Big Bad Streets - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 110

in a most unnatural way. This is an amusing shock that is not severe but nonetheless
reminds us of the mediated nature of this game world.
On the whole, Driver is shock-free. There are other content items that could be
considered shock-inducing—such as the tens of identical Chinese restaurants in
Chinatown in Los Angeles—but because they are intended to contribute to overall
surety and not the intense gameplay they barely register unless, like us, you are
scrutinizing the game intensely.
SURPRISES
We now move on to surprises: what we actually do in Driver and how we can use
POs to model an abstraction of this in order to gain insights into the fundamental
nature of the game and its gameplay in particular. First of all we will describe a
typical mission and some subjective thoughts about it. We will then represent these
more directly as a Table of Surprises.
We're in Miami staying in a small, seedy motel in the south of the city. We get
a call to go and collect some Kalashnikovs that have been smuggled into the port.
As we pull out of the motel's little car park into the city we check the on-board
dynamic map that shows a few blocks of the city street plan immediately around
our current position. We do not know where the port is but there is a gray triangle
whose furthest point indicates its direction. We cannot see that far yet; we only see
the general direction we have to go in. We drive off across the city not bothering
too much about the laws of the road but trying to avoid damage to our car. It is also
a good idea to stick to the rules when we see police cars out on patrol. If we break
the law that will register as a felony, the police will chase us, and that will make the
mission diffi cult and maybe impossible.
Eventually we get to a narrow and very busy road that leads out to the port. We
overtake when we shouldn't, drive on the wrong side of the road, and generally
annoy other road users. We look out for police patrols all the time. Getting into a
chase here would be very diffi cult to get out of successfully. With a little luck and
hopefully not too much damage, we get to the right place in the port and stop under
a giant red arrow, fl oating in the air and pointing downwards. We stop under it and
in response a message is overwritten on the screen, “Get the rifl es back to the motel!”
We turn and race back to the narrow road that we have to renegotiate. Police
messages sound in our ears, “suspect heading north, suspect heading west.” They ' re
on to us but we'll have to tough it out. If we can make them crash in the port area
they won't be able to chase us down that narrow road. With skill and a little luck,
that is what happens and we make it off the narrow causeway road and back into
the city proper. Now we have to get across town back to the motel. It is not so
crowded here and we have a choice of routes, but as we get close to the motel,
“suspect heading south,” sounds in our ears. We've got a tail. As we get close to the
motel we see a large, red exclamation mark fl oating in the air above the entrance to
the motel car park. We have to drive around the block and lose the police chasing
us. If we can make a couple of turns quick enough they might lose sight of us; and