Is the single phrase that dives me crazy when I hear someone talk glowingly about a video game.  This straw-man will often begin by talking about how much they enjoyed the game, how it was like nothing they had played before and will ultimately conclude by saying something to the effect of "it's awesome because it's just like a movie."  Fundamentally my problem with this comparison between games and movies is that if I wanted to watch a movie, I'd watch a movie.  There is no divine compulsion requiring me to play games, or this hypothetical game in particular. When it comes down to it, we all have choice in how we choose to occupy our free time.  

The type of game that always gets this description is an action game getting compared to an action movie (although I'd love to see it, the only way we could see a romantic comedy game adaptation is in the medium of a poorly made indie game).  The only reason action games can get this description is because, by virtue of it being a game, the player character has to be "doing something," and in the world we live in now, that means shooting or driving.  I love action movies, but since when is getting compared to one of them a good thing.  If I bought a novel and told you that it's just like the Fast and the Furious, you'd think it's fucking garbage and you wouldn't read it (although I live my life a quarter mile at a time, so I'd naturally be interested).  However, if I came to you with a driving video game and told you it was just like the Fast and the Furious you may get excited (the straw man audience I'm talking to here, looooooooooves Paul Walker).  Alternatively if I came to someone with the proposition that I've got this rad game with portal guns, robots, and block puzzles, based on that description they'd want nothing to do with that game.  

Why can't games be games, movies be movies and books be books?  It's this very problem that leads to major game companies hiring Hollywood script writers to pen the scripts to their games, that will in all likelihood have monster budgets and not sell well (COD is the obvious exception to this, but give it a couple more years); while Valve can make a block puzzle game with portal guns that is immediately more satisfying, better written, and is also monstrously profitable.  Modern Warfare 2 was lauded for having an exemplary story, that if compared with film would show itself to be simply an amalgamation of plotlines from "24" and "The Rock," neither of which is normally considered to have quality writing.

Portal is why we play games.  Every aspect of Portal requires the player to discover and to use free will to make decisions.  The discovery aspect is found in the game leaving it's narrative for the player to discover.  The side-rooms where a previous inmate scrawls warnings about a foreboding cake at the end of this journey, are completely genius - at once they tell you that you are part of a sinister project and they enable you to discover how to avoid this ultimate trap .  All of this discovered through the choice of the player, they can completely ignore it and fall to a fiery death if they so desire, or they can continue searching for more information.  Portal has a story and it is up to the player to find it (other games also get it, the Left 4 Deads come to mind, but they develop story in a different way that I will describe now).  Shigeru Miyamoto, when discussing his inspiration for Zelda, often talks about how he wanted to make a game that captured the sense of discovery he had as a child exploring the world - I think this goes to the core of what makes a good game and why we play games.

Although it might seem odd, I believe multiplayer games can do a much better job of developing a story that is more authentically "game" than "movie."  Every multiplayer game of L4D creates a story unto itself with the players as the characters.  For instance, in a game where I am on the losing team, I want to do whatever I can to help my team win, if we come back to pull off the victory, I will have a genuine experience with that game, that I don't think we can say we have with the single player "story" in a call of duty game.  The beauty of the video game is that our free will is completely tied up in the proceedings of the game - I am doing what I am doing in the game because I am willing it to happen.  A great game recognizes this an gives the player the pen with which to write his/her own story.

Multiplayer speaks to something authentic at the heart of why we play games, especially when compared to single player "story" experiences.  When the game holds the players hands too much, and is merely using the medium of the video game to present a film-like story, it does both the medium and itself a disservice.  I think this shows up in modern AAA blockbuster games like Modern Warfare 2, where 1435115 Billion dollars were spent on its creation, much of which likely went into the creation of its single player (hiring voice actors, script writers, etc.) when all anyone really cares about is its multiplayer.  

I think we need to get away from the intense hand-holding story-focus that is present in games today, and let players make stories on their own  - at the end of the day, I think that's why we play games. 
  
If this was at all interesting to you, check out my blog at turbobutton.blogspot.com - I'll pull ad for my blog immediately if it's a problem, I did a quick check and didn't see anything against it.

 
 

   This is a long read so here's a little musical accompaniment:

                I detest all of the conventions I just named but I can safely say that I love survival horror games.   Logically, if I hate the elements that comprise survival horror games , I should hate the games themselves.   I've been stuck in this conundrum for some time, and it wasn't until I started playing Halo: ODST (I'll explain later) that I finally figured out what appeals to me about survival horror - desperation.

                In a traditional action game (I'm thinking of Modern Warfare as the best example) I am put in a position where I am fully armed, have a clear objective and have to decide on the best course of action to complete my objective.   The bulk of the (single player) game play is then an exercise in actualizing my plan - if the plan fails I need to form a new plan or execute my old plan better, but the objectives and what I am trying to do are pretty clearly established.   A good survival horror game takes away the three elements listed above: I'm usually poorly outfitted, my perspective on what I'm supposed to be doing is unclear and since I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing I can't really formulate a plan to carry out my objective.   After it becomes apparent that weapons and information are being withheld, the game forces me to acknowledge my weakness and make choices from that position of weakness.   These choices from a position of weakness are what I mean by desperation - it becomes more important to formulate and carry out smaller plans that will allow me to survive individual encounters I have with whoever the enemy is, and because I am making these decisions rapidly with an eye only toward reaching the next room or area I have to make decisions that benefit me more immediately than they would at some future point.

The thought may occur to you at this point that I'm simply pointing out the obvious, that the word survival is implicit in survival horror, but survival isn't necessarily what I'm talking about.   Take for example the iconic "oh shit I'm watching a zombie eat a guy" moment from the original Resident Evil.   When the zombie gets up to attack, you are forced into deciding whether to flee or fight - assuming you know the outcome to your decision ahead of time, if you stay and fight you will undoubtedly take damage and require healing later, but you will be able to score some ammunition, and if you run you will not take any damage but you will also have an ammo deficiency.   Of course if it's your first time playing this scene you don't know if there is any benefit to fighting this zombie and you don't know how long it will take to kill the zombie.   Desperation is the moment where you have to make the decision, knowing that there will be consequences to your actions and that events surrounding you demand that the decision be made immediately.

                All good survival horror games capture the essence of desperation.   I'll stick primarily with the original Resident Evil and Dead Space here since they are nearly identical in structure.   The first third of both RE and DS capture desperation at its finest:   RE combines claustrophobic hallways and rooms, with little to no ammunition and sprinkles in a touch of isolation from NPCs to provide information; DS manages to mix scenes of claustrophobia with terrifying creatures that are faster and stronger than the protagonist.   As is often the case in this genre, both games "stop being scary" at some point and turn into action games with decent controls.   The timing of this event is identical in both RE and DS: in RE the game "stops being scary" when I  get a reasonable amount of ammo for my shotgun; and in DS the moment arises when I get my first gun fully upgraded.   The event is exactly the same in both games (and probably any other survival horror game you can think of), it's the moment you become empowered.

                Once the player becomes empowered in a survival horror game, the feeling of desperation is completely eviscerated.   When ammunition is no longer scarce, the individual decision making that defined the feeling of desperation that made the beginnings of those games so great is replaced with mindless action with reasonably clunky controls.   The pacing of the game also moves from an incremental crawl as desperation demands caution, to a complete sprint to the finish.

                Survival horror games recognize this problem and try to "put the genie back into the bottle."   With Resident Evil it's the moment hunters show up, in Dead Space it's when the quick demons appear.   Both games began with a crawl, accelerated to a sprint as you become more powerful and then try to bring the game back down to a crawl with the newer, stronger enemies.   The problem is that at the point this occurs, it's already too late.   Not only are you adequately armed to deal with this problems, but you also now have the experience of half the game that undoubtedly makes you more efficient at dealing with these enemies.   Making the enemies more difficult after empowering the player doesn't restore desperation it only depletes ammunition.

                Moving from desperation to straightforward action and back to desperation is the Alien 3 problem.   The original Alien movie was fantastic - for the uninitiated it features a single alien creature ruining a Sigourney Weaver's spaceship.   Alien 2 was also great, but turned into a straight action movie whose tension was derived from overwhelming numbers of the alien creatures from the first movie wiping out Sigourney Weaver's military escort.   Alien 3 tried to bring back the tension and suspense of the first film by having only a single alien stalk Sigourney Weaver.   The inherent problem with Alien 3 is that we saw in the second movie literally thousands of these creatures being destroyed, but now a single alien is being set up as an unstoppable murder machine.   When a survival horror game tries to artificially reintroduce desperation through the use of a revamped enemy type, it replicates the Alien 3 problem - after I've now become powerful enough to deal with hordes of the enemy, a single, stronger creature isn't going to change my mind back into desperation.      

               The idea that desperation is at the core of a good survival horror experience only dawned on me as I was playing Halo: ODST on legendary difficulty.   ODST is set up to be more difficult than the original Halo games because you are playing as an ordinary soldier as opposed to unstoppable cyborg creature, and playing on legendary ensures that you have to be very cautious in your encounters with enemies.   While playing it I noticed that I never had enough ammo, that I was unsure on what my primary objective was and because of that my decision making process was limited to figuring out ways to win individual encounters against a stronger enemy.   Decisions I was making were along the lines of "If I stand here for 10 more seconds I might be able to pick off an enemy but will probably die, and if I try to circle around the enemy I might have a better angle on the enemy but I'll probably die."   I began thinking that this was really reminding me of a survival horror game, but that was impossible because Halo is about as far as a game could get from survival horror; but nonetheless, there was something in the desperate nature of each encounter that really reminded me of the incredibly intense moments at the beginning of Resident Evil.   ODST had it's "I have a shotgun now" desperation destroying moment very gradually as the game progressed and I got better at it.

                I need to wrap this thing up, so in short: I love survival horror games because they force me to make choices with limited information, creating a sense of desperation and immersing me in a game experience in ways that other types of games cannot replicate.   More accurately, I love when games create a sense of desperation, and that game design would be well suited to follow Bungie's lead with ODST and create desperation in games without shitty controls and monster closets.   Thanks for reading. 
 
                 P.S. I also have insane theories on how this fits in with sports games, which I may write later.