The Call of Duty franchise has always seemed to want to honor veterans and soldiers. The intensity of the first few games made for a fun experience, but since those moments were based on real events, they also had an air of gravity to them. This trend began to fade with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which had a central character die in a rather inglorious way and didn’t shy away from showing the darker consequences of war on individual soldiers. With Modern Warfare 2 Infinity Ward has abandoned its old formula and embraced everything that its subtitle-turned-title represents.

The story of Modern Warfare 2 is filled with plot holes, and characters act out in extreme ways with little apparent motivation. The criticisms of this story are valid, but in the grand scheme of things, the plot is not as important as the mood the game sets. Ben Kuchera, who reviewed the game for Ars Technica, put it best when he described the game as “a tone poem about warfare” (A description made even more interesting when you take into consideration L.B. Jeffries’ comparison of games and poetry earlier this week). The game takes its moniker “modern warfare” seriously, and in doing so, goes to some very dark, morally ambiguous, and morally wrong places. It’s filled with moments of fist-pumping action, but all are contrasted with moments of death and destruction that come to define the tone of the game. By the end, we’re left with the realization that modern warfare is ugly in almost every way.

The rest of this post contains major spoilers for Modern Warfare 2.

Others have written about the infamous “No Russian” level, in which you take part in a terrorist attack on a Russian airport. Regardless of this level’s appropriateness or importance to plot, I find it to be just one of many examples of how this game takes its title seriously. Previous Call of Duty games were based on World War 2, where the battle lines were clearly drawn: the Allies were good, the Axis bad. But in the years since then, terrorism has played an increasing role in global politics, so much so that now a terrorist attack on any country is considered more realistic than an all out war. With this in mind, the “No Russian” level is an apt portrayal of the current state of the world, in which civilians are just as likely targets as soldiers. The battle lines are no longer obvious.

World War 2 was also the last “moral war” that the United Sates was involved in. All the wars since then have been morally ambiguous in one way or another, and Modern Warfare 2 captures this ambiguity by giving almost every character a dark side. There are no true heroes in Modern Warfare 2. The minute-to-minute gameplay is so intense it forces us to focus on the moment, but in retrospect we have to questions to morality of our actions. Most characters have a noble goal, but they go about it in the most violent way possible.

Joseph Allen is recruited to go undercover in a Russian terrorist cell in order to get close to one Vladimir Makarov. He takes part in the attack on an airport, kills dozens of civilians, but his cover is blown and he ends up being killed by Makarov. His body is then used as an excuse for Russia to invade the United States. His intentions to expose an even bigger villain than Makarov were noble, but his violent methods resulted in more harm than good.

There are two ways one can interpret the actions of General Shepherd. Some see him as a grand conspirator who purposefully blew Allen’s cover so that the terrorist attack would be blamed on the U.S. and a war would start, which would spur military enlistment and give him more power. Others see him as an opportunist, as someone who didn’t plan for war, but decides to take advantage of it by hiding the truth about the terrorist attack in order to spur military enlistment and give him more power. Either way, he is not the hero is rank implies.

The closest thing Modern Warfare 2 has to good guys are Soap and Price. But Price unapologetically launches a nuke at Washington DC. It may explode above the atmosphere, sparing the destruction of the city, but the International Space Station is destroyed and the resulting EMP blast causes just as much disruption to the Americans as it does the Russians. Both men then spend the last couple levels hunting down Shepherd, going so far as to make a deal with Makarov to find the General. At this point they’re no different than Joseph Allen: Making a deal with the devil in hopes of achieving some greater good. Their goal of exposing the truth about the terrorist attack is noble, but their willingness to team with terrorists to do so is frightening. After all, when Price tells Makarov “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Makarov then warns him “that cuts both ways,” implying our two protagonists might have to help him one day. Also, while they may kill Shepherd in the end, he’s the leader of the American military at that point, so they’ve only added to the political chaos in the world. Everything they do resolves one conflict while starting another.

By the end of the game nothing is resolved. Soap and Prince are considered terrorists, Makarov is still at large, and the United States is still at war with Russia. Ending the game here is a very obvious set up for the sequel, but it’s also inadvertently symbolic of most political conflicts: Nothing is ever really resolved, violence that fades away eventually flares up again years later.

Modern Warfare 2 is a game with a very dark take on war. It embraces the major differences between modern war and the wars of old in order to emphasize them. The actual story, the excuse for going to war, may be flimsy and unrealistic, but the tone the game sets is hard to shake off, and will stay with you long after finishing it. This isn’t just a game about war, it’s about modern war, and all the uncomfortable ugliness that comes with it.

—Nick Dinicola

Many movies have tried to explore why we as a people are so attracted to violence. Usually this exploration involves a violent crime that’s watched by many, and a main character that acts as the moral center of the film by denouncing those who watched and did nothing. But often the message of these movies ends up feeling hypocritical because while the character denounces our attraction to violence, the movie itself exploits that very attraction in order to gain an audience. The mixed messages contradict each other and the movie ends up saying nothing at all.

This is a problem for any story that wants to explore this subject. How do you examine our attraction to violence without descending into a glorification of it? Surprisingly, MadWorld succeeds where so many others have failed.

MadWorld revolves around a game within the game. An island city is cut off from the rest of the world, and transformed into one giant set for the game show Death Watch. It’s explained that Death Watch was created to “quench mankind’s thirst for blood and violence in the absence of war,” but this current incarnation of the games was driven by a pharmaceutical company to recoup profits after a major loss. The player controls Jack, a three-time Death Watch champion, now on a mission to rescue the mayor’s daughter from the island. 

MadWorld is a gloriously violent game, there’s no disputing that fact, but the game itself only passively encourages the sideshow of violence. If players never pick up a signpost, they’ll never see the gratuitous cut scene of Jack stabbing it through someone’s skull. If players never pick up an enemy, then they’ll never see the cut scene of Jack repeatedly ramming him into a spike. While the game allows for these acts of violence, it is ultimately the player who performs them. Therefore when MadWorld begins to moralize and condemn the Death Watch games, it blames those who participate in such games for continuing the trends of violence. It’s interactivity gives it an excuse to avoid any blame.

It’s telling that Jack is an ex-champion of the games, a professional killer. People bet money on contestants like Jack, they’re the lifeblood of the games, and it’s no surprise that his counterparts, the bosses we must kill to progress, are all psychotic. This is who we’re playing as. We’re one of the bad guys.

But what makes MadWorld so interesting is that it gives us players a scapegoat of our own. Jack is on a mission to rescue the mayor’s daughter, his (and by association, our) goal is a noble one. We may fight and kill, but it’s done in self-defense. We’re forced into the games, and the only way to reach the mayor’s daughter is by progressing. The end is supposed to justify the means. It helps that Jack isn’t portrayed as a psycho like the other contestants. In fact, he’s shockingly restrained in the cut scenes, so we see him as a good guy forced to do bad, and the real villains are the ones forcing us to kill.

There are no redeeming qualities to the pharmaceutical company that sponsors Death Watch. They’re using the games to earn money fast, implying that they’re entirely driven by greed. The members of this company, as well as other upper class elites, watch the games unfold from atop a huge tower. They watch for fun, they have no noble goal, for them the violence of Death Watch is just an avenue for entertainment and profit. Compared to them, the player and Jack and the other contestants are just pawns in a larger conspiracy. They’re the real villains; they’re the ones to blame for the cycle of violence.

But what exactly do they do to encourage this cycle? They create the violence for profit, and they watch the violence because they find it entertaining. With those traits in mind they’re no different from the developer and the player. MadWorld is unabashedly pointing the finger at itself, acknowledging its own role in the promotion of violence.

The game exposes our hypocrisy towards violent media by feeding it to us, then giving us a justification for our actions. In a brilliant twist the people we use as scapegoats, the voyeurs and profiteers, are not different from ourselves. We come to think that Death Watch is a horrible game, even as we enjoy MadWorld. The final message of MadWorld isn’t so much a condemnation of violent media, but rather our rationalizations for enjoying violent media. The game knows you love violence, that you’re attracted to the over-the-top black and white gore, that’s really the only reason to play it. In the end that’s all the justification you need, it tells us. You find violence fun. Admit it, and enjoy it.

—Nick Dinicola

I recently read a rumor that Assassin’s Creed 2 might have three hours worth of cut scenes. Unlike a lot of gamers, I don’t mind most cut scenes. I remember when games would advertise “X hours of realistic CG cut scenes” as a good thing. I understand the common complaint against them, but I also think cut scenes are a fine way to tell a story in a linear game, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is proof of this.

Cut scenes get a lot of hate because they interrupt gameplay. Too often a boss fight will suddenly become a cut scene, and after a quick verbal back-and-forth the protagonist will perform one final action that kills the antagonist. This wouldn’t be so awful if the scene only involved dialogue, but by reserving the death of the villain for a cut scene the game removes some of the satisfaction of winning. Technically the player never gets to kill the main bad guy as it happens in a cut scene.

One reason these non-interactive sequences work in Uncharted 2 is that they never interrupt gameplay, in fact gameplay sometimes interrupts a cut scene. During a couple movies, just when the player thinks the action is over, an enemy attacks a nearby companion and suddenly we’re in control again, shooting the attacker. As soon as he’s dead the cut scene continues. Action always happens to the player, Nathan Drake only fires his gun once in a cut scene, every other time he shoots it’s because the player has pressed the R1 button. When a building starts to crumble with Drake in it, we’re in control; when a stone platform begins sliding down a hill with Drake and company on it, we’re in control; when he has to jump from car to car during a high speed chase, we’re hitting the button to make him jump. By making these grand set pieces interactive, it feels like they’re happening to us, not just happening to him. We become more invested in the character and his struggles because we’ve gone through them as well.

Since a good cut scene doesn’t have much, if any, action in it, it relies on the plot to keep players interested. These moments of calm have to move the plot forwards while setting up the next action scene, but these are also fitting moments for character development. Characters can be developed during gameplay through animation, voice over, or by having a unique skill set, but cut scenes are by far the easiest method for doing so because of their similarities to film, a medium with several standards already in place regarding proper character development. But any cut scene, even a well directed, well acted, graphical showcase, is still interrupting gameplay, so it must accomplish these goals quickly, or risk losing the interest of the player.

The Metal Gear Solid games are infamous for their failure in this regard. The high production values of its cut scenes are obvious, but the scenes drag on far too long thanks to endless exposition by various characters describing their personal motivations, their complicated pasts, the current political landscape, or others aspect of the plot. While some may defend these long movies for their high quality and intriguing themes, there are just as many people that hate them for their meandering dialogue and length.

On the other hand, the cut scenes in Uncharted 2 are never more than a couple minutes long, even when the plot twists and turns. In one scene Drake is caught by the villain Lazarevic and makes that classic “You need me so you can’t hurt me” stand, but when he’s searched Lazarevic gets a hold of a map with a giant X on it. The balance of power swings from Lazarevic to Drake and back to Lazarevic within the span of two minutes. The plot is pushed forwards by dialogue that gets straight to the point, there’s no exposition, so the player is constantly engaged by the quick pace.

The cut scenes in Gears of War 2 were successful in moving the plot forwards quickly, but never contained any meaningful character development. The new characters of Tai and Dizzy are interchangeable with out other teammates, personality wise. But since the cut scenes focus purely on the plot, the game give these new characters a distinct look to set them apart. Tai’s tattoos make him look like some ancient mystic, and Dizzy has a cowboy hat; the game then hopes that we’ll get attached to them based solely on their unique appearances.

The second cut scene in Uncharted 2 fully introduces us to Chloe, one of the new characters in the sequel. Within a few minutes we learn that she and Drake have a romantic history, that she’s using Flynn (the other new character) to help get a treasure, and that her and Drake plan to run away together after the heist. Too often in games a women is portrayed as tough by being cruel or indifferent to everyone around her (see Rubi in Wet). We see a little bit of that in Chloe as she casually plans to betray Flynn, but then we see a vulnerable side to her as well: She has genuine feelings for Drake, she wants to run away with him because she actually likes him. She’s not the one dimensional “tough bitch” stereotype that games normally fall back on, she’s a complicated character with complicated motivations.

Cut scenes are a viable way to tell a story in linear games. They provide a chance to advance the plot while developing characters, but the gameplay must always take precedent, and that’s a mistake many games make. The player should get to partake in all the action. Successfully implementing a cut scene is difficult, the many failed attempts are proof of that, but Uncharted 2 is proof that, when done right, cut scenes can add to the depth and enjoyment of a game.

—Nick Dinicola

Whenever a critic of the gaming industry starts to decry the level of violence in games, the response is generally the same. It’s standard to point out that violence in games pales when compared to the more explicit violence and gore in movies. While that may be true when comparing a game like GTA IV (the mass media’s favorite whipping boy) to a movie like Hostel, it doesn’t hold up for games versus movies in general. If we go by gallons of blood spilt, games are more violent and gory than movies by a longshot. But what’s the real effect of all this violence? A little blood is realistic, lots of blood is scary, but the geysers that often fly from enemies in games is cartoonish. The more blood there is in a game, the more unrealistic it becomes; it ceases to have any real meaning and becomes a joke. Any message or deeper meaning the game might have is lost because no one takes it seriously.

Gears of War 2 is a prime example of this sideshow gore. It embraces violence as one of its selling points but also tries to be serious at times. When we chainsaw a Locust in half, the camera rotates slightly giving us a better view of the chainsaw cutting into our enemy; blood spews out and splashes all over the camera to emphasize the very bloody nature of this kill. A lot of care and attention to detail went into this short scene because it’s important, it’s our reward for getting in close for a kill. We could have shot at the alien from the relative safety of distance, but instead we chose to get in close where we could have been easily flanked or killed by a single well-placed shotgun blast or been punched and cut in half ourselves. The violence has been embellished to the point of ridiculousness, and that’s why it works as an entertaining reward.

It’s interesting that the most emotional scene in the game is completely bloodless. When Dom finally finds Maria, his missing wife, she steps out of a tiny cell looking normal and healthy. They embrace, and when the camera pulls back, we realize that we’re seeing her through Dom’s eyes, and in reality, she’s nothing more than an emaciated skeleton that is mentally dead. But there’s no blood. There are scars on her face, we can see her bones through her skin, but no blood is presented in the secne. Gears of War 2 embraces bloody mayhem as it’s chief attraction, but the lack of it here suggests that this scene is not supposed to be enjoyed, this scene is meant to be taken seriously. But it doesn’t work.

Gamers make fun of the Maria subplot in Gears of War 2 because that single moment of seriousness is out of place in the game. It really is a powerful moment, but when surrounded by ultraviolent fun, it alone can’t grab the player’s attention and make him care.

Where ultraviolence helps make a message clearer is in parodies. Madworld and No More Heroes are two of the most violent games on consoles, let alone on the Wii, and both have embraced their cartoonish ultraviolence by becoming cartoons. They parody other violent games by exaggerating other aspects of the game, the art style, boss fights, and characters to the same extent as the violence. In this context, the ultraviolence seems normal, but being normal in these kinds of over-the-top worlds serves to showcase how out of place it is in purportedly realistic games.

Games must learn restraint before they can be taken seriously, however, “restraint” doesn’t just mean less violence. Bloodless violence is common in games rated anything but M, and this kind of violence is often seen as childish, as the removal of something graphic in order to make it more appealing to a younger audience. So to avoid this unwanted label and to make themselves immediately stand out, M rated games tend to go to the opposite extreme but end up looking just as juvenile. It’s then up to that player to actively try and get over his immediate preconceived notion that these games are just over-the-top mindless fun. There’s nothing wrong with a little ultraviolence, but not every M game has to embrace it to the degree that’s currently popular. Everything in moderation.

—Nick Dinicola

Saw VI comes out today, the latest movie in the “torture porn” sub-genre of horror. When this sub-genre first began to grow in popularity, many film critics lamented that torture had become something entertaining, but in all the time since then, horror games have not jumped to cash in on the trend. Horrow games have changed dramatically over the six years since Saw was first released but not along the same lines that their filmic counterparts have. Horror games have become more action packed thanks to Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space, all but ignoring the seeming popularity of torture. It seems those critics can breathe a sigh of relief because, while certain horror fans enjoy watching torture, it seems that they also don’t want to partake in it directly.

That’s not to say there are no instances of torture in modern horror games. One scene near the end of Silent Hill: Homecoming feels ripped straight out of Hostel. The hero is tied to a chair while a cultist stabs a drill into his leg, and a few quick-time events later he’s free and the drill is sticking out of the cultist’s eye. Then there are the Manhunt games in which players are forced to participate in a snuff film. And the franchise that arguably started it all, Saw, made its first jump to video games earlier this month. What’s interesting about all these examples of torture is that the player is always the victim, never the torturer. We’re tied to the chair in Silent Hill: Homecoming, we’re a killer in Manhunt, yes, but a killer forced to play the starring role in a snuff film. In the Saw game, we don’t play as Jigsaw but as a cop caught up in one of Jigsaw’s maniacal, elaborate traps. Every torture device that we come across has someone else stuck inside it and solving the trap plays out like a mini puzzle game. This allows for a variety of play that we wouldn’t get to participate in if we had control over Jigsaw because torturing people just isn’t an interesting game mechanic.

—Nick Dinicola

A couple weeks ago I wrote that graphics simply can’t get much better, and while I firmly believe that, I also believe that gamers are constantly awaiting some new leap in visuals. It’s something we’ve been conditioned over decades of consoles to expect, and we still expect it now. But if graphics can’t get much better, is a new visual leap is even possible?

In September Resident Evil 5 was released for PC with an interesting new addition: It could be played in 3D, the kind of 3D that has things popping out of the screen, the kind that requires special glasses, a special monitor, and a special video card. LG, Samsung, and Sony have released or plan to release 3D HDTV’s, and Sony has plans to release a patch for the PS3 in 2010 that will allow the system to display 3D games.

There are already a surprising number of games available in 3d on the PC. NVIDA’s GeForce glasses are compatible with DirectX 7, 8, 9, and 10 games, automatically converting the normal 3D to work with the glasses. So this technology is not particularly new, but as usual consoles lag behind, and in this gaming age unless 3D catches on there it won’t catch on at all. So far, the only developer to try and break this new ground has been Sucker Punch, with their game Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves.

Sly 3 uses the now antiquated red/blue 3D glasses to make certain scenes pop out at the viewer. Given the nature of this old technology, it should come no surprise that the change is almost imperceptible at first. The 3D only becomes apparent, and even then only barely, after one starts looking closely at Sly and his position relative to the rest of the level. The effect of the glasses is less “pop” and more like a series of moving 2D images placed on top of each other; you begin to see the level in layers. In the first level the 3D was only obvious when I came to a thin ledge with moving lasers I had to sneak past. The source of the lasers was off-screen, above the camera, which seemed to be just over my head in the real world thanks to “pop” of the 3D. Overall, the 3D didn’t change the experience in any fundamental way, but it did add a new and interesting visual flair to an otherwise typical platformer.

Of course the biggest hurdle facing any implementation of 3D is the skepticism. Is it necessary?

It wasn’t necessary for Sly 3 because it didn’t add anything to the experience. Even if I exaggerate the effects of 3D in my head, I can’t imagine it’d make jumping around any more or less fun than it already was. But I think it could add to the experience of a game like Dead Space: Extraction. In that game enemies must run towards the screen in order to hurt the player. The entire game relies on enemies moving through that third dimension of depth that 3D showcases so well, making such a game the perfect vehicle for the technology. After all, 3D and horror go hand-in-hand since those “boo” moments of something jumping at the screen are only made more shocking if the monster seems to be actually jumping towards the player.

I believe it would add to any game that could exploit this added depth of field: First-person shooters for example, in which there’s always a gun hovering in front of us, and we’re constantly looking down its sights; racing games, where inferring the distance between cars is important, and the details of the cockpit view would stand out just a little bit more; but for a fighting game or any 2.5D game it would only serve as more background eye-candy.

Without going too far down the dangerous road of speculation, I imagine 3D can be very compatible with motion controllers, since it’s easier to move a character in 3D space if you can move the controller in 3D space as well. Combine it with the promised full-body tracking of Microsoft’s Natal, and you could have a truly unique experience unlike anything that has come before. But that’s getting a tad too far ahead of things, and ignores my previous question. Is it necessary?

While I think certain genres would benefit from the added depth the simple answer is no, games will play the same either way. At least motion control changes the way we interact with game, but going 3D only makes them more pretty (or less pretty if you don’t like the new look). Gamers do expect to be wowed visually, and the longer this console generation goes on the less it will wow. So if the next visual leap is not from 3D to 3D, than what will it be? Will there even be a leap? I certainly don’t know, but what I do know is that Sly 3 is fun whether in 3D or not.

—Nick Dinicola