Games as games, or games as entertainment - can we make up our minds please?

To start with, I'd like to make a point of saying I have a cold right now, and I might not be thinking straight, so if I don't make sense at some point, I apologise.

Anyway, that aside, I just finished playing the Condemned 2 Demo, and I've come away utterly unfulfilled by something people (by which I mean work people, who are not, thankfully, "hardcore" gamers) have told me was excellent.

I couldn't seem to help but feel that the game was simulating the effect of playing some lumbering, uncoordinated sloth of a man with limited movement abilities, with severe visual difficulties and a penchant for randomly busting out MAGICAL ABILITIES.

Now, that may seem harsh, but here's the thing: this game can't seem to decide if its a game or an interactive movie. The difference between the two might seem semantic, and I honestly can't tell you exactly where the line between the two is, but the fact is that this game can't seem to decide whether or not we should be using our imagination.

Allow me to elaborate through example:

You play a character. We don't know much of this character's history, save that he's an alcoholic, who can either see something other people can't, or who just sees things and is a bit mad and dangerous. We don't know how or why, so we're expected to just suspend our disbelief at the bits that seems silly and accept it. Well, that's not a problem. In fact, some might argue (myself included) that you don't need to tell the player everything about a character right away. In fact, the player only needs to know what they need to know. Hence, so far, so good - the game is shaping up to be very much an interesting piece of interactive fiction.

HOWEVER. As soon as play starts, we find that our player has some strange mystical abilities. He can teleport objects from the ground into his hands. He can open doors without touching them, and he can tell how well he's held together by way of a floating bar in the top left. What's that you say, we're supposed to just pretend that he's picking up the items, or he's opening the door with his hands? Well, the game is already asking us to use our imagination, so I'm sorry, I'm using mine.

I could continue through the way your character stumbles clumsily through the environment and onto the fact he can only see a 90 degree arc in front of him, but you get the point.

You probably think I'm being overly harsh. After all, these things have appeared in a million games, and no one's complained about them beforehand. We just got on with playing the game and enjoying it. These things are excusable in a game.

Only this isn't a game. This game was never meant to be enjoyed in the traditional sense. It was meant to scare the living bloody bejesus out of us. The cramped field of view and lumbering controls, while unexplained in game terms, could easily be put down as a deliberate tool used to hype the tension and frustration felt by the player. The clunky combat system could be an attempt to create a hectic, unsettled feeling in the player.

So why, then, all the tiny inconsistencies in the system? Why so many unrealistic elements? If this were a game it would be excusable, but as a piece of interactive entertainment it's like a boom mic falling into view just as the hero finally punches out the alien king. A tiny thing ruins everything - or, in this case, a series of stupid design choices.

In the end, if we're going to excuse games for inconsistencies with the real world, we need to make them GAMES - stupid, fun, enjoyable, games. If we want to make something that connects with the user on a level beyond that, we need to throw the rules of games out the window and start thinking about things anew.

I hope this has made sense.