Reason: we already have emotions in games! Lots of them.
You just have to know where to look!
But first: stop crying! (a necessary rant)
To be brutally honest with you: I feel like I’m going to slap the next person in the face asking for games to be more emotional. Just to make him or her cry, since that seems to be the experience they crave for. It’s an argument I’ve heard many times over. And if a game makes you cry that’s the ultimate testament for a game with emotions.
I call that bullshit!
First of all, would you really want to play a game that makes you cry? Would it really be such an outstanding, revolutionary experience? How many “touching” movies have you seen that left you cold-hearted? What about the movies that touched you in ways you’d never expected from a movie like that? Why did you even go see that movie in the first place? Was it because you wanted to cry?
Of course not.
Or what about affection … there are people who want to have more emotions in games because they want to feel affection for a character, feel empathetic towards a virtual character’s plight. If it fits the game, why the hell not? But we all know that games are badly scripted, often have terrible voice acting and the dynamics of a game make it very hard to create the exciting moment that will make you feel involved, will make you feel empathy for your virtual world posse.
Interestingly enough, the games that are actually able to pull this of usually present those events as cutscenes.
So there, you were just watching another movie. It didn’t have anything to do with the game. You had no control over it. Unless you call “Press X at the right microsecond in time or else you’ll lose and have to do it all over again” control.
If you do: screw you!
Emotions in games are aplenty!
Maybe you don’t realize that. Or you dismiss certain emotions as not being emotions. As humans, we have a tendency to only recognize emotions if we have them towards other human beings. But there are plenty of emotions you can have without some other human being being involved. I think games are actually doing a very great job to bring out those emotions!
Here are some of my favorite examples of emotions in video games:
Sports games
My favorite sports game is FIFA. That’s football for you. For you americans, yes, that is still football. Your football is called American Football. I refuse to call our football soccer just because I refuse to accept that you (referring to the americans here) created a sport and called it football even though actually kicking the ball is an utterly under-represented part of the game.
So there, emotions in football. You know the situation, it’s like in real life. Your team wins in the last second: happy feelings. Your team didn’t qualify for the tournament by one goal? Just plain devastating.
But it can be much more intricate than that. How about the situation where you play against a terrible team not giving any resistance but you just can’t get to score that one goal to win. It’s like everything is against you. You hit the post, you miss the shot by an inch, you get a penalty but the keeper saves it. You name it. Eventually, you do score the goal. Relief (yup, that’s an emotion).
Next thing you know, the team you’ve had under control for the entire match is suddenly outwitting you. Everything seems to go perfect for them. You can’t tackle the ball away, instead they play tricks on your defenders. You push and pull the one with the ball but he won’t give it away. They pass through your players as if they weren’t there. Suddenly, a through pass opens up a hole in your team’s defense, the striker moves towards the goal, avoids three defender’s tackles in succession, then shoots from way far out and … goal! The equalizer. WTF?!?!??
That game was cheating on you (yes, I call you: FIFA 2011). You feel frustration, anger, disappointment, and you cry injustice!
Personally – but that is just me – at such an occasion I vividly imagine punching the person responsible for programming the game’s AI in the face real hard. Because that’s what I feel that person deserves for giving the losing team an unrealistic motivational push. Lucky for the poor fellow that feeling doesn’t last long. But just as a precaution, you might not want to sit next to me while I’m playing your game. Just so you know.
The horror, the horror!
Ok, so that’s sports. What else is there? Ah, of course: intense horror games. How about Dead Space?
So, here’s how I play games like Dead Space, ever since I’ve really enjoyed playing Doom 3 so much better because I properly prepped my environment.
My environmental setup for horror games:
- Pitch black darkness. Never play horror games in bright daylight. Even the gloomy light penetrating the shades, or your Xbox’s green power light can be a turn-off. So I put all that aside or cover it somehow. But nothing beats playing horror games at night.
- Surround sound. Preferably using surround sound headphones. The sound volume should be slightly above comfortable levels. Any external noise should be cancelled out as much as possible.
- Lying down. I want to be totally relaxed playing horror games. That way it feels more intense because your muscles don’t have to work, they just do when your body tells them to. Also, much less likely to hurt yourself in a sudden shock reaction event.
If the conditions aren’t perfect, I don’t play the game. If it’s bright outside, if there’s loud noise outside (or inside), or if I can’t play in a very relaxed body position I don’t play horror games.
That’s because if I don’t do that, the experience becomes more like an awful, gory splatterfest that you rush through and you care more about your character’s health than you do about your own mental state. You’re not in the game, you’re somehow just rushing through it, killing waves of monsters.
No wonder so many people dismissed Doom 3 as a stupid, boring shooter game.
Why am I telling you this? Because horror games are the most emotional games I’ve ever witnessed. I don’t cry over the loss of a companion in Dragon Age, I drop my controller in terror and shiver as I try to recover from a sudden and unexpected appearance of the most scary and dangerous creature imaginable. Oh, and I’m almost out of ammo and I can’t run very fast.
The only thing I haven’t done yet is to pee in my pants. But I’m sure eventually horror games will get there, too! I can’t wait.
The moral of the story
If you actually allow yourself to experience emotions in games, you will experience them. I think the state of emotions in games is merely a matter of your state of mind while playing a particular game. If you don’t get mentally involved and allow yourself to be sucked into the virtual world, you’ll wait forever for the game that makes you cry. No game will make you cry unless you allow it to happen. And once you do, you’ll realize not only is crying over a loss of a companion’s life possible, there is actually a great variety of emotions in games other than that.
Here and today, with the games you know and love.
You might not find much emotions in the way of desire, attraction, love, and loss. But you can if you really want to. Players have cried over many RPGs and I understand why. On the other hand, I don’t play Fallout because it might make me cry, and I don’t play it because I might feel attracted to that cute Brotherhood girl because she’s voiced by gorgeous The Guild actress Felicia Day.
In fact, at one time I enjoyed killing her. That was comical relief. We just were not meant to level-up together, I was sick of her buggy behavior.
What I really want to say
I think it’s time we cut the crap and stop talking about emotions in games. Games are already capable to deliver a great variety of emotions to players. But they’re just better suited to a certain kinds of emotions that are not related to deep human or social interactions. Why?
Because games don’t have fucking real humans in them! Or, in other words, if you had the choice between watching a low quality amateur porn and one that was entirely rendered in high-definition on today’s supercomputers using 3D models – which would you find more … ahem, pleasing? Of course, the one that has real humans in it.
So, emotions arising from human interactions, emotions that require social context, that’s for books and movies. Games are much better at presenting emotions not involving the human factor, and they may even be much better in that regard than books and movies due to the interactive involvement of the player.
Especially if you consider multiplayer games – you still won’t find that $$$N00bSh00t3r89%%% in Call of Duty has an enjoyably cute way to knife-kill you up-close while everyone else gets a bullet, then fall in love and be happily married ever after or so. Well, that does happen sometime, but that is because of real human interaction with the game only giving the context. And within that context, you won’t get more human reaction than those in sports games. You win, you lose. You hate, you fear. Games do get pretty emotional, as everyone who has ever played online knows:
“You suck … AAAAghhh
..ill you, I’LL KILL YOU!!! MOTHERFUCKER!!!”
Her words, not mine.
I’ve started playing F.E.A.R. 2 yesterday, i completed the first three “intervals” as they call it. As someone who didn’t quite think of F.E.A.R. as being particularly frightening, or even horrifying, i was wondering wether and how the second part managed to grip me.
Yes, it did grip me. Somewhat. Not as intense as Dead Space but it definetely had me on the edge a few times. Still it made me wonder … the horror scenes are very well put, the sound is great and adds to the shock element, and so is anything they do with the lighting. It’s better than the first F.E.A.R. because it has the typical extra care and polish that goes into a sequel. But under the surface i’m once again starting to get used to and “meh” the horror the game throws at me. I can’t say i’ve had a revelation but i certainly come to understand a few things why it doesn’t cause me to shiver and crawl under my blanket as much as Dead Space did.
First of all, the horror in F.E.A.R. is – at least so far (and as far as i remember the prequel) – almost completely detached from the action. As a player, i quickly realized that whatever is happening in the phases of the game where i don’t fight but am supposed to be scared, that actually nothing ever happens to me. It’s more like watching a movie with me controlling the camera but nothing else. So i can feel safe and once you realize that whenever there are no enemies around, the game is just fooling with you and your perception by playing sounds and doing the horror-typical “lightshow”, i slowly become detached from the horror. I’m not “in” it. The horror poses no threat to me, the Combine-like soldiers do. And they usually announce themselves and the game also plays combat music until the final enemy of this wave is eliminated, so i don’t have to worry about being scared while fighting. So basically, F.E.A.R. is two games that simply take turns: a tactical first person shooter, and a “survival horror” game without the survival aspect. You just walk down dark corridors through flickering lights and see if it scares you if you see a shadow at the end of the corridor moving, or glass shattering next to you, or some ceiling panel falling down in front of you, or someone hammering on the window and subsequently getting shot.
Don’t get me wrong, F.E.A.R. is a good game so far, and that the game takes turns between being an excellent FPS and being a horror game without combat has it’s benefits as well and may work better for some people. However, like the first incarnation, the horror elements get old pretty quickly. It’s just too much horror movie standard, if not cliché, elements thrown at you.
Dead Space does a much better job at integration the horror and suspense with the action, because everything that frightens you could also potentially be a threat to you, which makes the whole experience so much more intense. The space setting, at least for me, does a great job as well because you truely feel alone. Ok, almost alone. Whereas in F.E.A.R. 2 while going up the skyscraper in the elevator you see a vivid city around you, helicopters fly by, you’re in an environment that is familiar to you. So, necessarily, the horror seems a bit superimposed on the whole FPS shooter thing, it doesn’t really blend or merge. However i would be surprised if that was ever the intention of the developers. I think they made a conscious decision to have the player go through these horror – shooter – horror – shooter sequences. Maybe it just doesn’t work so well for me? Or maybe their intention was never to scare the crap out of you but instead just to get some adrenaline going to make the upcoming combat sequence so much more intense and then follow up this intensity with carefully crafted horror elements. Rinse and repeat.
In addition the inventory (PDA) in F.E.A.R. 2 pauses the game. Which makes browsing the inventory a “safe” experience, i could imagine some players purposefully opening the inventory screen just to, sort of, relax. Of course, if it weren’t for the constant high-pitch noise F.E.A.R. 2 plays while the inventory is shown. This noise is so stressful (i’m playing with surround headphones) that i can barely skim over the intel texts before i have to close it again. It kills me braincells! In Dead Space on the other hand the inventory is projected into the surrounding 3D world, it feels like part of your character and the game continues while you’re in the inventory. This not only keeps the feeling of immersion, i believe it enhances it even.
If i had to sum it up, i would say that F.E.A.R. 2 is a great game both in the shooter and the horror part. While it is the better FPS shooter (in the classical sense) Dead Space has the stronger experience that goes with melting combat and survival horror together. F.E.A.R. is made for classic FPS combat while Dead Space is made to fear the unexpected, the horror and subsequently dismembering every limb you can find – (still) moving or not.
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