game girl advance: Ambient Warfare

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March 22, 2006

Ambient Warfare

This morning we started the GDC with Phil Harrison's keynote speech called "Beyond the Box". It was the usual Sony affair, with charts of how much hardware and software they've sold interspersed with pretty excellent technical demos. But it left me wondering, all this technology, and we're still only interested in how well we can blow things up?

Really, aside from Ted Price's new Ratchet and Clank demo and a new "lots of ducks" demo which was transformed, this time, into a "lots of fish swimming" demo, the other exhibitions were all about massive destruction: of cars, of environments, of people. The only suggestion that something like behavioral simulations could also be enhanced was in a Warhawk demo, where the way the enemy shot at you was called "Ambient Warfare."

Personally, I'm just tired of shooting stuff.

Yesterday, I played Oblivion for about four hours straight. I won't pretend that it's a flawless game. But it's the kind of game that snakes its way around an obsessive heart. I got into collecting herbs, wildflowers, and mushrooms and pretty much spent an entire afternoon jauntily roaming around a broad green valley filling my pouch full of tiger lilies, St. Jahn's Wort (that's how they spell it in the game), and shiny fungus varietals. Then I sat on a sunny hillock and experimented with making potions. I discovered a new recipe for a potion I named "Good Stuff" because it restored health and fatigue. Later, I discovered that I could joke my way to becoming friends with a shopkeeper who would buy my potions for very good prices. Forget about the main quest, I want to train to be a master alchemist!

No doubt there are games of this depth and complexity coming to the PS3 as well. But it seems a shame to me that so many exhibitions of technology focus on killing people. Ambient Warfare? I want ambient world.

Why is game creation so often about destruction?
-jane

Posted by jane at March 22, 2006 01:33 PM | TrackBack

Comments

I couldn't agree more. Granted, I love me my destruction, but even as a fan of the Elder Scrolls series (my wife and I have collectively played them all now), I am BLOWN AWAY by how complex Oblivion is.

In finding the Thieves Guild, I had to ask the right questions to the right people all over town, and eventually, found a beggar whose voice subtley changed when I asked him about it, as if he knew something more and was hiding info. There's fargin' audio cues that let you know someone's got more to give! I didn't even have time to do the Speechcraft mini-game, I wanted in! Bribe him about 30 gold overall, and presto, suddenly he's got more info for me.

THAT is what Next-Gen gaming is all about. I want more complex behaviors. More complex AI, more complex environments and realistic interactions. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Massive D. But damn if Oblivion isn't delivering on all fronts.

Posted by: bowler

on March 22, 2006 02:15 PM

What I loved about Morrowind was the open-ended skills that you could tailor. I created a job-class for Viking and took my Nord "Oslow" on a journey through the island while practicing my archery and axe-weilding while wearing some fur-lined armor.

My roomate played that game to death and took his near-god-level mage character to the spell-crafting merchant and created a spell that detonated an entire town, killing the outdoor population instantly in a dome of fire.

I even loved playing a cowardly Kajiit theif/ninja who would run away by leaping over rooftops and chucking throwing stars to slow down his enemies.

If only the main quests were interesting enough to hold my attention.

Advanced A.I. is going to set the games of the future apart from today's flashy violence-orgies. I don't mean the badguys use S.W.A.T. tactics, I mean they react to how you play your character accordingly.

Posted by: Tallest

on March 30, 2006 01:46 AM

There are some truly awful things going on when military-porn culture and game culture are indistinguishable; Julian Stallabrass's book 'Gargantua' touched on this element, but beyond military-trainer-aesthetics, game culture is undeniably stiched into military culture. A culture of realistic damage modelling (WTF, asks the 10 year old inside of me who remembers Kid Icarus) isn't just at odds with the Katamaris of the world - you're getting a gun nut and a hippie to say their fantasy lives are the same.

Technology will be driven by

Jane, you should bring this up on the 1up show, I think it would make great viewing, ask everybody to say what they think about not just sequelism but militarism of the human imagination. Good reason No. 1: Game laws are going to crack down on violence in 2006. Good reason No. 2: maybe we deserve better that War-goddamned-Hawk.

Posted by: Christian McCrea

on March 30, 2006 01:56 AM