Running Blind Through Killing Fields, Bred To Kill Them All

First Person Shooter, rimblas, 2009

As revealed at the end of my long-simmering rant against Sony, I unexpectedly recently received a PlayStation 3 as a birthday present. The bundled game was Resistance 3. I'm not one for First Person Shooters. I never experienced the revelation of Wolfenstein 3D because it would never work on my old computer; and I never actually bothered to play the second coming of the FPS, Half Life, despite having purchased it. The last shooter to grace my shelf was Rising Sun eight years ago - the poor quality of which (save for a few interesting moments) pretty much killed any enthusiasm I had off the back of the success of Frontline. Only a particular subgenre of the FPS has ever really appealed to me - the tactical shooter.

I was a massive fan of Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear back in the day. As I recall, one of the first websites I looked at when I got dial-up was a R6 mod site, but as with Wolf3D I always had a crash to desktop when attempting online multiplayer. In hindsight I probably did treat R6 like a shooter in casual play, but I liked the realism of one-shot-kills and procedurally clearing rooms rather than just circle strafing the entire level in thirty seconds. Doom, Quake, et al seemed inelegant, or shall I just say it - primitive, like a surgeon operating with a chainsaw. Like dropping a nuke on the Iranian Embassy. I mean, there's a reason nine year old children are playing these games online. As such, in the near decade since Frontline I've become far removed from the world of aid kits, or lately regenerative health and the subsequent re-innovation of aid kits which apparently distinguishes Resistance 3 from all the other Doom Call of Duty clones.

I was hesitant to play Resistance 3. Obviously having just obtained a PS3, I didn't know the story save for the basics I saw in the trailer back when it was named I-8, but more so in that I didn't want to waste my time with a genre I've spent almost a decade scoffing at. However, I had no other PS3 games (ie, all the ones I would have bought if Sony had met or knew of my demands) so I had to get some use out of it or else look a tad unappreciative. I was not immediately enthralled. The first hour after setting up the console consisted of downloading the newest system firmware, followed by the excitement of another progress bar as the game patches were downloaded. When the game finally started up there was a nicely animated sequence recapping the events that led to the alternate 1950s, from the Tunguska impact to the breakout of the alien armies into Europe. It took my mind off the long loading time (now I understand all those arguments in favour of N64 cartridges), but when it ended it was only at about twenty-five bloody percent.

I feel I'm lapsing back into my old writing style, or what we know today as the angry reviewer. I like to write these less academic posts in more conversational style, and ranting is a shortcut to humour; but to show my cards early, I didn't hate it. All the usual tropes were there, people dithering and behaving as they only do in badly-written blockbusters by stopping to have an emotional scene right in the middle of fleeing imminent destruction. I liked what I saw in the original footage of I-8 because it appeared to be a find-replace of the Second World War in which the role of the Nazis is instead occupied by invading aliens. I imagined the human forces (at least when organised forces still existed) would conduct strategic set pieces whilst the Chimera would find strength in numbers and utilise 'human' waves. I imagined resistance groups would conduct hit-and-run ambushes on enemy patrols or convoys. Instead everyone stands in their scripted place whilst I run around the level strafing each new spawning enemy until I kill the requisite number for the story to continue. In typical FPS fashion, a single male aged 25-40 fends off the entire alien threat where the co-ordinated armies of the world could not. If we go back and undo the find-replace of Nazi to Chimera, what's changed since Medal of Honor: Frontline was released almost ten years ago? I'm hoping that I missed all the innovation and things have actually come full circle since 2002, but I'm not going to pretend that's true. The genre may well be moribund, though I'm reliably informed Half Life 2 managed to reinvigorate it. And that's exactly where I got a sense of deja vu.

The alien invasion, wormhole tower, genetic conversion, altered ecosystems, invasive alien wildlife... I've never played HL2, but I have read all about it in lieu. The similarities kept taking me out of the game, I could swear I'd heard someone make all the same observations. The only way I could be aware of what's going on in shooter-land is via Zero Punctuation and I went back to confirm that suspicion after finishing the game in nine hours. Yep, a hell of a lot of similarities. I suppose anything goes when trying to prop up your console mainstay. I just wish first person shooters asked you to acknowledge that other people exist in their fictional universe and not pander to ego-mania in having everyone's fate rest solely on an over-armed übermensch. If a ragtag group of resistance fighters can dodge alien anti-aircraft fire and place one man on a floating superweapon platform with a scavenged VTOL aircraft, why didn't they land a fucking platoon at the very least? Capelli must have been a clone of Big Boss.

The above illustration reminds me of an old game I'd long forgotten.

[1006;36]