I've been hearing about something called Â"emergent gameplayÂ" from developers for years. The theory goes, you give the player the tools to affect the world, obstacles to overcome and a simulation rich enough and they'll come up with their own game as they play. It's one of the signs of a great design under this theory is that the player will end up playing the game in ways you'd never expect. As a player, I've been doing this for years. I always thought it was called Â"jackasseryÂ".

For instance, when I first found out you could Â"stackÂ" on top of each other in Counter Strike, I knew I had found the strategy to end all strategies. If you never tried this in CS, basically if one guy crouches another can jump on top of him. And if he crouches and moves back slightly, another can use the first like a stepping stone to jump on top of the second. Repeat until you look retarded.

We always called it the Â"Tower of PowerÂ" or whatever popped into our head involving the word Â"towerÂ". At first, this was an excellent strategy. The opposing team would come into the room, expecting his opponents to be in sensible, sane areas of the room waiting for his entrance. Instead he'd be greeted with 7 people stacked vertically in the middle of the room, the guy on the top usually jumping wildly and flailing his weapon about like an epileptic puppet. They'd either shoot at the wrong place or just stand there dumbstruck, possibly laughing themselves silly. Giving one of us just enough time to notice he is there and put him out of his misery. I seriously doubt Gooseman planned for 50 foot slightly homoerotic towers of Counter-Terrorists, but it almost became it's own game. Try to stack in the weirdest place possible. Soon though we were out of luck and the novelty wore off. It became a universal sign for Â"stupidÂ", which gaining that status within the CS community is no small feat.

Multiplayer games are often the worst about this kind of behavior, simply because the dumbest idea can reduce an online squad of elite fighting men to giggling 12 year old boys. If any of the GWJ Halo 2 sessions were ever recorded, you'd not only have empirical evidence of this phenomena but several new euphemisms for the various sexual acts. All of them. Especially the illegal ones. Most nights we end up playing Zombie, a variant on Slayer. There are two teams, Zombies vs. Humans, and at the start of the game there's only one Zombie and everyone else is Human. Humans use shotguns exclusively, and Zombies only use the sword. When a zombie kills you, you Â"turn into a zombieÂ" which involves switching to the green team and equipping the sword. The amount of fun we've had with this gametype is criminal, and the rules are made up enitrely in our head. We'll even Â"roleplayÂ" the parts, which involves the Zombies screaming Â"Brains!Â" and asking the humans Â"Hey, wanna come out? There's some free hu-man ice cream for you!Â". The Humans even get into the act, repeating to themselves Â"I feel perfectly safe here on Makeout RidgeÂ". I don't think Bungie named any of the maps Â"Makeout RidgeÂ", but I'll bet it's only because they didn't think of it first.

SWAT 4 is my latest favorite incarnation of the online shooter. Or as I tend to think of it, Â"The Build Your Own Three Stooges KitÂ". We cannot get through a match without someone getting a lung full of unnecessary pepper spray, an extra beanbag to the beanbag or a few extra volts to the funnier body parts. I'd say it's because I'm a man and men generally like to inflict pain, but it's deeper than that. When I start to play a game that is centered around not hurting people unnecessarily, I am compelled to find ways to hurt people unnecessarily. When the the game tells me to subdue a civilian by asking him to put his hands in the air, I can't help but fire wildly into the wall just to scare them sh*tless first.

Part of it has to do with the fact that the game rewards you for not killing people, so the weapons don't feel particularly lethal. Most of the time I'm equipped with a paintball gun that fires pepper spray bullets. A paintball gun! After I arrest someone with it, I feel compelled to apologize to them and ask them over for tea. Or overcompensate by tasering them until they piss themselves. Guess which one I'm going to pick.

As we're playing SWAT 4 it seems like we're playing our own little subgame, trying to inflict as much pain as we can get away with. I can see this game becoming very popular online, so I figure Irrational needs to take this behavior into account with the expansion pack. I can just see it now, in fact I think I'll pitch the idea to any of them that are reading this. I call it SWAT 4: Police Brutality, classy yet violent.

My first idea for the expansion pack is that the weapons have too few degrees of lethality. If I come home from a long day at the job and I want to kick back and punish that guy who looks suspiciously like the irate customer I had this morning, I have two choices. Make him peppery or make him dead. How about some more options here? I'd like a range of things to do to people.

1. Photoshop Cannon – This gun would fire a rolling projectile that would explode at a designated range, pasting large posters on the wall with a photoshop of your choice. Some possibilities include Â"I just f***ed your motherÂ" complete with doctored photos (bonus points if the terrorist cries out Â"Mom?Â" is just the right confused tone), Â"Gay PornoramaÂ" with the terrorists photoshopped into pictures involving intercourse between two men (again, bonus points if one terrorist shouts at another Â"You weren't supposed to tell anyone about that magical Tijuana nightÂ") and finally the old standby Â"Goatse LOLÂ".
2. The Brown Device – This weapon could be placed against a door or wall, and then proceed to fill the adjacent room with Â"the Brown NoiseÂ" which should cause everyone in the room to lose control of their bowels. Explosively.
   Legbreaker 3000 – The sole purpose of this rapid fire weapon would be to target kneecaps and make them explode as quickly as possible. Walk into a room full of cultists and let the Legbreaker 3000 take care of the rest. Will they ever take a relaxing stroll on the beach again? Or enjoy a friendly game of basketball? Will they even be able to walk again? Who knows! That's part of the fun!
3. Ass Penetration Device – The less said about this device the better. Though one thing is for sure, it'll play circus music.
4. Truth Beam – This futuristic device will use some sort of high tech laser to open a portal inside their mind to the dimension of ultimate knowledge and truth. You won't really notice anything, but they'll have to live the rest of their lives knowing what Delta Burke looks like naked.

Another idea would be some storyline flexibility in the coop game. Yeah sure, now we can rescue the civilians, but what if I want to join the terrorists? Think of the emotional drama and social exploration that could be created by allowing people to defect from the police force and join the other side. Now when someone steps in front of you while entering a doorway, you won't simply be thinking Â"I'd better not kill him, I'd lose pointsÂ", you'd be thinking Â"I bet the terrorists get all the chicks anyway. BLAM.Â"

If none of this stuff gets implemented, I'll probably end up doing it anyway. Especially the teamkilling. Not because I'm bored with the game, far from it, but simply because I can. Or I'll just go back to playing Â"TaserfightÂ" or Â"Flashbang TossÂ" with my SWAT teammates. Neither of which are actual gametypes with any sort of rules to speak of. Emergent gameplay or not, everybody plays their own game.

Pyroman[FO]