Lagumbay.com Reflections on Love, Rage, and Fear

“I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone. I certainly do” — Alanis Morissette, “You Learn”

My horrendous kill-death ratio in the Killzone 3 multiplayer made me contemplate my approach to video game combat. With the pre-order bonus ticking down the 24-hours of having all skills unlocked, my objective had been to amass as many experience points as I could, which, in turn, granted me “unlock points” for use when the 24 hour skill smorgasbord ended. In gaming terms, I was XP-whoring, and I will probably be XP-whoring until I eventually unlock everything. Due to my lame skill level, that means putting my medic character in harm’s way for the potential chance of gaining more points than I could if I had been, say, a more cautious marksman.

From a broader perspective, I wondered if my reckless abandon was due to the knowledge that my character would respawn after death. In Killzone, there doesn’t seem to be a penalty for dying except for maybe having to walk through the map again. In the game, death is nothing to fear, knowing that reincarnation is only a few seconds away.

Come to think of it, the one main threat deterring a person from dying in a video game is having to start over. In the GTA series, getting “Busted” or “Wasted” cost you either money or weapons, but the ability to reload a saved game nullified that consequence. During the longer missions, however, the idea of having to start over made me not want to “die.” Having to once more drive through half the game map, fight through the same grunts for another chance of getting things right seemed like something to strive against. I always thought it best to succeed on the first try. In LittleBigPlanet, pressure always mounted when I was down to my last “life.” I was more cautious, often standing still in order to assess the situation, understand patterns, and plan my course of action. Reaching the next checkpoint came with a sigh of relief, knowing that one wrong step into a fiery pit would only be a minor inconvenience again. In the God of War series, as with most platformers and brawlers, dying led to having to start a section over, which meant possibly having to re-acquire power-ups and fighting through hordes of monsters again. These are minor, and sometimes fun, inconveniences.

There are games out there that have a “hardcore” mode which makes death more consequential. Demon’s Souls penalizes death by making reincarnation difficult. One can keep on playing as a ghost with diminished “health points” and an ethereal look in the game world. Dying in Demon’s Souls also meant losing all the XP and gold you had gained with a chance to recover some of it if you make it back to your corpse. The game provided no checkpoints and as such, made having to start over with less health a horribly frustrating proposition.

There is a “Hardcore Mode” in Fallout New Vegas in which hunger and fatigue factored in more heavily to the character’s health. Still, death was only a minor inconvenience since one can reload a previously saved game. Dying while playing Diablo II’s hardcore mode, however, meant that you character, along with his or her acquired skills and equipment, could not be accessed again. The only way to play again was to start a completely new character from the beginning.

The idea of respawning is part of the appeal of video games. Players are allowed to explore, make fatal errors, and try again. The way a game deals with “death” ultimately determines the approach a player takes. I never tried Diablo II’s hardcore mode because the thought of losing many hours of hard work to a stray thrown spear did not sound appealing at all. My horrendous kill-death ratio in Killzone 3 illustrates the other end of the spectrum, as death is only a minor inconvenience. If Alanis Morissette were singing about video games, she could have added “You die, you learn.”