Why is it always the attack of the clones?

[kinn]

No I'm not on about the Star Wars film. I talking about video game enemies.

Its an issue that gets to me and I'm puzzled why this has'nt really been tackled by the developers. We always face the same type of enemies over and over again in games. For example take Halo - you have grunts, elites etc. But why does every grunt look exactly the same? They are the same colour, height, build etc.

Same thing in something like Streets of rage. You have a selection of guys who are repeated throughout the game. They have the same clothes, height, etc you get the idea.

I'm no programmer but surely it could not be too hard to code up a little algorithm which would select some random parameters (within a certain range) just before a new enemy is created? Kind of like when you hit a random button in those character creation screens in Phantasy Star Online etc.

This is an issue thats effects pretty much all types of games. I guess its not a big deal but still...wouldnt you like to see a little variety in the enemies you face? Nothing major, just subtle things like one being alittle thinner, another a different shade of coulour, maybe one with a facial scar etc.

I guess the only exceptions to this are games where the enemies are in uniforms or something or Metal Gear games where they have individual dog tags. And of course Shenmue...

What do you guys think? Is this something that bugs just me?!

[racketboy]

I didn't mind it back in the day, but now game developers have bigger budgets and we have higher expectations. But to be honest, I don't play many modern action games that have those types of enemies...

[Yackom]

If they don't look exactly the same should they still act the same? If the classes are to different looking it might be hard to play. And If they don't act exactly the same then it also becomes a challenge to balance the gameplay as well.

But yea those things can be overcome with more time and money, but most people don't care. I usually don't.

[kinn]

If they don't look exactly the same should they still act the same? If the classes are to different looking it might be hard to play. And If they don't act exactly the same then it also becomes a challenge to balance the gameplay as well.

But yea those things can be overcome with more time and money, but most people don't care. I usually don't.

Yes they should act the same. This could just be a purely cosmetic thing and within certain parameters so hit detection boxes etc would not be thrown out of wack or something. This way the developers would not need to worry about balancing the gameplay or anything.

[marurun]

Well, in the days of the sprite-based games like Streets of Rage storage space came at a premium, and they used palette swaps to help you distinguish between stronger and weaker versions of enemies (or in RPGs, different enemies altogether). Palettes were cheap in terms of storage space. An algorithm to randomly change palettes would have made it much harder to distinguish between otherwise identical looking enemies when you needed to.

[fastbilly1]

Like others stated, back in the day it was acceptable, and lets face it, expected. But nowadays with some games weighing in at over 60 gigs on the install, there is no real excuse. Well other than developers know that the vast majority of gamers dont really care so why spend money and time on it?

[metaleggman]

Like others stated, back in the day it was acceptable, and lets face it, expected. But nowadays with some games weighing in at over 60 gigs on the install, there is no real excuse. Well other than developers know that the vast majority of gamers dont really care so why spend money and time on it?

wait, what games require 60 gigabytes of space? I'm not contesting what your saying, merely confused. I'm not up to date on PC gaming stuff, but I'm wondering which game you speak of.

Tbh, the reason has a nothing to do with storage space, as you can't expect the game developers to make 320 different faces for each enemy in the game. What needs to be done is for a company to create a technology which merely distorts a premade face or faces to make it seem like you're killing multiple enemies. It's possible for there to be such a technology and it simply doesn't have a wide spread usage. Honestly, palette swapping was a great way to do this. Kinn has the basic point, but they need to make sure to keep limits on it. I don't want to battle what are essentially dwarves and giants.

I really don't care when it comes down to aliens and monsters. In Gears of War, I really could care less if one grunt looks like another. I'm no locustologist, so I can't see what the true defining features are. With a game like FarCry, it is a bit unnerving to see the same 4 people, with one being one of the other three with mere face paints applied, attacking me in groups of 8 or 10. Also, when it comes to games like MGS, where you never really see people's faces too often, I don't worry about this stuff. It would be interesting to see something developed though.

[aaron]

omg i know exactly what you mean. look at mario. i mean, every goomba is the same! wouldn't there be variances between their height, shape, size, width, facial expression, squashability, and time they remained on the screen before they disappeard into a rising "100" point notification? WHERE'S THE REALITY, PEOPLE?!?!?!?!? NOT ALL GOOMBAS LOOK THE SAME IN REAL LIFE!!!!!!!

[elph]

aaron: You're quite sarcastic, aren't you? Instead of belittling someone else's point of view, why don't you try sharing your own. Perhaps then you could explain your position somewhat. Maybe if you provided reasons why you feel the way you do people might actually respect your opinion, rather than tolerating your brat-like attacks on the opinions of others.

Back on topic: I can see where you're coming from on this one. It would be helpful to get you into the game more if some of the features were different enough that it was clear they weren't just exact replicas of the same model. In FPS games even varying height an girth would make a big difference in feeling a little more like you're in another world. Obviously not all games (read: the goombas in mario) are suited to the approach, but I think that it certainly has it's applications.

[Yackom]

FarCry, it is a bit unnerving to see the same 4 people, with one being one of the other three with mere face paints applied, attacking me in groups of 8 or 10.

Yeah I see what your saying I wasn't thinking much in general with people who all look the same, and I haven't played farcry. But yea I think that sort of situation with todays realism but yet the lazy work ends up with a 20 group of n-tuplets comes charging. I can see that approach some sort of similar concept to/of "uncanny valley" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_Valley). But there is a company who specializes in this sort of technology to among other thing randomly generate believable faces http://www.facegen.com/index.htm, but licensing it could be a cost prohibitive thing for something seemingly minor.

aaron: You're quite sarcastic, aren't you? Instead of belittling someone else's point of view, why don't you try sharing your own. Perhaps then you could explain your position somewhat. Maybe if you provided reasons why you feel the way you do people might actually respect your opinion, rather than tolerating your brat-like attacks on the opinions of others.
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LOL hi5.