So... I wrote a blog post ranting about Call of Duty Black Ops being a bad game here on Giant Bomb. I was going to send it to some of my co-workers and friends to see if they agreed and that was going to be that. But it seems people on Giant Bomb actually read these blogs. Silly me, underestimating the community here at the greatest video game website ever created.
One of the comments on my blog post ended with:
"i'm confused. black ops is a modern shooter. this is kind of what you get."
Now, I'm not trying to bash this person's comment but it's kind of shocking that we're at a point in history where crap like Black Ops is considered 'kind of what you get'. As a game designer and somebody who considers games the greatest art form in history, I can not stand for this, people!
So let me crank up the Danko Jones and tell you why that I feel this way. Quick disclaimer: this is probably going to be a long ass post again, so the TLDR crowd can consider themselves warned. Also, while I am a professional game designer (as in, I design games and somebody pays me to do that), I have never worked on a triple A title and do not claim to be the best game designer in the world.
The way I see it, a (contemporary) game is simply: a world. This world is populated by whatever the game developer puts in it (buildings, trees, cars, animals, people, whatever). Unless it's an MMO or a game with user generated content, this means that whatever the developer put in, that's what you have to work with.
Besides whatever the developer put in the game, there are two other important aspects to this world: the player and the rules. The player is what drives the game and the rules determine how the player drives the game.
When you're making a game, the worst possible thing you can assume (in my opinion) is that the player is an idiot. He (or she) is not an idiot. They can do things themselves if you just tell them what to do and make sure they can do it. If we've learned one thing from Bioshock's brilliant plot twist, it's that players will do whatever you tell them to do. They're in a game so they want to play. If you program it right, there should be only one thing they can do: whatever you tell them to. You don't need to hold their hands after the tutorial, just be clear and make sure everything works.
Speaking of tutorials: Black Ops doesn't have one. None of the standard "Hey private, fire your gun down the range. Now do it crouched. Now do it down the sights. Awesome, you rule, here's a cookie." Nothing. But then the game does feel the need to make me follow another character around in every mission I've played so far. This might become a story thing later on, I don't know, but it's frustrating. What's the difference between having Woods (the character you follow) lead you around and placing a waypoint on the map for the player to get to? If you have Woods lead the player around, the player feels like a secondary character. If you place a waypoint on the map and let the player go there, the player feels like the leading character.
And don't tell me this couldn't be done any other way, because Woods and Bowman could have been following you instead of the other way around. If they did it like that, when JFK tells you you're the best soldier in the Pentagon scene, you would believe him! Now you feel like a jackass because it should be Woods in that chair and not you. At that point you've followed two guys through the first two levels, got captured by the enemy and lost the (seemingly important) character at the end of the second mission.
For a long time, there was a phenomenon in comics and cartoon shows which baffled anyone with a decent brain: writers would just give a character powers that suited the situation, which they would then use and immediately forget about. I call this 'convenient writing'.
Hollywood is now the main offender of convenient writing and it annoys the hell out of me. Too many movies and tv shows seem to have scenes that were written by the director going "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if they did this ridiculous thing". This leads to a cool scene that usually doesn't fit into the world or story. In some instances it doesn't even fit into the laws of physics. I think we all know who has turned this into a major 'art' form: mister Michael Bay himself.
It seems games are starting to copy this style of writing and Call of Duty is the worst offender at this point. But in games it's worse than in movies. Why? Because in a movie, the viewer has no control over what happens and has to passively accept what is going on. In games, the player has control. You still have to accept what happens but you play a role in what happens. If games like Black Ops feel like they should treat the player like somebody who doesn't matter, players are going to get angry.
It's the combination of rules and the way the player is treated in Black Ops that does not make me feel empowered in the game. I don't feel like I am the engine driving the game. I'm treated like some kid who can honk the horn from time to time but I never get to really drive. And I really like driving because other games let me, so when Black Ops won't let me, I throw a hissy fit!
So what is my point? Nothing really. I don't want to bash Treyarch because clearly they are very skilled at making games. It's just that somebody at Treyarch made some very strange decisions that ruin the game for me (and lots of others, apparently). In my opinion, they approached the game from an angle that is completely wrong and should never be used in any game ever again.
For a few years now, there is a big discussion going between the 'main stream' and the gaming industry/community about whether or not games are art. Obviously, gamers who have played games like Rez, Flower, Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime, Okami, Shadow of the Collossus and Half-Life 2 will call games art. But Call of Duty is one of the biggest game franchises in the world and any 'main stream' people seeing this game will call this trash. Hell, seasoned gamers are calling it trash (including me and I've been a gamer since I could see over the desk and reach the keyboard). And I can't blame them. If we are really going the Michael Bay way, then something is going wrong. I'm not saying every game should be the equivalent of a French art house film but it seems like Black Ops has no interest in being a game but would rather be... well... a Michael Bay movie.
So... Anyway... The point, yes, that's where I was going. If any game designer reads this (big or small), please: trust the player! Don't treat them like children because we're all big boys (no matter how some of us behave ourselves online).
And any non-game designer that are reading this: discuss! Because we're all backseat drivers anyway!
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