Bag o' Hit Points

This argument isn’t particularly constructive for the FPS designer, the poor soul who is scrambing for anything to keep things balanced and exciting in the wild wooly west of random online pick-up groups. We can’t really blame them for falling back on pure numbers when necessary (full disclosure: X-Men Legends was an unabashed example of the Numbers Game…). Solving this problem through other means is a tough one, but it is worthwhile to pursue avenues other than the venerable Bag of Hit Points.

Challenge Stage

When looking for ways to increase difficulty, game developers often wish the answer was as simple as adding more enemies to each encounter… “No problem! Double the players equals twice the enemies! BAM!” Sadly, very few game technologies give developers the luxury of unlimited enemies onscreen… It’s a yoke that just about all of us constantly struggle with. Back in the sprite days of Doom and Heretic it wasn’t a big deal; those games had extra enemy spawns that were triggered at higher levels or during coop. In these days of high-fidelity characters, however, most technology still keeps the population somewhere in the single digits.

There are tricks to give a feeling of greater foe count… Placing additional enemy encounters in the “dead spots” between the “standard” encounters works, if you never overlap the encounters to keep the maximum enemy count low. It can be tricky to pull off but it can give the player a sense of a relentless onslaught, requiring him to manage ammo and health more carefully even though he never sees more than a few at a time. Unfortunately, by leveraging this method you can ravage any sense of pacing, leveling out those tension peaks and valleys into a steady drone, and changing the game in perhaps unintended ways.

Another population trick is to deliver more enemies to the battlefield through respawning. This allows enemies to repopulate places that were previously cleared out, denying players a safe retreat and keeping the pressure on. This approach can be reviled by players because it denies them a sense of “completion” within a level (it was a contentious feature in Soldier of Fortune, for example), but it can be used to great effect. My first experience with respawning as a gamer was Doom’s Nightmare mode, where all enemies regenerated after 1 minute or so. (Damn that was hard!) More recently it was embraced in Left 4 Dead, where zombies can pour out of just about any opening, inaccessible fences area, rooftop, etc. Careful use of this mechanic can help a game level feel as though it is packed with hundreds of foes, even if your tech can’t handle it (although L4D did a damn good job with the population too)…

Up to 11

In contrast with developers, a majority of gamers wish that higher difficulty was just a matter of making the enemies smarter… perhaps implying the existence of a Jules Verne-era dial with “IQ” scrawled on the side that can be cranked past 10. Unfortunately game AI is never so easy that you’ve got unused slack somewhere that you’re not using. Generally it’s not decision-making that challenges the AI programmer or designer, but rather environment response and navigation. Sure, humans can walk across an obstacle-ridden field without even thinking about it, but an AI that does this naturally requires tremendous work whether the difficulty level is baby-like or insane.

Even if the leap from floor-traversing mouth-breather to devious mastermind were easy, I’ve repeated many times that “smarter enemies” don’t always pave the way to “more fun” anyway. Aside from major boss-level fights, the opponents in many games don’t last long enough for you to really experience their brilliance… showing off would require for the player to see them, which means they’re probably already busy killing them. Sure, you could make the enemies tougher so that you might see their amazing kung-fu, but then you’re back to turning them into HP bags.

Some games emulate enemy “smarts” by simply increasing their shooting accuracy or giving them uncanny perception. Let me be clear, this is not fun. Most games with gun-toting enemies need them to be inaccurate at long ranges. If an enemy pops into a play space a long distance from the player, chances are the player is not aware of their presence immediately… a bit of warning is needed before he gets a bullet in the head. If an enemy’s accuracy is simply dialed up arbitrarily, the player suddenly starts taking significantly more damage from enemies a few pixels in size… you’ve turned the game into a walk through a room full of snipers. Statistically the enemies are just doing more damage to the player each second anyway… so that’s what you want, just crank the bullet damage and be done.

There are some better models out there for bullet inaccuracy that can help remedy the fun, but they are still aren’t used enough (that would be fun to talk about in another post).

Phases of Death

While technically it is a variation on adding health to opponents, but one way of amping difficulty is giving them additional damage states, each of which has to be “killed”. Examples of this are the humans that become “tentacle heads” when headshot in Resident Evil 4, or the aliens in Blacksite: Area 51, that can sever their torso after being “killed”, crawling after the player. These imply non-realistic opponents or a heavy art burden, but it can also be done by having the foe walk with a limp in phase 2, or switching weapons each phase.

This may sound familiar because it is the way that just about every classic boss encounter works… and for good reason. Bosses are “tough” and hence can soak up a lot more damage… without small player victories and new behaviors coming into play, defeating them would be a tiresome exercise in shoveling damage until it goes down (and many action games still use this model).

Cleverly-designed damage stages also have the advantage of not always being used. A 3-stage robot can skip stage 2 and 3 in easy difficulty, last for a second stage in later levels, and die only after all three in harder difficulties. Depending on how an enemy is designed, it might even be possible to regenerate them to a previous state if not killed in time for even more challenge.

A distant relative of the staged model is a mechanic where an enemy must be in a certain state to be killed. For example, a foe may have a “stunned” state which provides you with an opening to slice off their head. By this I don’t mean “Japanese boss-style” where every 15 seconds the monster opens up his eye-dome and can be hurt, but rather a system that gives the player the tools to introduce a vulnerable state. Another example is a robot who must be immobilized with an electric shock, before you step in to disable his control chip. Or a soft-bodied creature that must be frozen first and then shattered (similar to how the freeze-wrench combo works in Bioshock). Games like modern military shooters are more limited in this respect, but if you have the luxury to play with your enemy ecology (that is, their function and response to various stimuli), a large number of additional options open up to you. As above, you can scale difficulty by sprinkling in these new mechanics more aggressively later on (say, early robots don’t have an “overdrive chip”, but all of them do at higher difficulty).

Smarty(er)-Pants

Other tricks aside, there’s still a value in delivering a smarter enemy… or at least one the gamer will recognize as “smarter”. One example of that is to add some coordinated behaviors between multiple foes. A simple trigger that makes several enemies charge at once or synchronize multiple grenade tosses can add difficulty in a hurry. Throw in an audio cue to draw attention to it and suddenly the gamer has a newfound respect for your AI mojo, baby. More complicated relationships like an enemy that lays down covering fire while the other charges can be good also, but the more complex they get, the more likely they are to fail or get lost in the shuffle. Sure, it makes things harder, but look for ways that are going to make the player feel the added pressure.

Left 4 Dead in particular leveraged this synchronization through their “AI Director”. While not technically an issue of “smarts” (the zombies are, well, zombies) when the director decided that the experience needed a massive assault for added danger, the player knew that the game was turning on the heat. The perception of challenge is perhaps as important as the actual difficulty increase.

Adding enemies with interrelated behaviors is also a method to give a feeling that they are “conspiring against you”. A prime enemy that adds challenge to any group is the buffing opponent. The Shaman in Diablo II and the Arch-Vile in Doom II could resurrect fallen opponents, making the whole group for more deadly and interesting to fight. Other, more mild examples of this type of enemy are enemies that have an aura that heals or increases the strength of their nearby friends.

A player must completely change his tactics and adjust when fighting a group that has a buffing foes added. Even one can add considerable challenge, and multiples can be devastating. Beyond just spawning extra ones, their behaviors can be tweaked for difficulty by increasing the buffing effect, casting time, or the radius of their ability.

Looking closer, any type of environmental object that enemies can utilize can add challenge and an extra feeling of intelligence, no matter how simple. Enemy buffs could be provided by emplacements rather than spawned foes. The health stations in BioShock kept you from leaving your nearly-dead foe alone, because he might return fully charged. Emplaced totems such as those in World of Warcraft are similar.

Final Thoughts

Reflecting on what I’ve written above, I see that there is no “magic bullet” for scaling difficulty (although I hoped that writing about it might shake one loose). The techniques that must be used will certainly vary from game to game… My main suggestion is to look beyond the traditional D&D numerical “crutch” when faced with systems that need to scale. I understand why we do it: it’s not just our inner fanboy screaming to get out… numbers are a necessary part of our job and getting results. However, I love designs where the player doesn’t have to be steeped in numbers in order to succeed.

You might also come out of this thinking that I turn my nose up at RPG’s. On the contrary, it’s one of my favorite genres, and Diablo II is still my favorite game of all time.

Finally, I certainly mean no disrespect for what Resistance 2 has accomplished in its multiplayer mode. Along with Call of Duty 4, I think it has laid a foundation for great semi-persistent online experiences for shooters. What others might build upon these concepts in the future makes my mind reel.

As I played through the first few levels, I got reminded of weird thing that always bothered me with the Halo series. The weapon you start with, the Assault Rifle, always starts the game on the wrong foot for me.  It always felt anemic and ineffective against enemies, and the third installment wasn’t a whole lot better.  I have no doubt that some of this might be a design choice, since it would be foolish to give the player a powerful weapon at the start of the game.  Of course you need a lot of room for growth so that the player feels a sense of achievement as he/she finds new weaponry. However, for a weapon so obviously inspired by the Pulse Rifle from Aliens (one of the coolest movie guns ever), it’s always been tremendously disappointing to have my anticipation dashed…  The gun looked and sounded so subdued, and had little apparent effect on my opponents.

C’mon, watch this and tell me that you don’t want that rifle to be this badass sounding.

While I got past it and am now churning through Halo 3, the experience got me thinking about what elements make up a weapon that is satisfying to wield. Sure, making a weapon do more damage is what you’d expect, but there are a large number of intangibles that can add to the player’s shooter experience without disrupting the balance of the game.

Most of my roots are from Raven Software, where shooters are (mostly) a way of life. If there’s one thing that members of the studio preached constantly, most particularly my boss Brian Raffel, was that “the player must feel powerful”. It seems obvious, but a lot of times games don’t do enough to make the player feel like the gun in his/her hand is an unstoppable tool of destruction. This is about gratification and player expectation… Movies have trained audiences to expect that guns shoot massive plumes of flame and sparks and are accompanied by tremendous booming sound. In comparison, the sharp, loud crack or pop of a real gun can be a disappointment (although obviously they are intimidating nonetheless in person). Usually just modeling the audio and visual reality of a weapon isn’t quite enough.

Most games that have contemporary-style guns have a few standbys in their arsenal … the pistol, the machinegun or automatic rifle, and the shotgun. As an exercise, I cracked out a bunch of different first-person shooters and captured their weapons on video for the purposes of comparison. These games were:

• Halo 3 (Xbox 360, 2007)
• Resistance: Fall of Man (Playstation 3, 2006)
• Half Life 2 (PC, 2004)
• Quake 4 (PC, 2005)
• Doom (PC, 1993)
• Deus Ex (PC , 2000)
• Bioshock (Xbox 360, 2007)

In each, I took shots of the weapon firing at a surface, and follow with shooting at a “common” opponent. The choice of a “common” opponent is arbitrary (and sometimes driven by convenience when I was capturing footage), but suffice it to say that I wanted to choose an enemy that the player was going to face frequently with a given weapon. A few of these weapons also have “upgrades” that make them more effective, but I wanted to provide feedback on how the weapon would be seen upon first picking it up… will the player be glad he did? Will he or she keep using it because it’s just awesome?

The quality of some of the footage isn’t awesome because of some incredibly dark areas in some of these games, but you should get the idea. If I get a chance I’ll capture some cleaned-up versions of the footage and link ‘em up. Each of the three weapon types has its own video sequence, and for each weapon, I examined several different elements that contribute to a sense of power:

• Gun Visuals: This refers to the visual effect of the weapon’s muzzle flash and bullet trail, and the animation of the weapon itself firing. It is the first thing people think of when they consider how the gun looks and feels.
• Sound Effects: Obviously this refers to the audio of the weapon, from the firing to the impact sounds, if appropriate. It can be tough to balance a sense of “power” in the sound without overdoing it, since the player may hear this same sound thousands of times… if it sounds like Zeus himself leveling mountains, you’ll quickly feel like you’re playing a cartoon.
• Effect on Environment: This includes the visual impact of the bullet on a wall or floor, as well as environmental shifts such as lighting. It is important because the results of stray bullets reinforce the player’s sense of having an impact on their environment and that they have a potent weapon.
• Effect on Opponent: A very important category, this refers to the visual impact on an enemy, and how the enemy reacts to being shot. This is critical to give the player feedback that he is successfully damaging the foe.
• Combat Effectiveness: This is a highly subjective category that is mostly driven by the overarching goals of the game’s arsenal, but worth mentioning. When a weapon is inaccurate or ineffective, it may be such because of an overabundance of ammunition for it, or perhaps the fact that it is designed for certain situations or opponents. It doesn’t change the fact that a wussy weapon can be irritating and simply avoided by frustrated players.

I’m not out to make a stink and necessarily rank these weapons (hey, I know some of the people who made these games) but there are certainly specific guns that do the job better than others. If I wanted to rate a weapon, I’d have to consider its effectiveness and how appropriately it fits into the game’s fiction, which means I’d have to take the entire arsenal into account (and be more fair to tech capabilities) instead of just looking at three weapons. Instead, I’ll talk about their choices and speak briefly about whether they aid or hamper a sense of power.

Pistols

Pistols are a mainstay of shooters because they are the most common type of firearm and most familiar to the audience.  Since Wolfentein 3D it has been put in the hands of new players to give them a taste of gunplay, while still giving them plenty of room to grow into more formidable weaponry.  Quake 2 started the short-lived trend of giving the pistol unlimited ammo so that the player does not have to fall back to melee attacks, but that was quickly eclipsed by the idea of the pistol being a low-powered precision weapon.  Counterstrike in 1999 cemented the concept that a highly skilled player could be incredibly deadly if they could manage the head shots required to get a pistol kill. 

Halo 3

The Halo pistol is a fun one to start with because it is everything Halo’s Assault Rifle isn’t. The visual effects has a nice white-hot flame and a bit of smoke that covers a good chunk of the screen but disappears quickly. The audio is punchy but has a little throaty-ness to it. The effect on the environment is slight, with only a small spark on the walls however. When firing at an opponent, there isn’t a whole lot of feedback because there is little impact and they don’t always seem to hit react, unless you hit them in the head. In gameplay it has a steady rate of fire and reasonable stopping power that makes it fine for a skilled player.

Resistance: Fall of Man

Resistance’s arsenal had a lot of special-function weapons (being from the Ratchet and Clank folk), so they skipped the pistol in this game. Being a fan of every weapon having a “raison d’etre“, I certainly don’t mind that they didn’t just throw in a pistol for extra quantity.

Half-Life 2

The Half-Life pistol is fairly unique in its semi-auto capability, which allows it to shoot as fast as you can hammer the trigger… making it extra-deadly in the hands of the skilled. The weapons in Half-Life tend to go a bit light on the pyrotechnics of the muzzle flash (which is more subtle and realistic), but the sharp crack and echo of the pistol audio makes it pretty dangerous-sounding. The environment impact effects are fairly small and smoky, but the bullet holes and tiny bouncing chunks coming off the wall add a nice sense of the physicality of the environment. When striking an opponent, the bloody impact is small unless there is a wall behind to show the blowthrough, but the nice part is the fact that humanoid enemies do twitch their body parts a bit upon impact, even if they are returning fire at the moment.

Quake 4

Considering it comes from my Alma Mater, I expected some meaty weapons from Quake 4 on par with the macho ones found in the Soldier of Fortune series… However, the pistol’s definitely a bit player in the game, doubtless because of the fact that it does not consume ammo. Its conical muzzle flash is subtle, and the bullet trail doesn’t add much to the gravity of your projectile. The “spacey” firing sound with an incredibly short envelope makes it seem more like air pistol, but again it’s probably on purpose to give more value to the weapons that aren’t “free”. The impact effects are nearly invisible, but at least the weapon has a nice light source when fired in a dark area. The impact on enemies is very slight as well, with only the occasional hit reaction until the enemy goes down.

Doom

Perhaps it’s unfair to use a 15-year-old game in comparison with so many modern titles, but Doom accomplished so much for its time, and some of its fantastic gunfights have only rarely been matched in current games. The pistol from Doom is a bit timid these days, with its red-tinged hand-drawn muzzle flash and staccato “pow” sound effect… The impact effect on the walls is nice and visible, though the smoke rises too quickly taking the attention away from the point of impact. The slight “light” from the muzzle flash does well considering how old the tech is. The effect from striking the opponent is a nice red “flower” of blood, and the sprite enemies play jerky “hit” animation frames enough to get the point across so that you definitely feel like you’re hurting your foe. Finally, the pistol was a solid weapon for base enemies, taking them out in 3 or so shots, unlike pistols from many of the other games.

Deus Ex

This game was not really known for its fast-action gameplay, but it provides an interesting comparison with other FPS weaponry. The muzzle flash is big, but it clearly was mostly a single flat polygon that doesn’t look white hot like its competitors do. The sound effect is certainly not timid, with a big “crashy” gunshot with a long, loud echo. The most disappointing part of this weapon is how little result you see on the environment, spouting only a tiny speck of wall from an impact. Enemies do not fare much better, with almost no effect appearing on a target when hit, and no hit reaction animation. Finally, since the game is extensively skill-based, the player’s accuracy with guns at the beginning of the game is ridiculously low, leading to many impotent-feeling shots.

Bioshock

When I started this exercise, I almost forgot to include Bioshock, but I’m glad it made the list. Its pistol has a bright, large muzzle flash and cascading sparks, including from the hammer, as well as some nice lighting on the dark surroundings. The gunshot sound is a bit deeper than most of the others, but it has a fairly good echo after the initial crack. The surface impacts are the most impressive of this set, with lots of dust and sparks blooming from the point of impact, along with a chunk or two of the impacted surface. The impact on enemies is extremely rewarding, paying successful hits with glistening gouts of blood that nearly rival the excess and stylishness of Gears of War. Finally, the weapon’s fairly effective in combat and can be used as a staple weapon, as long as you can deal with the 6-shot reload cycle. The only unfortunately thing is animation of the weapon itself… Its placement onscreen evokes someone holding the weapon as far to the right of their head as possible, giving the overall firing and reloading actions a sort of weird “gangly” look. Compare this to most games that anchor the weapons about 1/3 from the bottom right corner.

Machineguns

I had to be a bit looser in my definition of “machineguns”, drawing from everything from heavy MG’s to submachine guns to assault rifles to miniguns.  In general, these are the common weapons that people use to mow down opponents.  It also goes all the way back to Wolfenstein 3D (with both the SMG and the gatling), and generally grants a nice sense of power from holding down the trigger to unleash hundreds of bullets.  The application of this weapon varies from game to game, sometimes as a long-range spray weapon for very light enemies, to a closer-range “panic” weapon (see Aliens again) to being a precision implement for rewarding accuracy by putting many bullets in one enemy.  For the purposes of this article I will mostly consider whether it feels freakin’ cool to use. (How’s that for scientific?)

Halo 3

When I break down the Assault Rifle in Halo (which we’ve already discussed as “missing something” for me), I find the muzzle flash itself to be fairly fine. The weapon has a fairly large bulk that covers a chunk of the screen, so the bright, star-shaped muzzle flash does the job well. The muted firing sound is a disappointment however, evoking more of an electric typewriter than Hicks and Vasquez cutting loose. The environment impact effects are very small pockmarks and tiny sparks, although kudos to them for portraying bullets ricochet in random directions afterwards. The enemy impacts are nearly nonexistent, however. The opponents do have a satisfying animated hit reaction when struck, but rarely do I see where I hit them. In general, the Assault Rifle is more effective than it was in previous Halo installments, it still is almost useless unless you are fairly close to your opponent and tends to be skipped over when choosing a weapon loadout.

Resistance: Fall of Man

The M5A2 Carbine in Resistance is the player’s starting weapon, and definitely sees more use than the Halo rifle over the course of the game. This weapon has a nice, bright muzzle flash and a distinct screen shake when the weapon is fired. The sound effect is sharp with a nice echo and seems nicely realistic (in a “WWII movie” sort of way) to contrast with some of the more unusual weapons provided later on in the game. The environment impacts are certainly more prominent than Halo’s, with a high, vertical gout of dirt, although it’s pretty subtle when striking harder surfaces. When hitting an enemy, the dark sprays of blood provide okay feedback, although sometimes it’s hard to tell if you are significantly damaging one of the grunts. This can be a pain because the weapon seems volatile in its effectiveness. Sometimes a few shots do the trick and cut a hose on a foe, but sometimes they just won’t freakin’ die. Perhaps this is to cement the fact that the soldiers are vastly outgunned in this war, but there are too few weapons (and the Carbine shows up too often) to make this point at the cost of fun gameplay.

Half-Life 2

For an automatic weapon, the SMG from Half-Life 2 is a bit different than the others but it fits the bill because it is so frequently used. Once again, the weapon has a fairly subtle muzzle flash that isn’t the white hot light of a dozen suns, but it lets the firing rate and the vibration of the weapon do the talking. It unloads a ton of bullets, more than any other gun on this list, with a throaty chattering sound that blends individual shots into an intimidating roar. The impacts are once again dusty with little physics-driven wall “bits”, but the sheer quantity generated by the rate of fire of this weapon makes it fairly impressive and not too over-the-top. The blood spray from impacts is subtle again, although Valve made the blow-through extremely visible if the enemy is against a wall. The enemies don’t twitch too much when hit by this weapon, but this definitely feels like a precision weapon, so perhaps I don’t feel the need for as much validation of my hits. Overall it feels and plays like a deadly implement.

Quake 4

This weapon is a workhorse in Q4’s arsenal. Its firing effects aren’t too prominent, with the muzzle flash lasting only a frame or two, making individual shots more of a flicker or flash and making the weapon vibration and environment lighting carry the sense of power. The sound is extremely staccato, like the “realistic” Carbine in Resistance, but even more “nail-gun-like” because it is clearly made up of individual short gunshot sounds, unlike the Half-Life 2 SMG that blends them together. The impact effects are good, however, with large sparks cascading from the point of impact. Since the environment is mostly metal, the impact decals are fairly small and don’t leave a lot of evidence of the player’s action. Hitting an enemy spouts a misty spray of blood that is sometimes visible but can be missed, and as with many other games, the opponents don’t always hit react… This is generally for gameplay purposes so that the player does not excessive interrupt the enemy’s ability to fight back, but it definitely can lead to weaker feedback.

Doom

The minigun in Doom is the closest comparison to an automatic rifle for this category. The firing effects are fairly simple again with a hand-drawn flare and a slight environment lighting flicker. Otherwise, this weapon is basically a fast-firing pistol. Actually it literally is, using the same sound, impact, damage effects, and (if I recall correctly) the exact same projectile code as the pistol, so most of the pistol feedback applies. In terms of effectiveness, the weapon is all about peppering your enemies with dozens of pistol shots, making it effective at killing the masses of low-level enemies that is a staple of Doom gameplay.  In addition, it carries a second role is locking down more beefy enemies like the Cacodemon, who gets caught in a “dance” of hit reaction animations while the player keeps firing.

Deus Ex

As with the pistol in Deus Ex, the muzzle flash for the assault rifle is a simple flat sprite that doesn’t have much motion and is slightly transparent, meaning that it doesn’t look “hot” enough. The firing sound effects are also fairly low-key, leading to less of a sense of power, which is surprising given the massive sounds generated from the pistol and shotgun. There is nearly no impact effect from using this weapon, on either the environment or an opponent… the enemies in particular do not hit react much at all from impacts. This is likely to avoid the “hit react dance” that lock down opponents in games like Doom, but the weapon is generally inaccurate enough at the start of the game that players can get frustrated after acquiring what they thought would be an awesome weapon. Early in the game, the best way to get kills is to fire up the body and go for the headshot.

Bioshock

With the Thompson SMG, Bioshock once again delivers a nice sense of power in their weapon effects. The weapon’s muzzle flash is white-hot and the gun’s high rate-of-fire as well as the huge shells ejecting in all directions provides some very gratifying feedback. The sound is nice and staccato, but it also has a verylong echo that helps blend the individual shots together, although a bit less than Half Life 2′s SMG.  Each bullet’s impact on the environment is again very good, spouting an excessive amount of dust and sparks, and hits on enemies once again presents a prominent splash of blood that gives a tremendous sense of reward for being on target.  Overall this weapon feels very good to wield.

Shotguns

The shotgun is an incredibly fun weapon to use in just about any game, being introduced so dramatically in Doom.  Generally it’s a close-range weapon only, scoring almost certain kills within 5-10 feet, but reducing to near ineffectiveness once the enemy is very distant.  Some games rely on the shotgun to be easy to use and allow the player to fire fairly quickly, but in general games limit their rate of fire with extensive recoil or reload times.  However limited it is, the shotgun is nearly always one of the most satisfying weapons to use, from the sound to the effect it has on opponents.  Few gamers don’t crack a smile when they find the very first shotgun in a new game.

Halo 3

When it comes to ferocity, the Halo shotgun is a standout. Its huge muzzle flash covers almost a quarter of the screen with fire, sparks and smoke, and the sound is beefy with a very long echo trailing off. The impact effects are unfortunately very small, although there are enough pellets that it leaves a satisfying number of divots in the terrain afterwards. The impact on enemies is again fairly subtle, although the enemies will almost certainly play a hit reaction… if they survive the gunshot at all.  If they do die, the enemies topple backwards with a nice sense of force. In the video, the brute shows off another nice bit of design.  While they are tough enough that they can’t be flattened with a single shotgun blast, their armor generally gets knocked off with the first shot, giving the player a sense that he accomplished something rather than is continuously piling bullets into a relentless pile of meat.  

Resistance: Fall of Man

Compared with Halo, Resistance’s shotgun is a bit more subdued. Its muzzle flash is softer and less “hot” looking, and the weapon jerks back far enough that it appears to be firing towards the ceiling. Its sound effect is also a little hollower and lacks some of the “boom” of other shotguns. The world impacts are nice however, with the pellets causing many prominent sparks or sprays depending on the surface. The impacts on enemies, again, is mainly shown in their reactions, from hit animations to being thrown backwards as a corpse. It is another classic shotgun in that it is quite effective at taking enemies out in 1-2 hits, but in general it requires a very solid bead on the opponent to score an instant kill.

Half-Life 2

Living up to their precision credo in weaponry, the Half-Life shotgun is different in that its spray is much tighter than other game shotguns, perhaps being tuned for more realism or longer-range shootouts. In terms of visuals, the muzzle flash is 1-2 frames but is conical and meshes well with the nicely-animated weapon recoil. The sound effect is dramatic, but doesn’t rely on echo as much as other shotguns. The world impacts are once again dust and tiny bits, but come in a quantity that is satisfying in a “realistic” fashion. The impact on enemies again will come from the blood seen on the wall behind the enemy rather than the impact itself.  In general, this weapon feels very satisfying without being overly “big”, with its tight shot spread making it deadly at a longer distance with only the six shot capacity as a weakness.

Quake 4

This shotgun has a softer muzzle flash that is a bit difficult to see, mainly because it is attached to the barrel of the gun after it recoils upwards. Since the fiery “action” is pulled towards the upper right of the player view, this shotgun’s impact effects provide most of the visual “punch” of this weapon. Unfortunately, the impact sparks are much less prominent than they were with Quake 4’s machinegun, perhaps due to performance reasons with the number of particles generated. The sound effect is a nice combination of “punchy” and “crunchy” without having to rely on a long echo… The impact on an enemy can be a mixed bag. The standard misty spray of blood is generated when a character is hit, but it doesn’t always animate in response. However, if the enemy is killed, it flies back very far (which can be quite satisfying). This weapon is a good member of the Q4 arsenal, except for its criminally long reload time.

Doom

Every first person shooter owes the Doom shotgun a great debt… When it came out it was the coolest damn weapon players had ever wielded, unmatched for years for its raw sense of power as well the satisfying recoil-and-cock animation after the shot. The hand-drawn muzzle flash itself of course looks dated these days, but the cocking motion up and left still provides a nice perspective view of a weapon that otherwise is only seen from an extreme back angle. The sound is throaty and dangerous-sounding even now, and the environment impacts provide a fairly good cloud of dust. Best of all, when hitting a grunt enemy, from a soldier to an imp, Doom’s shotgun doesn’t disappoint. Most baseline foes perish in one hit, flying backwards in a bloody arc that still grants a satisfying experience.

Deus Ex

The sawed-off shotgun is one of two in Deus Ex, but I used it because it is more “typical” than the game’s semi-auto shotgun.  The muzzle flash sprite, like the other Deus Ex weapons, was again very hard-edged with not enough brightness to make it look “hot” (likely due to using alpha instead of additive transparency for the sprite). Since the gun recoils far up and to the right, your eye focuses more on the impact of your shot, which is marked by only a few bits of wall flung about. Similarly, only a few tiny bits of blood are visible when striking an opponent although a hit reaction animation was nicely more common.  This weapon has a “boomy” sound is as similarly overstated as the pistol, feeling a bit too cartoony to listen to over the course of an entire game.  Finally, since I wanted to compare weapons at a skill level more suitable to first impressions, so once again Deus Ex’s skill system gave me a very low accuracy with this gun.  For a weapon that I pick up and expect to be satisfying, this might have higher realism, but it felt the most impotent of the shotguns. 

Bioshock

Nice to end on a high note…  The Bioshock shotgun was truly a surprise to me when I filmed it, even though I had already played a fair amount of the game.  The muzzle flash is large and is accompanied by a nice satisfying cocking animation that evokes Doom’s. Unfortunately the recoil brings the weapon far to the right like the pistol, which provides the awkward-looking arm positioning seen in the pistol as well. The firing sound effect has a nice “crack” with a long echo trailing off, but the best part are the world impacts, which stir up huge chunks of the ground, leaving dust, sparks, and huge divots. When striking an enemy, the big ol’ blood splash comes through for us again, giving us juicy feedback that we just hurt someone bad.  Overall this is a good weapon that can take an enemy down in a couple of hits, and makes you feel good whether you hit or not… everything a shotgun should be.

More Power, Mister Scott!

To summarize, if you to give me that awesome feeling when I pick up a weapon in a shooter, these are the things I look for:

• A nice sized, white-hot muzzle flash effect, with a small amount of lingering smoke.  Not so much as to obscure what I’m shooting at, though. 
• Good localized world lighting eminating from my weapon.
• A recoil animation that pulls back significantly, but doesn’t pull back so far that the muzzle flash isn’t pointed at the target.
• A bit of screen shake for more powerful weapons.
• Sound effects with a sharp attack and a nice tail (“echo”).  If the weapon is automatic, make the tail enough that they blend the various shots together into a “growl”.
• Wall impacts that impart a lot of dust (or sparks vs. metal) and loose nice, visible, unrealistic chunks of wall.
• Impact decals that are at least the size of a fist, and more specifically can be seen up to 10 feet.
• Enemy impacts marked with a significant splash of blood, a size that equals perhaps 1/3 of the body.
• Enemy hit reactions whenever possible, and always with a shotgun.  If it is possible to give the enemy’s body a jerk without disrupting his ability to act (see Half Life 2), use that.
• An enemy that dies from a gunshot should not crumple straight to the ground, but be knocked back slightly from a pistol kill, and signficantly from a shotgun kill.
• An enemy’s death should be marked by a distinctive scream or other sound so that they know when the opponent is down, even if he continues to ragdol upright for a period of time.
• The more inaccuracy you impart on your gun, the more important the visibility of your hits need to be, so that the player doesn’t assume they are scoring hits when they are not.  Regardless, avoid excessive inaccuracy in any gun to avoid frustration.

I hope this little tour has been informative in how different weapons can give that ol’ feeling of power. If I have time I may add new games with similar weapons for comparison. However, what might be more useful is undergoing the same exercise for third person weaponry… Compared to first-person, a third-person game has a much more difficult time conveying a sense of power because the action isn’t quite as “in-your-face”. As such, some games like Grand Theft Auto never really achieve the gratifying result of a gunshot that an FPS can. I’ve seen a few that do, but that will wait for another day.

Everybody wants their game, whether the one they’re making or the one they’re playing, to be jam-packed to the gills with stuff. Why? Well, features just make everything seem cooler. A gamer feels like they are getting better value for their dollar… and extra bullet points on the back of the box makes everyone happier.

But you’ve gotta ask yourself, is a game with 500 weapons really better than one with 10? Sure, if the game is about acquisition, like Diablo… However, a lot of action games generally aren’t better off with 20 different models of assault rifles (and there are plenty to go around…  I used to play Phoenix Command, remember).

Is that extra stuff always worth it?  Was No More Heroes really a better experience for having that empty open-world you could drive around in your motorcycle? Would Kane and Lynch have been better if you could get into those parked cars and driven around their dense one-block-sized levels?

How about Spiderman 2? I’ve noticed this one to be a bit more divisive with developers, since it feeds into the almighty “gamer expectations”… Sure, he ran around an open-world like Grand Theft Auto, but should Spidey have been able to hop in a car and drive around New York City? Would it still have been a Spiderman game if instead of swinging through the rooftops, he was tooling around town in a low-rider?

Game development is just as much about focus as it is about “doing neat stuff”. Your game is nothing if you don’t make a great core experience. Believe it or not, God of War really had a pretty simple combat system under the hood… they just polished the hell out of it. There weren’t 20 weapons, or an intricate collection of grapples and throws. There weren’t even that many enemies. They honed in on what their audience enjoyed and they were rewarded with a huge hit.

Bioshock started as a much more complicated game, reflecting its RPG roots in System Shock. There were a ton of cuts made to the game to make it more like a “shooter”. But dear lord, you sure can’t tell as a user of the end product… it’s still an incredibly complex game!  I’m sure there were tons of fights inside the development team when the axe started falling.

As I play GTA IV these days, for all its great gameplay and amazing accomplishment, it’s an iteration of a series that has been in development for over a decade. It’s got the biggest budget of all time. People are already starting to wonder what it’ll do to people’s expectations…  Do they really think that Gran Turismo will suddenly allow you to get out of the car, enter the stands and buy a popcorn? That Soul Calibur will add rocket launchers and monster trucks? That Halo will allow you to hop in a frigate and become a free trader across the galaxy?

And more importantly, would those great experiences be better for it? 

I’ve talked before about making sure that your game is scaled appropriately, but when and where do those cuts happen?  I’ll hit this next time.

Sequel articles:  More Part 2: Justifying the Axe, Pillars and Razors.

See also:  Making the Rules: The Scale of a Game

Somewhat coincidentally, I’ve been immersing myself in the work of three different continents lately: Bioshock, Overlord and Persona 3. While perhaps they are not completely iconic of the values of their respective region-coding, they certainly reminded me of some of the cultural differences I’ve seen in their products over the years. Here are some broad generalizations on the qualities of Japanese and American games:

Japan:

• Japanese games tend to mix up settings, so that fantasy is often mixed with sci-fi, psionics, westerns, or whatever. The setting and content often just serve the game creator’s style, creating a certain type of character, or having some sort of visual impact, even if explanations are thin.
• Content is experienced in a fairly linear fashion, even in open-ended RPG’s. Major events are always presented in order, as there is no expectation of “the player writing their story”. The player is definitely being “spoken for” by the mostly mute main character.
• Characters are strongly defined, very early in the game. Each has a distinct look and clearly identifiable motivations. Even when the game has customization of equipment, it tends to not interfere with the character’s graphic. Whether he or she is wearing a feathered cap or a robot helmet, they still appear in the stylish outfit the character designer created.



• All characters, including NPC’s, tend to wear their heart on their sleeves and spew forth their deepest motivations at the drop of a hat. Cute characters or awkward females are frequently included as tension-relievers.
• The first hour of the game often comes near to playing itself, with an extremely tightly controlled experience. From Square RPG’s to Mario, the Japanese slowly dole out setting and mechanics, even if it takes several hours.
• Gameplay tends to be compartmentalized into smaller game areas in the interest of a simpler interface and smooth visuals. Interfaces vary depending on the game mode, with no fear of menus, overmaps, or stopping the action to allow the player to focus on a single decision.
• Japan has an element of “fantasy” in most games. Suspension of disbelief is not a concern with unusual additions to a fiction. The visual and stylistic impact on these choices seems to take precedent over world consistency. Japanese don’t seem to expend much energy on explaining why the world is normal except for one weird element, or why one member of the party is a giant anteater, and the audience just lets it roll over them.
• The locations in Japanese games are varied, but very often involve abstract interpretations of public spaces. A busy downtown street will be depicted even if the engine can’t support more than 5 NPC’s to occupy it and the camera must be kept top-down to avoid looking at the horizon. This is sufficient, however, to the gamer.
• While they may seem to defy typical American genres, Japanese games have their own that get followed with some fairly specific guidelines as well: Turn-based RPG, Action RPG, card battle, screen-based sim (from horse racing to dating), turn-based strategy, and so on.

United States:

• Americans tend to expect more of a consistent feel from their settings, with fantasy, western, or modern day delivered with certain expectations. When settings are mixed, there tends to be more energy spent explaining why when the Japanese seem to accept each new world.
• Player choice is a highly valued in American games, even if it isn’t delivered all the time. The player’s ability to take an environment and solve it the way he wants to is very important to the public. This usually puts an emphasis on gameplay or mechanics, but this choice is often to the detriment of storytelling.



• U.S. characters tend to take characters to the extremes… Either the game is about the main character, which forms the nucleus of a game’s style, such as God of War, or the character is pushed into the background, making the environment or the gameplay the “main character”, such as in Bioshock or Half-Life. Character customization is valued so the player can be anyone, which detracts from visual design as well as strong player motivations as portrayed in cutscenes.
• The first hour of an American game is focused on “netting the player”, with awareness that the audience may have several games vying for his attention. A great deal of choice and ability is thrown at the player in short fashion to make sure that they understand everything the game is about quickly.
• First-person perspective is also highly valued in American games. These titles universally push the main character into the background, allowing the player to be that individual.
• American games are strongly focused on presenting a continuous experience for the player, with few menus or load times, and game controls and interface that must serve combat as well as during exploration. Menus are kept to a minimum, and real-time battles are always expected in the game world, leading to a more complicated control scheme. Online is also a strong virtue, which almost requires a continuous experience to be functional.
• Settings in American games also are frequently pushed to areas that the designer can control without protest from the player. A dense city for example is often avoided because they are hard to deliver without the compartmentalizing practices of Japanese games. This can lead to more freely explorable games with a far lower visual fidelity, such as Grand Theft Auto III.
• Ironically, however, Americans are influenced by mass media to be more attracted to “realistic” settings and subject matter. Film and TV fall into modern settings even when they explore the fantastic, from Quantum Leap to Bruce Almighty) Unfortunately, while theses settings make it easier for filming TV and movies, they are harder for U.S. gamemakers to place continuous experiences in (in a way that satisfies designers and audiences). Americans are much less interested in suspension of disbelief.
• American games tend to more readily associate “settings” with “genre” than the Japanese. A fantasy game often has a certain set of gameplay expectations, as does a modern military or crime game.
• Action in American games almost universally means combat because they are astronomically easier to put into real-time continuous experiences. And since there is so much pressure to set games in the modern day, the conversation usually turns to guns, because Americans can’t imagine a society that guns are not a part of.

I’m not here to simply rebut Rick and say that Western games are superior (someone else should do that!). One common point of contention between those that enjoy Japanese games versus American ones is how stories are told. Japanese games get all that character data out to the audience quickly, and get right to the drama between them. The dialogue will often include long drawn out exposition on a given character’s motives, and generally those motives are not too deep. American developers are influenced by western cinema that places artistic value on subtlety, slow tension-building and multi-layered character depth. Sadly enough, these techniques are hostile to the average game-player’s patterns… Delivering a punchline to a joke that was set up only ten minutes of cinema-time doesn’t take into the account the chance that the player quit, saved, and waited for two weeks before picking up the game again. The player might miss the several subtle cues that told us that the main character is already dead, or whatever. Sometimes it’s frustrating enough during the development process that many developers either cut all the interesting side-plots before ship, or just fall back on summer blockbuster conventions, which leads to more guns and explosions.

As I touched upon in my post on Children of Men, brisk, bold, simple storytelling is probably the best thing for games. For all the posturing and monologues seen in Japanese games, they are getting the information out to the player and reinforcing it multiple times. The player will certainly remember Cloud and Dante more than Garrett or even Gordon Freeman. Ironically, when an American game guns for a memorable character like Kratos in God of War, the game ends up being more linear, with a clear character who is not bashful about his motives… In other words, it creates an experience like the Japanese have been doing for years.

[Ed: Check out Rick's series of posts here and here.]