of minutes ago, your loyal and most trusted partner for 12 years was killed right in front of you with today being the day he was going to retire from the force to live in Payson, Arizona . . . or was it Fort Lauderdale, Florida? Oh if only you could have hijacked that expensive fresh-off-the-dealer’s-lot Lamborghini from that surprisingly hot underwear model much sooner or took the freeway that didn’t have that huge section missing (thank God for that well placed ramp).

Yet here you are, kneeling before a bomb that looks as though it was designed by a comic book villain rather than a criminally insane media mogul that only seconds ago fell to his death after you said an incredibly witty one-liner. Oh sure he gave you no choice. I mean he did shoot you in the chest before he plunged to his death, but thanks to that whiskey flask you have in the breast pocket of your expensive leather jacket (that seems to instantly dry itself the second you step out of a pool of water) the bullet was magically drawn to the flask and thus missing any vital organs it should have hit. Which leads to our current dilemma . . . the blue wire or the red wire?

Ah, movie clichés . . . there are so many movies that have at least one whether it's the choice between cutting the blue or red wire on a ticking bomb or counting how many times an action heroes tells their captain/boss/leader “I work alone.” Games, too, fall victim to clichés and many of them are just hard to ignore. Make no mistake, this isn’t a complaint but rather an observation from a gaming girl who thinks that in the dawn of the next-generation of gaming that has introduced us to the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, there be changes that reflect the new technology.

And so, Inspector Angelina Sandoval brings to you a list of gaming clichés that still show up at the lineup of usual suspects as well as some advice that other games are bringing to the table of creativity.

FILE 1: CASE OF THE MISSING DEAD GUYS

In the realistic tactical shooter Rainbow Six Vegas for the Xbox 360, I brought an enemy down and he realistically went through the expected characteristics of a kill. The bad guy screams, the bad guy falls, and the bad guy bleeds all over the floor. Looking down at the body, his limbs were positioned realistically askew and his face showed no sign of life. Turning my attention somewhere else for a brief second, I turned back to the body only to find it had somehow vanished. The only indication that he was there is the bloody mess he left behind.

This “missing dead guy effect”, or so I call it, just doesn’t include vanishing bodies but also bodies that will blink out of existence as it does in games like Kengo: Legend of the 9 for the Xbox 360 or Dynasty Warriors: Gundam for the PS3. Whether it’s a programming glitch or a game designers’ way of keeping a room free from being cluttered with bodies, it just takes the realism out of the game.

GUILTY PARTIES

  • John Woo Presents Stranglehold (Xbox 360)

  • The Darkness (All Versions)

  • Crackdown (Xbox 360)

THE SOLUTION: In Hitman: Blood Money, Agent 47 can really pile on the bodies but if you keep the hits to a minimum, you’ll see police officers or security dragging your targets away in body bags! It’s gruesome, indeed, but it makes more sense than having a body blink like a set of Christmas lights before disappearing. If the body belongs to another race other than human, it makes sense if the bodies dissolve into dust or, in the case of the dead demons in The Darkness, evaporate into mist. Really, with gaming machines far more powerful than their predecessors, there’s no reason bodies can be disposed of in ways that make sense.


Hitman: Blood Money - now where should we put  this soon-to-be corpse

FILE 2: YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE … JUST LIKE THE CHOSEN ONE BEFORE THAT

A common occurrence in the role-playing game genre is that the 15-year-old hero or heroine somehow becomes privy to an all too familiar realization that he or she is “the Chosen One.” It’s bad enough that you have to leave your job as a seamstress or stable boy to go on a lengthy journey of self-discovery, romance and high adventure but somehow this very theme makes you feel like you’re simply going through the motions. Perhaps it’s the fact that you’ve gone on similar adventures like this before time and time again that makes this theme feel tired and trite.

GUILTY PARTIES

  • Magna Carta (PlayStation 2)

  • Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (PSP)

  • Lunar: Dragon Song (Nintendo DS)

THE SOLUTION: What if being “the Chosen One” meant that you were chosen to destroy the world or to stop the one man who was destined to save his people? What if there was no Chosen One but rather just a hero who aids the One who would bring balance to the other kingdoms (like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) or be merely just a pawn in a much bigger picture (like Eternal Sonata’s Polka).

FILE 3: IS THIS THE LINE FOR THE FREE LEAD SALAD?

Stop me if you heard this one before. You just infiltrated the enemy stronghold having shot your way into enemy territory and clearing the area with two ammo clips left. You notice that instead of wasting valuable bullets, the gun emplacement to your right would have saved ammo and grenades if only you had spotted it sooner. Still, the gun emplacement somehow calls to you and you jump behind it anyway despite the fact that there are no bad guys around when suddenly enemies start pouring out from nowhere ready to be mowed down by said gun turret. Never mind that their buddies are getting killed, more of them seem to want to line up to get killed.

GUILTY PARTIES

  • Call of Duty 3 (All Consoles)

  • Far Cry: Predator (Xbox 360)

  • Brothers in Arms (PSP)

THE SOLUTION: Gears of War makes an effort to quickly focusing on points of interest such as an object you can push or a gun turret you can use right away so you won’t miss the opportunity to use it in the heat of battle. Halo 3 allows you to not only get behind the gun turret but also rip the gun out of its tripod and take it with you until it runs out of ammo.


Gears of War: You light up my life!

FILE 4: MINE CART FEVER

One of the most exciting moments in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the part where Indy, his main love interest and sidekick Short Round jumped into a mine cart and raced through a dangerous mine while avoiding enemies and broken segments of the mine cart tracks. After that, mine cart levels have showed up in a number of classic games and into the next-generation consoles. This gaming cliché is right up there with a lava level.

GUILTY PARTIES

  • Call of Juarez (Xbox 360)

  • Gears of War (Xbox 360)

THE SOLUTION: Don’t do a mine cart level unless you add an element that hasn’t been seen or done before like having characters leap from cart to cart while said carts are still moving. A better solution is not to have a mine cart level at all.