171: From the Barrel of a Gun

[tendo82]

From the Barrel of a Gun

"Myths usually die slowly; their original form eroded by eras and changing cultural landscapes. The gun as a myth looked to fade in this way. Once attached to the Western, a genre that has lately taken on the qualities of a requiem, I thought the gun as a mythic icon might follow a similar trajectory. Instead, its death has been rapid and ignominious. Images of the gun are still prevalent, but the power once associated with them no longer exists. Nowhere is this more evident than in videogames. The gun has become an inert symbol: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

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[Dom Camus]

Until videogames address this reality more effectively, showdowns will remain the province of cut scenes

Maybe so, but I'm not convinced by the implication that games currently address this reality ineffectively.

Guns are the videogame metaphor or choice for a very mechanical thing: an aimed tagging device. And if the result of tagging something isn't the same as the result of shooting someone with a gun, that's not necessarily a design failure.

If videogame guns were like real guns then videogame violence would become more like real violence. I saw some movie footage once of a soldier in some skirmish warfare in Africa. He was standing at the corner of a building, holding a moderately large automatic weapon in one hand and firing it blind around the corner. Clearly his chances of hitting anything were next to zero. But then, that probably wasn't his main concern. Mainly, I assume, he didn't want anything to hit him. Nobody wants to play videogames like that.

Swords fare no better in videogames. Nor does any other weapon.

If you want to see games which are more like Dirty Harry than The A-Team, the first requirement is to come up with gameplay mechanics which would work that way. If you can't think of anything, then maybe Dirty Harry is better as a film after all?

 

[Fenixius]

First, let me say that I don't think that the way things are presently is a problem. I enjoy shiny things, and if those shiny things make me win points (and frustrate the people I'm playing against), I'm all for them. So the problem isn't with poorly designed games, it's with games that don't let you fully appreciate what it means to kill something.

Honestly, I don't want to kill something. Otherwise I'd be a murderer instead of a gamer. I want to play with my friends, have fun, and kick their ass in a nonliteral fashion. That I achieve these joyous feelings by defeating my enemies isn't a crime on behalf of game designers, in my opinion, since not only would any other weapon than a gun do just as well, but I never think even for a second that I've killed my opponent. I've merely defeated them in a contest. And that's all I set out to do.

The problem isn't that there are too many guns, or that guns are too technical, or whatever. The guns aren't the point. Oh sure, some people might get the incorrect idea about guns and fun going together from videogames... But is that really the fault of developers who make fun and shiny guns to play with in a nonrealistic environment, or is that the fault of whoever was supposed to be responsible for the education of said people?

That said, I didn't get the impression from Tom's article that that was his concern. It looks more to me like Tom's mourning the fact that an icon that he idolised is being pretty much ignored, even when it's in full display. I would do the same, I reckon, if something I revered was being portrayed as inconsequential. But like I said, the guns aren't the point.

A game that depicts a gun in the meaningful way described won't happen until someone makes a game that has meaningful people in it that we care about. And then goes on to show how devastating the loss of their friend is. However, a game that does portray the ending of life as meaningful won't happen until a game that portrays the existance of life as meaningful comes around, and I don't see that happening any time soon. This article is just as easily applied to the many action blockbuster movies that're cranked out by hollywood every year. The only real difference is that movies more easily portray lives as meaningful. So, Tom, I hope someone makes a game like that for you, but even if that game existed now, I'd rather go play Half Life 2 and save the world.

 

[MorkFromOrk]

There is no samurai code equivalent for the gun because any fool can pick one up and kill another.

 

[mbvmgb]

Stab in the dark here, but you don't own any guns do you? Guns, first and foremost, are tools. There's no dark, evil backstory about their creation. And, for the millions of people that own, use, and collect them, there's nothing myth-like about them.

I think you're looking at it wrong. Videogames aren't failing at upholding the myth of the gun as a magic talisman where the mere sight of one wards off those wishing you harm. They're succeeding at destroying that myth and more accurately portraying them as a tool to be used.

 

[darksaiyan]

Yet it is that tool that you shouldn't use. We have a saying here in Romania:
If you wouldn't like it done to you, don't do it on someone else.

One of the only games where the mortality of guns is (kinda) well portrayed is Call of Duty 4. Not in the multiplayer mode, that's just a slug-fest. I mean the brilliant single-player mode. And again I'm not talking about the gameplay of it, I'm talking about the 2 moments in which you can see the gun's power to kill. Namely in the beginning, when the president gets killed by a shot to the head, and the ending, that cut all links between you and the characters you've grown to respect (if you consider yourself in the game) and like.

The ending alone made me see the gruesomeness of war and of the simple mechanism that flings lead at supersonic speeds. The only thing I can say is: at least it can be quicker than something else...

 

[mbvmgb]

Yet it is that tool that you shouldn't use. We have a saying here in Romania:
If you wouldn't like it done to you, don't do it on someone else.

I own and shoot guns. Would you care to tell me why I shouldn't use them?

 

[darksaiyan]

Well, at least not use them in the alternative way of using them, meaning bringing harm to another human being. If you want to shoot at targets or anything that doesn't die as of you using the tool, as a means of entertainment, go ahead, I even encourage it.

 

[J234]

I think that what Tom here is getting at is having a more visceral experience in using a weapon in a video game, as opposed to the "shooting gallery" style that alot of shooters have today, in which I shoot the enemy and I never see him again, and he sometimes doesn't even bleed. There's no emotional attachment to firing the weapon and the victim dying.

But what he suggests involves either a different method of controlling a game (e.i the Novint Falcon) or more emphasis on blood and gore. ESRB wouldn't allow that kind of blood, not even a realistic amount just to know you've killed someone, not just hit a target. And even more emotional dialouge and story might be labeled as "disturbing" and frowned upon by most authorities. I'm not saying tear ESRB down, but perhaps push the envelope a little farther, at least to the point already set by films and television.

In fact, maybe a system more like the one used in alot of RPG's should be set for games, in which all the citizens of a city can be interacted with, killed or talked to, and each has their own personality. Then killing one would remove them from the game. Permanently. (unless you loaded a previously saved game). That's the only way I see of having more emotion on the player's part in firing a video game weapon and watching someone die.

 

[mbvmgb]

that sort of goes back to my point though. People who own guns and use them regularly don't see anything inherently mythical or evil about them. Guns in videogames are the same. I need to get through that door being guarded by 4 guys with AK's and body armor. Where's my rocket launcher? Those guys aren't any more real than a goomba in Mario. Why would the rocket launcher elicit any more of an emotional response than a fireball?

We don't value the everyday and the ordinary. If guns are an exotic item to you, they may take on mythical properties. If you've grown up with them and use them regularly, they're no different than a hammer or wrench.

 

[klakkat]

There is no samurai code equivalent for the gun because any fool can pick one up and kill another.

The same is true with a sword. Using a gun properly takes about as much skill as any other weapon, but any weapon is still potentially lethal in the hands of an unskilled user.

That said, many of the main characters in spaghetti westerns are modeled after Samurai (some of those movies are literal remakes of samurai movies). Thus, you have a 'code of bushido' for the gunslinger. It was never formalized, of course, nor is it that historically accurate, but neither are the samurai of fantasy that similar to the samurai of history.

 

[klakkat]

that sort of goes back to my point though. People who own guns and use them regularly don't see anything inherently mythical or evil about them. Guns in videogames are the same. I need to get through that door being guarded by 4 guys with AK's and body armor. Where's my rocket launcher? Those guys aren't any more real than a goomba in Mario. Why would the rocket launcher elicit any more of an emotional response than a fireball?

We don't value the everyday and the ordinary. If guns are an exotic item to you, they may take on mythical properties. If you've grown up with them and use them regularly, they're no different than a hammer or wrench.

I have to say, I like this statement a lot. Those who understand the dangers of guns the most are those who use them regularly.

 

[tendo82]

that sort of goes back to my point though. People who own guns and use them regularly don't see anything inherently mythical or evil about them.

I agree that if you grew up around guns, or own them, they do become a quotidian object. However, we have to acknowledge that in the realm of public discourse the gun becomes a mythological object whose presence looms large over the American psyche. Probably a good percentage of the gun owning population does use them in a untilitarian capacity: for home defense, hunting, and recreational shooting. But the fact that we can purchase an assault rifle, a weapon whose function lies far beyond civilian purview, is a hint that Americans' relationship with guns is deeper than the desire for a merely utilitarian tool. There is an element of fantasy realized, of being able to own the same weapon our armed forces use in wars.

The other indicator is that guns are a major political issue, such that the NRA routinely suggests that any firearm restrictions are un-American. When the gun becomes inseparable from national identity, when some would suggest it's very existence is necessary to our national identity, it has certainly entered the realm of myth.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Good Lord Endo, was that a Macbeth reference in a video game article? F*** yes man.

@ mbvmgb

Interesting argument...lets see, if we flip your idea upside down then that would imply that guns or weapons we cannot ourselves use but only observe attract us while the weapons in games we can use become normal. What are some weapons the player could never use in a game and seem really cool? Sephirtoh's Masamune comes to mind, or in the tradition of JRPG's Sephiroth's character can never be used except for that brief interval. There a few Mega Man bosses that are like this but you eventually get most of their powers. Metal Gear Solid games do this...seems more like the characters that take on the mythological aspect as opposed to their weapons. Since our tools in a video game are to play as someone, maybe the ones we can't play are what we idolize? Maybe the whole nature of video game weapons is to present that myth to the player and then dispel it by allowing them to control that power themselves?

 

[WarpZone]

Okay so here's what you do. You make a wii game. In this game, your character is a private eye. He has a gun, and a notebook, which are represented by the two parts of the Wiimote. You use the notebook to navigate and interact with objects in the game world, and solve puzzles.

You use the gun to blow someone's fucking head off.

Here's the thing, though. You make it so that the other characters in the game world-- the suspects, the innocents, the guy who's secretly the murderer-- are all afraid of the gun. Their eyes follow the gun half of the controler carefully, even when you're talking to them, tearing their eyes away to make eye contact only after a couple of seconds. Draw the gun too quickly, and they may panic. Carelessly point the barrel at them, and they might freeze, or they might just scowl and go "Watch where you point that thing!" as they move out of the way. Wave the gun at a person while you're talking to them, and they will tell you whatever they think you want to hear-- to hell with whether it's true or not. And everyone breathes a sigh of relief when you put the gun away and pull out the notebook. Antagonize them too much, and they might attack you from behind or try to wrest the weapon away from you the moment you let your guard down.

I think a game like this would go a long way towards restoring the myth of the gun. Perhaps even the wii hardware isn't enough, maybe you'd need a combination of a point & click controller, a webcam, and facial and voice recognition software to know where your eyes are pointing and what sort of mood you're in. Or perhaps something simpler and more effective could be arranged with the technology already at our disposal.

The point is, if restoring the myth of the gun is the goal, then it can only be achieved by creating games that treat the gun less like a tactical tool, and more like a big scary hunk of metal that murders people. And that can only be achieved either by creating a whole new set of controls (and indeed, input and feedback devices) that allow for a much more realistic type of interactivity, or else by scripting a ton of interactive events that editorialize the player's every casual movement.

Basically, you'd need NPCs and bad guys to behave as if they are afraid of the gun, not merely threatened by it. (I assume the goal is to make the player Dirty Harry. Making the villain Dirty Harry doesn't work because 99.9% of players will not cower, will not run from a villain, no matter how badass he is. Best case scenario, any situation where a frontal assault doesn't work is interpreted as a really long and annoying non-combat sequence where they have to do it just right in order to pass; I.E. any boss in HalfLife 1.)

 

[mbvmgb]

@Tendo

I'm not going to touch on guns as a political issue. We might as well start talking about abortion, gay rights, immigration, etc. I will say that the idea that buying an automatic weapon in this country is at all easy is just as much a myth as bigfoot.

I grew up with guns both in real life and in video games. I don't hold on to any of the real-life myths about guns because I know what they do and how they work. I think the same holds true for video games. Once you know their stats, they are nothing BUT the fireworks display you spoke of. I think the difference is that you expect them to be something other than that because you expect guns in real-life to be like that even though they aren't.

I think you were on to something when you spoke of the targets of the gun and games as shooting galleries. I agree that their isn't much emotional impact in videogames where guns play a major role. I think this is more an issue where the death of a character just isn't handled very well in games outside of the occasional cutscene. (I was playing through a mod of HL2 where the NPC's could be killed. accidentally killing Barney with a grenade? = whoops, reload. The end of episode 2? = awww, screw you, Valve:-( I think games are going to have to become much less friendly to new players before they can accurately portray the effects of being careless with a gun.


@L.B.

I will admit that I was rather let down when I found out that, in Bioshock,

Spoiler

"becoming a big daddy" didn't give me a footstomp stun and tackle move

. Bioshock also stands as an example where, out of all the weapons, guns take a backseat to the (much more interesting) plasmid abilities. I don't know that I would go so far as to say "idolize", but there are certainly guns in games that we strive to achieve, and even end up disappointed in once we get them. I think that applies to all items in any given game, not just guns, though.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Personally, I think this fits in well with the tits and cars theories.

For each of the items, there is the unrealistic MEGA item (Ivy (SC IV), BFG 4K (Doom/Quake), Leviathan (Unreal's Cheese Machine));
then there's the "I have no idea how these work but doesn't it look pretty" items (Mai Shiranui (Fatal Fury), Eightball Launcher (Unreal), MMO Horses);
and then the "Wow!" items where people have obviously spent a long time crafting them not just to be attractive but to act like they're supposed to ( Alyx Vance (HL), Natasha (Team Fortress 2), Banshee (GTA series))

Like anything else, there are lots of the second variety, for speed; a few SHOCK stories about the first ones and the odd few games like the third variety.

And it doesn't just stop there or at those three items...

Husbands on TV programmes : Most are well meaning slobs, a few are perfect and the good ones are well detailed.
Film plots : A gets B after trauma C, A gets B WITH EXPLOSIONS and A starts off wanting to get B but learns why instead.

It's where the media falls down. They focus on the primary category to rant/rave about, let the second off because they're not doing anything really wrong and ignore the third; just like this article appears to.

Guns maybe ubiquitous; but a true gun, like a magical sword, or the first kiss, still has the myth buried deep within it. And you'll never lose that.

 

[bue519]

isnt dehumanizing your enemies what allows us to simply gun them down?

 

[innocent42]

@Warpzone: I'd love to see that game made. There are a lot of possibilities for moral decisions there. Perhaps the player could be put in a situation where after intimidating people with the gun for a while they would have to actually shoot someone. Then we could tell if the buildup really worked and if that scene achieved the same level of emotional impact that a movie could.

@bue519: I think that's the crux of the author's argument, really. There is no game that doesn't dehumanize everyone for you already. What some people would like to see is a game where killing someone is not to be taken at all lightly, unlike a game that simply provides you with endless targets and says "OK, shoot all of those." I thought the gunship level from COD4 did a good job of highlighting that attitude using irony. When you're blowing up buildings from the sky, watching the little black and white people running away, the pilot is saying stuff like "Whoo! This is going to make one hell of a highlights reel!" A game more conscious of the way games *do* dehumanize the player's opponents would make for an interesting experience.

 

[WolfThomas]

Condemned: Criminal Origins did a good portrayal of gun's deadliness. Although only carrying one and not being able to reload could be interpreted as being unrealistic.

The guns were loud, powerful, often killing or incapacitating an enemy immediately, but at the same time you had to try and be conservative. A scary moment would make you accidentally fire, perhaps revealing yourself or at the least wasting scarce ammo. The machine gun was a perfect example of this, carrying the most ammo, but likely to be used the quickest due it its rapid rate of fire.

I felt more dangerous with a gun with one bullet then when wielding a fireaxe, despite the latter's long potential long term use. Because I was thinking about surviving the next fight, not the one after that.

I felt it captured a little of what a gun should feel like. In HL2 the pistol with one bullet is useless but in real life its threatening and dangerous.