I approached the release of Modern Warfare 2 with no intention of picking up the game. I have not played a game in the series since CoD2 including the first Modern Warfare. I had no investment, nothing to gain or lose by continuing my avoidance of what could one day be considered a touchstone in the development of the FPS genre. But then a weird thing happend. Yesterday I was at a store, paying for my copy of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Maybe I subconsciously wanted to be part of the ‘in’ crowd, to know what the fuss was about. I think upon reflection I wanted to play “The Level” as it has been dubbed in many a tweet these last couple of days. I wanted to be able to account for the experience it provided, to defend it in my own little microcosm of the world against those who would use it to decry one of the most important parts of my life. I did not care if it was heartless, opportunistic or careless in it’s execution or inclusion, I figured as a seasoned gamer that would not affect me much. I wanted to be informed so that I could comment.
The result: as the first shot rang out from my ‘teammates’ I paused the game. I got up and walked around the house for a bit. I sat down and started playing for a bit longer. I fired some bullets to shatter a glass roof, to ‘pretend’ I was involved in the mission. I could not be the type of warrior I had pretended to be in levels just passed. I had to take it. The feeling in my stomach was reminiscent of the time I read through Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. I would finish chapters, stop and decide to stop reading, not because I did not have the opportunity to, but because I simply did not feel like it. That this game could affect me so meant that it was worth personal reflection.
As a linear narrative based shooter Modern Warfare 2 is akin to a blockbuster film in so many ways. But where it differs provides a powerful example of what makes games such an important medium for me. It challenges my expectations through it’s unique property, interactivity. Expectations are tested in cinema through narrative devices. This game does so with a challenge to my ability to take action and have a feeling of agency set up in the opening levels of the game. Modern Warfare 2 through “the level” is saying to me
“You must uncover this experience differently because it is different, accounting for the violence of the world in the game is not just about being a walking empowered gun”
Maybe I will be a action hero in this game when I laugh out loud at the spectacle of the final snow buggy jump, but I am not an action hero when playing that level.
Around me are the sounds of battle: gunfire and explosions, near and far away. The objective, a mortar team up on the hill is harassing our armor and needs to be neutralized. How we will get up there has been on my mind for the last 5 minutes. We creep carefully closer so as to avoid the line of sight of the enemy. A lapse in concentration results in the machine gun emplacement opening up on our position. I order a fast move to the cover of a scattered pile of rocks. I take a bullet in the leg in the time it takes me to ensure my men make it to safety. Bullets zip past my head as I hit the deck and crawl to where my men are waiting. An explosion ruptures my existence, a grenade, possibly, all I see is dirt through blurred vision. I keep on moving. I make it to cover, taking a moment to assess the situation. Every glance out of cover is met with more fire from the enemy. I order my men to flank left where other scattered rocks will cover their approach. I inch out of cover to lay down a suppressing fire, allowing my men to move forward. The enemy fires again, less accurately this time. Things are looking up, I steal a moment to check on my men. They are moving to the obje….
The screen goes black, a stray bullet had struck me in the head. I am dead
The moment to moment action in the new Operation Flashpoint game, Dragon Rising is what makes this game an amazing experience. There is an ever present possibility of death, independent of choices made and you never feel the hand of the developer in these events. They have set up the base conditions and your presence is what causes the scenario to play out. Dragon Rising provides the intial (and expected) escapism and empowerment on a videogame letting you play soldier. Your actions are shown to be integral to each victory, you are the active force in this world. But you also inherit the realistic chance that as a soldier, your death is only one bullet away. Operation Flashpoint avoids many other gaming traditions aimed at reminding you of your empowered existence. There is no swell of orchestral music when you order a charge and no canned character dialogue for when a team member dies. The game succeeds because it does not try to elicit emotion or reaction from me in any way except through gameplay and given the large open nature of every mission, and unscripted AI, this comes at unexpected times. I do not need a large explosion or vista to reward me for being successful, overcoming the challenge of the game is it’s own reward. When a mission is complete there is no cutscene to form my character’s story, there is only the things I have just done, the moments that have just passed. The screen simply fades to black until I next take up the role of the soldier and define my experience by actions. The game does not try to force feed the empowerment fantasy to the player, anytime you act in a way that results in feelings of agency they feel earned and are much more effective.
This post underwent a dramatic change after reading the comments section of The Brainy Gamer’s post about ODST. A selection of comments claimed that ODST should or could not be discussed because it is simply a shooter, a mindless action game. It was also the held view that any attempt to do so was just pseudo-intellectuals trying to grasp for something that wasn’t there in order to justify their ‘obvious’ games-are-art viewpoint. However I feel that games like ODST need to be discussed not because it might be considered art but because of it’s possible cultural significance. Halo has always had something to say about empowerment and agency given its firm place within the action genre and it is the popularity of the series coupled with these ideas that makes me want to discuss ODST. I am not trying to justify the game as a piece of art but I do feel that it is important to discuss because alot of people will play the game. Alot of people will be exposed to it’s contents.
ODST is not a fundamental departure from the established gameplay elements of the Halo series. You are a silent hero like Master Chief and the gameplay style of the Halo series has only had slight tweaks to weapons, jump height and the health system, all justifiable in the context of being an ODST rather than a genetically engineered supersoldier. This allows for the transfer of player skill essential to keeping a large fanbase happy with a new release. I came to the game thinking that being The Rookie might lead to a game that played alot differently and present an alternate experience of player empowerment and heroism compare to previous Halo games. I have come out of my first week with ODST realizing that this is indeed the case but not for the reasons I expected.
The game places much emphasis on the fact that you are The Rookie and yet you spend alot of time being other ODST’s or in the case of the audio logs, experiencing a story that already come to a conclusion without you. Looking at the narrative as a whole The Rookie has little impact on how things turn out. His journey is represented by loneliness and inaction much of the time. However if the player is an ODST in a broad sense, so as to include the experiences of his squadmates, then you can identify with alot more action but not that much more impact. With the exception of ONI Alpha site mission the ODST squadmates spend their time trying to survive. The flashback missions consist of action as a means to either survive, rescue other ODST’s or flee. This is all done with an incredible amount of violence and success in combat situations but ultimately it never gets close to the suggestion that “you might just win this war”. Indeed it might be incredibly empowering to charge through an area with a Scropion tank, but this is undermined by the hopeless motivation and context for these actions.
The audio logs in ODST form an ancillary storyline to the campaign, offering clues about the city itself as well as following the story of a New Mombasan (good enough?) civilian in the hours after the Covenant attack. These logs are incredibly well written and privilege the experience of a civilian in wartime, noted by some as being missing at times from action games. I am aware that for the most part this storyline will remained incomplete for many players because they are a collectible. However even listening to the first few logs the player gains an insight into the chaos that erupted with the arrival of the Covenant. I found myself listening to the audio logs as I was walking around, hearing ethereal brutes killing civilians, turning to dodge gunfire that existed only in the record of the past It gave me a profound sense of futility. The audio logs remind the player that whatever they might achieve, much has already been lost. Civilians are gone from this city and The Rookie could do nothing about it.
ODST in form and content appears to have all the elements that define the Halo series but I feel it does much to undermine the moments of empowerment experienced during gameplay. The narrative of ODST is one of loneliness and ineffectual actions, and of a character who must endure the dystopian end to New Mombasa through records rather than actual experience. This game might not be art, and Firefight might be the better game on this disc, but even there you will die many many times. You will fail and only a score, not victory, will give you a sense of achievement. I did not feel like an empowered Master Chief-like character at the end of ODST, I might have acted like one but ultimately I just felt lucky to get out of there alive.