Show and Tell, Hearts and Minds

In case it wasn't obvious, what I was getting at with the Riddick games is that we're almost literally told he's a badass, but that doesn't tend to carry over to game play. In games like the Halo and Gears of War series, we're shown that the characters are badass, and part of that is through game play. Regenerating health is one of the best additions to gaming since unlimited continues, as it really does reinforce the concept of cinematic badassery in video games, and does make the experience that much more fun.

I don't want to readers to think that ablative health is backwards, and evil, but it really is something that should stick with competitive gaming, rather than co-op and single player campaigning. The Left 4 Dead series, of which I've only played the first, may be an exception of the rule for me, as it sort of fits with the surival horror/zombie apocalypse genre where resources are scarce, and management of them becomes a key part of the game play experience. While these games are just as visceral as the big action blockbusters, the sense of impending death, and the need to simply survive until the final reel are primary to the experience.

You aren't playing a character out of a big summer blockbuster, you're playing a character out of a low-budget October scare fest, and that is a key difference. It makes sense to have ablative health in this situation, as your health becomes another resource that needs to be managed along with ammo, and arguably the most important resource. A gun doesn't do you any good if you're dead. (Unless you're dead and in Deadly Premonition, but that's a whole other topic.) In this case, the expository badass makes more sense, as it's largely a character trope of the genre.

Riddick, on the other hand, is 100% cinematic anti-hero badass, or is at least supposed to be. He kills someone with a teacup in the second movie, and there's a bobby pin in your inventory in the second game. I'm not sure if this is a flaw, or if it's a throwback to Doom, but even then, I felt like my character was a badass. The design of the Riddick games definitely is supposed to be a throwback to an earlier, more hardcore, day of the shooter genre, and I suppose that's where it succeeds. It's, as they say, Nintendo hard and that has a definite appeal to folks, as does juvenile badass dialogue.

Anywho, I think I've covered what I wanted to here, but I may post again soon on the topic if I think more about it.

(Note: I'm still getting accustomed to writing more often, as it's been a while, so bear with me here. Also, the formatting is going to change, as I'm posting these live now, rather than pounding them out in Word first.)