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.

The Great Myth of Multiplayer Gaming

Here's something I've never truly understood about multiplayer gaming. When I'm playing multiplayer games, such as Halo 3 or Call Of Duty 4, I'm basically looking at the same screen as the single player game. I'm performing the same actions (chasing an objective while undoubtedly backed by a bunch of morons whose only plan is to get in my way) as I would in the single player game, and - generally speaking - the only difference is that the AI is a tad less predictable, the difficulty curve is less fair, and my ears ring with the homophobic falsetto insults of a 6 year old child (roll on the clamp-down on game sales to children, I say!).

My point is, I don't feel like I'm playing a multiplayer game, so much as I'm playing a single player game with other people.

Even playing muh-morpuhguhs (thank you Mr. Yahtzee) - the months I lost to World Of CashCow (which I rate in my head alongside the times I was bullied in high school and that summer when my girlfriend left me and I spent all my time drinking as "time I've regrettably lost with nothing to show for it, and will never get back") seemed like I was just playing a really long, dull RPG, only there was a lot of other people playing it, and the game was built in a way that allowed us to talk to each other and share our more-or-less single-player experience.

Okay, so I'm stretching things a bit - there were times when the ironically acronymed WoW was unplayable for me because someone had taken it upon themselves to run rampant around an area that was of utmost importance to me and generally behave like a cunt, and there have been a few occasions where I've somehow managed to find one or two online players with half a brain that I can co-operate with, which made me feel like I was playing a co-operative single player game.

I'm also aware that some of you probably think I'm talking rubbish. You'll want to tell me your weekly clan meetings are truly multiplayer experiences, and that you loce nothing more than the feeling of working as a unit, together, for a common good. But hold you horses, I'm well aware that this is simply my perspective, and that some people can have a thrilling multiplayer experience online.

My point is this: THE THINGS THAT MAKE GAMES TRULY MULTIPLAYER DON'T (seem to) HAPPEN IN THE GAME.

Clans, tactics, organisation, the thrill of congratulations, the shame of a loss ... these are things that happen when you communicate openly with like-minded people, and that happens outside of a gaming environment, in game forums, chat rooms, over messenger. People like myself - who don't like the idea of dedicating time OUTSIDE of games to their in-game experience - get the shitty end of the social gaming stick.

I don't really know what the solution is - or even if one is required, as such. I do quite enjoy dipping in and out of Call Of Duty 4 - its leveling and ranking system has managed to make even the ridiculous spankings you recieve from more advanced players feel rewarding and satisfying. Do I wish for something better? Of course. Could I design something better? You betcha (well, slightly, anyway - and I probably wouldn't have thought of the utterly fantastic and completely radical leveling-up system - in fact, when I heard about it, I thought it sounded really shit). But is the game itself horribly flawed because of this? Not really.

What I'm planning on taking from this observation is that you don't always need to design multiplayer games AS multiplayer games. This is similar to something I've believed for a long time - it shocks me to the core that single player and multiplayer are considered two different entities in every game that comes along.

There's no reason I can see why players of carefully matched skill can't be inserted into other players' "single player" experience in a way that would give the players the benefits of playing against other humans - essentially, the ultimate AI/AS (Artificial Stupidity, from what I hear harder to believable program than intelligence) - but still within the structure of a single-player game (perhaps with a story, for example).

As for how I would make Call Of Duty better?

It's all in the communication. Get in touch if you want to know more - for now, I'm off.