Game Mechanic: Factions (403 Words)

In a previous review on a Rockstar Games and Rockstar North game title Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a key game mechanic was identified within the game. This game mechanic know as factions is the grouping of people into categories or ratings.. This is used in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a way of dividing the some of the city’s residents into gangs and political parties.

Rockstar North (formally DMA Design) and Rockstar Games produced Grand Theft Auto on the Sony Playstation and PC in 1997. GTA 2 and the expansion packs were later released until 2001 when the GTA franchise entered the third person view, with the title Grand Theft Auto 3. In 2002 GTA: Vice City was released as a prequel story set in a 1986 Miami. With inspiration coming form the movie Scarface and Miami Vice the game proved to be a huge success. Then in 2004 GTA: San Andreas set in 1992 told a story in the eyes of Carl Johnson an ex gang member who returns for his mother’s funeral only to be framed by corrupt police officers. From this in 2005 GTA: Liberty City Stories was produced as a prequel to the stories introduced in GTA 3.

Looking back though history of computer generated games we can see the development of this game mechanic. From the early games where it was a simple rating scheme – to an interaction of non-playable characters (NPC). Although this type of game mechanic is normally associated with military style games it has been introduced into other game platforms as well.

The first game that my research and in class discussions that used this game mechanic factions is Elite. Published by Acornsoft and written by David Braben and Ian Bell for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. Elite is a space trading game where you most improve your space combat rating though a variety of tasks.

Other games that have introduced factions into their gameplay are some of which include The Getaway and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Theses games used ratings as a way to build a player profile to progress thought the game.

In future games especially Grand Theft Auto games I think that the use of factions within gameplay will improve dramatically. From the improvements though the different games in the series, I think that there will be many improvements to the way factions are used in the gameplay.