Duty Calls

Apparently, the Call of Duty franchise has been around for quite a while.  This latest addition, Black Ops, is a grand testament to the series’ strength and the knowledge gained through years of experience developing First Person Shooters.  I’ve only played one other Call of Duty and that was years ago.  It’s not much to say that this game is a marked improvement over my previous experience.  Although, this is a beast of a game.  There were times when my laptop slowed because it couldn’t take all the action.  This is the only game for which that’s ever happened.  To be fair, I don’t exactly have the highest end, gaming laptop.  I own a Dell.

Anyway, Call of Duty: Black Ops tells the story of “Mason,” a CIA covert agent who gets assigned to kill people – in order to protect America, of course – throughout the world and its various wars.  As you probably have heard, there is a little hiccup over someone famous getting shot during the game.  I don’t care about it and, I think the level headed will agree with me when I say, people need to understand it’s just a game.  There are worse things, more gruesome kills at least, that happen to a number of other individuals.  The gameplay actually occurs when Mason is recalling his past actions to a group of silhouetted men who are torturing him to get answers.  You’ll have to play through the game to find out what exactly those answers are and how they lead Mason to his current situation.  I say the gameplay “occurs” because I couldn’t help but feel as if I was watching a movie during most of the game.  There are in game “cinematics” that involve you in some way, but never more than slowly approach this person and take him out from behind.  Most often, it’s a simple one button press and the game then takes over.  It’s less than a quick-time event, but the game is clearly not trying to make them challenging, rather, I’m sure the purpose is to make it all feel like one is in the middle of a Hollywood Blockbuster.  For my own part, I appreciated the effort to make the game more than a common FPS.  The cinematic feel of the game lasts through its entirety and it’s enough to separate the game from other, dime a dozen shooters.

This f**king guy...

As I implied earlier, the visuals are incredible.  I was impressed every time I looked at the sky, saw countless bullets flying by, or watched as I blew up what looked like an experimental rocket ship.  Any sound other than explosions or gunfire was a little hard to hear and, to be honest, I didn’t even pay attention to it sometimes because all I wanted to do was find cover and kill more Russians.  This game is intense.  I died so many times just while playing it on “regular” difficulty that the option to “lower difficulty” on the menu screen just seemed to taunt me.  I don’t know if that’s a theme with other Call of Duty games or if I just wasn’t used to the way the game plays out, but I was very happy with the game’s take on such arduous tasks.  Mason isn’t a super hero or some cybernetically enhanced marine and you can tell you’ll need to find cover every step of the way if you’re not a hardcore FPS fan.  It makes the game less appealing and harder to approach for the general population of the gamer community, but I’m sure most gamers know what to expect from a game like this long before they ever pick it up.

In the end, for the gamers who don’t feel the need to own a dozen different shooters, Black Ops isn’t too different from previous games of this type.  Mason’s story of a forgetful CIA killer is a nice touch and I’m happy to have this game as an addition to a genre which isn’t known for its cerebral qualities. Also, as expected, the game supports online multiplayer, which I don’t feel the need to discuss because Modern Warfare 2 set the bar pretty high and Black Ops does much in the same way.  There is also a mode simply dubbed, “Zombies,” which has you doing what you can to survive a wave of, you guessed it, Zombies.  This is not a mode that’s needed to make the game better, but it is a lot of fun and a welcome extra.  You won’t get anything too new with this game, but you will have a great time trying to figure out what’s exactly going on and trying to kill a seemingly endless hoard of enemies.

4.5/5 Near Perfect Score! Almost Super Dope!

A Tale of Two Genres

Like many of you out there, I grew up with video games and movies. In many ways they served as a second hand babysitter when the parental units were just too tired to deal with the torrential s***fests we kids could unleash on a whim. I have many fond memories staring into the abyss of the television screen at the colorful worlds projected out before me. As a kid, managing one’s priorities was the easiest thing to do being that there was really only one priority: have fun. The pursuit of this cardinal desire was certainly filled by the time I spent watching surprisingly violent shows like Ren and Stimpy and collecting lost emeralds on my trusty Sega Genesis. For most video games during those days the two most prominent genres were (and in many ways still are) action/adventure and survival horror. Just as these games were a staple in the average gamer’s development, so were action/adventure and horror films. What was a sleepover without a marathon of Goldeneye multiplayer followed by a healthy dose of Scream? Or maybe some Resident Evil 2 followed by Speed 2: Cruise Control?

Willem Dafoe + Leach Bath = Awful Formula

The action and horror genres of movies and games alike are not interested in pondering deep philosophical questions or creating complex characters, but would rather provide primal thrills of showing crap explode, creating elaborate sets for the heroes to blow up aforementioned crap, and disemboweling characters in some of the most painful and creative ways imaginable. There is nothing wrong with this formula; I am just making the observation that this is not some sort of “high art.” These genres do not leave much for the viewer or gamer to chew on after they leave the theater or set down the controller. The main reaction tends to be “That was awesome!” or “Oh my Gawd, I like s*** my pants” and not much else. What I will argue is that action and horror genres actually work much better in the video game medium than in the movies, especially with the high quality graphics, soundtracks, and voice acting these days. While action and horror movies still provide a good amount of thrills, they just do not have the same degree of immersion that video games can provide. How else can you explain playing six straight hours of video games but questioning whether you want to sit through a two hour movie or not?

Let me illustrate the average viewer’s brain activity when watching a movie:

Average Action Movie: Hope that truck explodes…YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAH! Shoot him in the face! That gun is badass! How is he going to get out of this one? Maybe this or that or…oh of course, that option we did not know was an option until 5 seconds ago. This car chase scene is awesome! That chick is hawt! SATISFACTION ACHIEVED

Average Horror Movie: Don’t walk in there! Lookout! What the hell are you doing? That was stupid! Aw, sick! What’s behind the door—OH CRAP! Sweet, a sex scene…naturally climaxing in an orgy of blood and phallic imagery. Of course the traumatized kid was the killer. Or was he… SATISFACTION ACHIEVED

Pyramid Head

While movies have the viewer sit passively in the dark, allowing the events to basically wash over him or her, games, on the other hand, get much more personal with the simple addition of having the fate of the characters resting literally in the player’s hands. YOU are now that person who has to find the right escape route and blow up everything that needs blowing up. YOU are now the person who has to walk through that ominous hallway full well knowing some bad s*** is about to go down. Your decisions are actually what appear on the screen, not the carefully constructed cause and effect chains that cannot be broken in a movie. Much more thinking is involved. Only the best movies are able to replicate this feeling. That sensation that you are actually there. The feeling that you are making the decisions. With video games there is no time for hindsight bias, such as “I thought she would do that” or “he was a dumbass for doing such and such.” If you really are an idiot or just do not handle situations well under stress, you will find out…or just find another defensive mechanism to live in your own special bubble of denial forever.

Play the game! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/547307

With so many decisions to juggle and without a clear path to always hold your hand, video games become a much more immersive experience with this constant tension of uncertainty nagging you. With a movie you know it has to end by its runtime. A video game, conversely, takes as long as it takes you to figure out how to beat the objectives. The player is also responsible for taking the character through those impossibly difficult car chases and shoot outs. In relation to the horror games, closing your eyes and waiting for those scary moments to pass is simply not an option. You have to navigate the labyrinthine halls of the haunted mansion and make it out alive, braving all those damn monsters/zombies/aliens/whathaveyou that pop out at the worst times (there’s never a good time for those sort of things really). It is for these reasons that I feel it is fair to say the most thrilling parts of games like Uncharted, Zelda, and Silent Hill rival those of Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, and Silent Hill. Without a doubt, the best parts of the Resident Evil games beat the crap out of the Resident Evil movies.

All that said, I still believe movies are the go-to source for all things drama, romance, comedy, and psychological thriller—though games are definitely catching up to this last area. Overtaking these genres is not an impossible task for video games. One of the most dramatically powerful scenes I have seen that provoked all sorts of emotions on par with a well made film is the now infamous scene in COD4: Modern Warfare. I’ll just let the scene speak for itself. SPOILERS: Yes, your character just dies =( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2S3N0uSSho

I cannot wait until a game is recognized as being equally valuable as the classics of Charles Dickens or Fitzgerald. For some sick reason, I would like to see the show Mad Men turned into a video game. Cheat or don’t cheat on your wife? Fire or not fire your new secretary? Agree with a pitch idea or shoot it down? The day you see a character driven drama like this successfully turned into a video game, you will know the tides have turned.

Bonus: Haven’t played the first ones, but if the game is as good as the trailer, Deus Ex 3 will be amazing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6JTvzrpBy0&fmt=22&annotation_id=annotation_935604&feature=iv