作者：Jake Shapiro

我努力探寻证实游戏是种艺术形式的方法，在这个过程中我注意到，多数电子游戏都是基于战斗的作品。射击游戏、战略游戏甚至《超级马里奥兄弟》都包含暴力成分。这种情况出现的原因已多次成为开发者间讨论的话题。所以，这就使得我会特别关注非战斗游戏。

我们需要改变第一人称射击的形式！肯定有应对的办法，我们可以让射击游戏不再只是朝他人开火。于是，有个想法跃入我的脑海中：我们需要去研究下经典消防电子游戏的做法。游戏的概念很简单，借用FPS的第一人称视角，但不是杀人，而是灭火救人！听起来感觉确实令人振奋！

burning-rangers(from edge-online.com)

首先，我研究了《Burning Rangers》，这款怪异的救火游戏由Sonic Team开发，发布于1998年，平台是当时濒临退市的世嘉土星。游戏以未来的世界为背景，那时火灾威胁到人类的生存，所以政府成立了精锐的超级消防队伍。游戏并没有模拟现实世界的情况，你穿着火箭推射太空服，用激光枪来发射水柱。尽管这款游戏获得土星狂热者很高的评价，但并不符合我的消防游戏定义。

firefighter FD 18(from dignews.com)

接下来，我探索了《Firefighter F.D. 18》，这款游戏由科乐美开发，发布于2004年，平台为PlayStation 2。在这款第三人称动作游戏中，开发商尝试重现现实救火情景。这是款经典科乐美游戏，关卡末尾还有BOSS火战。但这款游戏忽略了个有趣的问题：玩家的移动完全不受限制，所以他所持有的灭火水龙头似乎可以无限地伸长。这是我所见过的最长的灭火水龙头。那么，游戏要如何在不过多限制玩家的情况下精确地展现出灭火水龙头的长度呢？

real heroes firefighter(from gamasutra)

我所研究的最后一款游戏事实上是款打折商品休闲游戏，由Conspiracy Entertainment发布，该公司因《面包忍者》和《美女卡丁车》等代表作而闻名于世。这款游戏的名称是《Real Heroes: Firefighter》，于2009年发布于Wii平台。游戏所采用的第一人称视角正是我在构思游戏时的想法。消防题材游戏的内在主要问题之一是，你在整款游戏中的主要敌人都是火。你要怎么让火的呈现方式保持趣味性呢？这款游戏设计了线性关卡，玩家可以在抗击火灾时营救市民。

super mario sunshine(from epforums.org)

最成功地执行水柱射击设备的视频游戏当属任天堂的《Super Mario Sunshine》，这款游戏于2002年发布于GameCube平台。这是马里奥系列中显得最混乱的一部作品，但主角的Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device（游戏邦注：马里奥所使用的水枪装置，简称FLUDD）在游戏中的表现很突出，足以掩盖其不足之处。显然，这个游戏机制值得借鉴，可以将其用在消防游戏中。

那么，从上述这些不当设计中，我们能够学到什么呢？

首先，火是种乏味的元素。从游戏玩法和美术的角度来看，它都具有重复性。为没有思想的东西编写“创意”AI是件很困难的事情，然而消防游戏必须让火焰的扑灭过程变得有趣，而不是只让玩家走上前去、扑灭火焰然后继续前进。从美术的角度来看，我所观察和研究的每款消防游戏似乎都采用了相同的色调：橙色和黑色。火焰是游戏的题材，这种设置确实是合理的，但优秀的游戏应当采用多种颜色，这样玩家才不会觉得自己是在一遍遍地玩同一个关卡。而且，相比PlayStation 2消防游戏的时代而言，现代游戏技术似乎更能够有效地处理火焰和水流的复杂图像。

从消防游戏中，我们可以总结出许多种游戏玩法，而不仅仅是扑灭火焰。在不同情境下救助受害人群或者尝试使用各种工具，这都会给游戏玩法增添新的元素。这些游戏都没有使用到消防车。驾驶消防车是许多人孩提时的梦想，而且它们具有游戏化的潜力。你可以自行设计和升级消防车，驾驶车辆穿过繁杂的车流和红灯及时到达火灾现场。游戏中还可以将消防队设计为“主基地”。

但是有个问题依然存在：如何才能保持扑灭火焰过程的趣味性呢？游戏中需要某种情感维系，这样才能让游戏获得升华。

于是我想到了，可以将游戏的最后关卡设计为911事件。

想象下这种设计带来的冲击力。你在游戏中经历了各种消防冒险，忽然间接到了更加艰巨的任务。如果处理恰当的话，着实能够产生令人难以置信的情感响应。我希望游戏不含有过多爱国主义或沙文主义的成分。如果游戏的内容只是消防队员完成各项工作，最终妥善应对911事件，那就只是在复制现实消防队员的日常工作罢了。

Six-Days-in-Fallujah(from g4tv.com)

当然，这种游戏可能会像《Six Days in Fallujah》一样招致很多反对意见。然而，这款游戏确实在主题的处理和把握上做得很恰当，因为开发商Atomic Games同参加Second Battle of Fallujah的海军陆战队交流过。那么，消防游戏也应当采用类似的做法，先同纽约城市消防部门交流。

我们可以用消防概念来制作出许多电子游戏。这样，我们才能从“趣味游戏”跃入“艺术游戏”的范畴。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Why aren’t there more firefighter video games?

Jake Shapiro

In my quest to validate games as an art form, I’m constantly hit with the fact that most video games are combat-based. Shooter games, strategy games…even Super Mario Bros. involves violence. There are plenty of debates as to why this is. Regardless, it makes non-combat games always stand out to me.

But we’ve perfected this first-person shooter format to a science! There must be something we can do with it that doesn’t involve shooting people. So it hit me: we need to see a classic firefighter video game. It’s a simple concept. Use the first-person perspective of an FPS, but instead of killing people, you’re putting out fires and saving people! Sounds exciting!

So I took a quick Google gander at the handful of firefighting games ever released on any platform. Firefighting, along with deer hunting and bass fishing, seems to be represented in video games solely by bargain-bin casual titles. But I found a couple of “real” ones.

The first is Burning Rangers, a strange firefighting game for the dying Sega Saturn in 1998, developed by Sonic Team (who made, you know… Sonic). The game is set in a futuristic world where fires are the only real hazard left to humanity, so the government has set up an elite team of super firefighters. It’s not exactly a realistic simulation–you wear a rocket-powered space suit and shoot water out of a laser gun. Although this game is actually highly regarded by Saturn enthusiasts, it’s not exactly what I’m looking for in a firefighting game.

The next is Firefighter F.D. 18, developed by Konami and released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. It’s a third-person action game that tries to recreate realistic firefighting situations a bit more closely than Burning Rangers. It’s a classic Konami formula of the era, even including “boss” fires at the end of levels. An interesting issue this game ignores: the player is not restricted in movement at all, so the fire hose he’s holding seems to go on and on forever. The longest fire hose of all time. How could a game more accurately portray fire hose lengths, without constricting the player too much?

The last game I looked at is, in fact, a bargain bin casual game published by Conspiracy Entertainment, famous for such masterpieces as Ninjabread Man and Action Girlz Racing. This one is entitled Real Heroes: Firefighter and was released for the Wii in 2009. It takes the first person perspective I had been thinking about for my own theoretical game, with mediocre results. One of the main issues inherent with the firefighting genre is that your main enemy through the whole game is just one thing: fire. How do you keep fire interesting? This game consists of linear levels and a few civilians to rescue.

An honorable mention goes to the most successful implementation of a water-shooting device in video games: Nintendo’s own Super Mario Sunshine, released for the GameCube in 2002. It’s the most-maligned title in the Mario franchise, but the eponymous hero’s Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device (FLUDD) works brilliantly in the game to clean up graffiti and muddy messes. Clearly, this game mechanic can be achieved. It simply needs to be used on fire.

So how can we learn from these mistakes?

First and foremost, fire is boring. Both gameplay-wise and art-wise, it gets repetitive. It’s hard to program “creative” AI for something without a brain, but a game about firefighting has to keep the fires themselves interesting and fun to put out, other than just “walk up to fire, put it out, move on.” As for the art, it seems every single firefighting game I looked at had the same color palette: orange, orange, orange, and black. It makes sense since it’s fire, but good games have a diverse color range, so you don’t feel like you’re playing the same level over and over. Plus, modern game technology seems better suited to tackle the complex graphics of fire and water than the spate of PlayStation 2 firefighting games.

There’s a lot of gameplay we can derive from firefighting other than just fighting fires. Saving people in different situations and trying to use your tools to get to trapped civilians adds a whole new element to the gameplay. Something none of these games touched on is the fire engine itself. Fire engines are so much a part of little kids’ dreams, and they’re ripe for gamification. You could customize and upgrade the fire engine, and drive through traffic and red lights to get to the fire itself. And the fire station could be a nifty “home base” for it all.

But the question remains–how do you keep it interesting for an extended period of time? There needs to be some sort of emotional hook without making it cheesy or melodramatic.

Then it came to me: the final level of the game. It should be September 11.

Imagine the impact. You’re playing through this game, having gritty firefighting adventures, and suddenly you’re hit with something a bit more heavy. If handled well, it could be incredibly poignant. I would want to avoid any sort of over-patriotism or jingoism in the game. If it’s simply about firefighters doing their jobs and then dealing with the events of 9/11, I believe that’s something real-life firefighters could identify with.

There would be the same controversy that surrounds Six Days in Fallujah, with many people saying it hits too close to home. Publisher cowardice aside, Six Days in Fallujah is able to handle its subject matter gracefully (from what I’ve seen of the game) because the developer, Atomic Games, actually spoke extensively with the Marines involved in the Second Battle of Fallujah. They got the Marines’ approval to make the title. This firefighting game would have to do the same, with the New York City Fire Department.

Too soon? Perhaps I’m crossing the line a bit with this last idea, but you get the point. There’s a lot we can do with the concept of firefighting video games. And then we can cross the line from “fun games” to “games as art.” (Source: Gamasutra)