For a while I've been toying with the idea of doing a 'Critical Let's Play' of the Modern Warfare trilogy. It's no secret that I guiltily thoroughly enjoy the Modern Warfare single-player campaigns a great deal, even as I know they are incredibly messed up for their glorifying of Western militarism. I always struggle to explain to people why I enjoy them so much, as it is really the moment-to-moment pacing and framing of the storytelling that I enjoy, more than any broad themes that are easy to explain in writing. So I thought I might record myself playing through the games, talking through them as I go, pointing at the particular little things that I like while being able to bring my audience a long and show what I mean about the pacing and about the framing of particular scenes and whatnot.
So I have started this. There is a Youtube playlist here (and embedded above) that I will be adding videos to over the coming months as I play my way through. I've put up four videos to start with, playing up to the nuclear explosion in Modern Warfare, and from now I might put up two more videos every week or so. We'll see. I don't want to just pile hours of footage in there at once as I really can't imagine anyone wanting to watch it all in one go.
I'm not the most experienced at capturing videogame footage, or at expressing myself vocally, so any and all feedback is appreciated, negative or positive. I'd love to know if you think this style of analysis is interesting and engaging, what works for you and what doesn't. Some things I've already realised: there is a slight delay between the footage and my voiceover. I think this is because the Elgato Game Capture software I use to capture from my Xbox 360 doesn't really like my iphone earphones+microphone I'm using. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I'll be sure to linger at scenes I want to speak about for a moment longer in future videos. Related to this, I need to not stop recording as soon as I say 'Thanks for watching', because I am losing the last few seconds of my talking. Finally, I clearly need to trim my beard because you can hear the iphone mic scraping against my facial hair in the second video, haha. #bro
I'm also toying with the idea of starting a Patreon (whoops, I did it) before I produce any more of these, on the off chance people are willing to throw a few dollars my way. I can't imagine this being a massive fund that would make me a lot of money, but I think if I am willing to put in the hours of work of playing through all these games again with an analytical eye, I might at the very least provide people the opportunity to pay me for it, since, after all, games criticism is labour worth being paid for. Again, I'd certainly appreciate any thoughts people have on this. I'd rather not put ads all over the videos, obviously.
So that's what I'm doing. If you watch them, do please let me know how you find them because, frankly, I have no idea what I am doing.
My last "You Know What I Love?" piece at Games On Net (almost a fortnight ago now) was all about playing games slow, and the unique satisfaction inherent in a game designed for such a play tempo.
And for the Australians among you, in the latest issue of Hyper (#224, with Max Payne 3 on the cover) I have an extensive preview of Medal of Honor: Warfighter that tries to address my uncomfortableness at the game's claims to unrealism. It includes a face-to-face interview with the game's executive producer, Greg Goodrich which I am quite happy with.
So there you go. As always, would love to hear what you think about any of these pieces.
Secondly, I wrote a piece for Paste about a very memorable choice in Ico that, really, wasn't a choice at all but that doesn't matter.
I'm pretty happy with how both of these turned out, and they have a lot more in common than I realised they did when I first started thinking about them both. In each I am essentially arguing for that same old thing I'm always arguing: for videogame criticism to stop putting so much onus on the player and instead look at the interrelationships of acting and being acted upon present in all games.
So hopefully I've said something interesting about that.
The State Library of Queensland has a place called The Edge, which is like a (for lack of a better word) mutlimedia wing of the library. It's pretty cool! People can go there to use the computers and other digital equipment and they host all sorts of funky events. For the last month or so they have been running a program specifically focused on games, and as part of this, people have been invited to write guest blogs for their website. People including me!
I decided at first that I wanted to write something about 'moments'. I have this idea that has nagged me for a long time that videogames are about moments. That it isn't about the overarching story or goals or even the mechanics of a game that really hold our attention and that keep us coming back to new games over and over again. Rather, I think it is the hope that we will create moments. These crazy, half-authored/half-chance coming-togethers of player and machine. Essentially, we play videogames in case something cool happens.
So I thought about how I would write something about this and in the end decided that, rather, I would just describe two memorable videogame moments (for me, at least). Two moments that, for very different reasons, epitomise why I love playing videogames: for those moments that everything just works to get an emotional reaction out of me.
And in unrelated news, I have teamed up with George Kokoris from Microsoft Game Studios and Shane Liesegang from Bethesda Studios and together we are writing a letter series as we simultaneously play through the classic shooter Marathon. We've each written an introductory post and next week will begin playing the first few levels. Please follow along with us. Maybe even play along!
I won't waste your time repeating what I say there here, but I felt I needed to write this as I am tired of a game's worth being measured in "freedom". I think there are plenty of valid criticisms to be leveled at Modern Warfare 3, but not being able to be a leader or to choose where you go isn't one of them. Talk about it's (arguable) glorifying of war or the complete lack of female characters or the implausibility of its plot if you wish. You can even talk about how it is or isn't well paced and how the set-pieces are or aren't well directed, but judging it simply for being a linear game is wrong, I feel.
And certainly, Walker's piece did make some of these valid criticisms, and that is cool! My disagreement should be seen as specifically towards those bits of his article that discuss the game is terms of choice or lack thereof. Such as his title.
Related, here is an old blog post I wrote last year when I played the first Modern Warfare and was utterly surprised at how much I enjoyed it despite my complete lack of agency.
UPDATE: Walker has now written a response to my response to his post on Rock Paper Shotgun. While moving away from a form of game criticism obsessed with player freedom and privilege is central to my interests and studies, I'm kind of over forwarding this very narrow debate centered on a single game. So instead of repeating my arguments in response to Walker's repetition of his own and continuing this ad infinitum, I'll just leave this as my closing remark and walk away:
If someone is reading a book you despise or watching a film you hate, you might tell them that it is a horrible book/film, but you wouldn't tell them that it isn't a book/film. Yet we seem to do this all the time with games. I hate this. If any videogame regardless of its quality does not fit within your definition of what a videogame is, the problem is with your definition, not the game.
While I don't think it aired here in Australia, I came across the following commercial for Call of Duty: Black Ops via several discussions of it online this week.
Over at Border House, they applaud the commercial for the diversity of the people portrayed:
The commercial portrays a war in which a variety of people are the soldiers. The commercial includes people of color, men, women, people of various body types, and even a number of professions. All of these people are portrayed as equal soldiers in this war. This commercial implies that this first person shooter game welcomes adult players from a variety of backgrounds and is not simply a toy for men aged 18-25.
Meanwhile, writing over at The Atlantic, Sam Machkovech has a different take on the commercial:
I couldn't have asked for a more disappointing game-related ad. These aren't the video games I play. Even at their highest levels of action and violence, video games play like sophisticated games of Cops & Robbers. They're silly; they require colorful, funny-shaped controllers; they stay decidedly in the domain of detached fiction.
This ad equips people with real guns and simulates real-life, no-CGI combat. The thud of recoil, the screams of rockets, the dust of explosions... and the look of exasperation on that little, shotgun-wielding girl. The only things missing are the dead bodies on the receiving ends of each bullet and blast.
It really is a slick commercial, there is no arguing that, and I certainly agree with Border House that the diversity of the the people portrayed in the commercial is (probably) a good thing. However, I also can't help but agree with Machkovech that the commercial is ultimately problematic. To try to express why I feel it is problematic, i am going to compare it to an Xbox commercial that Microsoft opted not to air. Machkovech noted the same commercial in his article and my conclusions will be similar to his, but not identical.
Personally, I think this second commercial is absolutely fabulous. It shows the true beauty of games: playfulness and imagination. Violence is not something kids learn just from videogames; many games (videogames, boardgames, schoolyard games nursery games) are situated in re-enactments of violence, either real or pretend. This Xbox commercial simply shows a large group of strangers playing together. It is cute. It makes me smile. I would love this to happen in reality.
The Black Ops commercial is trying to tap into a similar theme, I feel. However, while the Xbox commercial brings war into the context of games, play, and fun, the Black Ops commercial takes games and players and fun and puts them into the context of war. The difference is nuanced, but it makes a huge difference.
Using war as the basis for entertainment is already a gray area ethically. It risks belittling real acts of violence, real lives, and real sacrifices (to use a potentially loaded word) into fictional, consumable action plots. Generally, though, if the line between the two is kept clear, then there is no problem. You can have a game, movie, or book based on war that is entertaining that also acknowledges that the real war was not entertaining at all. It is a thin line, but it is one that various media have managed to more-or-less maintain through the decades.
And that is where the Black Ops commercial falls down. By placing the game players not in a virtual game but in a real war, the distinction between the entertainment product and the real war is blurred--potentially to the benefit of the former, but certainly to the disrespect of the latter. When I play I war game, I want to have fun, and I want to feel the gravitas of war. I do not want to feel that the two are the same thing, that real war is fun. That is when it stops being a game and starts being propaganda.
This line blurring is disconcerting from another aspect, also. I have written before (as have many others better than me, I don't doubt) about the blurring between 'real' war and 'virtual' war, as each looks more and more like the other. War videogames are becoming increasingly realistic while real wars are looking more like videogames with each leaked video appearing on YouTube.
As Machkovech points out, the tag line of the commercial is "There's a soldier in all of us". Not a hero, a soldier. Not "everyone is capable of great sacrifice and fighting for a noble cause", but "everyone is capable of being conditioned to follow orders and to kill without question". These commercial puts these two ideas together (war is becoming more like a videogame; anyone can be conditioned to be a soldier) alongside a young girl (or boy) clearing a real room with a real shotgun in a commercial for a virtual videogame. When I watched that girl clear the room, I was not sure if I should be happy to see someone other than an '18-25-year-old male' enjoying videogames' or concerned that I was seeing a child be conditioned into a soldier.
Which, as something of a side note, makes me skeptical of the true nature of the commercial's diversity. "There's a soldier in all of us". With the right technology and the right content, anyone can be conditioned to fight in a war, and not just any war, but a war as morally hazardous as Vietnam. Okay, perhaps that is a bit fatalistic, and I should just accept the one time the broader gaming industry does diversity right. But considering Activision's track record, I can't help but be skeptical.
So what are your opinions on the commercial? Are Machkovech and I the only people who have a problem with it?
Full disclosure: 1) I have been listening to The Rolling Stones all day thanks to the excellent use of music in the Black Ops commercial. 2) I have not yet played Black Ops and do not mean to comment on the game's content itself but rather the themes of the commercial and the content of war games generally.
I imagine that a soldier under fire doesn’t have the liberty of either agreeing or disagreeing with the reasons the war is being fought. Whether they are invading or defending would cease to matter beyond tactical importance. Who the enemy is, what they stand for, would cease to matter beyond the fact they want the soldier dead. The soldier joined the army/navy/air-force, and now they are here—killing in order to not die.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s story is nothing special, but once I started, I found myself committing to it as enthusiastically as the better game-stories out there. In a sense, I didn’t have a choice. I chose to play the game originally, but now I am in a warzone, and who I am fighting (and why) no longer matters. I am just a soldier; I do not make decisions; I do not question the merits of the conflict; I simply kill in order to not die.
My characters (I control about five throughout the game) rarely possess much agency over their situations. Someone else is always in charge, making the shots so I don’t have to: my squad’s sergeant barks orders; my gunship’s pilot points out targets; my kidnapper keeps an eye on me. Does this lack of agency, this disempowered play, detract from the overall experience? I think not. Personally, I felt that by removing my agency, Modern Warfare ensures my experience is meaningful. The game holds my hand through carefully staged battlefields to ensure key plot moments are experienced in a certain way. However, like any decent game, I am always in complete control of my character. It is not me, but my character who is never really in control of their situation. In this way, Modern Warfare justifies its removal of my agency: I am just a soldier; following orders is what I do.
My disempowerment begins—symbolically and literally—as the game’s opening credits role. I am pulled from my presidential palace and thrown into the back of a car—two gun-wielding goons keep an eye on me as what was my country descends into war beyond the windows. I know, somehow, that I am being driven to my own execution. This level is as powerful because of the agency I do not have, as for the agency I have left. My death is inevitable; I cannot escape, but I can still look around. As this is all I have, I savour it. I glance left and right, desperate to take in the final moments of my country’s existence.
Importantly, though, this scene is completely scripted. I still have complete control over the character—the character just has no control over his circumstances. This minimal agency, this emphasis on the fact that I cannot meaningfully effect the world I exist in, this undeniable proof that I cannot meaningfully interact the world around me, is a powerful way to tell a story, and not one I imagined to ever work in a videogame.
When the bullet finally comes, there is no fanfare, no shock, no time to accept that this is really happening. I am dead. This story can and will go on without me. This is the precedent for the rest of my time with this game: I am not in charge anymore; I will go where I am told to go and do what I am told to do. My agency as a player just got executed.
Once I learnt to cede the power one normally expects as a player, I became quite good at staying alive, at following orders, at doing exactly what I was told. Or perhaps, when it came down to it and the barrel of that pistol pressed against my head, I did not so much cede power as simply accept how little power I have ever truly had in any linear shooter.
And then I am in Chernobyl, levels later: I am the second man of a two-man sniper team, sneaking into the abandoned city of Pripyat to assassinate some terrorist leader. By this stage of the game, I am well used to following order. If the game had been holding my hand before this mission, now I am clutching it for dear life—if my grip slips for a moment, I am dead. My CO, Captain Macmillan, dictates my every step through this level. “Stop. Duck. Move. Shoot. Don’t Shoot. Follow me.” This man is a professional and it does not take long for me to build up a kind of reverent awe towards him. His every move is flawless; his every shot is perfect. His constant orders do not detract from my experience; rather, I am happy to follow this man, to perhaps prove to him I am worthy to be on his team. Certainly, I would be dead a dozen times over if I had to find my own way through the enemy patrols and radiation hotspots. I have grown comfortable with following orders and not making them, to cede power and responsibility.
Most memorable moment of this level (even if utterly unrealistic) is dashing between and under cars of a large patrol. I don’t know how Macmillan got me through it. My heart pounded the whole time. The game was holding my hand, yes, but that hand was all that protected me from a very, very sudden death.
But then I got too comfortable in my powerless, responsibility-less position as Number Two. Macmillan is crippled and now it is up to me to carry him (literally) through the level. The sudden empowering is not as intoxicating as I would expect—it is utterly paralysing. I am just a lowly lieutenant—this guy just sniped a helicopter out of the air. Who am I to lead him? I do not think I have ever been so concerned with what a fictional character thinks of me.
Thankfully, the empowerment doesn’t last. Set consistently in warzones, Modern Warfare makes good use of the technique of crippling my character to further disempower me and further control what I experience. The infamous nuke scene (which I had known was coming) was breathtaking and all the more hard-hitting because I was all alone and there was nothing I could do except limp stupidly towards the mushroom cloud.
However, it is the game’s final minutes that I found the most exhilarating, when I finally had a chance to reclaim just a pinch of my own power that was taken from me in the opening level (as opposed to near-drowning in all of Macmillan’s power that was suddenly thrust upon me in Pipyat). I finally stopped holding on to someone else, and took matters into my own hands.
I lay crippled on a Russian bridge after an attack helicopter obliterated my squad. Everyone is dead and, judging by the way I can’t move, I am fairly certain I am about to join them. I’m not sure where I am hit, but it doesn’t really matter. My vision is beginning to blur, everything sounds like my head is underwater. No one is left to tell me what to do.
Zakhaev, the terrorist that removed me from power and assassinated me at the start of the game, is standing right before me, shouting orders as his troops command the bridge. He doesn’t realise I am alive, but it hardly matters—I am alone; I have no weapon. I look to my left (or perhaps I just collapse) where another soldier is writhing in pain, out of sight behind a burning car.
“C’mon! Pass me a gun!” I actually shout at the television.
The game is using slow motion for dramatic effect, but it is unnecessary—everything slows for me as the pistol slides across the asphalt. As my character’s arm stretches and picks it up, my fingers begin to tremble on the controller. I am not taking orders; I am making this decision myself. But neither am I free to make any other choice. After all, I am a soldier—I kill in order to stay alive.
I am still unsure if Zakhaev took away my power, or merely exposed how little power I had to begin with. Either way, this final action won’t empower me, but it is the closest I will get in the entire game, and I am desperate for it. The scene is scripted, but it isn’t a cutscene—if Zakhaev is to go down, it is I who must take the shot.
I grab the pistol and turn. In a split-second of clarity I expect is my last, I fire a shot into Zakhaev’s head, dropping him. His two bodyguards are confused and I franticly empty the clip into both of them before I collapse back again. I am aware that my agency in this scene was minimal and identical to every other player’s experience. But because my agency, my power as a player, had been stripped from me so convincingly at the start of the game, Modern Warfare enticed me through to an exhilarating endgame with breadcrumbs of empowerment scattered through the levels. For ten seconds, I didn’t care that the scene was scripted—the fate of the war was in my hands. I didn’t take the shot because I had no choice. I took the shot because I wanted my palace back.
