Ode to Mr Bubbles - Enemy NPCs done right.
Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 9:28 am
BioShock's Big Daddies are far and above the best enemy NPCs I have ever seen in a video game. Period.
Allow me to explain.
(Yes, this is going to be long. Go get yourself a cup of cocoa or something.)
In most games the enemy NPCs exist for the sole purpose of, well... being enemies. They dutifully spawn and charge forward then attack the player one at a time or in manageably small groups so they can be gunned down, hacked up or otherwise despatched. They constitute a formless mass of minor annoyances which, if not done correctly, can actually detract from the overall quality. Games like Assassins Creed, Red Faction Guerilla and Just Cause 2 ended up feeling like trying to have a picnic on an ant nest. Even extremely good games like God of War and Half Life 2 have a tendency to take the faceless horde approach (although they more then make up for it with stellar implementation).
A slight variation is the RPG method which treats enemy NPCs as aggressive little buckets of XP. The player chews through a certain amount of enemies to fill their little experience gauge, then levels up and moves on to fill their next gauge by chowing down on slightly larger buckets of XP.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with these approaches. As mentioned, there are some truly excellent games out there that follow this pattern. However, I think it can still be done a lot better. This is where the Big Daddies come in.
(Warning: I'm about to engage in some extended fanboy gushing. Get your umbrella.)
(These images do not represent a futile attempt to imitate Wilbefast. Not at all. Nope.)
The foremost difference between Big Daddies and your generic video game bad guys was that they did not attack you on sight. In fact, they would completely ignore you unless you provoked them. If you approached their Little Sister then they would start growling, adopt an intimidating pose and shove you away. But they wouldn't actually attack until you did.
This relatively minor behavioural tweak had some very interesting implications. First off, it gave the Big Daddies a purpose independent of the player. Sure, from a gameplay perspective they're just something else to shoot at, but within the context of the game's story and setting their purpose is to protect the Little Sisters at all costs. Which is exactly what they do. It's little touches like this that can really bring a game to life.
Secondly, the neutral behaviour of the big Daddies meant that the player was always forced to take the role of the aggressor. This added a little pinch of moral ambiguity to the encounters. After all, you were never given any reason to hate the Big Daddies. Personally, I always found myself thinking "sorry mate" each and every time I opened fire.
On top of the non-standard behaviour (and bloody excellent visual design) the Big Daddies exhibited a range of little embellishments that really brought out the benevolent side of their character. Most of these embellishments had to do with their interactions with the Little Sisters. The Big Daddies would gently help them in and out of their hidey-holes, placidly follow them about on their rounds, occasionally give them an affectionate pat on the head and, of course, whisk them out of harms way when the shooting started. Oh, and don't forget the utterly adorable Fluffy the terrible moniker of Mr Bubbles.
Apart from providing occasional "aww" moments, this benevolent aspect made it all the more shocking when a Big Daddy was provoked and suddenly went from lumbering gentle giant to thunderous engine of violence. The game's high quality of presentation helped amplify this effect all the more. Seeing a Big Daddy enter the fray, roaring like a whale with a hangover, managed to give the impression of a creature that has been truly enraged, as opposed to an enemy that has simply gone into "hostile" mode.
"I am being savagely mauled to death by an overprotective golem! And he is awesome!"
Lastly, the fact that the Big Daddies were tough enough to present a significant threat meant that the player developed a certain respect for them. (Actually, this point is kinda debatable. BioShock and its sequel are both very easy games, and there are plenty of game-breaking techniques that can reduce even the Big Daddies to minor annoyances.)
On one occasion while playing I had become dangerously low on health and ammo, so I decided to take an indirect approach to the next Big Daddy takedown. I gathered together about 15 explosive objects and piled them up in a corridor. I then gathered every nearby dead body and piled them up next to the explosives. After a short wait a Little Sister came along to harvest the bodies, presently followed by her Big Daddy. I took aim ("sorry mate") and lobbed a grenade into the whole mess. The corridor erupted in a fiery explosion. I was in the process of smugly congratulating myself for my cunning tactics when the Big Daddy, half dead, on fire and extremely pissed off, came barreling through the flames and proceeded to hand out a righteous curb-stomping.
In any other game this situation would probably have provoked irritation on my part. But in the case of BioShock, all I could think was "Big Daddies are f**king awesome".
Because they are. Fucking awesome, that is.
See? Fucking awesome. In high def.
That is all. You can go now.
(By the way, the sudden rush of wall-o-text posts is due to me being sick for a week or so. I actually feel fine, but the doctor says I'm probably still contagious. So my housemates have placed me in quarantine with nothing but unlimited mugs of cocoa, Just Cause 2, and an internet connection to keep me occupied. Just in case anyone was wondering...)
Allow me to explain.
(Yes, this is going to be long. Go get yourself a cup of cocoa or something.)
In most games the enemy NPCs exist for the sole purpose of, well... being enemies. They dutifully spawn and charge forward then attack the player one at a time or in manageably small groups so they can be gunned down, hacked up or otherwise despatched. They constitute a formless mass of minor annoyances which, if not done correctly, can actually detract from the overall quality. Games like Assassins Creed, Red Faction Guerilla and Just Cause 2 ended up feeling like trying to have a picnic on an ant nest. Even extremely good games like God of War and Half Life 2 have a tendency to take the faceless horde approach (although they more then make up for it with stellar implementation).
A slight variation is the RPG method which treats enemy NPCs as aggressive little buckets of XP. The player chews through a certain amount of enemies to fill their little experience gauge, then levels up and moves on to fill their next gauge by chowing down on slightly larger buckets of XP.
Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with these approaches. As mentioned, there are some truly excellent games out there that follow this pattern. However, I think it can still be done a lot better. This is where the Big Daddies come in.
(Warning: I'm about to engage in some extended fanboy gushing. Get your umbrella.)
(These images do not represent a futile attempt to imitate Wilbefast. Not at all. Nope.)
The foremost difference between Big Daddies and your generic video game bad guys was that they did not attack you on sight. In fact, they would completely ignore you unless you provoked them. If you approached their Little Sister then they would start growling, adopt an intimidating pose and shove you away. But they wouldn't actually attack until you did.
This relatively minor behavioural tweak had some very interesting implications. First off, it gave the Big Daddies a purpose independent of the player. Sure, from a gameplay perspective they're just something else to shoot at, but within the context of the game's story and setting their purpose is to protect the Little Sisters at all costs. Which is exactly what they do. It's little touches like this that can really bring a game to life.
Secondly, the neutral behaviour of the big Daddies meant that the player was always forced to take the role of the aggressor. This added a little pinch of moral ambiguity to the encounters. After all, you were never given any reason to hate the Big Daddies. Personally, I always found myself thinking "sorry mate" each and every time I opened fire.
On top of the non-standard behaviour (and bloody excellent visual design) the Big Daddies exhibited a range of little embellishments that really brought out the benevolent side of their character. Most of these embellishments had to do with their interactions with the Little Sisters. The Big Daddies would gently help them in and out of their hidey-holes, placidly follow them about on their rounds, occasionally give them an affectionate pat on the head and, of course, whisk them out of harms way when the shooting started. Oh, and don't forget the utterly adorable Fluffy the terrible moniker of Mr Bubbles.
Apart from providing occasional "aww" moments, this benevolent aspect made it all the more shocking when a Big Daddy was provoked and suddenly went from lumbering gentle giant to thunderous engine of violence. The game's high quality of presentation helped amplify this effect all the more. Seeing a Big Daddy enter the fray, roaring like a whale with a hangover, managed to give the impression of a creature that has been truly enraged, as opposed to an enemy that has simply gone into "hostile" mode.
"I am being savagely mauled to death by an overprotective golem! And he is awesome!"
Lastly, the fact that the Big Daddies were tough enough to present a significant threat meant that the player developed a certain respect for them. (Actually, this point is kinda debatable. BioShock and its sequel are both very easy games, and there are plenty of game-breaking techniques that can reduce even the Big Daddies to minor annoyances.)
On one occasion while playing I had become dangerously low on health and ammo, so I decided to take an indirect approach to the next Big Daddy takedown. I gathered together about 15 explosive objects and piled them up in a corridor. I then gathered every nearby dead body and piled them up next to the explosives. After a short wait a Little Sister came along to harvest the bodies, presently followed by her Big Daddy. I took aim ("sorry mate") and lobbed a grenade into the whole mess. The corridor erupted in a fiery explosion. I was in the process of smugly congratulating myself for my cunning tactics when the Big Daddy, half dead, on fire and extremely pissed off, came barreling through the flames and proceeded to hand out a righteous curb-stomping.
In any other game this situation would probably have provoked irritation on my part. But in the case of BioShock, all I could think was "Big Daddies are f**king awesome".
Because they are. Fucking awesome, that is.
See? Fucking awesome. In high def.
That is all. You can go now.
(By the way, the sudden rush of wall-o-text posts is due to me being sick for a week or so. I actually feel fine, but the doctor says I'm probably still contagious. So my housemates have placed me in quarantine with nothing but unlimited mugs of cocoa, Just Cause 2, and an internet connection to keep me occupied. Just in case anyone was wondering...)