There’s a conflict that I find between the serious narrative and the moment to moment action-driven experience in some newer games. Three examples that come to mind are Gears of War 2, Modern Warfare 2, and Grand Theft Auto 4. Fundamentally these games are action games, games that take you on a roller coaster ride that attempts to keep you engaged and having fun for 5-30 hours through their main story mode. All of them have a very dark undertone to them that fails to reach it’s full potential, but also falls short of failure, it ends up being a bit mediocre. Shocking things happen, and I’ve had actual physical reactions to games (specifically COD: World at War), and emotional reactions of varying degrees to all of them.
Having read both of the Gears books it’s apparent to me just how dark, desperate, and gritty this world is, but the game fails to convey that sense terribly well because it chooses to focus more on cheesy one-liners and keeping you always on the front lines, disconnected from the reality of living in that world. I continue to hope that they will chose to go a darker direction with the narrative and let the true desperation of the situation sink in. The frat-boy stuff also needs to just stop, or at least be written in a way that it becomes how the characters are coping with the situation versus how they just are at all times.
In MW2 the main problem is that they love to kill and switch your character around quite often, this prevents you from ever really getting invested in what is going on. Instead the backdrop of a near-future world is what they use to make the events feel more real and frightening. It works to some degree, casting aside the absurdity of some of the plot, and makes me feel something and that I’m doing the right thing throughout the course of the game. I wish that there were a degree of choice in the matter though and that some of the characters got more development, it would only serve to help get me even further invested and allow for actions to take on meaning. Currently the games are trying some really novel things, but are way too linear and switch context far too often for them to really work out. The key example of this is the controversial airport scene that has you rolling with some terrorist and mowing down civilians, it’s shocking and brutal and executed in a very purposeful manner, but it fails to make a real lasting impact because you have no choice in the matter. It also feels a bit sudden and like a one time thing so there’s no attachment or investment against which to really hammer home the horror.
Grand Theft Auto 4 made me change my behavior by getting me invested in the character. Where it kind of fell apart though is that the system allowed you to behave in a way that was inconsistent without any repercussions and build an extremely inconsistent narrative. Next time around I hope that they tighten up that game’s content (it was a bit much/stretched) and allow for more choice and consequence. Rockstar is on to something powerful here and just need to adjust the surrounding systems to be consistent with that vision.
I think that we’re getting closer to games actually hitting meaningful emotional themes, and games like Heavy Rain seem to hold some promise in this regard (though how much of a game it is seems to be debatable). Someday soon I think that we will see a game that walks this line very well and becomes something that we can truly hold up as an example that games can have meaning.
You’re not supposed to shoot the civilians. In fact, in the Japanese version this results in a game over.
In regards to the airport mission in MW2, it lacked any kind of immersion for me due to the civilians not recognizing me as a threat. Sure the cops and armed personnel would shoot at me, but for some reason the regular Joes and Janes never paid me any attention personally. I could have the barrel of a large caliber machine gun shoved up a guy’s nostril and he would still be more concerned with the man on the other side of a magazine rack. It basically ruined the immersion fact entirely and left me feeling like some kind of ghost with heavy ordinance.
If Heavy Rain is like its predecessor, it will be very much like experiencing a movie or a good story with some gaming elements thrown in. The multiple paths and endings you are supposed to be able to take, to the point where every single main character can be dead and the game still keeps going until a final conclusion is reached, seems promising to me. I just hope it doesn’t drop the ball with the last bit of gameplay like Indigo Prophecy did. Amazing story that dragged me, then suddenly I am flying around like I am in the god damn matrix.
I agree I think beyond tightening up the presentation a bit there should have been some meaningful choice or impact to whichever way you choose. Ideally it should be a bit more complex than just a game over, but even that would have done something to keep it a bit more consistent. The point of the article is really that most of the methods used in games (mw2 specifically) amount to little more than shock value, so they have an initial reaction but fail upon further inspection to provide anything meaningful morally or emotionally.
There is some value that I see in games like fahrenheit/indigo prophecy or heavy rain, but it’s not the one that I would usually want to spend $60 on. I think it’s interesting and kinda cool to see what they can do, and games like it should definitely be made since it pushes the industry in a way that I think has some value, but they need to work on the gameplay a bit. We’ll just have to wait and see I suppose…