Randomly Generated Bad Dudes

I hate computer games in which you have to kill thousands of bad dudes who all look like one type or another. There's such a limited variety of textured models that it saps you of all your murderous joy and staples your soul to the numbing reality that is your pathetic computer game-playing life. Samuel Beckett would have loved it.

Escapism, that's what I'm after. I want to kill these people on my screen because, in actuality, I'm quite a nice guy; calm-tempered, slow to react to violence, with no inclinations towards homicide. Gruesome massacre is not a viable option in my career – I work on a business magazine correcting people's speeling. A world in which I can lop off someone's head with a spade is an alien one to me. A vast multitude of gruesome experiences that I'll never have the (mis)fortune to experience in reality. No, escapism is the ticket.

Would it not be possible to randomly generate models of bad dudes, perhaps using a hue change on their clothing, skin colour, hair and eyes? The game could adjust the face and body shapes, using similar technology to the player modifications in Tiger Woods or Pro Evo. A range of clothing models could also be chosen from.

Particular colour ranges could be used for each specific set of bad dudes, to ensure their authenticity. Otherwise, the whole illusion would be dashed if a bunch of harlequin-coloured mafiosos came charging at you. Or one pink-wearing Nazi homophobe in a pack of otherwise neat skin-heads.

The hardest thing to randomise would be voices (which in days gone by have been changed only in pitch, which just sounds obviously contrived) and body movement.

However, for this latter problem, I have the concept of a solution. My friend is an actor, he trained at Llamda in London, and he was telling me how everyone walks from a particular part of their body. A bit like the Donnie Darko tubes of fate that emanate from people's chests, if you imagine that coming out of other parts of your body that pull you forward, that's how you can replicate somebody else's walk. Some walk from their knees, others, their foreheads, elbows, whatever. (Apparently I walk from the crotch, who knew?)

Each walk is an impressive indictment of character as the focal point relates to the rest of the body and affects your stature immeasurably. Walking from the forehead makes you look glum or reserved, from the chest makes you look proud or arrogant, knees - relaxed, elbows - cockney, you get the picture.

Using the (albeit simple) rag-doll technology [linky] could pre-recorded motion capture be modified by pulling the nodes from a focal point? For example, leading with the shoulders would give a stockier feel to a character, and would only require the nodes of the body be accentuated at the top quarter of the body.

I've no ideas towards the voice problem I'm afraid.