First a vest that lets you feel the game and now a helmet that reads minds! Holy c**p! What’s next? Really interesting indeed, though I am a little bit skeptical it would be that easy. Even the article mentions the fact that it would be really difficult to isolate specific brain signals required for flawless character movement inside a game.

Let’s say the report is based on fact, does such a helmet really enhance a game overall? It does brings up some rather interesting questions. Would such a helmet really add to a player overall game experience? For example, my thoughts are a jargled mess when I am playing a FPS game. If a helmet would translate that into player actions, the character would behave really weired indeed 😀 .

Then again I like to get sweaty palms during fast paced action. Just sitting idle and thinking about hacking and slashing opponents is not something that sounds too appealing. Hey, I think such thoughts about people I hate all the time 😉 , that’s not something new, neither does it sound interesting. OK maybe I am kidding, but really, would such helmet allow for greater player immersion? It might, maybe, or it might not. Then there are other issues as well; like response and reactions times which are integral to overall game mechanics. On the whole, I remain a skeptic about such a “mind reading” helmet.

As you know I recently had a run in with the Crysis game and I am awed at the amount of graphic detail that the games manages to push through. If pushed to it’s max settings on a high enough resolution, you would be forgiven for calling it a movie instead of a computer game (, well almost). As I mentioned in my earlier post, the graphics and especially the violence can be nauseatingly real. Crysis has definitely raised the bar in video game realism. If people called Doom (1993) to be too violent, this game has like, multiplied the violence by a factor of 10. It’s not just limited to the Crysis game but most of todays games, mostly in the FPS genre, are pretty much known for extreme violence.

There is a strange thing I have observed, as a player you often don’t realize how gory the violence really is. As a computer game player you generally tend to focus more on your character. Your brain tries to rapidly compute permutations-combinations in the gameplay and is actively trying to keep your character alive. As a player you miss out on the gore the game delivers. Well not entirely, but you don’t tend to focus on it. It is the third person, observing the game who actually sees the gore in the game. As a player your priorities are different. You are more focused on achieving your intermediate goal at the same time trying to keep your character alive. It’s somewhat like a soldier in the heat of a battle, you don’t see all the pain around you. It’s like your mind tends to switch off of all the gore and concentrates it’s attention of keeping the character alive.

I generally tend to disagree strongly with people that say video games promote violence. I have always been an FPS fan until very recently, that doesn’t mean I am prone to violence. Then again, that’s not something new, it is probably the same sentiment shared by most FPS fans. It’s not like you go “Ooh! I love the blood spatter caused by the bullet when it hits”. OK, maybe some weirdos do, but majority of FPS junkies play the game because it is fast paced, and yes because “it is a game”. Believe me while playing a game you (, and even those weirdos) are very much aware that your in a middle of a game and not in the real world. That doesn’t mean you are going to enact similar actions in the real world.

Violence and violent tendencies in general maybe because of different reasons but not due to video games. I have seen people blatantly blame video games for all the violence in the world, but consider this fact, maximum violence and the most heinous of acts are carried out by people who don’t even have a clue as to what a video game is, much less played one. I am not a physiologist (, not by any stretch of imagination) but the root cause of violence is seated somewhere else and not in any computer game you can find. It is a dark nature of humans to lust for violence. In th past the Romans used Gladiatorial combat. What could be more violent that that? Yet the Romans were known as the most civilized people of their time. Some say they even ushered the modern age. Isn’t Boxing a violent game too? I could say the same thing with many others, but lets just leave it at that.

So why do some people have this uneasiness with video games that have violent content. It’s not like the game itself is physically harming someone. Not in the least. So what is the real reason behind this outcry over banning video games? I am surprised that in this day and age, people still feel the need to ban something, “something like a video game”! My personal feeling is, because a computer game is a fairly new and misunderstood entertainment medium, at least by some. The usual argument is violent video games will promote violence. With whom? With kids? They shouldn’t be playing such violent games in the first place! That’s what ratings are there for. As far as ratings for violent video games go, I am very much for that. Just like adult movie content should not fall into the hands of minors much less kids, so shouldn’t violent video games. I have seen adults fail to realize this but violence is adult content, anywhere, in any entertainment medium! And, it is the responsibility of an adult to see to that. Violence is often treated as “OK” with regards to minors and kids, and that can be dangerous. Talking about movies, what about violent movies? Should we ban those too? That’s just crazy.

In the end a game is just that “A Game”. It is an highly interactive entertainment medium that is here to stay. Games allow for more immersion than traditional entertainment mediums like theater and movies. Some people (, and their numbers are declining rapidly) haven’t fully understood it, mostly because it is new. Like with all new things, at first they are seen as a threat to society, which games are not. In the end, that too shall pass and attitudes will change.

Just yesterday I was rummaging through my article archives when I had a run in with my Doom 3 DVD. It’s been a while since I played Doom 3, actually it’s been almost a year and a half since I abandoned the game half way. Interesting, since I hate leaving games mid-way. I generally have two particular reactions to games, a. I don’t like the game in the first few levels and never look at it again. This can be due to several reasons like bad controls, bad graphics, crashes and generally things like that will put off any normal person, or, b. I take an interest in the game and play it till the very end. However Doom 3 is an exception and that got me thinking as to what it was about the game that made me turn away from it.

I got my hands on the game a while back, about 6 months from its release. I was excited about the graphics and wanted to see what all the talk about stencil shadows and Carmack’s new and then controversial algorithm was. Unfortunately a series of accidents (with hardware failures) and incidents (job) kept me busy. When I did finally fire up the game, it was mind blowing. Most of id’s games are, nothing new about that. (For the record I have played every one of their games excepting Commander Keen series.) However after playing a couple of levels, I was already turning away from the game. For one, the game is set in a very dark backdrop and the whole gameplay revolves around getting the player shit scared. Dark alleys, claustrophobic environments and very little to no light. Everything is designed to play on basic human fear. It’s like the whole game is designed keeping only one intension in mind, FEAR.

Along with the environment there are some subtle tweaks done to the FPS style of play that aliments to the overall fear factor. Small things that you may or may not have noticed. For example, notice when you hold a torch, you can’t hold your gun at the same time. This is just an immensely powerful physiological disadvantage that has been designed in. It leaves you virtually helpless against an attacking enemy. Take away the light and hold the gun, and you can’t see what is approaching. The game tries to lead you into a dark void of the unknown! This “unknown” and the “fear of the unknown” is the gameplay of Doom 3. The best way to generate fear is having a set of unknowns. The game is very smartly designed to have you believe, of course, subconsciously that the environment is fearful. You start off on a Mars base where everyone is jumpy and fearful. Again no one knows anything (an unknown there). The base is flush with rumors and information is intentionally kept vague. The PDA you like so much, ah huh, again just used to play on your fears. The PDA messages are intentionally vague and misleading all done deliberately to keep the unknowns pilling up.

The overall game progress is slow and sometimes very slow. You might not have noticed this, but try adding up the amount of time you spend reading your PDA, listening to conversations, switching between the torch and the gun, and loading up saved levels and you will see what I mean. This is very contrary to most FPS style games where the action is fast paced and certainly for id’s games which are known for their shoot and frag style games. All well and good, so what had me dump the game. For one, I got tired of getting scared. Yes I did. I mean after playing the game for like 6-7 hours (total) that fear factor kinda gets boring. All due respect to the game designers, but th game has very little and too few “cool off” periods. A cool off period is an interval just after a intense fight sequence where the player is given time to cool off. This is an integral part of gameplay design especially for action oriented games. There are small and large cool off periods and their placement in the overall game flow is critical. While there are a number of small cool off periods, the game misses out on larger periods which generally occur after a level is completed. Yes, they are there, but they are short.

Another thing that bugged me a lot is the spawning of the enemies. In later stages of the game, enemies get spawned when you pick up a health pack or an ammo kit. This is somewhat controversial. Ammos, health packs, and other goodies are there to give a the player a reward, and often a well deserved one. To have a monster spawn up when you pick up a health pack makes me feel cheated! Period! In the end I just feel that the game lacked variety. Doom 3 is an old run of the mill fire and forget FPS style game, but then again we have played such games too many times already. I was coming over from playing Half-Life 2 and so the comparison couldn’t have been starker. I switched over to Quake 4, completed it and loved it. That’s because the game has a well balanced gameplay, great variety and never got me bored once. Maybe I had expected too much from Doom 3 since I am such a great fan of the old legacy Doom and Doom 2 series of games. They were like the ultimate technology adrenaline boosters when I played them. Maybe my expectation from Doom 3 was a bit too much. Maybe it’s just me getting older or maybe my tastes have changed over the years. I don’t know.