Monday, July 10, 2006

The Cannon-Fodder Trifecta

I've played a lot of games in my time. Sometimes, they have good stories.

Occasionally.

Every so often.

Okay, only when Bioware, Blizzard and Bungie are behind the wheel. And only the later Blizzard games at that. And occasionally Square. But that's beside the point.

The point is, they usually don't have the deep plot. Not much in the way of reasons for the enemy to be an enemy.

But there are three kinds of baddies that seem to be the most commonly used, because they don't have to have any reason to be evil. They just are evil. Their reasons are common knowledge.

Firstly, there's the Mindless (aka ZOMBIES!). These guys have no motive to fight because they have no mind, thus no need for plot. Maybe some reason why they exist, but that's it. Robots and all manner of undead fall into this category, except some Vampires and, in D&D especially, Liches. They fall into the next category...

The Evil Incarnate. These guys are just evil. That's it. That's all they live for. Demons, Vampires and Liches are pretty much good here. This gets easily extended to "monsters", who's only purpose is to kill people. Also, rulers so corrupt they live in luxury while everyone else lives in poverty counts here. Aliens who just want to kill all Humans also work well here. The next group sorta fits in here, but they really deserve a category all they're own...

NAZI'S! If you look at the number of WW2 games made, you'd come to the conclusion that there's nothing gamers like more than killing Nazi's. Everyone knows Nazi's are evil. I mean, they're NAZI'S! Why WOULDN'T you kill them? Even the communists (a group that might fit well in here too) killed Nazi's! They are basically the ultimate, guilty-free kill. In ten years, Terrorists will become the new Nazi's.

These three bad guy groups are used, really, in all mindless fun plotlines. The thing is, good plots can come from these cliché's: These three groups are often used and modified to make good plots.

The brutal orcs that attack the land of Azeroth in Warcraft 1 and 2 were fleshed out considerably into a very interesting race in Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne. The originally mindless undead that also attacked the humans in Warcraft 3 (poor humans...) turned into a race of their own when they broke free of their controller, making one wonder if something that began so evil could ever have a noble soul. Or any soul.

In Halo 2, we were able to see into the formerly simple Covenant that only had one aim in Halo: Kill all humans. We saw a deep group of races bent entirely around religious scripture which provided their motivation for everything.

Can't think of one for Nazi's, but you get the idea.

But still, this is in sequels. Otherwise, it's just a nice cookie cutter villiany :).

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