Tag Archives: Call of Duty

Opinion, Video Game Argument

Nitpicking: 30% of the Enemies in The Last of Us are Spiderman

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I’ve taken with issue with parts of developer Naughty Dog’s gameplay for quite awhile now.  Throughout the three games in the Uncharted series, I’ve felt annoyed by what I perceived as disingenuous stealth gameplay.  Not so much in the first game, Drake’s Fortune, because that particular game had more straight shootouts, but throughout Uncharted 2 and 3, enemy encounters were set up as enemy patrolled areas to progress through by either stealth or force.  Most encounters started with the enemy unaware, leaving you the “opportunity” to stick with chokeholds and stealth kills to make getting through an area easier.  The word “opportunity” is in quotes because my whole problem is that so many enemy encounters throughout the games are presented to encourage you to start with stealth, but are made functionally impossible to finish in stealth.

A good example of this is outside the Himalayan temple area in Uncharted 2, just after you’ve escaped the wreck of the convoy with Elena.  You infiltrate the area by the gate where the trucks are parked from the cliffside, getting a prompt to pull the first guy off the cliff to his doom in a stealth kill.  This first bit outside the gate can be done with stealth (there’s only 5 or 6 total enemies).  The next part in the first building just in the gate can be finished by stealth with a lot of effort and very careful use of the crossbow.  But no matter what you do, once you try to go to the next section, you’ll be “spotted” and the stealth will be over.  From a cinematic perspective, it’s necessary because the bridge defense section that follows requires that you are no longer in stealth.  A similar problem occurs in the boat graveyard section of Uncharted 3, but it is still incredibly frustrating to put a lot of effort into keeping a low profile and to be given up by a game scenario.

The thing is, the Uncharted games use the Call of Duty gradual health recovery system and frequent checkpoints, so at least it mess up any more than one section.  However, I took a bit of a greater issue with the situation just after you come out of the hotel with the Hunters in The Last of Us.  Ellie takes the rifle in the scaffolding to cover you and Joel drops down to clear out the street of enemies so you can progress.  Playing on Survivor or Grounded difficulty, every hit to your health is important as there is very little in the way of health pickups and you don’t want to get painted into a corner with a difficult combat section and no health.  Because of this, when I got to this section, I figured I would do a stealth run to save my health and ammo.  I carefully and slowly worked my way up the right side of the street, taking out enemies both in the shops on the ground and the snipers upstairs.  Then I came back around to the starting point and did the left side of the street.  Finally, with only the one enemy in the back corner left, I did a full sweep of every corner of the map for supplies and enemies and made sure I hadn’t missed anything before finally moving in on that last guy and doing a stealth kill.  Except instead of doing the usual choke out animation, Joel inexplicably pistol whips the guy, which is an alternate grab animation that is used in combat and suddenly 6 enemies come running out of the buildings across and behind me as though they somehow heard me.  The problem is that I know those buildings were empty a minute before when I searched them.  So I can’t do anything accept throw up my hand and yell “bullshit” as I’m surrounded.  Now, being a competent player, I got out okay, but I took a good health hit because the game broke stealth on me.  The funny thing is that I actually know where those guys came from because on a previous play-through a glitch caused by the timing with which I got killed experimented caused this second wave of enemies to spawn without breaking my stealth.  So I found them in various corners of the map, behind a car, in the freezer in the coffee shop and killed them where they stood.

Now in these games, its never made sense how being seen by one enemy right before you kill him causes every enemy on the map, even when they’re nowhere near you, to come running.  Do all the bad guys have telepathy?  But at least I feel like I made the mistake of being seen by the one guy.  Even if it isn’t logical, at least I’m being punished for a mistake I made.  However, when I clear a map, including the corners where the second wave spawns and kill the last person, the fact that more enemies spontaneously appear because they magically sense me killing the last bad guy actually on the map feels like I’m being punished for not playing the section of the game exactly how the developers wanted me too.  Except its a stealth game, so what did they expect me to do?

Unfortunately, magical enemy knowledge of my location is something that happens all the time in The Last of Us.  The reason I titled this article the way I did is specifically because of how I felt about the AI that controls the Clickers.  These are infected humans whose faces have been overgrown by the fungal infection, rendering them blind.  They navigate only by sound, so if you move very slowly past them, they won’t even know you’re there.  Except sometimes they do.  During first section of game with multiple clickers, in the subway adjust area, I would hold perfectly still while a clicker made its rounds.  I was literally not touching any buttons on the controller, but every third of fourth time, the clicker walking past would suddenly freak out and sprint at me and kill me.  The rest of the time, despite me doing the exact same thing, it would walk right past.  I would love to know what in the coding caused this.

Then there’s the generator under the hotel.  The second I saw that thing, I knew that starting it would cause infected to hear it and come running to kill me.  So first I swept the area.  It was empty.  So I went to scavenge supplies.  When I picked up the key card in the closet, two runners sprinted at me.  I was standing still, making no noise, but they knew where I was.  So I swept the area again.  There is only one door into the place and it can’t be opened without the power on.  So I’m safe, right.  So I go start the generator and immediately 4 stalkers and a bloater (various types of infected enemies) come running in to kill me.  Once again (because this is not my first play-through), I’ve taken the precaution of moving away from the generator right away and making no noise.  The stalkers run down to the generator to investigate the noise, then immediately run back up the ramp, turn two corners and find me hiding in a closet as though I had a homing beacon attached to me.  I was smart enough to plan for the scenario and the game has straight-up punished me for it.  Thanks so much, Naughty Dog game designers.

This is a post about difficulty in games.  Specifically, I’ve realized that when I want to really evaluate the mechanics of a game, the best way to do it is to see how it holds up on the hardest difficulty.  Playing The Last of Us on its hardest difficulty while pursuing the platinum trophy caused the game to some cracks.  Its always strange to me because there are some games, like the remake of 007: Goldeneye for Wii that get better and better when you dig into them (I fully recommend the time trial and Classic difficulty modes in that game.  It encourages abuse of AI and enemy spawns in extremely clever ways, actually embracing the limits of scripted AI design to make the game more fun) while others show the limits of their scalability, the worst offender of which is probably Call of Duty (playing those campaigns on Veteran difficulty is just straight up not fun.  When any stray bullet can kill you in a game all about over the top criss-crossing bullet hell, you will die a lot, no matter how good you are, and no matter if it isn’t your fault).  It would just be nice if a developer as dedicated to putting realistic polish on a game as Naughty Dog would find a way to organize their AI and gameplay scenarios so that the play doesn’t feel punished for using their head and playing smart.

-Doug

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Argument For, Opinion, Video Game Argument

Indies Vs. AAA for Game of the Year

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With the proximity to the Golden Globe awards recently, I saw a discussion about the award ability of long-form TV shows versus short-form TV shows (don’t worry; this will wrap back to games in a bit).  The argument that was made was that the quality of mini-series and those TV shows branded as “event series;” i.e. shows with 6-13 episode seasons rather that the full 22 episode seasons of regular network programs, is almost always superior.  Short season shows move quicker, have denser plots, and often their scripts have had more time to be polished.  Even the best full 22 episode shows are going to have some “filler” episodes in which little of long term importance happens.  Hence, from a critical perspective, short form shows have a higher average quality and are more awardable.

The reason that this discussion reflects on video games is that I have felt for several years that there should be separate Game of the Year categories for AAA games and so-called “indie” games, by which I mean more the genre of short form digital games than technically “independent” games from a publishing perspective.  After all, titles like Resogun and Child of Light are published by Sony and Ubisoft respectively, but are small games developed by small teams.  But I digress.  I think there is a fundamental difference in challenge between developing a AAA game like Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed or Final Fantasy, and a small scale game like Child of Light or Resogun or Journey.

Large-scale game development has a certain responsibility to deliver  a certain value.  When a game costs $60 at retail, the consumer expects a certain level of content and polish.  As such most AAA games a certain length, a variety of unique game mechanics and a need to hit a broad enough audience to make their money back.  A smaller game can work on a single excellent game mechanic and simply stop when that mechanic is exhausted, even if its only a few hours of gameplay.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s a very different way of building something from what a large game must do.  When it’s strings hook is worn out, a AAA developer must come up with another to continue the adventure.  There is a reason why the Academy Awards have separate Oscars for Film and Short Film.  The type of experience and story for each is unique and what works for one does not necessarily work for the other.  A game like Journey works on a simple strait forward premise that is short enough to make a distinct impression and then exit before it wears out its welcome.  If Journey were a 30-hour, our even 10-hour game, I don’t think it would work as well.

In a way it may seem I am simply making excuses for AAA developers.  To some extent this is true.  A big game almost always has some part of it that doesn’t work as well and drags things down.  It’s simply harder to maintain quality over a longer stretch of time.  Of course, indie developers have their own sets of difficulties, usually in budget and man-power intensive areas such as graphics and scale.  And of course, games don’t fit as neatly into categories as, say, short films, which for the purpose of the Oscars are defined as film of less than 40 minutes.  Depending on the player, a game may take a range of time to complete.  As such, it would make more sense for the game creators to categorize the game themselves, much how Emmy and Golden Globe submitted TV shows decide whether to run a Drama or Comedy.  With the increasing dichotomy of the game space split between small independent creators and huge, AAA game productions, I think it would benefit both parties to be judged only on their own merits rather than try to compare the scale and detail or AC: Unity’s Paris to something small but beautifully artistic like Child of Light or Transistor.  No matter what though,  with the variety of good games, it’s a good time to be a gamer!

-Doug

It may have been a long winter break, with my life being a bit busy, but the dailydpad is back and the weekly posts are too.  As always, please follow us and send us feedback at thedailydpad@gmail.com and check out Daily D Pad on youtube.  See you next week!

 

Argument Against, Opinion, Video Game Argument

Is it Okay to Put DLC on the Main Menu?

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The recent release of Destiny kicks off a busy Fall for exciting new releases.  Tons of triple-A games are coming out in the next few weeks and months.  But up till now, there hasn’t been that much to play on PS4 and Xbox One.  As a result, the game I’ve played most on these consoles recently is a small shooter for the PS4 called Resogun.  For those who don’t know, it plays like a simplified twin-stick shooter.  I say “simplified” because part of the premise is that you can only shoot horizontally, left or right, as you move your Galaga-like craft around the stage.  As an aside, the game is excellent though short, technically only having 5 levels.  Being excellent but short, the player might be expected to finish the game wanting more.  This brings me to my topic for today, which has to do with the placement of DLC in Resogun, an issue that started to peeve me with the release of Mario Kart 8, the recent racing game from Nintendo, but has now annoyed me enough to warrant a good venting.

The main menus of Resogun and Mario Kart 8 are actually very similar considering the disparity of genres.  Both contain the following options: Single Player, Local Multi-player, Online Multiplayer, Options, and Shop.  The Shop option takes the player to a place that lets the player purchase and download add-on content.  In the case of Resogun, it directs you to the Playstation Network Store, where you can buy the “Heroes” expansion for Resogun, containing two new modes and a bunch of unlockable trophies.  In Mario Kart 8, it takes you to the Nintendo e-Shop where you can buy 2 packs of additional characters to play as and two sets of Courses to race on.  This is fine with me.  While it is true that both the PS4 and Wii U have buttons on their controllers that let you instantly go to their respective online stores to purchase DLC add-ons without quitting the game, I can understand the desire to put a place in the game were players would see it and think to check the store.  Otherwise, I might not know there was any Resogun DLC at all unless I happened to check the store on my own just on a hunch.  Having a place for DLC seems reasonable.  But both games go a step further, which is where we get into the meat of today’s topic.

One menu deeper from the main menu in Resogun, there is a curious thing.  If I select “Single Player” from the main menu in the game, it gives me another menu with four options: Arcade Mode, Single Level, Survival, and Demolition Mode.  However, the latter two of these options are greyed out, so the player can only choose Arcade and Single Level.  At first, you might think the other two must be unlocked.  After all, the “Master” option on the difficulty select screen is greyed out in the exact same way.  But if you try to select Survival or Demolition Mode, the game give you the message that these modes are part of the “Heroes” DLC for Resogun, which can be purchased for $5.99 from the Playstation Store.  Mario Kart 8 does something very similar.  When go to the character select screen, the bottom row of characters has a colored band on them.  If you try to select any of those characters, the game will inform you that they are part of the upcoming DLC packs and asks if you want to pre-order the DLC for $11.99.  The same situation exists for the last two sets of courses on the Course select screen.

Downloadable Content is by definition an add-on to an existing game.  So, seeing these options, it would be fair to wonder how options exist in the menus for game modes, characters, ext. that didn’t exist when the original game was finished (I can’t confirm for Resogun, but Nintendo expressly stated that they did not begin work on the DLC characters and courses until after the original game had shipped).  Well the answer is that in both cases, mandatory software updates to both games added the menu items after their original release.  As you might be able to tell from my tone thus far, I have an objection to SONY and Nintendo automatically placing these menu item into the games of consumers who have not chosen to buy the content that these menu items are for.

Essentially, this tactic amounts to a dirty marketing strategy.  And in the end, it offends the same sense that many gamers today have when they hear, for example, about Activision developing the DLC content for Call of Duty concurrently with the regular game, but choosing to hold those muti-player maps and bonus items back to be sold piecemeal to the consumer at a premium after we have already purchased the main game.  Gamers feel, perhaps rightfully so (though that is an argument for another day) that they are being tricked into buying an incomplete product and resent paying more to experience everything a game has to offer.  This is a feeling that SONY and Nintendo are using in reverse to drive sales and advertise their DLC in Resogun and Mario Kart 8.  Even though they didn’t actually hold back content, by putting the DLC menus in front of gamers that have’t purchased DLC in this way, they are making us feel that our games are incomplete and temping us to pay to complete them.  Whether that is fair from a logical supply/demand ethics standpoint is debatable, but I can testify that when I select “Single Player” in Resogun and fully half of the Modes that are displayed are inaccessible, I certainly feel like my game is missing something, and I fully feel myself being manipulated by SONY.

SONY and Nintendo are essentially going the extra step to dangle a product in front of you and deny you access unless you pay.  This is the equivalent of the grocery store finding a way to make it so that you don’t need to choose to shop for food to see their products, but instead they come uninvited into your home and put a bunch of delicious looking food on your shelves that you can’t touch unless you pay a premium.  It seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? It’s actually just like the mini-bars in Hotels.  And we all know how reasonably priced those items are, right?  $5.00 seems reasonable for a bottle of water (sarcasm)!  Temptation is powerful, which also raises an ethical question for children, especially considering that both company’s digital stores allow you to store credit card information and then are dangling products in front of children that are just a few clicks from purchase.  Just last year, Consumer rights groups in the European Union got a new set of laws passed restricting just this sort of tactic in downloadable games for phones because too many children were being tricked into spending large sums of money on micro-transactions in games while playing on their (or their parent’s) phones.  Maybe we are not yet at the point of legislation with home consoles, but we seem to be heading in that direction.  I for one have concluded that I would prefer all parts of a product, including its menus, to stay in the store until I choose to go to the store myself purchase it.

-Doug

Sorry for such a lengthy article this week, but this one really got my goat (so to speak).  What do you think about DLC and micro-transactions being forced in front of consumers?  Let us know at thedailydpad@gmail.com or by leaving a comment.  Also, check out Daily D Pad on YouTube!

 

Opinion

Online Multiplayer takes investment.

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Here’s the thing.  I’m an online multiplayer dabbler.  I like to mess around with it some, but I’ve never gone full in on a game.  Unfortunately, it seems like the current online space requires more and more in the way of serious dedication to have a good time online.

There was a time when almost all multiplay was local.  When I was in middle school and high school, I would have friends over and we would play Super Smash Bros, FIFA, and Need for Speed long into the night.  Some of my fondest memories are of playing double elimination tournaments in Need for Speed: Underground 2.  We’d spend hours taking turns customizing our cars for the big showdown and organize our own brackets since only two people could race at once.  Or we’d take turns wrecking havoc in GTA: San Andreas.  And of course there was always the one kid who wouldn’t do anything dangerous so that his turn would go forever.  We hated that kid.  Anyway, I digress.  My issue is that people don’t seem to play video games in the same room with each other anymore.  And I have a specific problem with the new brand.

At the end of the day, my issue is this: online game are like sports.  Now I love sports, but sports require practice, teamwork, and they aren’t any fun if you always lose.  When I finish the single player in a Call of Duty game, or Uncharted, or even Mario Kart, I think, “won’t it be fun to take my skills and mess around in multiplayer for a bit.”  I always somehow think that it will be a fun little epilogue.  The problem is that it’s a completely different game.  People are obviously a lot smarter than AI opponents but the real problem is that when I hop in, say, a Call of Duty match just to have some fun, everyone else there has played the map 150 times, knows what to do, where to be, and possibly has a bunch of friends on their team with headsets to better coordinate my death.  So what ends up happening is that I run around a corner and get blasted in the face before I can react because they know that that’s a choke-point.  Or I stop moving for one second and get shot in the back.  At the end of the match, I have 15 death and 2 kills and the whole thing just seems stupid.

Now I want to be clear, I’m not condemning online multiplayer here.  What I’m saying is that in my desire for variety in the games I play (and indeed that I also watch some TV, play some sports, etc.) means that I’ve never had one game that I’ve committed enough multiplayer time to to be good enough for me to enjoy myself.  There’s a whole set of people who learned Call of Duty, and with the flurry of similar-feeling multiplay shooters out there, have staked hills that I don’t have the patience to climb.  In the end, it seems to me that the sport of online gaming is something that you do right or you don’t do at all.  What’s it they say, the mark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try a little Last of Us factions mode…

-Doug

Do you enjoy online multiplayer?  To tell me what I’m doing wrong, comment or send an e-mail to thedailydpad@gmail.com.  Check back here every week for more gaming commentary and take a look at Daily D-Pad on Youtube for some cool videos!