The REVERSE Person Shooter

[WouldYouKindly]

That's a good idea. An actually unique idea. I've felt bad having to kill companions in some RPGs where they were well characterized. However, usually killing them was a last resort, not my objective. It would be interesting to see how I would feel about killing people I like when that's my only mission, not just an unfortunate side effect.

The enemy AI would have to be off the charts though. That might be the one most difficult thing.

 

[Liudeius]

Also if they made the fleshed out characters the good guys, with you playing on the side that was destroying the world.
Of course they would have to make sure it wasn't the "cool" evil, and just plain evil. Having the faceless player pull the trigger to kill main characters rather than killing in cutscenes is also a must.

 

[cuppajoe1687]

Remember how THQ wanted to convince us that Homefront would make killing carry an emotional impact? And how it failed utterly the moment your character's rescuer slammed a truck into your bus killing other prisoners?

I had a funny thought about how to give an FPS that impact. Play as the faceless mook.

Now hear me out: the enemies in most FPS games these days wear uniforms, and more often than not they obscure the facial features. Other shooters eschew this approach and go the alien enemy route. What this does is lessen the psychological impact that firing the weapon at the enemy causes. It's much easier to fire a gun at a Stormtrooper or an alien than at a person with a face. The face obscuring masks and helmets allow the player to distance themselves from the enemy, making it feel morally appropriate to kill them, since they don't look like 'real' people.

But what if you were the faceless mass? Here's what I had in mind. The cutscenes of the game would focus on a group of characters, and follow their story as they travel through the world. Through the cutscenes, the player gets to know and come to like these characters enough to connect with them. And then during gameplay, the player takes control of the opposing side, with their goal to attack and kill the people they've come to know and like. It would make killing them harder, and also provide an interesting flip of perspective in modern shooters.

What do you think of this idea?

Resident Evil 4 did something like that in the closing credits where you see the villagers before they become infected and they're subsequent enslavement and infection by the illuminati. It's not the exact same thing but I remember it striking a chord with me; similar to the one you seem to be trying to go for with this idea.

 

[Mr. Underson]

Interesting idea. I dont think many people would have a problem with it, unless you played as the other characters first.

 

[EZola19]

So you're saying that films can't have an emotional impact because it's just actors reciting lines, or that books can't have an emotional impact because it's just words on a page? You're saying that NO WORK OF FICTION has EVER had any kind of impact on you?

Not a video game, no. Sintel made me cry like a baby, but never a video game, which is the subject of this thread.

I guess whether it has any kind of impact depends on whether you have any emotional attachment to it. I didn't play FFVII so that drama about Aerith's death never got to me. But the genocides of FFIX did as did the despair in Heavy Rain or maybe even the tranquility of Flower.

Back to topic, maybe it could be that you're part of the group, you spend half the game hanging out an fighting with these guys and suddenly in the half way point, you have to find them (insert plot device). Maybe they really were evil, or maybe you were hired or that the would bring about the end of the world. Or maybe you're a mole/double agent.

Or maybe the previous ideas are better It's interesting, would you go fight them or find a way to just disable them? (knockout or tranquilizer). The sudden shift of focus (the 2nd person shooter) might be a bit hard to handle as it'll be jarring. Unless it was a feature of the game itself

 

[philosophicalbastard]

be the faceless masses? does this count as a 2nd person shooter?

To be a second-person shooter, it would have to be controlled from the perspective of someone else; you'd have to control a character from the perspective of another. So not quite, though the idea is similar in terms of what it's meant to communicate.

Then Assassin's Creed is the first second person game ever.

OT: The concept seems like it could be turned into a little indie title, but it could never be fully fleshed out because playing a stormtrooper with horrible accuracy, ineffective weapons, and low HP isn't fun.

 

[Liudeius]

So you're saying that films can't have an emotional impact because it's just actors reciting lines, or that books can't have an emotional impact because it's just words on a page? You're saying that NO WORK OF FICTION has EVER had any kind of impact on you?

Not a video game, no. Sintel made me cry like a baby, but never a video game, which is the subject of this thread.

Really? Video games have plenty of cutscenes for such stories, you just must not be playing the right ones.

*spoilers*
Personally I didn't find that video sad at all, too predictable. The second the baby dragon got snatched away I said "She's going to mistake it for the adult and kill it."
Add in the complete lack of ANY logic whatsoever (The dragons were a decade, by ground, away from their home for no apparent reason and she knew exactly where to go.) and I'm not really buying it.

 

[Redem]

Here how I would imagine it

You have a hundred life each time the game protagonist kill one of your weak mooks you switch to another one

 

[aei_haruko]

Remember how THQ wanted to convince us that Homefront would make killing carry an emotional impact? And how it failed utterly the moment your character's rescuer slammed a truck into your bus killing other prisoners?

I had a funny thought about how to give an FPS that impact. Play as the faceless mook.

Now hear me out: the enemies in most FPS games these days wear uniforms, and more often than not they obscure the facial features. Other shooters eschew this approach and go the alien enemy route. What this does is lessen the psychological impact that firing the weapon at the enemy causes. It's much easier to fire a gun at a Stormtrooper or an alien than at a person with a face. The face obscuring masks and helmets allow the player to distance themselves from the enemy, making it feel morally appropriate to kill them, since they don't look like 'real' people.

But what if you were the faceless mass? Here's what I had in mind. The cutscenes of the game would focus on a group of characters, and follow their story as they travel through the world. Through the cutscenes, the player gets to know and come to like these characters enough to connect with them. And then during gameplay, the player takes control of the opposing side, with their goal to attack and kill the people they've come to know and like. It would make killing them harder, and also provide an interesting flip of perspective in modern shooters.

What do you think of this idea?

I love your idea, call it
" pacifist of the world"
Or
"face your sins"
waddya think?

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

So you're saying that films can't have an emotional impact because it's just actors reciting lines, or that books can't have an emotional impact because it's just words on a page? You're saying that NO WORK OF FICTION has EVER had any kind of impact on you?

Not a video game, no. Sintel made me cry like a baby, but never a video game, which is the subject of this thread.

So what? A long time ago, the only film that existed was a short film about a train robbery, something that could hardly get an emotional response out of anyone. Then stuff like Casablanca came along.

Just because games HAVEN'T done it yet (to you, anyway) that certainly doesn't mean they CAN'T.

 

[Ghengis John]

It would make killing them harder, and also provide an interesting flip of perspective in modern shooters.

What do you think of this idea?

Well, people have been killing likable, well written, face and name possessing characters as faceless, horrible masses for some time now in Left 4 Dead and they seem to be enjoying doing so. I don't. But many people do.

 

[Thundero13]

Sounds interesting, and it's not like many people are trying new things with FPS's anyway so they maight aswell make this game...
Maybe you could also try something where you're an assassin an when you're spying on the enemies to find their boss or something you hear them conversing with eachother and then you can either kill them or take a slightly harder path to sneak past them...

 

[zHellas]

But what if you were the faceless mass? Here's what I had in mind. The cutscenes of the game would focus on a group of characters, and follow their story as they travel through the world. Through the cutscenes, the player gets to know and come to like these characters enough to connect with them. And then during gameplay, the player takes control of the opposing side, with their goal to attack and kill the people they've come to know and like. It would make killing them harder, and also provide an interesting flip of perspective in modern shooters.

What do you think of this idea?

Hmm... I'm thinking more like you are one of the faceless mooks, and after a few days of chatting with your buddies, doing some stupid guard duty where the only real threat was some baby in a stroller nearby left unattended for a few minutes, suddenly the "good guys" of a stereotypical burly, gritty brown "'MURRIKA, FURK YEAH!" FPS burst in, mocking & slaughtering you and your friends.

And you decide to try and survive through the onslaught (not win, just survive.) by stealthily moving around, occasionally fucking with the "heroes" whenever and if you can by sabotaging their equiptment, the path to what they're looking for, etc.

 

[GodofCider]

Seems interesting, but the problem in trying to give an impact to killing things in video games is that they're games, and thus the people aren't real and have no moral impact, no matter how much you learn about them and their family that didn't even get rendered into the game.

Therein lays the problem in many such situations. Take Fable 2 for example.

"...consider all of their hopes, and dreams. And now they have none; because of you." -Crude quote from Theresa

The line was in regards to taking out your first gang of bandits. Yes it makes you stop and think, but at the same time it's utterly pointless.

As the impact of her words ring astonishingly hollow, in light of the remainder of the game; wherein you 'kill' several hundred more literal copy-pastes of the exact same characters, whose only name and pre-programmed goal in life is to be a "bandit".

 

[INF1NIT3 D00M]

I like the idea of a bunch of stormtroopers/taliban/whatever sitting around getting into deep personal chats and show a good side of themselves as a game, then whenever one the NPC's kill you they teabag your corpse or fire at it until they are out of ammo. Also the game will need prerecorded clips like "lol these guys suck" to be put into the ingame voice chat.

Actually, I experienced some things like this in really old FPS games. Sometimes the AI was only programmed to shoot you, and there was nothing to tell them to stop once you died. All you could do was stare impotently as they fired into your corpse for eternity. They'd do that until you reloaded at the last save.
One game I remember real well that made me feel bad for dying was Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Every time the stormtroopers would kill you they'd just completely ignore you, like murdering your ass was no big deal for them. They'd even say "Oh well, that's one less rebel" as they went back to their posts, and it never failed to make me feel like a completely worthless loser.
And to be honest, there's nothing I love more than sneaking around and finding two or more guards standing around chatting, then listening to their conversation. Part of it is genuine immersion, and the other part is just the fact that I feel like I'm validating whatever voice actor they hired to do these guard's lines.

 

[intheweeds]

OK, but...What happens after you kill them?

Maybe you don't. Maybe the point could be that your trying to protect your faction or whatever from this group of 'terrorists' and the point is to survive. As the group pushes further in though you are forced to retreat further backwards through levels. As you go along you could find out your actually the bad guy over time. That would be cool.

I mean, I don't know how you would implement that, but it would be cool.

 

[Chris646]

I think xkcd mentioned something like this once.
OT: Yeah, I'd buy it.

 

[Chris Cloutier]

What if, instead of a single game, this was implemented as an MMO of sorts, with each mook controlled by an actual person, while 1*4 people are controlling the "heroes" of the game, meaning that, to them, it's just a regular FPS with good AI, but the other people see another point of view

 

[William Jung]

be the faceless masses? does this count as a 2nd person shooter?

To be a second-person shooter, it would have to be controlled from the perspective of someone else; you'd have to control a character from the perspective of another. So not quite, though the idea is similar in terms of what it's meant to communicate.

That's what I thought he meant. That game play would be though the eyes of the "hero". But, I was just reading wrong. I haven't been sleeping well.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/himojii/second-person-shooter-zato - this would be a 2nd person shooter.