comic book gaming

This neogaf thread is intriguing: how could comic-based games be better? David Jaffe says that the sandbox Spider-Man games are the same missions over and over.

I LOVE Marvel Comics and I LOVE the promise of games based on Marvel Comics. But why can’t you guys make a game that feels like a comic? I don’t mean art style wise; I don’t mean like Comix Zone with panels and cliche stuff like that. I mean feels like a comic in a story based, narrative way: a game that shows off the OTHER aspect that makes Marvel Comics so special: The characters/story. It’s not JUST about the powers, you know. But your games are always ONLY about the powers.

Jaffe makes a later excellent point, which is that storytelling is achieved by more than just cutscenes but with the missions and gameplay. Jaffe’s note that Marvel games focus on power rather than story is a good one. One of the most appealing things about X-Men Legends was that it had a better story than we expected from a comic book game, which often haven’t had stories or bad ones.

What makes Marvel comics so different than DC comics isn’t really the character focus: it’s that we see ordinary people become empowered, but those powers are mixed blessings, even curses.

• Peter Parker has spider powers, but they are making his personal life worse: his school performance isn’t up to his potential, his alter-ego interferes with his love life, he’s supporting a newspaper that depicts his alter ego as criminal.
• Bruce Banner is the Hulk, but is he just misunderstood? It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t want to be the Hulk. He can’t have a normal life and is hunted down by the government.
• Tony Stark has his armor, but, especially in the early days, it was always a risky situation because of the risk to his heart.

And there are others, like Ben Grimm, Dr. Blake [Thor], Silver Surfer, and Namor, but probably no one better exemplified this theme than the Inhumans and the X-Men because it went from an individual’s conflicts with powers to persecution. Unlike DC characters who either seemed compelled to become heroes or accepted the role almost unquestioningly, many Marvel characters were very aware of what their powers meant, and their conflicts gave rise to choices–choices to stop being the hero, to lose their powers.

Yet we get very, very little of this conflict of the blessings and curses of super-powers in comic book games. I believe that incorporating this theme and focusing on the story is best served by elements of role-playing and adventure games, elements that focus on choices of character, not just action.

• Start the game as the person, not as the powered hero. Introduce a personal situation for the character. I think this could mean a split storyline, which is very common in Marvel comics. Peter Parker has a conflict to resolve with Aunt May, but Spider-Man is having to deal with a new villian.
• Use the idea of alignment from RPGs, which is affected by what missions they use their powers for, or how well they use their powers. Spider-Man might chase criminals, but if he’s inefficient and allows a lot damage, his perception as a villian or vigilante increases. This affects, even limits, choices in other scenes. If the perception as a vigilante is too high, this could affect the personal storyline and its choices.[I think it would be interesting to explore even complex relationships between the powers and the personal. We could have the effects of the vigilante perception problem, but we can maybe see circumstances in which positive perceptions as Spider-Man could make his personal life complicated, too, so that it's not all a 1-for-1 correspondence. Also consider that overcoming personal problems could improve hero stats.]
• Make the personal story compelling to the point that players not only feel something but that they even think about it in the superhero storyline. For example, if Aunt May is very ill and the game puts the player as Spider-Man fighting Electro, having something in the fight evoke in the player’s mind Aunt May’s illness. It doesn’t have to be cut scene.[This is probably too gimmicky, but imagine something like the blinding ink in Mario Kart. Spider-Man can encounter Electro in 3-4 possible areas, but in one, there's a billboard with the picture of an older woman and a hospital. If you engage Electro in that area, the billboard comes into view and the image of Aunt May appears which gives Electro an advantage. Or if you want to be more RPG-like, perhaps the billboard could cause something like a spell that lowers Spider-Man's stats.]
• Allow the player to make meaningful decisions, even if it might not be consistent with a particular Marvel universe. If Peter has a choice of pursuing Betty, Mary Jane, Felicia, or Gwen, let it happen, and don’t have the game counter the decision so that it wasn’t real. Allow the possibility that characters could die [which, even though we knew wouldn't happen in the stories, were real possibilities to the characters].
• Focus the game with its intertwining stories on the conflict of the powers. By the end of the game, the player should have made choices that further the stories and that lead to some resolution of that conflict, at least for the instance provided in the game.

I understand a lot of gamers just want the action, but many, including myself, are drawn to good stories and interesting characters. I think David Freeman’s emotioneering is important in game development because of the emphasis it puts on character, story, and player satisfaction and involvement. Some of my ideas and examples draw on his methods. While I think his methods can lead to formulaic gameplay, I think the idea in all of this is to make the game mechanics and such be subordinate to give the player more than just a game experience but a creative, emotional one.

A lot of games are providing players way to be creative and thus more immersed in the game, and I think it’s a shame that comic book games aren’t offering more of this experience.