Yearly Archives: 2005
Sacred
I really wanted to enjoy Sacred (http://www.sacred-game.com/) the RPG from Ascaron – all those big swords, chain-mail bikinis and Orcs smelling of sweat. Sadly after many hours of play I realised that the game design wasn’t going to let me. Specifically the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) which rendered the game’s non-player characters (NPCs) more artificial than intelligent. Imagine if you will the scene….
My brave Wood Elf is wandering the countryside in search of the sort of treasures one always finds in shrubs or behind small boulders, when I see a woman standing around by some rocks. I wander closer, checking the nearby shrubbery for gold or jewels (as you do). The woman does nothing. I check to see if I am wearing my cloak of invisibility – I’m not – and then wander a bit closer “Hmmmm another bag of gold just laying behind a rock”. The woman does nothing. I’m sure that her view isn’t obscured (the shrubs and rocks are all very small) and she doesn’t appear to be reading the latest Swords r Us catalogue, so wander closer still. She does nothing. Finally I wander within just a few pixels of her and she suddenly bursts into “life”, pleading with me to save her child who has been kidnapped and taking into a nearby cave.
It wasn’t the first example of an unrealistic NPC in the game but it was the worst so far. To think that a distraught mother would stand around idly, while a nearby hero (clearly visible to her) rummages in the undergrowth isn’t even close to believable and it destroyed any suspension of disbelief I had. That’s no mean feat by the way. Having played games since the ZX Spectrum era, a flickering, badly animated blob is an acceptable representation of a human being for me. Maybe it is phenomenon of the Uncanny Valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley), with better and better looking characters seeming to be even less realistic as a result of their poor AI. Whatever the reason I can’t see many non-gamers being converted to playing games when they have such utterly unbelievable characters.
I came, I played, I learned
The boys of form 6 storm the school canteen
“In this mornings lesson we will be studying the Battle of Cannae, fought between the Romans and Carthaginians in 216 BC. Please load your copy of Rome:Total History and open saved game number 42. While it is loading can anyone tell me who the Carthaginians were?”
One reason why I feel that the game industry comes under attack so often for excessive violence is that there are few, if any, games that use violence to convey a message. Most are merely entertainment and are viewed by many as gratuitously violent and as such worthless. The Serious Games Summit (March 7-8, 2005) at GDC is one way that members of the industry are attempting to change this, by promoting the use of computer & video game technology for simulations, training, education, and other practical applications. Personally I hope that in addition to serious games we start to develop more games that seek to be meaningful – ones whose primary purpose is to convey a message – be it political, social or economic, rather than just entertainment.
Game technology engages those who use it in a way that reading or discussion can’t. The best way to answer the question “Please Sir, what would have happened at Cannea if Hannibal had….” is to load Rome: Total History and allow the class to find out for themselves. Even games whose primary purpose is entertainment can still contain much that is educational. The real Rome: Total War (as opposed to my fictional Total History version) can teach anyone playing it a lot about Rome, its history and military conflicts. The Creative Assembly developed title is an excellent game that is both entertaining and exceptionally well executed – but it is also educational. Players learn about military tactics, Roman history and even the Seven Wonders of the World as they strive to construct an empire and put Rome’s enemies to the sword.