Do You Want To Play A Game?

Broadly speaking, there are two major categories of video games which people play. There are adversarial games, where the player maneuvers a character or group of characters through a conflict with an opposing force. These games can be played as one character against the world, as has been the case virtually since the beginning of modern video games. They may be played by several players at once, either pitted against each other, as the original Pong was meant to be played, or allied against an opposing force, either human-controlled or computer controlled. These kinds of games are the games Jacques Morrisey embodies when he switches his clothes from his usual black suit into desert camouflage. These are the games about which conservative organizations rage – the games parents swear never to give to their children, for fear of creating sociopaths, but always do.
Then there are the non-adversarial games. These games are almost exclusively single player affairs. There is just one human playing a game without an opposing force arranged against him. There are no enemies to shoot or blow up, but only a desk with a pack of cards, or a pinball machine display. The player plays the game not to beat the computer, but simply to play. These are the kinds of games the come pre-loaded in Windows. These games do not have any objective or any end goal aside from just free play.
Games of this type are epitomized by Endless Ocean. In this game, the player does not have any objectives to complete. The player character simply jumps into the ocean and starts to swim. The player can swim around and look at fish, or he can climb back on the boat and watch seagulls flying around. There are sharks in the ocean, but they do not attack the player and the player cannot attack them. The player has a rebreather, so he does not have to worry about running out of breathable air. The game continues until the player decides to stop playing. There is no structure, nor is there anything for the player to seriously engage in except open relaxation. The player can feel like a goldfish in a bowl sometimes while playing this game.

Solitaire or Soldier of Fortune, games provide a much-needed distraction for some gamers, and a way of life for others. Since the overall focus of this project is to examine the duality of games and what each kind of game, adversarial or otherwise, provides the player, it seems important to note that these two broad categories could be mixed. While this has been done successfully in some cases, it can become the most loathed kind of video game of them all: laughably unplayable.

To provide perspective, take, for example, the case of Metroid Prime Pinball. In my younger years, before I found the joy that can be derived from blowing Nazis away with a submachine gun in Wolfenstein 3D, I played non-adversarial games almost exclusively. Ever since I can remember, I would play educational games in my mother’s classroom while she graded assignments or wrote out lessons plans. On the weekends, however, I would become fascinated by the blinking lights and pinging sounds of the pinball machines at the local pizza parlor. Since those early experiences listening to The Who rock out about the Pinball Wizard and hammering away the ancient pinball machine in the back corner of the waiting area at the Pizza Hut, I’ve been interested in pinball. Dad said that pinball would help with coordination, and Mom liked that I was out of her hair for a little while. I remember hearing a radio report on NPR a long time ago which described pinball as a “pure game.” There is no adversary and no impetus to play aside from the ability to increase your score and hone your reflexes.

It seemed inevitable that pinball would fade from gaming culture, as games began to include more realistic graphics and advanced, real physics engines. Adversarial games took to these advances more readily, as a realistic game experience would draw larger audiences to these games. Non-adversarial games really didn’t demonstrate the kind of advances in gaming technology that could be found in the latest engines coming out of Valve’s studios. However, the pinball game, which used beautiful table art and realistic sounds to draw people into playing for hours, appeared to be a perfect platform for advanced game technology. Metroid Prime Pinball demonstrates this, and introduced a real example of how adversarial games could be relaxed into a more casual gaming experience.

Metroid Prime Pinball places the player in the role of Samus Aran, an intergalactic bounty hunter tasked with hunting down the vilest adversaries in the galaxy: the Space Pirates. Her story is told across several games, ranging from Nintendo’s Metroid to the Nintendo Wii’s Metroid Prime 3. In the environment of dangerous and brutal combat against genetically enhance intergalactic buccaneers, Rare Games decided to produce a game where Samus Aran rolls around the environments from the fourth game, Metroid Prime, in her Marius ball form. The player controls the flippers and bounces Samus around the environment, smashing into bumpers and targets, racking up high scores, and unlocking new environments in which to play. There are the remnants of the story from the original game, but the player is free to ignore the story line and engage in free play. Rare successfully transferred an adversarial game into a non-adversarial distraction.

In light of this basic concept, I decided to modify two equally adversarial first person shooters into non-adversarial games. Microsoft’s Halo places the hero, Master Chief, against the insurmountable forces of the Covenant. I decided to remove Master Chief from the display and place the player in the role of a commander of blocks in Tetris Wars.

The goal of this game is to win points by dropping blocks into formation and clear lines across the play area. Multiple lines at once earn larger scores. However, from time to time, witty Covenant forces will appear on the screen to menace the player. By dropping a block onto the brute, the player can earn bonus points. An example of typical game play, including the disparaging Covenant Brute’s realization that his life is a lie and that the player truly is a supreme commander of eight-bit falling blocks, is displayed here. Progress in the game will be rewarded with advanced difficulty settings, including Veteran and Brutal, as well as advanced play area skins depicting scenes from the Halo universe. The game would ship with an ESRB rating of T (for Teen) due to language.

The second example of modification of an adversarial game in a non-adversarial fashion involves Duke Nukem. This hyper-violent, misogynistic, foul-mouthed man’s man engaged invading aliens in a line of third and fourth generation games named for the protagonist. However, during this remix of the original game concept, the player takes control of Duke as a dancer, cutting loose after destroying a priceless alien battle station in Earth’s asteroid belt. The game concept crosses the sexuality of Duke’s favorite strippers with the athletics and dexterity of Duke’s combat skills in a round-robin free dance experience. Players who engage thoroughly in the game, matching the rhythm of the pulsing music with their own fancy footwork, are rewarded with high scores, new songs, and images of Duke’s strippers cheering him on enthusiastically. This game would most likely ship with an ESRB rating of M (for mature) for sexually explicit images, references to alcohol use and sexual situations, and language.

These games transmute the topics and environments gamers have enjoyed for years into less adversarial genres. Players will be able to enjoy their favorite characters and environments while enjoying new, non-adversarial free play game experiences.