Stuck in the middle of a fire fight, red screen pulsating in your face, 5 bullets left in your clip with no grenades. You're surrounded, this is it, your final push for glory. Oh wait, there's a wonderfully placed barrel full of some explosive that will ignite when I shoot a piece of metal through it, and BAAM!!! FREEDOM!!
What is it these days that shooters like to pride themselves on? Call of Duty, Battlefield and Medal of Honour all like to base themselves around making a realistic game that has a fair portrayal of war. Well they're obviously wrong. Why would some intelligent terrorist' A, have a barrel of extremely lethal gas or liquid lying around, B, put it in a conveniently placed choke hold and C, all stand around it in a fight? They wouldn't! I am not a huge master on chemistry but I do not think that there is a widely available liquid or gas that would explode when a slightly hot, small piece of metal penetrates it. Some may say it is propane but I happen to believe that propane is stored in longer cylinders, not bright red barrels. Also, why make them bright red? If there is a risk of your base being stormed and you know that you have very dangerous barrels, why make them stand out? Silly, silly games
But, its not just the bland, generic games that use this awful gaming cliché, masterpieces also have been forced to utilise this reality plot hole. Half Life 2, widely considered to be the greatest game of all time, it reinvigorated the whole of gaming, but sadly it still has fallen into the trap of conveniently placed barrels. However, firing an exploding barrel at a combine with a gravity gun is pretty fun I suppose! Another game, Uncharted 2. As you know its my favourite game ever, but for some reasons the enemies decide to stand round a barrel that is very lethal and full of unstable matter. Why? Surely there must be a heat source somewhere else, ever heard of a thing called a bloody radiator?
Sorry for that horrible rant at an extremely serious matter that, to tell you the truth, is holding back games from developing into something worthy of credit. I can guarantee thought that the next CoD will have glowing barrels of some nuclear device that when shot explodes and melts everyone's face, or that the so called 'magical' Battlefield 3 will be completely spoilt when you have the opportunity to shoot a huge barrel in super slow mo to kill the leader of the evil Nazi space cooperation lead by Darth Vader.
When games decide to drop the barrels, then the games balls will start to drop.
I agree that it would be extremely careless of our armed forces to stand around exploding barrels, espeially in the middle of a firefight. A gaming cliche it certainly is.
ReplyDeleteI dont know what I'd do without exploding barrels to clear some of enemy forces while playing on some of the higher difficulties in some shooters. It does leave us with a choice, we can use them or not. I choose....BOOM!