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True Crime - Good Cop, GTA - Bad Cop?
Thanks to GameDevLeague for their article discussing discussing the Grand Theft Auto-like Activision game True Crime, and its good cop/bad cop dilemma. The author argues: "In Differentiate or Die, Jack Trout says if you're not the leading brand with the killer attribute - then you should go 'opposite' the leading brand's killer attribute." He continues: "What attribute does GTA own? Crime. How do you go opposite of crime? Law enforcement." But he laments that, while you play a cop in the game, "...Activision went and called it True Crime! And buried the law enforcement angle so deep I can barely even tell from the ad copy that's what it's about." So does everyone "want to be bad" nowadays, thus Activision's clone-like marketing ploy, or do users genuinely not care as long as the game is fun?
COPS
You ride along on patrol looking for bad guys in Lakeview, WA.
It'll sell better than Deer Hunter.
do users genuinely not care as long as the game is fun?
Exactly.
I could care less whether I'm playing as the good guy or the bad guy in a game, so long as it is a fun game. After all, that is the point of a game, to be fun.
But even more important than the good/bad side of a game is CHOICE. Give the player the option to be a good guy, or to be a bad guy. Let them decide how they want to play the game.
Grand Theft Auto is a great example of the power that choice gives players. I play vice city a lot, but I don't play the missions, and I don't run around killing people. I install custom cars and race them around the city, doing jumps, tricks, et al. Why? Because Rockstar designed such a great engine such that it is flexible enough to allow the end user to do almost anything. I only wish more game developers would follow suit.
I would expect such blatant racism on Fark, but on Slashdot? Mods please ban this asshole.
In GTA3: Vice City I like to put on the police uniform and calmly drive around the streets in a Police Cruiser. When I see a gang of Haitians or Cubans I will proceed to exit my vehicle, AND BEAT THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF THEM WITH MY TRUNCHEON. Then I get back in my car and keep driving.
Sometimes I use the minigun.
I like stories.
The main character in True Crime IS a cop, but like many we have seen before in movies (think of everything from Dirty Harry to Elliot Ness to Tequila), he's willing to break the law for "the greater good." So killing a few baddies and taking the law into their own hands is worth it simply because that's the only way they'll ever be able to get to the bigger fish.
I really don't see how this is anything new. I haven't really seen any by-the-book cops in movies or games that have had a general appeal.
Shows you can be a "good guy" but also have the kind of all-out war that the real police can't get away with. (Often.)
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Playing Battlefield 1942 online, I've noticed an unusually high proportion of juvenile fuckwits wanting to be badass nazi stormtroopers. They play as "Adolf Hitler", "22SSPzrDiv", "SS PnzrGrndr", and other trite combinations they pick up off some WWII history site.
Going online and playing as one of Uncle Joe Stalin's guardians of freedom and democracy and demolishing the pseudo-nazi little shits is always amusing.
Essentially I think two kinds of people who like to play bad as bad guys in games--the ones who enjoy watching Bond movies and say "damn" when the hero gets off Goldfinger's laser table in the nick of time, and the morons with inferiority complexes who give nazi salutes just to irritate people. Draw your own confusions.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
I wanna play a criminal. I don't want to play an all out postal psychopath (unless I get frustrated and feel like going down in flames) - if a few guys need to get whacked as part of my schemes, no biggie. I want to plan my own "scores" - not "Italian Job" scores (though that would be fun too) - more like "Heat," "Resivoir Dogs," or "The Usual Suspects." I want to start out small - maybe rob a gas station or two, be a small time dealer, etc.. - then move up into the big leagues as I gain a rep. I wanna get mixed up with "made men" who might hook me up, or might mark me. I want to be hunted down by cops played by real people. I want to get rich and buy cool stuff and flaunt my cash, drugs and guns to my buds. Vice City came close, but it was way too unrealistic and cartoony. The AI made it boring and the city was crammed full of cops and gang members and buildings that served no purpose. I don't want there to be random "scooby snacks" hidden away to heal me or hide me from the cops. When I get hit by a bullet - I want it to suck - bad. It needs to be multiplayer and online - but not massively - the world can't be teeming with pure thugs and cops. People need to suffer hard if they get wacked or if they indescriminately whack others - like real life. It would be fun to play a cop too - trying to bust punk kids and having all of those resources behind me - "can't outrun a radio."
I didn't even notice that you are a cop in true crime. I thought it was a GTA clone from what marketing I have come across. I enjoyed playing GTA and just exploring the world and going on crime sprees. (I never do the missions). True crime sounds like fun if you can be a renagade cop and go kill the bad guys. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like to really give the criminals what they deserve, in a role playing, fake environment of course :)
If there were a cop simulation, it might be about as much fun as running through the code of a C program.
Why?
One of the great things about GTA series is the planning you did in the missions. What car to use, how exactly to do it, etc. The vast majority of cops have something called procedure. Rather than creatively solving your problems, you "do it by the book". If you wish to deviate, you need to call headquarters and are more often given orders than a blank check to decide what to do. Who wants to make a game about following procedure?
But, if the game is as realistic as GTA, maybe they won't include that "feautre" and it'll be fun.
Seriously, breaking the law gives the player much more freedom than enforcing it.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
But beeing the children of the (all) revolution(s) we've learned the lesson - cops are bad, outlaws are good!
You could make it a competition thing. Tie the two games together so that True Crime cops try to catch GTA players. Then you could have gangs of GTA players vs. precincts of True Crime players.