Why do shooters suffer the same moral stereotypes? Part II
Thursday, July 30, 2009 3:51 PM
Iain Howe continues his exploration into why shooters tread the same moral boundaries with a supposed hazy counterexample.
Ever wondered why video game shooters generally enjoy a similar plot to its predecessors?
Iain Howe, a former game designer and scriptwriter, argues that the recurring themes and stereotypes in shooters actually create moral extremes that are essential to not only the enjoyment of the game, but also the delivery of an intelligible plot.
In his three part feature, Howe hopes to explain why many shooter video games reflect each other's moral decisions and tread the same roads release after release.
In this second part Iain Howe tackles an apparent counterexample to his theory that moral stereotypes are essential to shooter video games.
Read Part I of Iain Howe's 'Why do shooters suffer the same moral stereotypes?' here.
A Hazy Counterpoint
One game that seemed set to buck this trend in game morality was the PS3 exclusive first-person shooter called Haze by Free Radical Design.
The plot starts off strongly by casting the protagonist as Sergeant Shane Carpenter, a professional soldier for a private military contractor called Mantel. Mantel is presented as a multinational corporation that has its fingers in many sinister pies, not least biomedical research and mass market media, whilst also replacing the UN as the world's arbiter of international relations. It's in this latter role that the protagonist finds himself sent to the Boa region of South America to join a counter-insurgency battle against anarchic rebels led by the infamous cannibal Gabriel 'Skin Coat' Merino.
A subtle hand at the storyline helm could have established some sort of moral equality between the Rebels and the Mantel forces - presenting Shane Carpenter with a difficult moral quandary, but Free Radical fumbles the play and their heavy handed depiction of Shane's Mantel squad as a psychotic group of drug-crazed war criminals trying to annihilate the plucky resistance might as well have been specific instructions labeling them as 'the bad guys.'
This is accentuated by making Mantel's troops completely dependent upon combat drugs to remain efficient. These drugs lower weapon recoil, make the player able to zoom in further, and 'tidy up' the battlefield by rendering things in happy colours and causing disturbing sights, like dead bodies, to quickly vanish.
Skin Coat himself is introduced early on in the game (in a quite conventional coat) as a prisoner, where he is a calm voice of reason amidst the horrors of war. He debates sagely with Shane before Shane's squad leader rebuts by attempting to sever Skin Coat's hands. I wouldn't have been surprised if said squad leader had attempted to tie him to railway tracks whilst adjusting his top hat to a rakish angle and twirling his moustache. This is a step too far for Shane who initiates a shoot out inside a flying helicopter with his erstwhile comrades that ends in a crash.
Although the storyline then beats around the bush a little bit, Shane's defection to the Rebels is never really in doubt. Mantel seal the deal by sending Special Forces to kill Shane so that his complete reversal of allegiance after a cheesy two minute speech by the seemingly-immortal Gabriel 'Skin Coat' Merino is almost, but not quite, credible.
From this point the game rumbles onto the well-greased tracks of orthodox morality. Shane becomes a committed rebel and battles against the faceless, drug crazed, Mantel horde to liberate Boa from the evil corporation. When Shane destroys the regional supply of the hated drug, Nectar, most of the Mantel troops are incapacitated by withdrawal, even suicide, since the drug can no longer hide the moral impact of their actions from them.
Again, a subtle storyline hand would have ended the story here, but like a magpie with costume jewellery, Free Radical doesn't know when to stop. The previously benign and philosophical Rebel Leader suddenly develops a nasty streak, ordering a strike on the crippled Mantel Landcarrier Headquarters. Stuffed to the gunwhales with psychiatric casualties and withdrawn basket cases, this order lacks the sort of moral legitimacy that seemed to inform Rebel planning earlier.
The protagonist, having already quit one organization due to a surfeit of evilness, nonetheless carries out the attack and destroys the carrier - no doubt slaughtering thousands of wounded former-comrades. The game ends on an even lower note, with the rebels planning to use the evil drug Nectar to 'pep up' their apathetic people. Blatant use of the same language used by Mantel troops to describe the Rebels drives the point home.
Although the storyline seems to want to suggest that the Rebels are cut from the same cloth as Mantel, compared to the kitten eaters that were Shane's original Mantel squad mates, the hint of power corrupting one leader really doesn't make it happen. In the end it's just more of the same, no more ground breaking than including a Nazi campaign in Company of Heroes was, because it always sets one side up as the good guys and the other up as the bad guys and it makes use of all the usual devices to let you know which is which.
These moral stereotypes are essential to game design, because they act as a powerful tool that keys into the gamer's unconscious decision making; something that I'll explore in the third and final part of this three part feature.
Iain Howe
Read Part I of Iain Howe's 'Why do shooters suffer the same moral stereotypes?' here.
Read Part III of Iain Howe's 'Why do shooters suffer the same moral stereotypes?' here.