Ludo-Therapy: Showing Trust

When Roger Ebert wrote about how “Video games can never be art”, gamers quickly took to social media to defend that their beloved medium. Gamers brought up how titles like Bioshock and Limbo could hold deep meaning. It’s clear that people are beginning to view our young interactive medium with more respect than anyone would have thought capable 10-15 years ago, but have games earned their new found respect?

A few days ago, a great editorial was posted on PC Gamer describing the safety precautions and "child-proofing" found in modern mainstream games. The article delved into how games were seemingly catered to the lowest common denominator as a result of immature gamer behavior. It stated that gamers and developers are "locked in a destructive cycle of dickification"; where developers act like a dick by restricting controls and gamers rebel by just acting like bigger dicks. It’s crass theory, but it’s arguably correct in defining our relationship and its negative effects. The caveats and boundaries placed in today's games may strengthen the narrative structure and progression pace, but it also displays a lack of trust in the player.

For a medium that has issues being associated with toys, it's surprising how patronizing some of the games are made to be. Notifications in modern games display the simplest of information that even monkeys could keep track of. Rewards are handed out for small menial tasks. Jesse Schell's gamified vision of everyday life is taking shape within the games of today.

Games that trust and respect their players are not impossible to find. One AAA game that I didn’t expect to display trust in their player is 2008’s Prince of Persia. This game was heavily criticized pre-release when it was revealed that the main character could not “die” in the game. Some gamers became livid at this approach to player death because it was seen as removing challenge from the game. While seeming to have another way to baby players, Prince of Persia showed a degree of player trust by simply removing of a button prompt.

In the game, the Prince and Elika must free the land of corruption through the use of Elika’s magic. The player (Prince) has to get Elika to a fertile land tile and press the Elika button to trigger a pretty cutscene of the land being brought to back to life. The first time you encounter a fertile land tile, the game displays a button prompt telling you which button to press. In the later hours of the game, this button prompt is removed.

The subtle disappearance of the button prompt conveys a transfer of responsibility. It's acknowledgement that the player made progress and learned the action for the context sensitive situation. On the opposite end of the spectrum are games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, which will prompt you to press "X" to reload every time you are nearing the end of your magazine.

Games need to start matching the respect we give them, as well as the maturity we expect from them. If games want to be appreciated by the general public like other mediums of entertainment, they must undergo the same scrutiny. Movies are criticized for being too blatant in their storytelling; it's only fair that games are criticized for being condescending in their gameplay.

The Call of Duty Jump

Let’s take a look at the end of the level “Hornet’s Nest” in Modern Warfare 2.

During my first time playing through of the level, I ended up on the edge of my seat with a big exhale of relief after the final leap of faith I had just made. MW2 has a lot of high action moments, but this was the one that had the best peak.

There are a few elements in this level that work together to create tension. You have the exciting score, the countless enemy spawns, the yelling NPCs, but these elements are also found in all the other action moments in the game. What made this moment different was the simple requirement of a jump at the end. It’s strange, I’ve done the leap of faith in so many games before. I’ve jumped large gaps as an assassin, as a mail-carrier, and as an adventurer, but in none of those situations have I found myself worried I wasn’t going to land it.

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In the three games pictured above, jumping and leaping is in the repertoire for these games. While as in Modern Warfare 2, you spend 95% of your time aiming down sights and shooting targets. I can count the number of times I have jumped in MW2 on one hand - and that’s what makes it exciting. The end of "Hornet's Nest" asks the player to use a mechanic they shouldn’t have found comfort with. Before this level, the game takes its time to explore the many different ways the player can shoot a target, but the dimensions and timings of the character’s jump are never explored. If I was asked to bunny hop around in any of the previous levels, this leap of faith would not have been as daunting. The high-stakes situation needing the player to use a disregarded mechanic makes it exciting.

It’s funny how jumping, something that's become irrelevant in modern shooters, manages to take center stage gracefully for such a brief moment only because it is such a brief moment. Games like Pacman DX and Braid demonstrate the worth of getting every last drop out of a mechanic, but Modern Warfare 2 shows there is some value in retaining unfamiliarity in a base mechanic.