Explosive Barrels.

explosive barrels are everywhere they're probably one of the biggest cliches of video games so much so that even declaring them cliche is getting pretty old itself but what's most surprising is that they carry on unabated contemporary FPS games are more likely than not to have some kind of explosive scenery games are perhaps more coy with their use than they have been in the past barrels tend to be an occasional feature rather than being liberally sprinkled throughout every single level but still if you look you'll find them some games do mix things up a little deviating from barrels in favor of something like propane tanks or even cars others inject a little variety by introducing types of barrel the borderland series has elemental ones with different effects for instance and mass effect has similar explosive containers that come in a variety of flavors sometimes games will feature meta game elements to incorporate environmental kills bullet storm is perhaps the most notable example which rewards unique kills with extra points Call of Juarez gunslinger is similar these expanded mechanics serve as justification for including explosive barrels but some games embrace them wholeheartedly with no shame whatsoever the Just Cause series has a certain degree of camp character so even the game iasts video game ingredient fits right in the Far Cry series is similar particularly far cry 3 Blood Dragon its veneer of irony protects a celebration of video game tradition and it's all the more glorious because of this honestly barrels are pretty great despite overuse and I think my favorite barrels have to be those seen in half-life 2 unlike most explosive barrels shooting them just a couple of times won't immediately detonate them but it will set them alight for the flames gradually taking hold until an inevitable explosion the visible anticipation makes for a great trap and one that works both ways they're a powerful tool particularly when paired with the gravity gun and you quickly learn to respect them in many ways half-life 2 was a tech demo and attempt to innovate within the increasingly stale FPS genre and while some of its physics-based puzzles can be tiresome they definitely did barrels right so barrels are everywhere they have been for some time and they seem to center on first-person shooters since their early beginning as they've been quite a natural pairing from half-life to quake Goldeneye Shadow Warrior Duke Nukem 3d the barrels or barrel like objects are present clearly these games share a common influence you might suspect doom and you'd be right doom is festooned with explosive barrels generously populating most levels and proving quite useful for taking our enemies standing nearby doom 2 even has a level devoted to them barrels are fun although it's more of an exercise and not blowing yourself up otherwise as a general rule of thumb if you see a barrel you shoot it so we know doom has explosive barrels that much is self-evident but why does doom have explosive barrels it's earlier game Wolfenstein 3d also had barrels but they weren't explosive that was doom and innovation so what inspired the extra volatility from a gameplay perspective doom draws heavily from the arcade games of the late 1980s shoot-'em-ups and action RPGs mostly in fact Doom is an action RPG at its core the monster slaying key hunting gameplay loop is taken straight from gauntlet Ataris 1985 arcade game might not be 3-d but the influence on its games is clear but there are no barrels to be seen here certainly no explosive ones so what about shoot-'em-ups they were never shy of explosions or what about barrels one of the most definitive shooters of this era was operation wolf like most of the military themed games of the day it was heavily informed by action movies essentially an amalgam of Rambo the commander and the setting basic military base a few sandbags watchtowers and quite often some barrels op wolf does indeed feature barrels but they're just set dressing shooting them does nothing to be fair along with crates barrels are a very common element in video game scenery this is probably because they're universal like shipping containers or monoblock chairs they're divorced from geography an oil drum is an oil drum the same anywhere in the world so as scenery the common barrel is prevalent as eyebots a pseudo-3d may shooter has them as obstacles on some levels devastators and dynamite Duke also seen them strewn about military-style locales but of all of this eras military themes shoot-'em-ups the one most focused on destruction has to be kapow walls buildings tanks everything is destructible in Cubao there's the usual parade of military sprites and if you look carefully in some later levels you will spot some barrels and as with everything else if you shoot them they explode I don't think they do any damage so they're not quite the same as the explosive barrels we're familiar with but we're definitely getting closer now Rambo can take much of the blame for the popularity of the military theme and in 1989 there was an officially licensed Rambo 3 game for the arcades it actually does feature proper explosive barrels and they can be quite useful enduring enemies in the blasts the funny thing is that the Rambo movies themselves don't really have explosive barrels in them there are plenty of explosions and a few barrels but on screen the two aren't really connected also from 1989 and also taking heavy inspiration from Rambo was the third in the Ikari warriors series it carry three the rescue explosive barrels make occasional feature nice big red ones that flash before exploding there are also elements from popular beaten ups of the day weapon pickups and a departure from the commando style gameplay of the previous two Hikari games in favor of more hand-to-hand combat another great example of true explosive barrels is Essen Kay's nan 1975 released in 1990 with copious amounts contained within one industrial themed level they present a hazard early on rolling by on a conveyer belt and exploding when shot by the end of the level there are even more two types in fact your classic red explosive barrel and a slightly more dangerous purple barrel which leaves a toxic cloud after detonation so there are a few examples of explosive barrels that predate doom and it's possible that one of these games knowingly or not served as the influence for rid but there's a slight incongruity dooms barrels are nuclear filled with a green toxic sludge so where did that come from well after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986 anti-nuclear sentiments were quite mainstream and the question of what to do with nuclear waste was a hot topic with the 55-gallon drum a standard unit of this toxic problem this ecological concern even permeated children's television think of Captain Planet toxic Crusaders even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles it's not unreasonable to assume that it were influenced in a similar way but there is another potential factor doom was originally going to be a licensed alien game it's why there are Space Marines sci-fi bases and ethically questionable mega corpse the third alien film came out in 1992 during dooms development and there is one particularly relevant sequence bereft of weapons and facing a deadly alien threat the inhabitants of the prison colony turned to a stockpile of mining supplies instead a volatile compounds called qui nitro settling naturally it's stored in 55-gallon drums toxic and highly combustible it's difficult to know exactly what inspired it to include explosive barrels so I emailed John Romero and I asked him his reply we felt that shooting a barrel full of toxic waste should explode and that it would be another great way to kill demons so he made that happen so maybe explosive barrels were just a product of the zeitgeist an inevitability given the new potential of 16-bit machines and a background of action cinema what we do know is doom was the catalyst for a subsequent explosion of popularity but even so it wasn't the first we've been covered a few prior examples but the question remains what was the first game to feature explosive barrels the late 80s were the heyday of action films and if we look to movie tie-ins like Lethal Weapon and the aliens arcade game we can't find examples of explosive barrels I mean it makes sense explosions are a staple of the action genre barrels grenades rocket launchers the more the merrier right the barrels in the aliens arcade game surprised me however while alien 3 did feature barrels in the 1992 movie the aliens arcade game came out in 1990 and was loosely based on the second alien film neither alien nor aliens feature barrel server so their addition to the Konami arcade game must take inspiration from somewhere else if we track that through konami x' catalogue there was another big licensed game released the year before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles it tune features explosive barrels you can tell these are early examples as the barrels have danger written on the sides clearly this was a time before red barrels were a universally known cliche but 1989 was a good year for them there was a definite surge of examples and at least a couple were prompted by the release of license to kill the 16th James Bond film there are a few peril scene in the film notably in the opening gun fight but they're not explosive volatile liquids do play a major role in the story however and a number of fuel tankers do spectacularly explode at the film's climax there was a licensed game released for a number of platforms the same year which loosely follows the events of the film the second level sees bond on foot versus some bad guys and there a large number of barrels throughout the level in the film the barrels simply leak when shot but in game they explode forming a crater and killing any adjacent enemies perhaps seeking to capitalize on the new bond release data East released sly spy in the same year and it too features explosive barrels it draws from a mix of previous Bond films notably The Spy Who Loved me the man with the Golden Gun and Moonraker it seems barrels are desirable Dacor for evil airs then there's the military lot they carry three Rambo three both from 1989 and both of which featured truth explosive barrels as soon as we roll back to 1988 however there is a sudden disappearance there are plenty of games that feature barrels of scenery and there are even some that have destructible barrels cabal for instance and the 1988 Robocop arcade game where foreground scenery can be shot quite satisfying here but as far as explosive barrels go I was only able to find one example from this year it's a military themed beat-em-up SNK is POWs prisoners of war it's quite unusual in that it combines the military theme normally seen in shoot-'em-ups with the formula established by beat-em-ups like Double Dragon in fact I think it's this brawler influence that has led to the inclusion of barrels in Double Dragon there are a variety weapons you can pick up from the ground and barrels are one of them they're not explosive but they were quite prominent and most beat'em ups post 1987 took notes from Double Dragon it's why final fight had barrels it's why Street Fighter 2 head barrels prisoners of war took this beat him up formula and added guns and from there somebody asked the question what happens if you shoot the barrels the obvious answer was an explosion so is spear w the first game to feature explosive barrels well not quite I was able to find just one earlier example it's not a shoot-'em-up nor a brawler or a driving game it's an arcade game from 1986 called speed rumbler top-down car combat in the vein of Spy Hunter its barrels were a major part of gameplay so much so that an explanation of how they work appears on the cabinet art blue barrels turn into red barrels when hit and red barrels explode avoid em if you can and lure enemies into them where possible it's a little different to your typical red barrel but the elements are there and this might be the very first example so why does speed rumbler have barrels that explode when it comes to dystopian car combat there really is only one clear influence and that is Mad Max like any good action film it is full of explosions and the common oil drum is a symbol of its core theme Mad Max is rooted in the oil crises of the 1970s which dominated headlines both in 1973 and 79 and what were the units of oil in the news barrels so speed rumbler is an interesting fusion of arcane genres with a healthy dollop of Mad Max on top I also think there's a little bit of Donkey Kong in there you've got to understand Donkey Kong was a massive hit in the arcades and a lot of early games emulated Nintendo success and if we're talking about barrels and video games Donkey Kong becomes impossible to ignore if ever there were iconic barrels these are they there were countless clones for 8-bit home systems and it influenced many more platformers that followed as a general rule of thumb if you see a barrel featured in any video game pre-1986 it's probably because of Donkey Kong so why did Donkey Kong have barrels anyway how did the humble barrel break through into video game convention one of the key influences was classic American film 1933's King Kong is the obvious one Popeye is another and I also think there's a bit of Buster Keaton in there laddus platforms barrels are all mainstays of physical comedy and the latter featured prominently in what no beer from 1933 in one scene a truckload of barrels rolled down a steep hill with Keaton attempting to flee their path it's a striking visual and it may have inspired Donkey Kong's cascade the thing about barrels is like boulders they lend themselves to intuitive design they're common enough that we understand them just by seeing them we know their approximate size and we can infer their weight that's why slapstick comedy uses them there's no setup required and we can assess the danger of a barrel rolling towards us at a glance it's almost primal that's why Donkey Kong used them and why nobody questions a life lost when one strikes you certainly nobody has mistaken them for a powerup at least no more than once arcade games need to communicate their mechanics quickly as it might be the players first time so conventions and cliches became very useful we intuitively know that spikes are dangerous fire is hot and pitfalls perilous and barrels became bright red to communicate their explosive nature akin to a pie semitism in nature bright colors stand out and serve as a warning even when there are dull gray it doesn't take long for players to work out what they do even if their first encounter leads to accidental death it's likely there would still be explosive barrels in a world without doom but its influence ensured the convention would take hold doom success guaranteed imitation from other FPS games but there's more to barrels from that barrels add a sliver of strategy in a genre often devoid of it a secondary target that if timed right can deal more damage more quickly than targeting enemies individually most of all though it's because taking out multiple enemies at once with a single shop satisfies it feels powerful like the super shotgun barrels felt good they still feel good today in becoming a cliche and through overuse the explosive barrel has become increasingly useful part of video game design they have been installed as a mere universal convention and a fundamental phrase in the language of games yes explosive barrels are ever used yes they are everywhere but even today you can't beat a classic [Music] thank you very much for watching and until next time farewell [Music]

Channel: Ahoy

Views: 1,013,107

Rating: 4.9692678 out of 5

Keywords: xboxahoy, barrels, explosive, explosive barrels, video games, tropes, cliche, doom, half life 2

Id: LMYEE8lvlvA

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Peanlocket]

My favorite explosive barrels were from Singularity's MP. There was a character you could play as that had the ability to grab an explosive barrel from a parallel dimension and then launch it right right at the enemy team. It never got old.

[u/vytah]

I was expecting a mention about how Bulletstorm devs learnt that the barrels have to be red to get people to shoot them frequently enough: https://web.archive.org/web/20130221190007/www.peoplecanfly.com/blog/2011/01/we-had-to-use-red-barrels/

[u/SvenHudson]

That John Romero quote on the subject from halfway through was everything I could have dreamed it would be. Of course Doom just did that because they thought it would be cool, it's Doom.

[u/BlackLiger]

Command and Conquer Red Alert feature them as an RTS, which is amusing.

[u/Grammaton485]

Anybody else get the feeling that this video was picked up off the cutting room floor and slapped together?

At one point I wasn't even sure what point he was trying to make. He jumps around from point to point, then all of a sudden goes on about why Doom's barrels are filled with toxic waste. Very unlike Ahoy's content, even down to the graphic style.

[u/cliftonmarshall]

Painkiller is such a fun game. Everytime I see footage of it I feel an inescapable pull to play it again.

So bummed that the studio is now just making another damn looter shooter.

[u/[deleted]]

Since when was Doom a licensed Alien game? He throws that out there with no citation and I'd never heard that before today.