One of the charges usually levelled at games which portray violence in some form or other is that they do not offer any rebuke or punishment for their characters’ actions, allowing the player freedom to commit the various atrocities as they see fit. In some games this is essentially true; the headline grabbing nature of the Grand Theft Auto series alone would have most people believe that there is no substance to such games beyond the planned murders to advance in the game and the random murders committed on a whim. However, beneath this layer of pro-violent games, in which over-the-top violence is essentially the drive of the game itself, there lies a much more subtle genre.

Games such as the classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic show that for every choice there is a consequence, for every decision that the lead character takes he or she will find that some doors open, and others close. This allows a vast freedom in the story that unfolds before the character, and presents the player with the opportunity to shape the script. This interaction is what allows a person to genuinely feel part of the game’s world. In GTA I could shoot up a street full of people and then lie-low for a while, essentially resetting the game. My wanted level will drop, the bloody corpses will fade, more innocent pedestrians will be spawned, and the police will have no recollection of the mass genocide that occurred moments before. In a game like KOTOR such a rash action would almost certainly come back to haunt me in the future.

This leads to the next point about creating such truly flexible games, which is that the choices are often presented to allow the gamer to make decisions that could well be different from the choices they would make in a similar real-life situation, essentially putting the role-play into the RPG, and providing another level of escapism. It is the norm now that everything from character generation onwards can be customised by the player, and if a player makes a conscious choice to be ‘evil’ then that choice is open to them just easily as it is to be ‘good’. Part of the appeal of this approach is the inherent replay value that it offers, having played a game through to completion using one approach, the gamer is then able to go through the game a subsequent time in a very different manner. Such a variation of approach needs to be well-worked within a game in order to feel like there is a genuine choice underlying the player’s decisions. For example, if a level could only be completed by the safe rescue of an NPC, would that constitute much of a choice for the player? Games like Freelancer and Just Cause allow an open-ended exploration of the game world between a railed mission system, but these typically ignore the consequences of any actions undertaken outside of the structured mission system itself, allowing a player to create havoc in a free-form environment on the side before returning to their no-doubt noble cause.

In order to create a realistic world the repercussions of every action must be seen and felt; a level of persistence must be achieved. There is a very fine line between requiring that players take responsibility for their actions and setting limitations on the playing environment. Suppose a player kills an NPC required to complete the game, should the inability to progress beyond that point be seen as a punishment to the player for their deliberate attempt to break the game, or does this show a weakness in game design, that the programming team have failed in their responsibility to the gamer to present a genuine choice?

By incorporating a multitude of options into a game the designer has bestowed upon the player the responsibility to make their own decisions and accept the consequences, but some might argue that it is wrong that these options are included in the first place. If a game includes an animation set to show an innocent bystander being gunned down, should it be seen as the programmer’s poor taste to present the option, or as the player’s poor taste to choose it? Postal 2 created just such outrage, with the Dude encouraged to complete his tasks leaving a large body count in his wake. However, as RWS and others were keen to point out, you didn’t have to kill anyone at all, it was just easier that way...

Some might say that a morally sound designer would not create a world where such acts were possible, but at that point the Creationists among them would have to concede that such a situation simply mimics real life, and the act of allowing free will and personal responsibility is God’s way of letting us do what we want while He dodges the blame.

The freedom to shape destiny in a game lends itself most to RPGs, as these games traditionally have more story telling elements at their heart, though gamers are demanding more and more persistence and realism from other genres too. FPS games have deepened greatly from the simple point and click action of Doom to the promises of what Biosphere hopes to deliver; an immersive and open environment leading to something beyond a game itself, an experience in its own right. Simulation games such as the classic Championship Manager have morphed almost unrecognisably into the current Football Manager series, where every minute action of your chosen team can be analysed and adjusted, and repercussions of actions can be immediately felt; drop a big name player for a game and see how soon it takes for the transfer request to hit your table...

Of course persistence and ultra-realism might be deliberately avoided by the development team in question, and the term "Arcade" is sometimes draped over such games to explain away a level of realism for the ultimate benefit of the game itself. Particular examples include Racing games and Sports simulations; an accurate damage model in a rally game would probably make it unplayable, and few alternatives in football games have bettered the traditional "sticky feet" method of simulating dribbling.

Games are constantly evolving and eventually this type of freedom may be realised, with players free to explore open worlds with morally ambiguous characters, dealing with the consequences of their actions and maybe even attempting to undo some of the wrongs of their past. Some games will always attempt to glorify violence and most of these will be seen within the gaming community for what they are: pure escapism, with no bearing on real life whatsoever. They will inevitably be linked in the wider media to rising crime and the degradation of society just as horror films, rock and roll music, and comic books variously all have been before. In the end the choice will always be with the gamer. The cowering puppy dog and the gun are provided by the game, the rest is up to you.