How many times did you buy the farm in the last shooter you played? Dozens? Hundreds? Worst case, though, is you ended up retracing your steps from a whole 10 minutes before. Forget movies, books, and TV -- only video games can completely remove death as something we should be mildly concerned about.
Sure, you can turn on the Iron skull in Halo or unlock an unforgiving mode in Dead Space, but rare is the game where death is a core mechanic that defines what the game is and how you play it.
If you die, you're back to square one...
But lately, games like DayZ (the popular mod for ArmA II) and the upcoming ZombiU have put consequences back into your demise. It's called permanent character death (more popularly referred to as “permadeath”), and if you die, you're back to square one. Progress, equipment, experience...you lose everything. Surely that will focus your attention.
So where should permadeath go next? If you really want to inject genuine tension and challenge back into your gaming, these prime candidates should up the ante by making death matter again.
Hey, it’s not like Call of Duty doesn’t cheerfully execute playable characters all the time in the name of shocking plot twists. But what if we shift those from purely scripted events to raw gameplay carnage? Hell, and scripted events, too. Why not? We're here to make your life more interesting, not easier.
Luckily, Call of Duty always gives you a wingman, if not an entire squad to act as guides and fire support. And it’s easy enough to repurpose those drones to fit our needs. If your character dies, you immediately transfer to one of your teammates -- no load screen, no restart. Man down, you press on. That new character eats lead, you shift to the next guy in line, and so on. Get them all killed, you start the level over. If you want to be especially tight about it, you could have those squad losses carry over to subsequent levels.
Why not also tweak the setting so your teammates can die in any direct action, giving you some incentive to help keep them alive? You never know when you'll need them.
For a series built around the idea of making you responsible for your actions, punishment for misbehaving in Grand Theft Auto never feels very severe. You respawn in front of a hospital or the nearest police station, sans weapons and missing some cash. Really? After I just ran down 20 people in an ambulance and took a bazooka to an Internet cafe?
I say, let the punishment fit the crime. If you break the law and you're busted, your character goes to jail. If he's killed while resisting arrest with a flamethrower, he goes to the morgue.
That's a lot easier to pull off using GTA's old-school silent protagonists; offing the lead in the newer, personality-driving stories leaves a big hole in the narrative. So maybe you get a shot at redemption by way of a one-shot jailbreak. Or maybe your character stays in jail until he does escape. Meanwhile, Johnny Law impounds all your guns, money, vehicles, and on-the-books safehouses.
Or, for the ultra-hardcore, the game's over. You get a blank character and the open world to roam in, and that's it until you restart. C'mon, this is Grand Theft Auto. It's not like you couldn't find something to do....
Pikachu, I choose to sacrifice you! That's right, I'm giving your fantasy-world version of dogfighting some actual teeth.
Okay, fine...since we can't traumatize millions of pre-teens by barbequing their virtual pets by the truckload, we'll adjust slightly to permaloss. Lose a battle, lose a Pokémon. If a wild pocket monster trashes your wee familiar, it runs off with the victor.
Primarily, though, I'd allow Pokémon theft. As-is, that generally requires a few cheat codes, but my permaloss rules turn stealing Pokémon into basic gameplay. Lose a battle against an A.I. trainer or a live human, and your opponent can recruit any weakened Pokémon you've fielded. Of course, if you win, you can swipe one of their Pokémon, too. Oh, and rotation battles -- where multiple Pokémon go in and players switch out which animal dishes out/takes the punishment -- are standard to really punch up those tactical angles.
Of course, this system does make it possible to retrieve your wayward monsters or recruit new ones. That's fine. At its best, permaloss (or permadeath) doesn't stop anyone from playing the game. It's about heightening the experience through risk...and making you play smarter.
Frequent IGN contributor Rus McLaughlin has written for Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, GamePro, Bitmob, GamesBeat, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and The Escapist. Follow Rus on Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
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