The Escort

[hittite]

You all know what I'm talking about. Yes, it's the Escort Mission. It seems like every other game you play, you have to drag this useless NPC around who does nothing, doesn't have the sense to duck behind cover when they're getting shot at, and worst of all, WHEN they die, you have to start all over again. I hate it. You hate it. So when I saw this, I got a good laugh out of it.


But then I got to thinking. What if you played an escort mission and you were the one getting escorted?

I really don't know how you'd set that up, since I seriously doubt you could build an entire game around it. Maybe a temporary de-powering or something leaves you almost helpless and you have to depend on your Loyal Sidekick for a while. Sidekick wades into the firefight, trying to get you to safety through swarm after swarm of enemies. Meanwhile, you're hacking/picking doors open, scrambling to find more health and ammo to back up Sidekick, desperately dragging Sidekick behind cover to revive him when he goes down. And above all keeping your head down because you have NO armor and sidekick needs every med kit you can find.

Admittedly, this depends on really good AI much more than a normal escort mission. If done wrong, this has the potential to be the absolute worst escort mission in history, and that's saying something. If done right though, I think it could add a unique and refreshing take on a mechanic that's pretty much universally despised.

Anyway, tell me what you think.

 

[sanquin]

Heck, an entire game based on this would also be very interesting imo. Not just a temporary thing. I think there's definitely a market for it as well. There are people that like being the healer/support, not the action taking guy at the front. (Me being one of them.)

 

[Sectan]

That'd be pretty awesome to try out. You would need to observe the fight and spot things that you usually miss when you're focusing on killing the enemy and staying alive. Being the escort in an escort mission/game would work really well if done right.

 

[roushutsu]

I'd go for that idea. Hell, I usually play the supporter/healer classes in MMOs, so building a AAA game around that concept could be a lot of fun. But I agree, you have to have competent AI so that it doesn't become too easy to the point where you don't do anything and you simply sit and watch the game play itself.

I also think it heavily depends on the writing as well. Part of what made Elizabeth such a great supporting character (aside from being ridiculously helpful in combat) was that her character bounced off of yours real well and she wasn't exactly a push over. Sometimes Booker would ask her something or order to do something and she'll be defiant. That made her more interesting. If you switched the roles here, you'd have to write an interesting combat-heavy character that doesn't always just squawk orders for you to blindly follow. Otherwise, I think it'd get boring real quick.

 

[skywolfblue]

I'd totally love to see an "AI is the tank, you are the healer" game, provided the AI is smart enough.

There's plenty of game that focus on shooting, but outside of MMO's almost no games feature healing (or support) as a major way to play the game. It would be nice to have games that did.

 

[The Madman]

In World of Warcraft they did this every once and awhile to try and mix up the escort missions. Basically have the player as support for a much more badass NPC who does all the real fighting.

But a full game built around it? Hmm... sure, it could work if done well. I'd be interested at least, it's definitely a clever concept with room to explore.

 

[DementedSheep]

Hmm that could be interesting though as you say, I don?t know if it would work well in practice because of AI. If you don?t want to make the entire game like that you could combine it with a puzzle or stealth game.

I actually like escort and defend missions when it has decent AI.

 

[Azahul]

Bits of Metro 2033 certainly feel like that from a story perspective. Artyom's just some kid from the station, while the guys he travels with are hard-bitten rangers with years more experience and far better equipment.

Of course, a few of the gameplay sections feel a whole lot more like you're the one doing the escorting. Flopped a little on the execution there (those bloody amoebas...).

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Last Guardian seemed to go for something like that, where you play a puny little kid and the escort is a giant gryphon.
Too bad that game is lost in oblivion.

 

[ninjapenguin1414]

I feel I need to post this
I personally hate escort missions, can't think of any in a game that I actually liked.

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

There's a case to be made that, as powerful as Elizabeth is, Bioshock Infinite is a big long reverse escort mission.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Half Life 2: Episode 1 had something similar, Alyx had the gun and you just had the gravity gun as well as your torch. You would be the 'spotter' and provide light/some physics kills, while Alyx did most of the damage.