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Contest:
2:40 PM on 08.13.2009
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Also, it was a great show.
If you do lose your psychic companion, you can gain another, but they have limited ammo against the creature and no means of tracking it as you find the exit. You're constantly struggling as you delve deeper into the Tokyo underground. They only time you overpower the monster is at the end, but it's not directly either. You're chased right up to the final minute. Shame that very few people ever actually played it.
That shit was holding my sides hilarious.
What's the most ultimate popular "disempowerment" series in my opinion? Clocktower.
Also, how did Mirrors Edge "screw up" powerlessness in the main game? Just don't grab guns and it's the same experience as the demo.
Often times the BEST experiences I've ever had in a game where when I WASN'T empowered, and when I legitimatly become the hunted instead of some kind of super-hunter.
Or situations where I felt like I was simply a part in a bigger effort (like in Freespace 2) or I was going against a similar opponent/situation that is legitimatly un-empowering (such as in most mulitplayer games or in ArmA2, where the game is more about making right strategic choices for your squad inside of simulator-style gameplay instead of being a badass).
That said I love feeling like a badass too, but usually only when it's my choices that make me feel like one. Such as in Oblivion, where I built myself to be a badass instead of a game saying "okay you're a badass!".
I think it really works for what it is. Plus, it helped me invent the sport of zombie-juking.
I once read someones views on what would have been a much more climatic final boss for Bioshock, where instead of Awesomepower VS Awesomepower x2, it should have been you as a ridiculously tough guy escorting Little Sisters into the submarine while Fontaine constantly respawned as a weaker enemy that attacked you with weak attacks but really fast, to contrast with Big Daddy fights where you'd be the weaker force that kept coming back for the Little Sister, and it sounded awesome.
As for the bulk of the arguement, hell yes. Games where you are weak and the enemy is strong can turn out damn well. I hated the bulk of Bioshock, but the Big Daddy fights always felt surprisingly great (Big Daddies and the Cohen Nutcracker scene were the bits I liked). I can't think of many other games where you are the weaker side, except maybe some stealth games.
On the side of being overpowered, I have to say the equal is when you can kill an enemy really easily, but there are tons of enemies. This is where unlimited respawning enemies can actually be a good thing.
Anyways...Good rant, keep up the good work
My best friend and I used to call it "Barry Sanders-ing" in addition to juking.
"Ooop! Barry Sanders bitch!" Fun times, especially during RE2's helpless un-empowering (c what I did thar) Sherry Birkin segments.
For what it's worth, after all the pre-RE5 control bitching, no one seemed to complain when people actually realized they worked fine, and the game received generally glowing reviews.
One pair of modern, mainstream action games that I can think of that do pull off the feeling of disempowerment quite well are the two Metroid GBA games (Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion). In Metroid Zero Mission, near the end of the game Samus is stripped of her power suit and has to stealthily make her way through a ship of space pirates. One can feel the frustration that Samus would feel at the fact that enemies she could have blown apart with one easy shot now mean almost certain death. Similarly, when Samus regains her power suit in a blaze of light, there's a huge rush the player experiences at finally regaining what was lost. The power that the player had gradually built up over the course of the game was taken away, and upon its restoration, the player gains a new appreciation for all those acquired weapons and abilities.
And that is one thing I really hated about FEAR. You are an amazing badass, which is a lot of fun, but then you get pulled out of your element and placed into these "extra terrestrial" moments where reality just warped around you. Blood was pooling at the ceiling and all sorts of fucked up shit was happening, but in the end, none if that really mattered. As soon as little bitch approached you, the moment would end and you would be right back at where you were.
If there was serious consequence for performing badly during FEAR's little freak out moments, I may have been genuinely freaked out and scared when they happened. But because I knew I wasn't in danger until I was back in reality, they weren't terrifying to me. The transparent fuckfaces were the most terrifying thing in FEAR to me, which doesn't say a lot when you consider how many FPS' already have invisible style enemies in low lit rooms as an obstacle.
Though, I should mention, disempowerment should not become a "norm" in the Action Genre, much like continual main character death should not be considered a "norm" within the RPG Genre. Some games, fine, but if I want to be empowered, I'll play action games. If I want to be disempowered, I'll either play a stealth game or I'll play an action game on the hardest difficulty. I really would hate a trend if every action style game continually robbed you of that empowerment and forcibly made you continually deal with being completely out-gunned.
I think a lot of empowering games do this from time to time where there will be moments of disempowerment through a greater opposing force, scare tactics, etc.
Still, while I agree portions like this are more interesting, I am curious whether they would be as interesting as they are were they more prevalent. I would not be at all surprised to find that parts like this would get boring if they occurred as often as the typical power fantasy does.
That's an interesting and very true point about horror games. Powerlessness is inherently much scarier than empowerment. I think that's one of the main reasons why a lot of people didn't think Dead Space was very scary: you always obviously had all the tools you needed to survive, there were save points everywhere, etc. The actual mechanics of the game worked excellently, and it failed as a horror game for a lot of people because the mechanics were so easy to use. There was no real sense of loss when you died, so there was no real fear of death.
That's interesting, I think, because the current school of thought in American game design strongly encourages developers to make their controls and mechanics as intuitive as possible. You rarely heard anybody complain that Dead Space was a bad game, and I think that's because it was very fun on a basic level. The argument against it was always "It's just not that scary." Because fun isn't scary. It's almost as if a survival horror game has to cripple its gameplay to be considered a narrative success.
Odd, no?
Then I watched it and I slapped myself for thinking it was meh.
Because it is a very good point. Thinking back on alot of my "epic" moments in videogames there are few where I am the great action hero that just comes through and mows everyone down. The best moments were when I was the underdog, when this guy was clearly more powerful then me and was kicking my ass like nothing. Then through my own strategy and hell just luck sometimes, I was the victor.
For example, in RPG's I rarely power level my characters. I play the game straight through, letting each random encounter happen when it happens. Then the boss comes up, and its legitimatly hard for me to defeat them because im not level 99. I have to use strategy, and items, and actually think to defeat them. And its one of the best feelings to down that boss at the end of the night.
Another example might be what you used in the video. Running away from that powerful force that will surely kill you if it catches up. There is no better feeling then jumping across that roof and turning back to blow a raspberry at whatever was chasing you. Or win in a racing game with a suckier car.
So I agree with this rant, cant wait till the nest one.
[MGS SPOILER]
One of my favorite moments of disempowerment comes from the first Metal Gear Solid. When I first played MGS, I didn't take the torture scene seriously, so I didn't really try to mash buttons. I thought I'd get a game over, worst case scenario. WRONG. I failed the torture and after that moment the game proceeded to make me feel awful for effectively killing Meryl. Otacon asks me how I could ever look at myself in the mirror again. Campbell keeps crying on my shoulder about how I couldn't help it and how he was going to tell her that he's her father. And at the very end, even Snake wimps out, crying and telling himself that he's useless and can't do anything right. And throughout the rest of the game, there's this terrible feeling I got that I effectively destroyed the MGS canon, ruining every event that came after.
I think that there is simply a truer sense of accomplishment when you manage to win with less... when you are disempowered versus the A.I. or even versus other human opponents.
Just what I was about to say. Which, on an unrelated note is a prime example of good trophy/achievement ideas - forcing the player to play the game in an entirely different way, which is satisfying in its own right.
Whilst I do agree that we could do with more scenes/games involving disempowerment I'm not sure it would catch on in terms of sales - most people play games to be empowered, feeling badass is pretty damn fun after all. Which is a shame, given that gaming is also about doing things you can't do in real life normally (which is empowering in and of itself I suppose) which can obviously extend to the ideas you talk about.
be revoked, which make them a little more realistic. In any other type of
game you have more power than your enemies, but in a stealth game you have
the same amount or less (in terms of strength) but you do have cover and
knowledge. The stealth aspect gives a different type of thrill because
the moment you screw up, your fucked. I agree with you 100%.
Turning the game upside down like this was awesome.
Most game these days actually seem to start you out with tons of power, giving you a taste, then pull it away so you have some glimpse of what you're working towards. It could be done via flashback, playing as a mentor in the prologue, or straight-up revocation. Symphony of the Night was one of the first to do this that I can remember. It's a great trick for getting people interested in the game in the first 5 minutes, but it was interesting to see Metroid do it at the end of the game (although prime did it at the start like everyone else)
Some Spoilers Ahead (Bioshock)
Disempowerment most certianly makes survival horror, and to some extent actions games more exciting. However, using these elements excessively would be too frustrating for the player. As much as you may criticize Bioshock for its admittedly anti-climactic final boss battle, it was exactly the type of relief the game needed. The climax of the game was meant to be the confrontation with Andrew Ryan--NOT the final boss. The shock of betrayal, the fights with Big Daddies you mention, and even the stress of escorting the Little Sister around are the strongest moments of disempowerment in the game. The final boss battle is the moment where the player can let out their frustration on the main enemy: a man so sequestered from and disconnected from society that he has never once felt overpowered or overwhelmed by another person. While I agree that it's not as difficult or strategically complex as other fights, it rings with a sort of poetic justice.
As for other games in general, disempowerment might be a wonderful story device and to some extent an aid in diversifying gameplay, it is simply not practical to use it all of the time. All good, story-driven games should have a moment of disempowerment, but not at the cost of the game's ultimate goal--entertainment. Unless you are a die-hard survival horror fan, taking the power away from the player is nerve-wracking. This build-up of tension only break when the player is given some sort of relief (more power) or when it explodes in frustration (player death). The end result is that half of the people who played would love the game, and the other half would find themselves perpetually angry and would eventually stop playing.
I mean, imagine if Bioshock was completely focused on this element and all of the enemies in the level were Big Daddies. I think that after an hour or less, most people would switch the game off not because of the frustration of having little power, but because they would feel as if they made no progress.
Player empowerment, story aside, also serves as a rewards system for the player. When you accomplish something ridiculously difficult in a game like say, taking down a Big Daddy, you naturally expect the game to reward you. In Bioshock you get Adam (plus whatever money and materials the Big Daddy carries) which allows you to power up and makes the next time a bit easier. If each encounter with a Big Daddy was as difficult as my first, I would feel dread instead of excitement when I saw one plodding around. Granted, even with the power-ups, there was still a bit of fear in me. However, without giving the player more power, what would be the point of fighting the Big Daddies at all? They don't impede your progress of the level in the least.
I'm not disagreeing with the idea that games should consider the idea of disempowerment more as a factor of both story and gameplay, I'm just saying it won't work for every game
Also, one of the best moments like this was escaping the bear in Condemned 2.
Also, Survival: SOS did lack-of-empowerment really well too.
No trial and error because it gave you incredible feedback. If you were making too much noise or if someone got a glimps of you rather than sounding an alarm a guard would say "What's that?" and start to walk over to where he saw/hear you, giving you time to hide. You knew exactly if you were exposed or not and could play within the realm of risk and reward with lots of options on how you wanted to overcome each obstacle.
Excluding the undead parts, Looking Glass Studios' Thief series was the best example of effective disempowerment. Too bad it came out at the upswing of empowerment heavy games (Quake 2, Half-life 1, Unreal) and was pretty much lost on people's radar. Rest in peace Looking Galss, thank you for giving us something different.
And Dexter345 brought up Metroid Zero Mission. I can remember my stream of thoughts "Well, it's a remake, and it really isn't that hard and oh look a cut scene....wait, what... no >:( what... oh my god. Where is all my shit. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF-oh crap."
Sometimes the basic idea of the player starting out weak and ending up empowered doesn't pan out well. In one of the Sims 2's many expansion packs, one allowed you to open your own business. Unfortunately, it required you to micro-manage the crap out of your business and make it into a franchise in order to stay in business. I didn't like it because in my head I would rather run a mom and pop comic book shop where I would focus on the interactions between employees and customers in a manner that resembles the Quick stop from Clerks rather than climbing the career to the top.