Playing through this I felt like it was a parody of other "press x to do something stupid" moments. Got a chuckle out of me for sure.

I was a little disapointed that you had to "pay your respects" and their was no option to just walk away. The people attending the funeral just stood their, frozen like mannequins as I walked around. I wish Sledgehammer had taken a few notes from some of the more subtle choices you could make in Black Ops II.

Wrestling is just decades of stupid shit. And the Attitude Era is the damn best, glorious.

As for this article it feels like quite the stretch piece, Call of Duty did a stupid button prompt, if you think about it a lot of games do this when it really isn't needed and doesn't add anything, is this worth discussing further? It is not signifying bad storytelling or that games are failing to grip us, hell The Walking Dead has its share of unnecessary prompts (less so than Jurassic Park) but I don't see you bringing that up.

Games as a whole are not struggling to get players involved in storytelling, bad game storytelling is. The Last Of Us does it well, as do many other games.

whatever man its clumsy but at least they are trying to make quiet moments. I hope all this dog-piling doesn't stop them from trying in future Call of Duty games.

@regs79:
probably because you can choose not to pay your respects. You are in the game and not a cinematic.. so when you do its a bit more meaningful,.. and its an easter egg. ,,, the real question is how is there still a chalkline 35+ years later

I thought this article here did a good job of explaining why the Arkham City example is better handled:

http://www.thegia.com/2014/11/03/all-due-respect-press-f-for-farce/

I think people are missing what the actual intent of the scene seems to be. It's not "Press [button] to Experience Feelings" so much as it is "Press [button] to See the Money Shot of How You Are the One Without the Arm Now." The 'paying respects' thing is just a distraction to get that supposed surprise out there. You go up to the coffin thinking you're going to just pay respects, but then a different plot point is exposed. The wording might be kind of silly, but it's honestly fairly effective, I think.

I don't have any problem with the interaction of the scene—these sorts of things are put there so that they're not missed in the way that I'd imagine lots of details end up being missed in cutscenes of games. I don't care a whole lot about the goings on in Call of Duty games, so without this little interaction I'd maybe have missed out that detail.

@casty: That was pretty amazing. Not what I was expecting either.

They didn't need the idiotic text. Just a button prompt.

Games lose the connection with the UI.

When you place a button prompt on the screen, the player thinks "here's something the game is making me do to initiate the progress." Whereas if the game initiated the interaction by the player simply walking up to it, the player would be more immersed because his contribution is simply and truley "controlling the character he's suppose to be." Arbitratily pressing a button to initiate a one-option interaction is not immersive.

Someone call the overreaction police. Jeeeeez.

@kbohls said:

Yeah, because COD is the place to go for tongue in cheek, over the top humor. They never do scenes to force emotions out of people, it is all in good fun...

How could we forget about these jewels of dark comedy?

Still laughing my ass off these...

I appreciate it, that's one of the funniest/most amazing things I've seen lately.

Both Darkness games have a really awesome emotional core. The first one is more effective in a lot of ways (I'm of the opinion that watching To Kill a Mockingbird while sitting snug with Jenny is an incredibly accurate portrayal of what being comfortably in love is really like), but the second one has plenty of good moments. The funeral scene, like you said, or slow-dancing in the diner. Man, I love those games.

It's not like this is unique to games. Big blockbuster movies are just as clumsy in their approach. Remember the goodbye scene toward the end of armageddon or funeral at the end of backdraft. Press X to pay respects indeed.

The CoD sequence is pretty representative of funerals for me. Press Y to nod understandingly, use the left stick to walk slowly, hold the right trigger to resist urge to crack a "are you with the bride or the groom?" joke as people are taking their seats.

Interesting way of looking at it. Quite frankly I really liked the funeral scene and gave no thought to the 'press to pay respects' bit. That was nothing more than a setup to the real meat of the scene - his meeting with Irons. I absolutely love that conversation. It reveals a lot to us.

It's a stupid thing to get as mad as people are getting, I'll give you guys that, but I do wish Advanced Warfare had handled the scene better.

I imagined it more like this (Spoilers below in case it wasn't obvious):

Mitchell (The player character) is there at the funeral and approaches the casket as normal, a simple button prompt, like the faint one that shows during normal gameplay, pops up and whether you press it or not, Mitchell gives the same tap on the casket before walking away.

After that quick scene and after talking to Mr. Irons, have a scene in which your character is at home weighing the options. Does he stay discharged from the military and try to move on? Does he join Atlas and try to focus his grief? Have Mitchell stand and ponder, either aloud or in his mind where only we can hear, about what he's thinking on the death of his friend.

They could be any number of things. Perhaps the good times he shared with his pal, the pain of his loss, maybe even have Mitchell try and smash his mirror in a fit of rage only to suddenly remember that he lost his arm.

To be clear - I don't hate what they did at that funeral in the game, I just wish the studio had taken it further. They had the chance to show more of the emotion a man in that position would feel. How any of us would feel really if we were in his shoes. That feeling of weakness, of doubt, of loss.

The scene everyone is deriding is a good somber start and could have easily been blown way out of proportion to make you feel something (See the infamous "No Russian" stage for that kind of nonsense), but they held back.

I just hope they get the chance to expand on this and not get disheartened at what is, as per usual around this time of year, annual CoD hate.

@privodotmenit: CoD's an easy target, so there's going to be a reaction to a supposedly emotional moment done so ham-handedly. I don't think it's a big deal at all, just another sign of how dumb and ADD-afflicted developers think their audience is.

"press x to pay respect even though you give a shit"

Press X to confirm that you care about the last story beat.

Seeing Patrick talk about the "press X for Jason" makes me want a video where someone adds yelling for Jason during this "pay respect" scene.

I would also like to add the Estate mission from MW2, It was hard as shit playing it the first time, you struggle to the end with Ghost literally dragging you to safety only to be shot by your CO and set on fire, when Ghost got capped that tugged a few heart strings.It also made me want Shepherd fucking dead.

When in this kind of situation, the best games seem to ask the player "What do you feel now?" while poor ones try "Feel this now!" which is what you get when you have "Press A to pay respects".

I'm not sure the moment was asking you to "feel" anything, it just wanted you to see that your hand was cut off. Something that you wouldn't have known happened unless you looked down.

I don't think this was one of those, "tug at your heart strings" moment. It just seemed like a quick way to know more about your character's current state.

@ofx360: At the end of the first level you see yourself being dragged away with your arm lying dismembered on the ground next to you so I think you were already supposed to be aware your arm was gone, but I agree I'm not sure they were hoping for the player to actually feel anything.

Just a way of showing that the character you were playing as felt something...which makes it even more baffling that your character is mute during gameplay. Why try to make him appear human by placing his hand on a coffin and then immediately have him turn around and have a 1-way conversation with Kevin Spacy?

And exactly like these, has no emotional weight.

Just because a game has parts that try (and fail) to convey a sad tone, doesn't mean another game in the series can't have some stupid single-line of throw-away text.

That moment was largely ripped by gaming sites. I didn't agree personally, but they had a valid argument for why it was messed up that you are taught the same mechanic to kiss your wife and slit a dude's throat.

Yah, funerals are somewhat formal, even formulaic, really, to the point where it's maybe not the hardest thing in the world to just go through the motions, even if it's someone you have no connection to. People only notice here because it's Call of Duty, every hipster's favorite punching bag.

@patrickklepek said:

Now, more games are giving agency during quieter moments focused on storytelling. That's what Sledgehammer was trying (and failing) to do here

I haven't played the game but I'm gonna guess that the player doesn't have an option here, and thus it's not agency they're going for but engagement. I think people are frustrated by this because they realise they actually have no agency: the developer is forcing their hand.

Sledgehammer probably think of this as an opportunity for the player to get into the role, like an actor reading a script, and that's fine with me, but without room for the player to bring some of their own personality to that role the moment will always play out as the devs prescribed it, which makes the prompt nothing more than pointless gate.

What if they varied the length of the respect-paying according to how long you hold X? Then you could choose to shrug it off or stand there weeping for five minutes. It'd still be a fairly clumsy moment given how early into the game it apparently is, but it'd at least let you express how into it you are.

Sometimes people forget that Call of Duty didn't start at CoD4. This is one of those times.

Heard about this a week ago. It was just as stupid, off putting, and mildly insulting then when posted just with a pic and the word "Really?" as it is now posted with pics and a overly long article.

Pretty much. It's easier to relate to a coming-of-age tale about a riot grrl mixtape and even easier to make fun of shooters for having the same amount of subtlety or nuance. Besides, that was a game of the year. This one is just going to sell the most units in 2014. Journalism.

Press X for feels.

Great article!
In games i always check if mirrors work myself. A lot of the time i am disappointed, but sometimes i hit the jackpot.
But yeah back on topic. I would vastly prefer this if it was optional over it being mandatory to move the game along. The curiosity would probably make most players do it anyway, and leave the scene with a different feeling then " oh thats sappy / tacky".

Eh, I guess I'm so used to quick time events I didn't even notice the weirdness until I read about it here.

What really struck me was the way your friend casually and calmly accepts his death and tells you to go with his arm still stuck in the door.

If it were me, I'd be pulling that shit out of my socket trying to get loose. I might even yell something like, "JUST CUT MY FUCKING ARM OFF!"