Not that c-word. Sorry, there was no way I could resist the pun.
Anyway, I guess this would be the fourth part of my planned trilogy on gaming nowadays. There's a Mass Effect review and a Crysis review (of sorts, not really one for reviews in the strictest sense), a rant on linearity in games, and what follows is a kind of logical extension of the linearity rant, this time about consequences in games. Hope you enjoy them- I think I've written all I can for the moment. Sometimes it's just good to tip one's brain over and see what comes out.
Discussion or comments are welcome and appreciated. Just don't expect me to act like anything other than the petulant child I am should I be criticised.
Enjoy...
Press Y (I press Y)
Press X (I press X)
Press B (I press B)
Press B (I press B)
Press X (I press X)
Press Y (Fuck, accidentally pressed X)
Hacking/ computer bypass/car-jacking/shoelace tying FAILED! You are a certifiable retard! Retry?
Modern computer games. What an exciting world we live in! 'You wanna open that door? Gotta press these buttons first. But do it fast, or you'll fail!' Quick Time Events have gone from being a weird little hyperactive child making a fool of itself and jumping around in Shenmue (or Die Hard Arcade, or whichever bugger wants to claim culpability for the bloody things) to being a weird, hyperactive, but utterly relentless and startlingly omnipresent military dictator with an iron hand clamped firmly around the goolies of gaming. Melodramatic? A tad. But consider this, when was the last time you played a game and actually enjoyed a QTE? For myself it would be Shenmue II, and a particularly cool market place brawl with watermelons exploding and men being thrown through tables. It was, I readily admit, quite cool, but cool because of aforementioned watermelon explodage, not because pressing buttons on cue is fun. Perhaps these QTE's, like those of God of War, work because they feature events which could not happen 'in-game- due to control restrictions. We all like a nice, cinematic Hydra slaying, so maybe their just a necessary evil, right?
Mass Effect avoids such drama in it's QTE's. No slaying of space-Hydra's here, but if you're in the mood to survey a mineral deposit (and that's what we play computer games for, isn't it?), a QTE pops up. If your clumsy, flailing digits should cause you to depress the wrong buttons, you fail to survey the mineral. 'Bugger', you may think, 'that's the universe fucked then', until you realise you can simply attempt again. And again. However many times you like. The button order may be changed (Shenmue was decent enough to leave the sequence of buttons the same each time so you could steamroll through on memory/trial and error- if you could take the fun, that is), but, heck, you'll get there in the end, you adorable, inept wanker, you!
What does this add to the overall experience? A distraction at best, at worst a downright obstacle. Approaching a locked futurisitc space door in Mass Effect will lead to a QTE flickering into existence. This time, though, failure means that door stays resolutely locked. You may still be able to coax open the door with an omni-gel bypass (what a gloriously vague notion- 'an omni gel bypass. Do they just take some of this gel and smear it on the lock or what?) But there's always a chance that the door remains, for you at least, unopenable. And this, in pleasingly circuitous fashion, brings me to my main point.
I had a dream recently wherein I could quicksave my life. Should anything go wrong...BANG! Load a quicksave. Hit by a car. BANG! Load that fucker up. Hand bitten off by an angry goldfish? BANG! Press F8 and all will be well. Life, however, offers few such concessions. Get your hand gnawed off by your pet in real life and you'd better get used to being a lot worse at paying the melodion. Life is, essentially, all about consequences. I suppose it's what gives people the thrill from BASE jumping or free-running- the constant awareness that a mistake, a slip of the foot, pressing X instead of Y, if you will, will almost certainly lead to very serious pain or even more serious death. Presumably that's what makes it worth doing, although, slightly podgy and lazy wuss that I am, I shall have to take it on faith. Regardless, if we are to take one word away from this straight-as-an-arrow line of thought (straight as a relief map of the Alps, perhaps), it is this: The C-Word.
Consequence, of course. Let's return to that door in Mass Effect which we so cack-handedly fudged the opening of. Should we shrug philosophically and move on, never to know what treasures lie beyond? Take it as a lesson, not rush these things, lest precious loot go unlooted?
Nah.
We just load a quicksave, do it again. We'd load up a quicksave if we failed a boss fight, surely? Such fallacious and fuckedy-uppity logic can only lead us to conclude that opening a door is, in itself, a boss fight all of it's own. I envisage a future where selecting 'New Game' from the menu will trigger a QTE of it's own- a 230 button marathon sequence demanding pico-second timing. If you fail the disc will eject itself from your CD drive and burst into a hail of shrapnel, punishing you for your knob-ended incompetence. That'd be nice. There's just something so digital about the whole set-up: you succeed or you fail, no happy middle ground. But since there's no reason to accept or live with any failure, the whole exercise becomes...well, a bit useless.
And so the twisty-turny logic of this argument leads to one conclusion. We are often presented with circumstances in modern games which may result in the failure of our characters- either failure to open a door or failure to continue breathing having been shot in the spine. Clearly, the aim of most players is to avoid such failure (unless it's watching Leon Kennedy get his floppy blond head chainsawed off for the 36th time). However, failure, when it does occur, should have consequences, or it means nothing. To be able to just load up a save and try again takes away any semblance of an 'edge'. Nothing is being risked, so nothing can really be gained. I suppose what it really comes down to is how far are you willing to role-play your character? Should you accept failure, if only to inject things with a bit of zing? I would in no way advocate that the Fire Emblem school of game design makes for a particularly fun experience (i.e. when a character dies, they are dead and they stay dead- no resurrection crystals, no Phoenix Downs, just the cold embrace of eternity) because really it just causes problems. If your favourite character dies in a battle, BUT you have saved before the battle, which of us can say we would not load up the save and be a bit more cautious this time, paying particular attention to whatever proved so very terminal last time?
I remember, back in my Elder Scrolls days, trawling the forums and always being intrigued by true role-players. If the character dies, he's dead, dude. Maybe a quick memorial service, a few tears shed, but that save cannot be used again. I'm not sure if that's admirable dedication to your art or just plain old insanity, like filling your condoms with sand and bits of broken glasses before use because you find it a bit too... comfortable if you don't. Why spite yourself when there's so many people in the world willing to do it for you? Imagine grinding up to level 60, only to fall off a cliff or be eaten by a mutant rat. I'd just think 'ah fuck it, that one didn't count' and tread more carefully around cliffs in the future. The point is, it's the ultimate manifestation of consequence, and undoubtedly makes death something to be feared. But, like QTE's, is it any fun?
And yet. And yet...something about consequence makes me uncomfortable. Let's have a real life scenario:
-One is being chased down a corridor by a T-Rex (maybe not entirely real-life, then...). He gains on you by the second; you round a corner, and the corridor splits into two. You frantically peer down each, keenly aware of the sharpness of the teeth rapidly approaching. You choose the left one on a desperate whim. You pelt down it, through a door, and out, into freedom, precious sunlight, salvation!
Let's transplant that into computer game land:
-One is being chased down a corridor by a T-Rex. Rocks and logs litter the floor, occasionally requiring that you press X or Y to leap over them. Every now and then you must press left or right to sidestep his snapping jaws. The corridor splits in two! Only seconds to choose!
You pause and have a look at the map.
A quick yawn.
Back into the action! You head left, sprint down the QTE laced corridor, and make your escape. Daylight floods your vision- how did we cope before we had HDR lighting to show us what it's like when that happened? Question time: are you glad to have survived? I guess, it's always nice not being devoured by things. But what you're really thinking is 'I wonder what was down that other corridor? Maybe I should reload and have a look.' You try the door you've just come out of, hoping you can maybe sneak back in and have a gander at the other route. And that, fully aware of the angry beastie with a weight measured in tonnes (never a good sign when picking an opponent) which awaits within...I mean, that's just plain steee-ooooh-pid.
Perhaps it all boils down to a certain desire, to want to be controlled when playing games. We want to know that what we're doing is the 'right' thing. Free-form and non-linear narratives deprive us of these assurances, but ruddy QTE events deprive us of any control beyond stabbing at buttons as they flash up on screen. What's the solution? Honestly, I'll be fucked if I know. But I know this- next time a QTE flashes up I'm going to do my best to keep pressing all the wrong buttons until it just gives up and lets me past anyway, hoping some kindly programmer has foreseen the multifarious difficulties faced by a person who has lost a hand to an unusually disgruntled fish.
Anyway, I guess this would be the fourth part of my planned trilogy on gaming nowadays. There's a Mass Effect review and a Crysis review (of sorts, not really one for reviews in the strictest sense), a rant on linearity in games, and what follows is a kind of logical extension of the linearity rant, this time about consequences in games. Hope you enjoy them- I think I've written all I can for the moment. Sometimes it's just good to tip one's brain over and see what comes out.
Discussion or comments are welcome and appreciated. Just don't expect me to act like anything other than the petulant child I am should I be criticised.
Enjoy...
Press Y (I press Y)
Press X (I press X)
Press B (I press B)
Press B (I press B)
Press X (I press X)
Press Y (Fuck, accidentally pressed X)
Hacking/ computer bypass/car-jacking/shoelace tying FAILED! You are a certifiable retard! Retry?
Modern computer games. What an exciting world we live in! 'You wanna open that door? Gotta press these buttons first. But do it fast, or you'll fail!' Quick Time Events have gone from being a weird little hyperactive child making a fool of itself and jumping around in Shenmue (or Die Hard Arcade, or whichever bugger wants to claim culpability for the bloody things) to being a weird, hyperactive, but utterly relentless and startlingly omnipresent military dictator with an iron hand clamped firmly around the goolies of gaming. Melodramatic? A tad. But consider this, when was the last time you played a game and actually enjoyed a QTE? For myself it would be Shenmue II, and a particularly cool market place brawl with watermelons exploding and men being thrown through tables. It was, I readily admit, quite cool, but cool because of aforementioned watermelon explodage, not because pressing buttons on cue is fun. Perhaps these QTE's, like those of God of War, work because they feature events which could not happen 'in-game- due to control restrictions. We all like a nice, cinematic Hydra slaying, so maybe their just a necessary evil, right?
Mass Effect avoids such drama in it's QTE's. No slaying of space-Hydra's here, but if you're in the mood to survey a mineral deposit (and that's what we play computer games for, isn't it?), a QTE pops up. If your clumsy, flailing digits should cause you to depress the wrong buttons, you fail to survey the mineral. 'Bugger', you may think, 'that's the universe fucked then', until you realise you can simply attempt again. And again. However many times you like. The button order may be changed (Shenmue was decent enough to leave the sequence of buttons the same each time so you could steamroll through on memory/trial and error- if you could take the fun, that is), but, heck, you'll get there in the end, you adorable, inept wanker, you!
What does this add to the overall experience? A distraction at best, at worst a downright obstacle. Approaching a locked futurisitc space door in Mass Effect will lead to a QTE flickering into existence. This time, though, failure means that door stays resolutely locked. You may still be able to coax open the door with an omni-gel bypass (what a gloriously vague notion- 'an omni gel bypass. Do they just take some of this gel and smear it on the lock or what?) But there's always a chance that the door remains, for you at least, unopenable. And this, in pleasingly circuitous fashion, brings me to my main point.
I had a dream recently wherein I could quicksave my life. Should anything go wrong...BANG! Load a quicksave. Hit by a car. BANG! Load that fucker up. Hand bitten off by an angry goldfish? BANG! Press F8 and all will be well. Life, however, offers few such concessions. Get your hand gnawed off by your pet in real life and you'd better get used to being a lot worse at paying the melodion. Life is, essentially, all about consequences. I suppose it's what gives people the thrill from BASE jumping or free-running- the constant awareness that a mistake, a slip of the foot, pressing X instead of Y, if you will, will almost certainly lead to very serious pain or even more serious death. Presumably that's what makes it worth doing, although, slightly podgy and lazy wuss that I am, I shall have to take it on faith. Regardless, if we are to take one word away from this straight-as-an-arrow line of thought (straight as a relief map of the Alps, perhaps), it is this: The C-Word.
Consequence, of course. Let's return to that door in Mass Effect which we so cack-handedly fudged the opening of. Should we shrug philosophically and move on, never to know what treasures lie beyond? Take it as a lesson, not rush these things, lest precious loot go unlooted?
Nah.
We just load a quicksave, do it again. We'd load up a quicksave if we failed a boss fight, surely? Such fallacious and fuckedy-uppity logic can only lead us to conclude that opening a door is, in itself, a boss fight all of it's own. I envisage a future where selecting 'New Game' from the menu will trigger a QTE of it's own- a 230 button marathon sequence demanding pico-second timing. If you fail the disc will eject itself from your CD drive and burst into a hail of shrapnel, punishing you for your knob-ended incompetence. That'd be nice. There's just something so digital about the whole set-up: you succeed or you fail, no happy middle ground. But since there's no reason to accept or live with any failure, the whole exercise becomes...well, a bit useless.
And so the twisty-turny logic of this argument leads to one conclusion. We are often presented with circumstances in modern games which may result in the failure of our characters- either failure to open a door or failure to continue breathing having been shot in the spine. Clearly, the aim of most players is to avoid such failure (unless it's watching Leon Kennedy get his floppy blond head chainsawed off for the 36th time). However, failure, when it does occur, should have consequences, or it means nothing. To be able to just load up a save and try again takes away any semblance of an 'edge'. Nothing is being risked, so nothing can really be gained. I suppose what it really comes down to is how far are you willing to role-play your character? Should you accept failure, if only to inject things with a bit of zing? I would in no way advocate that the Fire Emblem school of game design makes for a particularly fun experience (i.e. when a character dies, they are dead and they stay dead- no resurrection crystals, no Phoenix Downs, just the cold embrace of eternity) because really it just causes problems. If your favourite character dies in a battle, BUT you have saved before the battle, which of us can say we would not load up the save and be a bit more cautious this time, paying particular attention to whatever proved so very terminal last time?
I remember, back in my Elder Scrolls days, trawling the forums and always being intrigued by true role-players. If the character dies, he's dead, dude. Maybe a quick memorial service, a few tears shed, but that save cannot be used again. I'm not sure if that's admirable dedication to your art or just plain old insanity, like filling your condoms with sand and bits of broken glasses before use because you find it a bit too... comfortable if you don't. Why spite yourself when there's so many people in the world willing to do it for you? Imagine grinding up to level 60, only to fall off a cliff or be eaten by a mutant rat. I'd just think 'ah fuck it, that one didn't count' and tread more carefully around cliffs in the future. The point is, it's the ultimate manifestation of consequence, and undoubtedly makes death something to be feared. But, like QTE's, is it any fun?
And yet. And yet...something about consequence makes me uncomfortable. Let's have a real life scenario:
-One is being chased down a corridor by a T-Rex (maybe not entirely real-life, then...). He gains on you by the second; you round a corner, and the corridor splits into two. You frantically peer down each, keenly aware of the sharpness of the teeth rapidly approaching. You choose the left one on a desperate whim. You pelt down it, through a door, and out, into freedom, precious sunlight, salvation!
Let's transplant that into computer game land:
-One is being chased down a corridor by a T-Rex. Rocks and logs litter the floor, occasionally requiring that you press X or Y to leap over them. Every now and then you must press left or right to sidestep his snapping jaws. The corridor splits in two! Only seconds to choose!
You pause and have a look at the map.
A quick yawn.
Back into the action! You head left, sprint down the QTE laced corridor, and make your escape. Daylight floods your vision- how did we cope before we had HDR lighting to show us what it's like when that happened? Question time: are you glad to have survived? I guess, it's always nice not being devoured by things. But what you're really thinking is 'I wonder what was down that other corridor? Maybe I should reload and have a look.' You try the door you've just come out of, hoping you can maybe sneak back in and have a gander at the other route. And that, fully aware of the angry beastie with a weight measured in tonnes (never a good sign when picking an opponent) which awaits within...I mean, that's just plain steee-ooooh-pid.
Perhaps it all boils down to a certain desire, to want to be controlled when playing games. We want to know that what we're doing is the 'right' thing. Free-form and non-linear narratives deprive us of these assurances, but ruddy QTE events deprive us of any control beyond stabbing at buttons as they flash up on screen. What's the solution? Honestly, I'll be fucked if I know. But I know this- next time a QTE flashes up I'm going to do my best to keep pressing all the wrong buttons until it just gives up and lets me past anyway, hoping some kindly programmer has foreseen the multifarious difficulties faced by a person who has lost a hand to an unusually disgruntled fish.
