I have a bit of a quib with video games right now. We've all played games in the past. Some of them were casual games that a rock could figure out. Some of them were hardcore games that upon mention would instantly create a social migraine that even obi wan couldn't master. Even the occasional guilty pleasure that we'd play while locked in our rooms for fear of social ridicule. But at the end of each game all we have is a memory. Just the remaining thoughts from what we found the best or worst in that game. So if each game is just a memory than what did we remember? For movies it is usually a big wow moment. An explosion of awsomeness harnessed into a few frames. Those wow moments in games can come from boss.' Those boss' come from a main villian. And thats where my issue comes from because the villian, almost without fail, is always a two demension character about as predictable as a macdonalds menu.
Of course thats not to say there havent been some great game villians. They have some levels of diversity that set them apart. For instance bowser from Mario was a great villian not because he was intimidating but agrivating. He was a bully. He taunted the player along their path just being a menace. But thats predictable and I'm arguing agasint that right? Well mario was made to fit all audiences which means kids would play it. A villian to a kid isent a man you can't see on a chair who really likes cats with that button that opens every trap door in the room. To a kid a villian is a bully, a kid that picks on them taking things away. Mainly lunch money but this all to say that villians get their power from context. Meaning if bowser was replaced with say... Joker from batmans arkym asilym then kids would be not only trumatized by a madman but beatten by gumbas with ak47s. This would make a game that didn't sell very well and may end up in the bad section of video game memories. The point I'm trying to make here is that the villian, an integreal part of most story based video games, needs to fit the style of the video game its in. A common mistate that many games make is not adhearing to the who the villian is intended for.
Game villians try to intimidate you and that just ends up not being scary. Movies have a formula for this called the heros journey and that structure is the beginning for all of the big classics we see on screen. Of course that formula has been rearranged and toyed with to some success but the basic layout is usually the same. A lot of entertainment in movies comes from seeing what the characters do and most tension comes from the mistakes they make. Now when this stucture is used in a video game it is missing a key component. Change. The character is supposto have a change in the heros journey but that isent really possible when a real person is playing. One could argue that games use this all the time but in reality its usually a cinimatic or scripted event the player is pigon holed into. This pushs the player out of the game and forces issues they couldent avoid. This is bound to happen in every game but when its done right the player feels trapped, not restricted. Trapped in the sence that the player has only one clear path to victory and anything outside of it has been blocked by the villain.
Great villains come from their felt presence inside the world. Not on a physical scale since every game and it's sequal has smashed rocks all over the place but the mental state places are left in. What are the survivors, if any, doing? Sometimes a great moment can come from the unexpected. After a gun fight people won't be sitting around a table having tea they'll be running around in panic. If a character meets the villain how will he respond? Sometimes sutlety can go a long way. It might be strange to know that everyone actually loves the villain and he's considered a hero in town. Of course what you usually hear is 'oh he's so bad! stop him by turning off that switch in that base over on that hill.' Villians should be guiding the player, not the levels the player is stuck in. By this I mean that either your chasing the villain or he's chasing you.
Input comes from the player and they diside if the player changes or not. So this fomula cannot change and the player simply moves from interesting level to interesting level without any sort of impactful presence. Nothing is standing in the way of the player except a restart checkpoint button and their interest in the game. So of course nothing lost nothing gained. In fact only a handful of games actually use death of the character as an optional plot progression point (namely Heavy Rain)
Great villains come from their felt presence inside the world. Not on a physical scale since every game and it's sequal has smashed rocks all over the place but the mental state places are left in. What are the survivors, if any, doing? Sometimes a great moment can come from the unexpected. After a gun fight people won't be sitting around a table having tea they'll be running around in panic. If a character meets the villain how will he respond? Sometimes sutlety can go a long way. It might be strange to know that everyone actually loves the villain and he's considered a hero in town. Of course what you usually hear is 'oh he's so bad! stop him by turning off that switch in that base over on that hill.' Villians should be guiding the player, not the levels the player is stuck in. By this I mean that either your chasing the villain or he's chasing you.
Input comes from the player and they diside if the player changes or not. So this fomula cannot change and the player simply moves from interesting level to interesting level without any sort of impactful presence. Nothing is standing in the way of the player except a restart checkpoint button and their interest in the game. So of course nothing lost nothing gained. In fact only a handful of games actually use death of the character as an optional plot progression point (namely Heavy Rain)
