A lot of games nowadays are geared toward being big bullies -- not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, more games should embrace it, and make us the biggest bullies we can be.

But before I move on, let me be perfectly frank: I love giant robots. My days in eighth grade were incomplete without a bit of G Gundam in the afternoon, and watching two mecha go at it for the sake of world domination seems like an accurate prediction of presidential elections a hundred years from now. I barely missed the Transformers craze as a kid, only able to catch snippets of the show’s reruns; even so, I have fond -- if vague -- memories of the Dinobots running wild, and even fonder memories of Voltron when I was seven. The best part of Power Rangers is, arguably, when the Megazord takes the stage. I let out a girlish squeal whenever Alexander takes the stage in a Final Fantasy game, and can’t get enough of his terrain-stomping, laser-firing action. It’s come to the point where I’ve casually told friends and colleagues that, if I ever become rich, the first thing I’m going to do is fund the research (or, alternatively, buy) for a mecha of my own. And I suspect that now, a few of you want one, too.

Even if we can’t have our own mecha in real life, it shouldn’t be that far of a stretch to put them in video games, at the very least. To be fair, there’s a lot out there already: Mechwarrior, Armored Core, and Virtual-On, to name a few. So from the standpoint of a mecha-starved gamer, there’s sustenance. But my issue ties back to a bigger problem: the sense of scale, and the power granted to the player-character. True, those mecha can be fairly large in theory and by the game-verse’s defined parameters, but rarely do they feel massive and powerful. Instead, the standard environments are merely scaled down, so that trees are just stepping stones, or four-lane streets nothing more than sidewalk-sized.

Never was this more painful a fact than during my playthrough of Robotech: Battlecry on the GameCube a few years back. According to the game’s data -- and the anime franchise it’s derived from -- the mecha in question are made to fight off the forty-foot tall Zentraedi, alien invaders that you actually fight mano e guno in the game. But if you weren’t specifically told that your machine or your enemy were the size of buildings, would you really believe the illusion? The camera is behind you, at the same angle and positioning of any other third-person game; outside of destroying buildings with some poorly-placed gunfire, there’s little destruction to be had even though your machine should theoretically weigh a few tons. Even though you’re supposed to be huge, the surrounding area is huger still -- most buildings tower over you, and the environment is empty beyond enemies roughly your size; the only time you ever feel like a massive mech is a mission where you pick up a car with an idol singer.

Games nowadays are being touted as unoriginal and derivative; half-assed sandbox games, bland FPSes starring space marines, cookie-cutter JRPGs and more. Maybe the problem is that developers are thinking too small -- that they aren’t indulging our latent desire for power in our adventures. If a company’s looking for innovation, then perhaps they should start by having the guts to give us enormous alter egos -- characters with undeniable weight and destructive power.



No doubt you’ve thought of it at one point or another: “They should make a new Godzilla game! And you stomp around, and breathe fire breath, and scare Japanese salary men!” I’ve thought about it, too. I think there’s a lot of potential to be had by making the star more than just an average Joe who stumbles into super-powered godhood, or shoehorning a Marvel hero into a sandbox game. And there are plenty of contenders as well besides my beloved mecha: Godzilla, King Kong, the fifty-foot woman, Ultraman, whatever the hell that thing from Cloverfield was -- each one could bring something new and interesting to the table narrative-wise. Granted, there WAS a game that tried to turn B-movie monsters into protagonists -- I Was an Atomic Mutant -- but I’m going to assume that it sucked, so it doesn’t count.

And besides, why should we live in the past, anyway? This is 2012 -- gaming technology and ideologies have come a long way. The boundaries are being pushed, which means that an intrepid developer should be able to fit in enough room for a plus-sized protagonist. Katamari Damacy, for example, showed off the ability of a game to handle a rapidly-expanding component. What started off as a ball no bigger than a few centimeters could essentially grow into something that rolled over humans, animals and more -- and this was in the PS2 era. Moreover, that wasn’t just something over the course of an entire playthrough, but a single run in a single level. Size is becoming less of an issue, at least in that respect.

But what about creating the feel? The weight, the colossal size and power of a larger character? Look no further than [/i]Tatsunoko vs. Capcom[/i]. True, it may be a fighting game with plenty of fixed variables, but it offers not one, but two so-called “giant-class” characters. While trying to unlock more characters, I decided to hazard a playthrough with the cubical Gold Lightan. It was an experience unlike any I’d had before -- he towered over the other characters (with his head reaching into the HUD), sacrificing speed for size and power; he could stomp the ground and create massive shockwaves; he could grab an enemy and body slam him with the full weight of his roughly eighteen-foot frame. It was refreshing, to say the least; fighting against him for the first time became a truly desperate struggle for survival.



Theoretically, that same power and potential could be repurposed for, say, an Xbox 360 game in a full 3D environment. A solid graphics engine could result in some satisfying large-scale destruction, and if physics come into play (a la Red Faction: Guerilla) then that’s already the start of something magical. Crafting a believable world comes down to how big the player feels in comparison to the rest of a city; I’m not saying it’d be easy by any means, but a truly creative team that can pull it off would be well on its way. Even so, I can see that the main fear would be interacting with the world, with the camera as a huge concern. There are a few ways around this, I think: one, a first-person view that can work in tandem with, say, heat breath; two, a series of highly visible checkpoints for the player to focus on -- or alternatively, some sort of scanning mode that clearly highlights objectives or collectibles(a la Batman: Arkham City) over your massive frame; three, a human-sized helper that could act on your behalf -- you take control of him to talk to people, enter buildings, and not murder the hell out of people. It’s crazy enough to work!

All we need now is a context for our hefty hero -- a narrative arc that propels him from B-movie garbage into Oscar-worthy tortured soul. And (barring playing as a mecha), the possibilities are all there. Playing as Godzilla, or some lawsuit-friendly pastiche? Tap into the terrible lizard’s mythos, excluding the 1998 American movie, and carve a tale featuring enemies big, small, and five times even your size. Going with King Kong? Offer two storylines: one playing as a big ape making his way in the world, and one as a soldier takes on impossible odds, in the same spirit as Wander from Shadow of the Colossus. And while we’re at it, why not add a hidden storyline/mode where you play as a damsel trying to soothe the savage beast (or coax him into destroying everything, a la Mass Effect’s branching dialogue trees)? Are you a bad enough dude to play as a gigantic woman? Other than keeping the breast-positing Tomonobu Itagaki far, far away from the project, make it a hilarious, heartwarming, and heavy tale of her transformation and isolation, along with the requisite good or evil choices. And hey, how about a throw down with the army, or some other huge monster? If crating a story is too troublesome, then just throw two mecha into a city and have them duke it out. Boom -- million copies sold on day one.



There are plenty of possibilities out there, without a doubt. All it takes is a bit of guts, some elbow grease, and an understanding of what gamers are hungry for. Twisted as it may sound, putting players in a position of power is fairly commonplace in the industry as a whole; it’s a logical step to take that feeling up to eleven. The team that can deliver such a game may have a real winner on its hands -- and fulfilling so, so many childhood fantasies of owning a giant robot.

Make it happen. Dare to think big, developers -- think outside the box. And let me level a city with one well-placed Burning Finger.