The First Person Shooter or FPS for short is one of the most interesting genres of video games in my opinion. Not so much because of all the button mashing in hopes of killing demons, pedestrians, wizards or anybody else that gets in the way of the phallic device portraying the constant in-game avatar, but because of the immersion factor that can come from even the most pixellated of offerings from years past.
I’d like to take a look at a few examples of FPS innovation, some I think are heading in the right direction, others I feel have some potential but are lacking focus in the correct areas for my own selfish wants.
First lets take a look at a utilization of the most well known of all FPS software: DOOM. Now DOOM’s been out for quite a while, and the most interesting article I’ve found on using it to accomplish something more transcendent than squelching beasties from Hell hails all the way from 2001. Yes I’m citing a paper that was written over a decade ago.
Dennis Chao of the Computer Science Department at the University of New Mexico wrote a paper for The CHI 2001 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. In the paper he speaks about a modification of DOOM, as its source code was released under the GNU General Public Lisence. The modification allowed (allows? I haven’t exactly seen this DOOM variant available in the Apple App Store) system admins “perform useful work” by using the avatars in the game as symbols for tasks that either needed to be left running or needed to be stopped (i.e. decimated with a bazooka). I’m really interested in finding out if anything similar to this has been done in the decade following this paper. You’d think by now your favorite barista could pour the perfect espresso by properly navigating through a level of Wolfenstein 3D, but alas, I’m about 99 percent sure this is not a thing that’s happening. If anyone can point me in the direction of the use of an FPS or any other classic game, that has been released as Open Source and modified to perform productive tasks, please let me know!
The other FPS designs that I’d like to talk about are a bit more recent. First I’d like to speak to the phenomenon of MINECRAFT. MINECRAFT, for anyone that isn’t familiar, is a sort of graphical sandbox that allows players to build worlds using pixellated blocks and from there the player can commune with other players doing the same thing within the MINECRAFT world. What I like about Minecraft is that by taking exacting rules out of the equation, people have done some pretty extraordinary things:
- Built a replica of Grand Central Station: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNNb6j5nH1k
- Built a functional computer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGkkyKZVzug
- Created a pretty massive simulation of the Death Star from Star Wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H56ZBO0bEHo
The complaint I have with MINECRAFT is the complaint I have in relation with a lot of open environment offerings being celebrated by those that adopt them: the inability to construct an enclosed and dynamic and personal narrative. This is not to say that MINECRAFT isn’t some kind of real achievement, as there are no guns, and I know of several libraries, specifically the Darien Library in Darien, Connecticut that have had real successes in using the game to open up all kinds of dialog and creative energies with young people in their communities. I’ve played with the free version online a time or two, but I’ve probably spent more time watching YouTube videos of projects people, that seem to have a lot of time on their hands, have accomplished.
Finally I’d like to speak about my favorite as-is FPS offering, a little game called BIOSHOCK. Now when I was a kid, there was this game called SYSTEM-SHOCK that I played a few times, bit it sort of bored me to tears after I got over the pretty incredible graphics. What was different about SYSTEM-SHOCK than say DOOM (they weren’t many years apart) was that tape recordings were left all about in these abandoned corridors you would explore. You were on a Space Ship where something went horribly wrong, the more tapes you collected and listened to, the more you started to realize what was happening.
Fast forward a decade from System Shock and a very similarly constructed game called BIOSHOCK was released. There are a few things that seperate BIOSHOCK from it’s predecessor, and yes, obviously one of them is that graphics improved, and sound improved… The Unreal Engine is a beautiful thing… but instead of the old tried and true “Scary shit went down on a Spaceship, it’s like ALIEN you guys!” narrative, what the player got instead was a trip to an underwater city that had been decimated. As if the fact that the city was underwater wasn’t enough, the year is 1960! So it’s a futuristic city from a 1950s point of view with you playing a 1960 player thrown into this environment. Talk about a great narrative. Now, if that isn’t enough, as you move through the game you come to realize that in between fighting off these mutated citizens that want to saw your head off with saws (Sigh, we still have to satisfy the 12 year old boys buying these games) you are picking up tape recordings… and when you listen to these things you realize the creators of BIOSHOCK have basically scripted an insanely brilliant F#&% YOU to Atlas Shrugged. Me, I don’t particularly like Ayn Rand (have a pretty strong distaste for her), but this game is so well done, I bet even Paul Ryan would enjoy firing up this game in between jam sessions with his Rage Against The Machine cover band.
