Rollercoaster level design and you

[adam_grif]

So I was watching This Video wherein the player finished the first level of Black Ops firing only twice, both times in forced quasi-cutscenes. It got me thinking about how the level design of the recent Call of Duty games has been ultra-linear, with a focus on hand-holding your way through the game (i.e. floating icon perpetually telling you what to do) and big, masculine, hypercharged, entirely non-interactive things happening around you.

So I wanted to garner some opinions about it and whether you think it's going to become more widespread in the industry. I've heard that Medal of Honor does basically the same sort of thing, which is totally unsurprising given its status as EA's CoD.

I find that it can provide some nice thrills but kind of becomes shit after a while. I'm not just talking linearity of the path you have to walk through either, but the fact that any gameplay variation is entirely scripted, and attempts to do out of the box play will not only fail, but will usually smack you straight into an invisible wall and reveal the puppeteer making all of the scripted events happening. You're stealthy so long as the level wants you to be, and if you try to sneak around with normal enemies or after the game stops forcing you to go stealthy, suddenly you can't. Enemies return to having their normal superhuman senses and you can never surprise them. I guess the problem I have with it is that it does all the thinking for you and the whole game becomes about how good your aim is and whether you know when to jump into cover to regenerate your health. It's a very shallow experience.

[General Zod]

"Going to"? LOL. Pretty much every major fps released in the last few years has been a hand-holding linear corridor stroller.

[Agent Sorchus]

I played Dirge of Cerberus, and while the level design was never great I didn't understand complaints of it being a corridor shooter. It never held your hand and your allies were a major pain to keep alive, not because the AI was particularly bad but because it was a part of the difficulty. Hell I played enough of Halo 2 and 3 to tell you that the level design was no worse in DC. Yeah I haven't played many shooters though, but it just bugged me that DC should have been called a bland corridor shooter when the popular movement for shooters is that the game plays for you.

AI design is one of the likely culprits, people have complained about completely worthless teammates for a long time so the developers finally get around to "fixing" it so that wouldn't be a problem. But their solution is worse, with the teammates being able to do the game completely without you.

[General Zod]

Dirge of Cerberus was a 3rd person game anyway, it doesn't count.

[Agent Sorchus]

But it is instructive to compare the complaints. (And I haven't played many games like this anyway.) Besides Grif never said fps only.

Is there a real difference in design for first person and third person shooters? Like are 1st holding your hand more than 3rd or are they more similar than not?

[adam_grif]

Dirge of Cerberus was a 3rd person game anyway, it doesn't count.

I don't believe the word "FPS" appeared even a single time in my post. TPS and even things like Fallout or Mass Effect where the shooting is just part of the package could be valid discussion points.

"Going to"? LOL. Pretty much every major fps released in the last few years has been a hand-holding linear corridor stroller.

Although I do appreciate your ever constructive comments, games being linear or corridor based is only one part of the discussion, the other part being the focus on whiz-bang "oh dude check this out" moments with minimal or no interaction.

[General Zod]

I don't believe the word "FPS" appeared even a single time in my post. TPS and even things like Fallout or Mass Effect where the shooting is just part of the package could be valid discussion points.

Except all of your examples were FPS games? Mass Effect or Fallout can hardly be called linear when you have plenty of options on how and when to do the missions. Pretty much every genre except FPS is doing just fine without every game being a hand-holding corridor stroller.

Although I do appreciate your ever constructive comments, games being linear or corridor based is only one part of the discussion, the other part being the focus on whiz-bang "oh dude check this out" moments with minimal or no interaction.

That describes pretty much any game with cut-scenes though.

[adam_grif]

Mass Effect or Fallout can hardly be called linear when you have plenty of options on how and when to do the missions.

I didn't call them linear, I said they or things like them could be valid points of discussion. Presumably to contrast.

That describes pretty much any game with cut-scenes though.

Cutscenes are cutscenes, what I'm discussing is stuff going on in "Gameplay". Like in the OP, when there was a video of completing the first level of Black Ops on Hardened firing about 6 bullets total, and the rest of the level basically playing itself. The scene at the end is particularly damning, where dozens of enemies stand around and are unable to damage you.

The game is on autopilot, and you're just along for the ride.

Something similar I just found that isn't a shooter but I found to be highly amusing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo

[General Zod]

Cutscenes are cutscenes, what I'm discussing is stuff going on in "Gameplay". Like in the OP, when there was a video of completing the first level of Black Ops on Hardened firing about 6 bullets total, and the rest of the level basically playing itself. The scene at the end is particularly damning, where dozens of enemies stand around and are unable to damage you.

That sounds like an argument for not buying games that are shit. Don't support them and designers might think twice about making ultra linear crap. Then again stuff like blops has a built in base of fanboys ready to buy anything with CoD on the label. I refuse to touch another CoD game after the drek that was MW2, and WaW is probably the single wost shooter I've played on a PC in years if only because the "system" for updates was atrocious.

[Stark]

Mass-market shooters sell a macho experience to college males. Is this really news? Next we'll be told that its funny how games always have a woman telling you what to do (mother issues lol) or that the plots don't hold up to any scrutiny beyond 'whoa is cool'.

[PeZook]

Every Call Of Duty game was like that. They sold it as a "cinematic experience" and...it kinda is. A slightly interactive movie where the player only has minimal influence on events. Better yet, it's quite immersive when they do it right (they don't always) and obviously the concept sold really damn well.

Of course they pulled it off by ripping off much better movies but hey

[fgalkin]

I played CoD only up to 2, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't just walk through a level without firing a shot, and let your invulnerable team-mates do the killing. Well, you could, in that silly Stalingrad level in CoD 1, but that's because you had no gun.

Most of the time, the NPCs were either useless, or the level was dependent on you to advance the story ("<playername>, YOU must take out that German tank/Snipe those German officers").

This...is just ridiculous. Yeah, I blame consoles with their space limitations and ridiculous controllers for this, too.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Losonti Tokash]

How do you draw a connection between consoles and lazy game design from a company that's milking every last dollar out of the CoD franchise?

[fgalkin]

How do you draw a connection between consoles and lazy game design from a company that's milking every last dollar out of the CoD franchise?

It's something I noticed all the way back in 05 or so, when games started coming out on multiple platforms. I was used to playing CoD and MoH, and then I got the first Brothers in Arms game, and it was so scripted and linear I never finished playing it. I mean, compare something like Half-Life to Halo, and see how the combat plays out. Consoles have their fancy controllers that shake and shit, so the emphasis is, naturally, on twitch shooting and button mashing. That, and the inherent limitations of the console means that scripted events when your screen and controller are shaking is an acceptable substitute for freedom of action.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Starglider]

Don't like, then don't buy it, there are plenty of games that make a decent stab at 'open world'. Doing missions in Just Cause 2 is fun despite the objectives being simplistic and repetitive, because if you feel like it you can kill all the guards using a wrecking ball dangling from a helicopter, or destroy the military base with a recoilless rifle mounted on a tuk-tuk.

[General Zod]

Consoles have their fancy controllers that shake and shit, so the emphasis is, naturally, on twitch shooting and button mashing.

When was the last time you actually played a game on a console? There's plenty of games that don't place an emphasis on twitch-shooting, but most of them aren't FPS.

That, and the inherent limitations of the console means that scripted events when your screen and controller are shaking is an acceptable substitute for freedom of action.

That seems a bit like sour grapes. Don't blame the hardware for developer laziness.

[Thanas]

Please, no more PC vs Console. Let us have one official thread about it (feel free to start) and then let's be done with it.

[Bounty]

I tried playing the 'new' GoldenEye on the Wii and couldn't help but notice that Eurocom somehow managed to turn a relatively open FPS where you had a degree of freedom in choosing which objectives to tackle and how to proceed through the level, into a string of cutscenes and scripted events. While using essentially the same level design.

It's a sad evolution, especially when you see games that do get it right and get reminded of how viable FPS-with-freedom design is. I dare say Freedom Fighters managed to get pretty damn close to CoD's cinematic-ness - and yet in that game you had at least a decent amount of freedom in choosing how you tackled situation and how you moved to your destination within a level.

[Stark]

That's interesting - I was playing Bad Company 1 the other day, and it's quite open - giving you large levels with heaps of dead area around objectives to give flexibility in approach. Bad Company 2 is just Modern Warfare 3 by comparison, ditching the humour, the absurdity, the openness and the interesting goal structure and being a standard stroller.

[Bakustra]

So, basically, FPSes and jRPGs are converging upon one another? The same motivations are probably present, too- making cutscenes and setpieces visually exciting is easier than cranking gameplay up to the same tempo, linear gameplay is easier to control than non-linear, they have a set target audience they feel they have to cater to, and they are both large, crowded segments of the market in various parts of the world. Both even have entrenched franchises, though FPSes aren't nearly as ossified as RPGs yet. Of course there are significant differences between the two otherwise.

[adam_grif]

I tried playing the 'new' GoldenEye on the Wii and couldn't help but notice that Eurocom somehow managed to turn a relatively open FPS where you had a degree of freedom in choosing which objectives to tackle and how to proceed through the level, into a string of cutscenes and scripted events. While using essentially the same level design.

It's funny because I've been hearing the opposite from some people, that it's refreshingly open and that the extra objectives you get for turning up the difficulty are rewarding to track down in the levels. YMMV I guess.

[Stark]

If those people hadn't played the 'original' game, their opinion isn't relevant to what Bounty is saying.

[Bounty]

the extra objectives you get for turning up the difficulty are rewarding to track down in the levels

The original did that in 1997. Progress!

[TC Pilot]

I was going to say the original Goldeneye was pretty linear (I mean, how non-linear can Train be? ), but they certainly give you the choice in many levels. Frigate and Surface 1 and 2 are probably the best examples, while some others, like Depot are only superficially non-linear (where, yes, you can complete your objectives in different orders, though it amounts to basically running past them). Then there's the pure corridor strolls, like Train, Silo, or *shivers* Statue.

Certainly not a wide-open, free-roaming game, but hey, what do you expect from 1997?

[PeZook]

I played CoD only up to 2, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't just walk through a level without firing a shot, and let your invulnerable team-mates do the killing. Well, you could, in that silly Stalingrad level in CoD 1, but that's because you had no gun.

It's just taken to a ridiculous extreme, but even in CoD1 you were put on rails all the time. Oh there are enemy mortar teams on that clearing? Advance straight for them! Enemy gun position? Only one narrow approach! Stalingrad? You better do EXACTLY what the sniper tlls you or you instadie! Etc.

Then it progressed to "watch a movie where you can maybe shoot somebody if you really want to", but it was clearly present even in the first CoD

Certainly not a wide-open, free-roaming game, but hey, what do you expect from 1997?

It's not like modern "free-roaming" games are all that more open. Anybody remember the last mission in GTA4? OH NOES YOU DIDN'T CATCH THE JUMP MISSION LOST.

Same for Prototype and pretty much all the others. The only difference is that you can fuck around between heavily scripted assignments, as opposed to going straight to the next one. Well, Prototype tried to pretend it mattered to the story - such as it was - with the Web Of Intrigue, but turns out it was just a bunch of collectible cutscenes rather than a central game mechanic that it should have been.