So I was watching last weeks episode of Flashpoint, one of my favorite new shows (and if you're not watching it you should be, this is quality programming) about Toronto's Strategic Response Unit (SRU). One of the things I love about this show is how intelligently it portrays how these professionals handle dangerous high tension crisis scenarios, which usually involves hostage situations.

The SRU is multitasking all these different angles; trying to negotiate with the suspects, consulting with psychologists to get a profile of the person they're dealing with to better understand how to relate to them, employing stealth to breach the structure where the gunmen are, figuring a way to extract the hostages, looking to get prime sniper positions as a last resort. It all gets covered.

And how they deal with the gunmen holding the hostages is never black and white in such a manner like "they took innocent civilians, so they're going down!!!!". They really try 1st and foremost to find peaceful resolutions to the situation, to talk them out of what they're doing, and not relying on massive gunfire and explosions (like I said, the snipers are there as a last resort, if they absolutely are needed to stop a hostage from getting shot). And in many cases, the story reveals that the gunmen have their own story, and it isn't just random why they're doing what they're doing, which has varied from desperation to save a sick near-dying loved one, to proving their own or someone else's innocence, having basically been backed into a corner with nothing left to lose and such. An the SRU negotioator always seeks to engage the person, to genuinely connect with them and lower their own tension, try to garner cooperation.

But I digress. All these crisis scenarios and the way the SRU handles them got me thinking - these are elements that could really add to a more fleshed out tactical experience of games like RainbowSix and SWAT, where you aren't always just shooting enemy soldiers, but sometimes having to rescue civilians.

How cool would it be to have a Mass Effect sty1e multiple options dialog system where you negotionate with the hostage takers, where the game presents you the option to talk your way out of a situation rather than always have to take them down with the element of surprise (smoke breaching). The goal would be to at first ask questions, see what they want, what their situation is, and as with the SRU, try to connect with the hostage takers. The dialog options having the effect of either escelating or de-eselating the tension levels in the room. The players goals, through question and answer dialog options would be to connect with the terrorist, and obtain some level of cooperation that they might be talked out.

Now before you get the wrong idea, this wouldn't be present in ALL sceneratios of a RB6 or SWAT game. Many scenarios you run into, the only natural outcome is to engage 1st with the element of surprise. But maybe there are some where an icon appears letting you know you can (press button) to enter a negotions mode, switching to dialog controls. And how the player handles the negotioans, maybe the hostages get released willingly, or it fails and you still have to fall back on the shooting scenario to secure the civlians safety, which is th primary goal. And of course, when that option icon appears, the player can opt not to take that course, and just go ahead with a stealth breach to take em out before they know what hit them.

So both the strategic as well as the explosive action would still be intact, but with another gameplay element to add another layer to the tactical experience.