These days shooters are mostly predictable. Other than a few outliers, the basic ingredient is to have a World War 2 or science fiction backdrop, a mediocre story, a few explosions, and throw in an aged control scheme. Activision’s release of Wolfenstein is a recent example of this. The problem is that too many of these titles flood the shelves and end up yielding an underwhelming experience to the player. It is now unfortunately a reality that the graphics in most shooters supersede their gameplay. Surely the creative minds have not burnt out but rather given way to safe bets and sure things. To stand out from the crowd, especially in the WW2 genre, I suggest adding some comedy to the mayhem.

Comedy is one of the greatest untapped resources of the shooter game and those which harness it properly are sure to succeed commercially and critically. When I suggest infusing comedy, this does not necessarily mean repeating Eat Led: The Return of Matt Hazard but instead marrying a great open world with shooting and a splash of laughs. While to some it may seem like a faux pas laughing about WW2 or other wars, it was done decades ago with great commercial success in television but contemporary political correctness usually kills off such ideas.

The British sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo, which ran from 1982 to 1992, melds the great war with enough comedy to keep it light and able to adapt. The Nazi occupation of France and the resulting backlash from civilians serves as an appropriate backdrop for all sorts of gags as Rene Artois, the French proprietor of a café, must balance his need for business by serving Germans beer while mounting attacks on them with the local resistance which are usually hiding out at his bar in plain sight. The tricky balancing act of catering to German drinking habits, sabotaging the Nazi war machine, and keeping your mistresses under wraps is a funny sight. It is clear that many of the aspects of this television series would be transferable to a video game. Rene’s café and hideout could serve as a hub world, the NPCs during and between missions enable comedy, and the blunders of each mission just add more hilarity to the poor Frenchman’s situation. In some ways The Saboteur shares some gameplay commonalities with what occurs in ‘Allo ‘Allo but the writing in Pandemic Studios’ release is quite poor and the characters are grossly stereotypical.

Captain Hans Gerring, from ‘Allo ‘Allo, is a surprisingly loveable and funny German soldier and is a fan favorite. He is hardly the stereotypical evil soldier and is arguably one of the funniest in the show. While in The Saboteur one of the main German antagonists is an evil incarnate blond with a thick jaw line and short hair hardly covering the scalp, Captain Gerring is less than imposing in all respects, has an awkward speaking voice, and constantly looks disheveled and nervous. His character is comedic dynamite. It is only obvious that not all Germans are blond devils, so why does only this character make it to our games? We consistently have new and interesting protagonists but often unimaginative antagonists. The experience can be more believable if for once an enemy is seen as weak and cowardly but with periodic courage. In film, Inglorious Basterds showed Americans in a bloodthirsty manner usually held for Germans so how long is it until stereotypes in gaming are reversed?

Video games about war can be funny, except the perfect interplay of comedy and gameplay has not been found yet. Writing a truly funny storyline and dialogue for a shooter has not yet reached the level of the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This is not to say that the film should just be copied but some of the same risks taken in the writing should be. When Dr. Strangelove was released, many viewers were surprised by its comedic tone. It entangled the politics and insanity of the nuclear arms race between the Americans and Russians and a possibly dreadful scenario for all the war mongering. Above all though, the film was funny because of the characters’ interpretations of their situation. One of their ideas was to create a huge bomb shelter for VIPs where the amount of women far outweighed the men so as to assure the survival of the human species – pure genius.

Shooter games must break the tendency to be generic in order to progress and continue to sell at high rates or inevitably face consumer fatigue. Gears of War designer Cliff Bleszinski anticipates that shooters will take on more RPG elements in the future and immersive storytelling is sure to be part of them. Gaming is perhaps one of the best choices of media to utilize humor because story driven games with the ability to make choices can result in tailored experiences that are humorous to the player. The time is perhaps not too far away when the level of comedic writing in games is on par with other forms of media.

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