Though initially I was thinking of Blowback as specifically being “The Burn Notice game,” its influences and inspirations are pretty diverse: Grosse Pointe Blank, My Blue Heaven, The Bourne Identity/Supremacy (haven’t seen Ultimatum yet), and more. The thing that surprises me as I get deeper into the game is noticing the commonalities between things like Burn Notice and the Bourne franchise; both have protagonists who are trying to figure out what happened to them and why, and just want their former handlers to give them what they want. There’s another important thread between these franchises, and that I think also holds true for the other sources of inspiration as well.

You’ll notice that I haven’t listed James Bond as one of the source inspirations. You might think that’s crazy and sacrilegious, or you might assume that it’s so obvious an influence for any spy game that I just chose not to list it. I’m a huge, huge fan of the Bond movies– I’ve seen every single one!– but this is not the James Bond game, unless someone hacks it for that reason. The principle difference is this: in the inspirations I list, and in Blowback, killing and dying are big deals. They have serious consequences. Sure, for 007 some people dying is a big deal; Vesper, Bond’s wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, people like that. But it’s still cool to shoot and kill mooks with no repercussions, because he’s Bond and a badass and that’s what he does. But whether you’re John Cusack or Jason Bourne, the people who die matter. If they died because of something you did, or because you couldn’t save them, or because you had to kill them. It’s a huge thing. There are consequences, because every body is another link back to you for the police or the vengeful family or your former handlers and associates trying to get leverage on you. There are consequences because you have to look at your face in the mirror every day.

That’s not to say that there isn’t, or shouldn’t be, killing and dying. But it’s not a frequent thing, and when it happens everything changes. Life isn’t cheap and killing isn’t easy.

Filed under: Blowback, Dissolute Games by Elizabeth