Wolfenstein: The Old Blood and Retro Shooters

Credit: Axow

    The mainstream game's media asserted that the expandalone Wolfenstein: The Old Blood represents a continuing transition in FPS of the modern back to classic that began in The New Order. They gave these changes some lip service by evoking a sense of nostalgia around the base game, using words like "classic," "arcade-like," and "traditional." Concerning the health system in The New Order, Polygon's Arthur Gies said, "absent the fact that health will recharge to the nearest multiple of 20, it can feel like 1992 all over again." On the Old Blood, Kotaku's Luke Plunket wrote:

           

While the game is happy to leave health and ammo lying around levels, you’ll end up getting most of it from the bodies of the soldiers you kill. The way you have to dance over your kills, scooping up ammo in the midst of a firefight to make more kills, was   probably the most enjoyable thing you did in New Order. It really helped to make that old 90s style of FPS design (which this game wears proudly on its sleeve) feel fresh, so it’s nice to see it remain an integral part of the design here.

    Their summations reveal what the new Wolfenstein gameplay embodies. It is not a return back to classic FPS, but a middling compromise between health/armor pickups and regenerating health. Wolfenstein: The Old Blood takes concepts from 90s shooter and waters down the structure and mechanics that made them so great. The Old Blood's enemy unit differentiation, weaponry, and the classic concepts of set drops for health/armor are filled with compromises that limit the quality of the game.

    Classic shooters spaced out pickups and placed powerful ones in secret areas of levels. Doing so increased the tension of levels for longer, forced players to make better choices about taking enemy engagements, and pushed them to prepare a full stack (200 health 200 armor) for each part of a level they explored. Not preparing a stack caused immediate death at the hands of powerful enemies.

    The Old Blood does not follow classic design. Levels are broken down into closed off arenas before cut scenes. Armor absorbs damage but only overcharges past 100 (or 125 with the armor perk) and counts down quickly. Instead of the pickups being spread out and powerful ones being hidden, they are frequently found in corners and under props. Furthermore the abundance of pickups in each arena and the quick countdown of overcharge cheapens the act of preparing for the next engagement in the game. The game expects the player to either pick up health and armor while in a firefight or get back to a stack of 100 health 100 armor each time before entering the next arena. A central aspect of old school shooters was preparation and seeking out high value pickups, such as the Megasphere's 200 health 200 armor boost in DOOM 1 (referred to as DOOM from here on out) or Quad Damage in Quake. This has been lost. The game focuses only on small chunks of gameplay rather than spending 10-15 minutes playing through a whole level. In classic shooters, taking damage and not seeking out pickups caused players to die and restart the whole level. The only penalty for taking a lot of damage in The Old Blood is having to find a few health packs and armor pickups before leaving the arena.

    The plentitude of pickups is made to counteract the majority of The Old Blood's enemies using hitscan weapons. Making line of sight with enemies outside cover can end a player's life quickly. This onslaught resembles how making line of sight with enemies in Halo brings on a volley of projectiles which force the player to hide until their armor recharges. The design simulates short term difficulty by having the player play peek-a-boo with enemies for short bursts of time. The Old Blood apes the design, but instead of regenerating shields or health, it provides small pickups scattered all over the arenas. The pickups' value is lessened as they are plentiful, don't provide much aid, and the player's health is always going down from enemies' high hitscan damage. In fact they are so plentiful that the game wouldn't feel very different if it had regenerating health instead.

    Having to enter line of sight with enemies and sprint to find pickups improves the risk and engagements in The Old Blood over modern games, but it still does not reach the zenith of DOOM or Quake. In DOOM, an encounter with Grunts, a Pinky, and a Caco Demon requires the player to make quick decisions about which enemy to take out first. The player must position himself properly to take out the charging Pinky while dodging the gun fire and projectiles from the grunts and Caco Demon. At close range, the player should focus the Pinky with a shotgun or chaingun. Pinkys have moderate health and thus expending rarer plasma cells is not advisable. Once dead, the player should continue dodging hitscan from the Grunts and projectiles from the slowly approaching Caco Demon while firing bullets or shells at the Grunts.  Finally he should deal with the high health Caco Demon by using plasma projectiles from moderate range to increase the chance of connecting with the Caco Demon or back up to fire rockets and avoid their splash damage.

    Engagements found in DOOM require good aim, good positioning, and quick decision making on appropriate weaponry. The strong unit differentiation and weaponry found in DOOM forces players to make interesting decisions on the micro that will allow him to conquer each gun fight while maintaining health, armor, and ammo. That is what makes old school design so interesting. The absence of similarly robust design like that in DOOM is a point of lamentation in modern shooters like The Old Blood.

    Almost every weapon the player uses in The Old Blood is hit scan. The pistol, AR, sniper, chaingun, and shotgun all fall under this category while the Kampf Pistol (whose ammo is extraordinarily rare) is the only projectile weapon. The weaponry is all very similar because of the lack of strong unit differentiation. The majority of gun fights are against soldiers who have very slight differences. Variants include with head armor, without head armor, and Commanders who only have a pistol and must be killed first to stop waves of soldiers from respawning to attack. They all die quickly with only head armored soldiers requiring two shots to the head.

    The player finds the rest of the enemies less often. Heavy soldiers are the  most common, slowly patrolling with a shotgun. They are moderately armored, taking several shotgun blasts from close range to kill. They can immediately wipe the player out unless the gas canister on their back is shot or they player sneaks up on them.

    Super soldiers are incredibly slow, heavily armored, and use the MG-60 chaingun. They must be shot in their electrical shoulder piece or plug to stun them. When stunned, their armor plate must be meleed off and the exposed heart shot. They have the highest TTK (time to kill) of any enemy which makes the arena with three of them one of the best in the game. The player must choose whether to kill Commanders first or to risk being exposed to the rain of fire from Soldiers while taking out a Super Soldier.

    The final enemies are the Shamblers. They are slow zombies who will charge quickly and melee if LoS is held for too long. They die in one shot to the head and can transform from Soldiers if their head is intact after death.

    The most common enemy composition is Soldiers, Heavy Soldiers, and Commanders patrolling a set region of the arena. The optimal way of dealing with arenas is to stealth past the LoS of Soldiers and Heavy Soldiers to the Commanders. The player can stealth kill Soldiers on the way while concentrating on finding the Commanders. Once found, the player should quickly dispense of them with the silenced pistol and then fight the set enemies in the arena. Heavy Soldiers should be shot in the back in order to detonate their tanks or shot up close with dual wielded shotguns. Soldiers should be shot in the head with an AR or bolt action from cover.

    Without killing enemies in this order the player will be barraged with extensively respawning soldiers. Super Soldiers cannot be killed silently and killing Soldiers in the open alerts Commander if their bodies are found. Commanders must always be the first priority unless the player seeks to constantly seek out armor shards and health packs. When done properly, the player conquers an arena and can overcharge on some armor while hoping it is not wasted on a cutscene.

    Given the weapon choice, enemy composition, and health/armor system, the player has enjoyable decisions and approaches to take. His movement speed is high and his hip fire is accurate. He can select a few weapons to take foes out with but does not have to much improvisation as he will always seek the Commander and whatever enemy is closest to him. Although Super Soldiers do pose a different threat, if one has enough shotgun ammo to dual wield with then they are easily disposed of.

    The Old Blood does not soar to the heights of other old school shooters. The tension filled multi-tiered levels and perfect movement of Quake forced the player to bounce like an acrobat while shooting as much firepower at the opposing force as possible. DOOM's varied arsenal proved an outstanding matchup against the perfectly differentiated units the player faced. While The Old Blood lacks the rugged design of old school shooters, it is still a fun game. Its existence provides hope to those who enjoy shooters that developers may go beyond aping what used to work while delivering small chunks of gameplay and cutscenes. Until then charlatans in the game's media will continue to fondle themselves profusely because they can press "E" over an enemy's body to pick up 5 armor.

3/5 (Play Machine Games' Quake episode instead)

Quake: The Paragon of FPS

Oppressive gothic cathedrals, dirty marine bases, and Lovecraftian horror soar by at over 400 units per second. Gnarled textures and haggard enemies inhabit each map, constantly reminding the player he is not welcome within the nightmare. Screeching industrial music loops and assaults the senses. Noises and grunts give away positions as lighting flickers and hides the violent adversaries seeking to lower the player's health counter to zero. The environments of Quake are dissonant. Single player levels are tied together by a nonsensical story to ground the perfection of FPS gameplay.

Quake is first person shooter freedom. Absent are modern limits to what the player can do to build up absurd speed: no friction penalties during jumps, no lowered successive jump heights, no sprint buttons. Maximum speed is uncapped and acceleration can be gained through a variety of advanced techniques. Bunny hopping, prestrafing, and wall strafing all allow the player to accelerate. Air strafing allows the player to have full air control in order to bob and weave through levels. Ogre's grenades and Vore's purple homing attacks are no match for players with full mastery Quake's movement. The grenades lie harmlessly on the ground, detonating on enemies. The Vore's attack erupts onto walls or can be led back by a bunny hopping player into a Vore herself for tons of damage.

Regardless of the power that the movement techniques grant the player, he is not a messiah of mayhem and gibs. The enemy composition, like DOOM, relies on melee enemies charging the player along with projectile and hitscan enemies standing back to assault the player. Although unlike DOOM, enemies have high health as there are usually fewer of them on screen. The true form of Quake is on Nightmare and it requires maddening levels of concentration. There are more enemies, they aggro immediately, and they attack twice as fast. A room full of Ogres and Death Knights will send a flurry of grenades and sword swings towards the player. Evasion and prediction has to become second nature in order to avoid taking damage and dropping to the floor.

The player must keep a constant beat on his enemies with the 7 different weapons at his disposal. As the levels progress, the player has access to better and better weapons, culminating in the rocket launcher and lightning gun. Rockets have a large area of affect and can deal damage back to the player if used too closely. They kill most enemies other than the Vore and Shambler with 2-3 direct hits. The lightning gun is the most powerful weapon in the game and has the rarest ammo containers. It has limited range, but it is hit scan and does 30 damage per shot and fires 10 shots a second for an eviscerating 300 damage per second. A mighty 600 health Shambler will fall in two seconds from 20 cells when up against the weapon. Alternatively is the super nail gun which fires 600 rounds a minute at 18 damage per nail. It only take 34 nails fired over 5 seconds to kill the beast.

Quake's use of health and armor pickups lengthen the tension of levels. Instead of ducking behind cover to regain his vitality, the player must dodge attacks and constantly seek out health and item caches. Many outstanding games have a player constantly experiencing a sense of degradation, such as in Quake's requirement that the player continually seeks health and better armor. Levels are long and later on contain many different keys and switches to get to the end. The player must learn to dodge and aim effectively in order to maintain health while finding caches of hidden yellow and red armor, as they absorb 60% and 80% of damage respectively compared to blue armor's 30%. With low health and armor, the player will scramble to find anything to abate his suffering and delay perishing which is when the game is at its most unnerving.

As one nears the end of a level, turning each corner turns into a potential hazard that may end the player's life and force a restart. Power ups help the player conquer the levels but require him to act quickly to capitalize on them. A Mega Health promises the player 100 more health over what he currently has, ticking down slowly after five seconds of carrying it if his health goes over 100. Quad Damage is the single most important item for quickly clearing impossible overpopulated rooms. But it runs on a 30 second timer and must be used as swiftly as possible in order for the player to maximize its effects. The penultimate level of the new 5th episode DOPA for Quake contains 3 Shamblers on Nightmare difficulty. Finding Quad Damage and ferociously sprinting to the end with the lightning gun allows the player to kill each Shambler in only half a second and finally complete the level.

Everything in the game is frantic, degrading, and oppressive. There is no regenerating health and no 30 second slices of action like in Halo. The action is nonstop for all 5 to 10 minutes it takes to finish a level. Only aiming, movement, and secrets will save a player from certain death. His heart will thump as he bunny hops, firing rockets at Ogres in alcoves and lightning at Vores around corners. He will exclaim when happening upon Quad Damage, knowing he can now conquer hordes of Ogres using only the quick firing basic shotgun. But after powerups subside and his armor and health is low, his only solace will be the exit door as Aftermath pounds in his ears.

Hard Analysis and Understanding Games

Watching several counter-strike tournaments over the past two years has clued me into several different approaches to game analysis. Across both traditional and electronic competition, broadcasts employ a play by play commentator and a color commentator. Play by play is straight forward. The guy makes what occurs on screen palatable to the audience via his gravitas, strong word choice, and levels of excitement. He also has to be gifted in setting up his partner, the color commentator. The color man's job is to give quick insights into the game so that the audience better understands the meta and the decision making of the players.

I've come across two approaches to color commentary in competitive gaming. First is soft analysis, which features superficially descriptive, historical, and subjective insights into a game. A commentator will broadly remark on how a team is approaching the game, how the team has historically played the game, and his interpretation of how this affects the match he is watching now. Narrative, history, and visibility is the key to soft analysis. The commentator in CSGO will mention who is playing what position, how effective he historically is at playing that position, and with that contextual insight hopefully illuminate the current match for the audience. This kind of commentary is good for most people in the audience who have general to moderate interest in the game.

To use an example, here is the color commentator Semmler giving us insight into the Swedish player Olofmeister. At this time, Olof is the greatest player in the world in CSGO. Semmler discusses how historically, Olof's team places him as an entry man onto Cobblestone's B site. He either lurks or is the first man in on the B plateau, as his ability to get the first kill and then storm the site is much better than anyone else in the world.

This reminds me a lot of the way games journalism and analysis is done. The audience gets general insights into the way a game plays. We get descriptors such as the ability to hold two guns, the amount of recoil, guns feeling light or heavy, etc. These are important concepts to note in a game and give the reader a general idea about the game. In fact for many people, that is all they need to know. But that is soft analysis. I don't just want to know how little recoil a gun has, I want the writer to shoot a wall and show me whether there's a spray pattern. I want to know if it's possible to compensate for it consistently or if there's randomness. If possible, I'd even like to know what the hard metrics are for recoil, spread, and friction/acceleration in movement.

To truly understand and critique a game, these values must be explored and understood. For example, if a new game comes out and a character accelerates quickly but slides before coming to a stop, it is not enough to say that movement feels loose or slippery without putting that into the context of the game and even including some values as the game is data mined later.

Hard analysis in competitive gaming contains insights on the hard metrics of a game. This is a bit more difficult to parse out because one cannot describe it using flowery or colorful language. Hard analysis requires enthusiastic levels of knowledge in a subject. In Counter-Strike, that means understanding the amount of time actions in game take, how certain plays affect a team's game economy, and how plays affect the opponent's perception and morale (mind games). This analysis goes beyond the narrative and gets into the actual numeric understanding of a game. To use the example of the hypothetical game that feels loose, a critic with familiarity of harder metrics would focus on the ingame values regarding movement. He would say that the game feels loose because the avatar accelerates quickly but the lack of friction in the world causes him to slide around. He would remark on what this means when taking on enemies and how to approach them given the imprecision of the movement, most likely by discussing whether guns are accurate while moving or if counter-strafing in the opposite direction one is moving in order to quickly stand still allows for higher weapon accuracy.

Here's some hard analysis from a North American CSGO tournament in which the color commentator Launders discusses the weapon buying in the match's second round. The terrorists got a bomb plant the first round but died and the counter-terrorists defused the bomb. So the Ts got $1400 for losing plus 800 for planting the bomb while the CTs got $3500. The Ts are still in a good position overall because they can force buy armor and pistols . The defused bomb plant allows them enough to perform a rush and force the CTs to spend all of their money on a rifle, armor, and grenade buy. A defused bomb plant usually telegraphs to CTs that they must spend a lot of money on the 2nd round in order to play long angles and stop pistol armor rushes. Thus his comment that the CT's buy reflects their anticipation that the Ts will force buy armor pistol.

Hard analysis takes into account not only the overall play, but the minutiae involved in decision making. It looks closely at metrics and the variables behind them to illuminate the game in a much brighter way than soft analysis ever could. Typically it is longer winded and requires someone with great appeal and gravitas to be able to keep an audience interested. Most viral videos of commentators are of excitable play by play commentary during sick plays.

Dupreeh! and Hiko are you kidding me? are two historic soundbites in the same round in CSGO

https://youtu.be/SCqsIwF085U?t=7

So what does this mean for game's criticism? Games journalism is like play by play commentary. It focuses merely on the general, what is going on and how does it look with varying amounts of emotion and purple prose thrown in for good measure. Every so often there is some soft analysis, but given the kinds of people writing it generally focuses on the narrative or some quick dimly lit illuminations of a game's mechanics before complaining about representation of genders or races in games. These topics are heated and quickly pull in clicks from the divisiveness they cause.

These kinds of pieces don't have to go anywhere. In fact, given their popularity, I'd advise continuing to use them. Compare the abysmally low level of engagement in the comments section of a Polygon feature or investigative piece to a review of a AAA game, a Destiny article, or a clickbait opinion piece about sexism? In fact the only features with over 100 comments on Polygon are about sexism in games. The most profitable pieces, regardless of their triviality, should remain on sites. That way more niche and serious pieces which provide less in the way of money but more in the way of actual journalism and criticism can continue to exist.

As a competitive gaming spectator, I love those exciting moments punctuated by affable commentators. As a gaming enthusiast, I read gaming news nearly every day. But video games need people who understand the core of the game. They need an analyst to really illuminate the game by making boring numbers and minutiae sound exciting. The hard metrics of a game influence everything: how fast an avatar can move, much damage a weapon can do, and how a stats system works. All these parts of a game influence the overall way a game works. Having someone who understands this is important to games overall. I want people to enjoy games, but more importantly, I want more people to feel like they understand them.

Dark Souls 3 Has Changed the Series: Compromise and the Spirit of Souls

Erik Kain wrote on how Dark Souls 3 achieved the highest selling launch in the series and exploded in popularity without making changes or compromising the experience. He writes:

            "It’s grown in popularity without changing, too, which is important. Rather than ratchet     down the difficulty of the game’s combat, or make its lore less obscure, From Software has continued to dish out a challenging experience. I would argue that the success of Dark Souls III is not in spite of its difficulty, but precisely because the experience has remained uncompromising. We gamers have not been tempted by an easy mode, and no easy mode was necessary to broaden the game’s appeal.

            To me, this simply underscores and enforces my previous position: the Souls games, and whatever else From Software devises, do not need to bend or compromise to widen their appeal to a gaming demographic that doesn’t appreciate them. Not because they should be or the 'elites' but because they are obviously games that a growing audience can appreciate."

Kain is right about the essence of Souls. Dark Souls 3 remains old school difficult and its lore is still obscure. But the game has changed the Souls experience in many subtle and complicated ways overall. Changes in the health system, quest dialogue, the stats system, the knight starting class, and boss fights illustrate how the series has shifted from a slower methodical game to a fast incredibly demanding assault.

I. Health

Dark Souls 3 has a much less masochistic health system than its predecessors. In Demon's Souls, the player starts in body form and has 100% health. If he dies, he goes to soul form and has 50% health. The player can regain 100% health by killing a boss, a successful invasion, or using a rare consumable item called the Stone of Ephemeral Eyes. Alternatively the player can lock their health at 75% in soul form by locating and equipping the Cling Ring. The ring is in the first area of the game but can be easily missed, thus requiring the player to advance through the game with 50% health or playing very cautiously when body form is achieved in order not to have his health halved again.

Since Demon's Souls, From Software has experimented to make the health system better and less brutalizing. Dark Souls had no health penalty on death which was much too easy. Dark Souls II had the player lose 10% of his health each death until he reached 50% fully hollowed form. To regain human form, he could use a rare consumable called the Human Effigy or a successfully invade and kill someone to regain human form. If the player ran out of Effigies, he could go to the Shrine of Amana in a late game area to regain human form. Like Demon's Souls, the player could make sure their health didn't drop below 50% by wearing the Ring of Binding. It was located in the first area of the game but could be easily passed by. Bloodborne once again cut health penalties on death and tried to make up that by having incredibly hard hitting and fast bosses, unlike bosses in Demon's Souls which were generally slow, lumbering tank and spank bosses at the end of incredibly long and difficult levels.

Dark Souls 3 found a great compromise that was difficult without being masochistic like Demon's Souls, easy like Dark Souls 1, or tedious like Dark Souls 2. Defeating a boss and using the rare consumable Ember items allowed a player to have 100% health. Dying immediately reduces the player's health to 75%. The DS3 system is difficult and punishing without going overboard. The lack of needing a ring to maintain 75% health frees up a whole ring slot that was taken up in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 2. While the player in DaS2 had 4 ring slots available, DeS only allowed for 2 slots, so losing body form was a massive game penalty. Although there was no health penalty in Dark Souls 1, equipping the Ring of Favor and Protection increased one's health and if removed, it broke. The ring shackled most melee builds in order to equip better armor and have more health, endurance, and equip load. Dark Souls 3 does away with this by providing a challenge with its health system without cutting off depth of customization. No rings shackle the player and the health system is difficult without being masochistic. Bosses can be defeated with 75% health and if need be, the player can use an Ember to have 100% health.

II. Quest Dialogue

NPCs in Dark Souls 3 repeat key locations in their quest dialogue infinitely. Leonhard repeats the location of Rosaria's Fingers if one asks him. Contrast that with the Crestfallen Warrior in Dark Souls who will only repeat himself once regarding the location of the two Bells of Awakening before he tells the player to leave. Given that Dark Souls 3 is more linear like Demon's Souls, the player doesn't need to have repeated directions given that he can easily memorize and come upon different covenants. Memorizing quest information with little repetition has been a reality since Dark Souls 1. But if a player does not pay attention, they're going to look up the information regardless, so allowing NPCs to repeat themselves explicitly is not the greatest sin.

Given how difficult and obscure meeting Kaathe was in Dark Souls 1 to join the red invasion covenant the Darkwraiths, its in the best interest of the game to make the directions to play multiplayer simpler so more people can play online faster. Most people will not jump into the abyss and fight the 4 Kings before placing the Lord Vessel with Frampt on their first try. Dark Souls' quest to find Frampt makes for opaque and interesting lore that one uncovers on multiple playthroughs. But overall it hampers newer and less skilled players from being able to join in on multiplayer.

Despite the repeating quest dialogue, Dark Souls 3 continues the trend of having little direction to solve some quests. When coming on Irythyll, if the player does not have the doll item, he cannot enter the new area. There is a wall holding back the player telling him that he needs a doll to pass through. The player now knows what he needs but does not know where it is. This is very similar to Dark Souls 1 yellow fog walls. They said, "Sealed by the Great Lord's power" but did not say what item was needed to unlock them. Those function more as a band aid to keep the player from exploring late game areas and herd him towards the Lord Vessel item. But they are similar enough and show that DS3 keeps the series a bit opaque concerning quests. This allows for some good backtracking in the linear and dense levels with plenty to explore.

III. Stats and the Knight Starting Class

The biggest change in Souls overall has been the stat system. Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, and Bloodborne had a very basic system. To optimize PvE encounters, the player needed to first level Endurance and their primary attack stat to dodge more, attack more, equip better armor, and hit harder. This gave the player more useful survivability from dodging and armor rather than leveling Vitality (health) which the player didn't really need to level until after the 2nd or 3rd boss. My favorite adage from a veteran Souls player went something like "Level up endurance over vitality early on. You need to be able to dodge and attack more. If you're getting hit a lot to the point where you need more health then you suck."

Dark Souls 2 introduced a much more deep and difficult stat system. It separated equip load from Endurance and placed it in the Vitality stat while Vigor influenced one's health. Dark Souls 3 adopted this system with a few new tweaks. Now players have more decisions to make regarding stat choices. Does the player want to dodge more, hit harder, wear better armor, or have more health? If the player wants to branch out to any casting then he now has to dump stats into Attunement to raise his spell slots and Focus Points as well as the primary spell stat, such as Intelligence or Faith. Now the system is more deep, allowing for more ways for the player to express his intention towards what kind of build he wants as well as pushing him to play multiple times to try out more than just basic melee builds.

In order to offset more difficult stat decisions in Dark souls 3, Endurance and dodging as a whole has become very easy. With the Knight class in DS3, historically the noob starting class as it has high health and very good armor, a player can roll 7 times in a row before needing to let one's stamina regenerate. The player can also panic roll very easily in DS3. The character model takes half a step before endurance regenerates enough to allow the player to roll again as long as he spams the roll button. The armor has incredibly good poise and defense and does not make the player fat roll. In fact, the knight armor is some of the best armor in the game for the 50-70% equip load threshold. The difference between an above 50% and below 50% roll is negligible making the knight armor great for tanky medium characters. Giving Knight armor to a player right when they start out is rather easy.

The Knight Class in Dark Souls 1 offered many more penalties to the player. The armor causes the player to fat roll wherein the player slowly recovers from a roll after his invincibility frames end. The only way to wield a weapon without fat rolling is to remove all but the leg armor, exposing the player to more damage. Most importantly panic rolling is not easy in Dark Souls 1. The player takes a step and a half before being able to dodge roll again, leaving the player open to attacks.

IV. Bosses

Although these two cases make Dark Souls 1 appear to be the more difficult game, comparing the two knight classes without discussing them in the context of the game is incredibly misleading. The fight against the Asylum Demon and Iudex Gundyr, opening fights as well as design archetypes for their respective games, contextualize how the changes in the starting classes work in their games and illustrates how Souls has changed overall.

The Asylum Demon is slow and lumbering, generally attacking once with a long wind up that the player can easily dodge if they're patient. The player must only wait for the boss to attack before dodging and then attacking the boss about 3 times. Gundyr on the other hand attacks furiously. His windup is much faster off his first attack and he usually combos into a 2nd much slower move in order to throw off the player's expectations. The player must dodge twice before attacking and can only get off 1 or 2 attacks before having to dodge again.

Dark Souls 3 is a much faster beast wherein bosses attack quickly, combo, and are open to very few attacks. In order to offset this faster design, the class with the great starting armor and high health does not fat roll and can dodge 7 times in a row along with easy panic rolling. Dark Souls 3 makes dodging much easier and less punishing, thus easier, in order to offset how much more difficult the bosses are in general.

V. Compromise and the Spirit of Souls

Dark Souls 3 has changed the series and made it a bit easier. Quest dialogue is repeated, the stat system is deeper, and the game has become faster overall. Along with these changes, masochism surrounding the health system has been completely excised from the final game allowing for a game with little potential for hitting obnoxious hurdles. To say that the series has "remained uncompromising" simply is not true. It's filled with compromises, tweaks, and subtle changes as From Software played with the mechanics they created to provide a sublime and challenging experience without unnecessary brutality. Making players only lose 75% of their health without needing to take up a ring slot and being able to roll 7 times is easier. But it allows for more challenge than misery when fighting the more aggressive and quick bosses that Dark Souls 3 offers. What has remained uncompromising is the attention to the spirit of the series. That's where I agree with Eric Kain. There still is no easy mode and the series retains feeling like arcade hard Souls. When nearly every boss in Dark Souls 3 reminds me of fighting the False King in Demon's Souls, I know that the series has closed on a wonderful note.

Mediocre Gunplay in Fallout 4's Wasteland

Fallout began as a computer RPG for the first two entries before laying dormant. Bethesda purchased the rights to the series and modernized the third entry into a first person RPG with shooting elements in 2008 during the explosion of the FPS genre in the gaming market. Fallout 4 marks a transition from its numbered predecessor's core into a game that caters even more to the dominant genre in the market.

Bethesda has fashioned Fallout 4 into an FPS with RPG elements, inverting the formula. Gone is the need to select perks and skills that specialize a build around one's primary stats. A perk locked behind a primary stat requirement no longer necessitates a 2nd playthrough or a hefty investment of caps to purchase said primary stat. Players can now acquire them with the skill points gained every level up, allowing players to easily overcome all limitations given enough time.

An RPG should be judged primarily by how its stats system allows the player to express his intention in the shaping of his character and the overall game world. A shooter should be judged on how good it feels and how well it allows the player to use the mechanics to express his intention. Thus Fallout 4's lean stat system and its more robust shooting require critiquing the game on its gun play primarily. The critique covers two important contexts: Fallout 4 compared to its Bethesda predecessor and Fallout 4 in the broad context of shooters.

I. The Vulgarity of Fallout 3

Gamebryo is a twisted and stiff engine and the version Fallout 3 uses is particularly bad. At release, players enjoyed the smoothness of the CoD 4 era Infinity Ward 3 (IW3) engine and HL2: Episode 2's Source engine. One can immediately see how much of a step back F3 is in this context. It features rather abysmal movement, polish, and feedback.

Concerning movement, the acceleration is very high and there is little friction. The movement causes overcommitting to peeks around corners as the player slides then comes to a sudden stop. This slippery and stiff movement feels abysmal compared to the smoothness of the IW3 and Source engines. Even the slippery GoldSource engine found in Half-Life 1 is superior given its use of counter-strafing to come to a complete standstill.

Recoil animations in Fallout 3 are slow and floaty when firing both pistols and rifles. Reloading is a rigid unpleasant animation. SMGs in particular lack any sort of recoil animation when fired, giving off only a slight shake. Guns in CoD 4 have quick powerful feeling recoil. Aiming down sight and firing an AK-74u in the CoD 4 competitive promod is immensely satisfying. The gun chatters loudly as the model's recoil start up animations jump up before violently being reset. The quick 90 degree bounce of the Deagle in CoD 4 along with the blindingly fast backward patter of the smg in HL2 provide great feedback for players. Fallout 3 lacks this polish.

Fallout 3's guns feel bad not only because of the animations, but also because of the lack of screen shake, a visceral cinematic effect. CoD 4 and HL2 also lack screen shake, but they have so much polish on their animations that they otherwise don't need it. Fallout 3 could have kept it's poor animations and benefited greatly from screen shake. One of the few guns with screen shake in Fallout 3 is the minigun. It's slight, but keeps the gun feeling more visceral when fired. Firing the glock and smg in Half-Life 1 is a visceral affair. The game's speed, high movement accuracy, and screen shake all provide for sublime gun play. This kind of polish could have easily improved Fallout 3.

II. Shallow AI

As any game with shooting elements, the point is to dispatch enemies quickly while taking as little damage as possible. The dominant strategy in F3 is to dispatch enemies while backpedaling or to turn corners to escape an enemy's line of sight. Crouching is only used to sneak and get criticals as there is very little cover that can effectively be used throughout the game. Occasionally there are cars or desks that can be used, but the only instance cover is tremendously useful is when taking pot shots at enemies from the tops of hill and then crouching behind said hills to reload.

If one's build is effectively optimized, Time to Kill (TTK) is very low in F3. Headshots in VATs do tons of damage. Two or three enemies can be dispatched before having to reload a clip, pushing players to be frugal with their effective, scarce, and expensive ammo. Only elite enemies such as the game's super mutants take multiple clips to dispatch.

Stimpaks in F3 heal immediately which makes the moment to moment decision making not matter as much. A player can gamble taking reckless shots at powerful enemies in the open because he can heal himself immediately. An example would be quick risky peeking from around a corner. Even worse, one can backpedal with unscoped bolt rifles and take quick headshots as enemies barrel at you. Thus the primary strategy is not to minimize damage as much as one should, but to shoot as much as one can, as the player can instantly heal during a gun fight.

III. The 7 Year Quest for Polish

Fallout 4's polish and gun fights are much less vulgar than its predecessor. F4's gun play features much more dynamic game feel. The scope in, reload, and recoil all have weight and complexity compared to the floaty and simple animations in F3. F4 contains feedback aplenty every time guns are fired compared to the relatively few guns that had any sort of fleshed out game feel in its predecessor. The 10mm Pistol has a visceral recoil animation that quickly pounces back when fired. The mild to moderate screen shake when firing smgs, pistols, and rifles provide great feedback during the longer gun fights of F4. Its game feel is flashier overall and provides for a more fun and polished experience.

Strategy and positioning is marginally more complex in 4. When an enemy takes cover, one can flank it, reload, or use a stimpak which now heal over time. To be very clear, having enemies use cover and intermittently peer out from behind is slightly less basic than having an enemy run right at you. The AI is still incredibly stupid as you only have to wait for it to expose itself before firing. Furthermore the vulgarity of the Gamebryo engine still exists. The issue of landscape and cover not being accurately mapped in the game is still is an incredibly annoying issue. A massive super mutant can be exposed while taking cover behind a concrete divider or lamppost and be untouchable because the hitbox for the cover is much larger than the rendered in game object visually clues us in on. This problem is most egregious when it comes to some railings on metal walkways and catwalks. The gaps in some of these railings still cannot be shot through with guns. Not all cover has this issue, but it still is much too common.

Time-to-kill is longer as enemies weave in and out of cover. F3 contained enemies walking and running in straight lines to the player as they pulled the trigger. They never used cover and would get stunned and flinch about erratically when the player landed a critical headshot. F4's crits also stun enemies, but their animations are much easier to capitalize upon without VATs. Overall F4's animations are better and are much more dynamic. The longer gun fights are more complex than the quick firing and backpedaling in F3. Enemies approach the player, take positions of varying distances, and respond to the player. Having some enemies take pot shots from the high ground while other enemies fire from cover and more shoot from medium and close range allows for more marginally more dynamic gameplay.

Although more polished, I think players are stuck on the fact that the shooting is much better than Fallout 3 without examining how it stacks up in shooters in general. F4 has elevated itself into the ranks of other mediocre console shooters. The closest comparison I can find for Fallout 4 is Destiny, a game with similar engagements. Enemies will either charge or take cover and periodically peek out. This kind of shooting meta is simple, especially considering the intelligence of AI in other games like F.E.A.R. from 2005. In F.E.A.R., enemies would flank, use cover, team up, retreat, use grenades, bunch up, disperse, all anticipating and reacting to the enemies position and movement. Games where enemies boringly hide and peek constantly are thoroughly regressive and cannot stack up to even ancient games like DOOM.

The worst part of being a game in the same vein as Destiny is that guns in Fallout 4 feel a bit worse. Bungie understands polish. Guns feel good to use as they have moderate but manageable recoil and have powerful animations for both recoil and reloading. When fired, even while aimed down sight, there is notable screen shake. This kind of cinematic effect has been a mainstay for Bungie since the assault rifle in Halo 1. But comparing the polish of Destiny to Fallout 4 shows a clear winner. Fallout 4 contains guns that jump in a much weightier and quicker fashion than before. They lack the poor and floaty animations found in Fallout 3. But an annoying aspect is how the gun's recoil obscures the enemy. I think the developers did this to compensate for the only minor screen shake the guns have. Instead of shaking the screen more in a console game, the guns bounce more, unfortunately obscuring targets until the animation resets.

Lastly as a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player and a former Call of Duty player, shooters with aim down sights and no spray patterns are down right regressive and has been so since its inception as a mechanic in the early 2000s. Spray patterns allow players to compensate recoil skillfully. As a player gets better, he can hit enemies from farther away more accurately. It excises not only hip fire's wide random sprays forcing players to shoot enemies up close but also ADS' movement penalty slowing down engagements to a crawl. I can excuse ADS in an RPG with shooting elements, but not in a shooter with RPG elements.

To conclude, Fallout 4 succeeds in much the same way as Destiny. Guns have polish and feel good while enemies utilize cover and peek out occasionally. And just like Destiny, it is a mediocre affair, made worse by Gamebryo issues and the poor execution of some animation elements. The poor mapping of the environment behind which enemies take cover can make the shooting occasionally frustrating and the way the guns recoil and obscure the target make gun fights fairly annoying. As a shooter, Fallout 4 is much less stiff, containing smoother and satisfying movement as well as gunplay. But the inclusion of ADS as well as dumb AI confines it within the mediocrity of modern shooters.

The Witness and Limitations

The Witness idealistically adheres to logic and rule. Eschewing a cinematic narrative, it provides the player with abstract audio logs and environments to piece together social, political, and scientific philosophy. But the game does not reward you with narrative for accomplishments. Instead the reward is found in a set of opaque line puzzles, their rules, and using the environments to solve them. By design, most puzzles rarely have more than one solution and thus require a strict understanding of their rules. It lacks any sort of dexterity skill, focusing instead on a player's limits concerning learning and applying its systems.

The game's director Jon Blow has made it very clear that his games are not there to reinforce one's self-esteem or ego. His twitter use demonstrates this via his sharing of the Atlantic article, "You Can Do Anything: Must Every Kids' Movie Reinforce the Cult of Self-Esteem?" In accordance to the thesis of the article, he made The Witness reveal the limitations of the player. You either solve a puzzle or your progress in an area stops because you can't figure out the solution. To remedy being stuck, you must study tutorial puzzles to understand their rules and apply them. But as the rules and the size of the puzzle grids become unwieldy, passive players will grow frustrated as the opaqueness of the game overtakes them. You can shout, curse, and feel bad as your self-esteem is bruised, but the game remains silent as you wrestle with your limits.

The way the game tests the player is analogous in approach to other formal games such as Super Mario 64. Players solved Super Mario 64's platforming challenges by using the correct move and being able to execute it with short frame windows to traverse the world. The game world only existed to serve the mechanics and test the player.

One of my favorite stars growing up was Wall Kicks Will Work on Cool, Cool Mountain. There are two platforms. The first one is on an incline leading to a gap in front of a raised flat wall. The other is overhead and harbors a star. The only way to access the star is to do a triple jump with the 3rd jump near the edge of the lower platform. The triple jump allows the player to reach the raised flat wall, on which he must perform a wall kick over to the overhead platform. These are the only moves that allow the player to move on and must be practiced until one can properly execute them in succession. The player must learn the space between each jump depending on how long one holds the A button and the frame window the game allows to complete a successive jump. Then comes learning the frame window for the wall kick, mercifully announced by the groan Mario makes when hitting the wall. Landing these two techniques in succession solves the platforming challenge and puts the player one step closer to reaching the star.

The Witness is formal in much the same way without testing dexterity. Instead of learning the rules to execute triple jumps and wall kicks, one learns the rules behind symbols on each line puzzle. One learns the difference between a tetronimo symbol parallel to the puzzle board and one tilted 45 degrees. One learns how to separate white dots from black ones. But even more profound is how the environment provides the key to solving puzzles. A highlight early in the game was a sequence of puzzles whose solution required using rock structures in the ocean. The player aligns the transparent panel over the rocks and outlines them along with their reflections.

Blow's misdirection on the last panel in this section made for a memorable twist to the rules. Blow placed a panel in between some bushes with rock formations clearly visible through the panel. The player cannot trace these rocks as they do not line up on the panel no matter how the player looks at them. They're a red herring. The player has to think beyond the assumed rules and cross past the bushes to look through the opposite side of the panel. Doing so reveals palm trees of varying height. Tracing these trees solves the puzzle and puts the player closer to activating the laser. Once again, the level works to serve the gameplay.

Misdirections, interacting with the environment, and shifting perspectives all permute the same logic over and over. If one does not actively give the game attention, then it looms unbeaten. It hinders the player with its opacity until he puts in the effort to study the rules and examine the environment for the solution. To overcome the game, the player must grapple to make The Witness transparent. Only once seen through will it silently kneel before him.

Making a Better Ranking System for Halo 5

I was surprised when I heard Halo 5's matchmaking implemented a ranking system with skill groups. The system allow for public players to battle against opponents of similar skill, to have an incentive to focus on team play, and to sport gaudy icons on their profiles as bragging rights. However the matchmaking system has been subpar. 343 said it would prioritize quality of matches (matches with evenly skilled opponents) over brevity of queues, but this has fallen flat as better players get queued against fodder constantly.

The major problem is the ranking system's lack of factoring in one's individual performance within matches. It only accounts for a player's win and losses. This lack ensures that the system does not accurately measure a player's skill. It allows for bad players to be carried to higher ranks despite a lack of ability and for bad teammates to harshly detriment good players. Lastly it gives high ranked players the same reward no matter if their opponent is a similar rank or a lower rank. Such a system is unfair in the way it matches people up, rewards people, and estimates their skill.

A better ranking system for Halo 5 works as follows. Wins add matchmaking rating (abbreviated MMR from this point on) while losses subtract MMR. In order to rank up, one must gain enough MMR to pass the threshold into a higher rank, ranking up and acquiring a neutral MMR (meaning that one loss should not immediately drop the player back below the threshold and derank him). In practice, a win will determine that a player will be awarded MMR, while individual performance determines just how much MMR will be awarded. For example, a player who won and played very well will gain a lot of MMR while a player who won and played miserably gains very little MMR. Losing a match functions similarly, with a player's performance determining just how much MMR he will lose. Factoring in individual performance allows for a larger pool of data related to a player's skill thus better measuring said player's ability.

The criteria for determining performance is the most important part of the ranking system. A good ranking system measures the impact a player has on the completion of a game type's objectives. Thus the system rewards impact players and punishes players who avoid the objective.

Commendations are the best possible measure of a player's individual performance related to the completion of a game type's objectives. They already exist as a superficial reward system within Halo and their use as a metric to influence one's rank is natural. But in order to value play that completes a game type's objectives, there should be tiers of commendations that net more MMR than others. High tier commendations will net the most MMR and are only awarded to impact players playing the objective. In Halo 5's Capture the Flag game type, several commendations are awarded for actions within the overall rule set of capturing the enemy's flag and defending one's own flag.

First tier CTF commendations in descending order of impact are capturing the enemy flag, killing the enemy flag holder, and returning the team's flag. First tier commendations involve directly completing the game type's objective and thus have the highest MMR reward based on their impact. Second tier CTF commendations in descending order of impact are multi kills and spree kills. Second tier commendations do not directly complete the objectives, but make them easier for one's teammates to complete them. Thus gaining second tier commendations means that a player impacts a match more indirectly by keeping opponents dead and respawning. This tier of commendations nets less MMR to push players to either kill an absurd amount of opponents or to play the objective and directly influence the outcome of the game. Third tier commendations would net no MMR as the game is rewarding players for being in the fray without actually completing any of the objectives directly or indirectly. Distraction is an example of a third tier commendation.

The ranking system should be more fleshed out beyond this, such as giving a higher weight to wins against higher ranked opponents and lower weight to wins against lower ranked opponents. But the most important aspect of a ranking system is to make sure that performance is factored into wins and losses. Impact players should suffer lower penalties to MMR on losses and gain more MMR on wins. Such a system takes in much more data regarding a player's skill, making it more fair and accurate in determining ranks. My proposal creates better quality matchmaking between more evenly skilled opponents, leading to more fun and less frustration in competition.

The Analyst's Resume of Play

The Analyst's Resume of Play

Game analysts and critics need exposure to high level play in complex games. Contact with skilled play opens up one's palette to the possibilities within the medium. But more importantly, it allows writers and video makers to pass on the appreciation of a game's zenith to their audience. During my late teens and early twenties, I've played moderately well in public matches of Street Fighter 4, spent 100 or so hours mastering PvP in Dark Souls, and soared to the upper echelons of public play in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. My experience with these games exposed me to something every gamer should seek: high level play and great amounts of execution skill (i.e. one's ability to execute one's intention in game, such as hitting a headshot from across a map or performing a combo with a very limited frame window).

Analysts should seek to master movement, aiming, and countering opponents to better understand and appreciate games. Such mastery is paramount to those who seek to pass on this appreciation to an audience. The only way to discuss gameplay well is to be literate in high level play. Without said literacy, analysts will pass on the shallowness of their understanding to their audience. The possibilities of gameplay explored and discussed in games will be severely limited. And if everyone is satisfied with more shallow games, then there will be no demand for more deep and complex games.

There's more to games than just the mechanics, but it's the meat. Without a good palette, we end up with videos like this from PC Gamer, in which the presenter has no idea how to discuss the CSGO gameplay beyond stating that a player has good intuition or that they don't reload because they are really skilled. He routinely makes obvious or shallow statements that do not fill in the audience about what is happening on screen.

PC Gamer seems to be making a push towards more serious content recently. They just published a Top 10 CSGO Player article from Lurppis, ex pro and former writer for hardcore Counter-Strike site hltv.org. PC Gamer has a more casual audience than hltv.org, but the right person could still bring good analysis to the level of a general audience. Traditional sports viewers cannot stand obvious or shallow commentary from their analysts and casters. We shouldn't stand for it either.

Hatredy Goes Away

Gaming's Image

It’s necessary to parse the Hatred Greenlight controversy without any sort of overly emotional sensationalism. Valve's suspension and ultimate reinstatement of Hatred on their Greenlight service deserves scrutiny because it reveals a lot about the gaming industry. Furthermore it’s worth examining whether or not Valve has any sort of abstract responsibility or duty as a private company towards fringe media like Hatred. I can only speculate on why Valve originally pulled Hatred beyond their explanation. If they pulled it due to the public outcry as an exception to how they normally do business, I would be comfortable to say Valve was complicit in the censorship advocated by puritans online. I have heard countless calls of removing Hatred based on it being abhorrent, it making games look bad, and that it comes at the worst possible time in games by being in close proximity to alleged death threats made by gamers against critics and developers. These calls think it fair to seek to pressure others to not purchase and sell the game based on public relations. A Polygon article on gaming’s perception said, “Gaming has a public relations problem, one so deep that parents fear the hobby will ensnare even their adult children. Games and gamers are regularly judged in ways that are totally unacceptable for any other modern artistic medium.” I think that estimation is fair, but framing a perception issue as a public relations problem suggests that the author thinks it’s right to use propaganda (the mean name for public relations) to manipulate others’ opinions towards gaming. Propaganda’s purpose is to get the reader to do something. In the case of Hatred, that was exclusion via the heckler’s veto in order to make gaming look more appealing to mainstream culture. I think criticizing the game is fair. I personally agree that Hatred is abhorrent and would not want to play it. But calls for and acts of exclusion are all forms of censorship by critics and companies alike.

Hypocrisy or the Heckler's Veto?

The possibility that Valve had pulled Hatred as a business decision offers a contrast to my original speculation. They stated, “Based on what we've seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam.” They justify pulling the game because it is not in line with what they seek to sell. Valve’s message has been criticized as hypocritical, citing the current sale of Postal 1, the obvious inspiration for Hatred. Exploring this criticism of Valve requires that I do close analysis of Postal 1 and the Hatred trailer. If Hatred is more extreme that Postal 1, I’m comfortable speculating that their refusal to sell it was in fact a business decision in line with how they normally conduct themselves. Their original decision would lack both in hypocrisy and in capitulating to histrionic cries, but it would have still been censorship via the heckler’s veto. Valve had sought to avoid the criticism of having Hatred sold on their service. In order to stem any controversy, they pulled the game, effectively suppressing the game on their service and relegating its sale to much smaller distributors and the developer's site.

As a business, Valve can sell what they please. I’m happy they put the game back up because exclusion has real consequences on how much freedom developers feel they truly have over the subject matter of their game, no matter how terrible. Destructive Creations, the developer of Hatred stated, “These days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment – we wanted to create something against trends.” Making a horrific and uncomfortably violent game as an affront to politically correct trends is a statement. And excluding a game seeking to make others uncomfortable is also a statement, one saying that some art or entertainment will not be tolerated by the gate-keepers of the most popular digital distribution service in gaming. That in itself is awful, regardless of the games availability on other services. It is perfectly legal to exclude as one sees fit, but I do not think it’s the right thing to do in the medium.

"Hey, I'm just exercising my 2nd amendment rights"

Go Postal

Examining Postal 1 reveals whether or not Valve’s decision was hypocritical. Postal features the same isometric view and mass murder of civilians as the objective. While a lot of Postal 1 is unsettling, it contains tons of tongue in cheek humor. The humor is extreme, but effective nonetheless. The player controlled Postal Dude wears a trench coat and spits out condescending one liners. “Don’t be a sissy” and “Let’s blow something up” are among his repertoire as well as “Only my weapon understands me.”  His appearance is terrifying and resembles the stereotypical representation of a mass murderer while still having an air of being ridiculous and non-sensical. When he guns down an enemy, they drop and spin around in a circle with their feet as a pivot. The death animation along with the low resolution graphics and muddy art keep the game from being as disturbing as say Mortal Kombat 1-3’s realistic digitized sprites. Furthermore the civilian enemies attempt to defend themselves by firing guns and throwing grenades at the player. This lowers the extremity of the violence as the enemies provide some resistance rather than just being fodder for the player. I would argue that the whole game’s aesthetic and design suggests the developers sought to find a range between tongue in cheek “Ha ha” humor and genuinely disturbing material.

The voice acting follows suit, careening between funny and uncomfortable. Many times the enemies gunned down shout in a goofy yelp, suggesting that the characters are rednecks. These shrieks are silly and can elicit a chuckle. Civilians yelling “Ow, my leg” with even delivery and “Hay-elp (help)” are some of the funnier ones. But there are some horrifying and unsettling death shrieks too. When knocked to the ground and waiting to be finished off, some male characters repeat “Kill me now” in a hopeless manner. Some female characters in the same state shriek “Help! I can’t breathe.” What makes these lines so difficult to bear is that they’re delivered in a serious manner and escape any sort of caricature of human suffering. It sounds much like a human that was gunned down and thus elicits levels of discomfort.

Schizo Ambivalence

Before each level are entries from the Postal Dude’s diary. The entries continue the theme of humor and shock. My favorite humorous entry says, “Life is cheap-- death is free! Act now! Supplies are limited (Offer void in Arizona).” Most are silly like this throughout the game. Conversely, the more disturbing entries resemble the talentless ramblings of mass killers. The twisted attempts at imagery and metaphor heighten the discomfort when reading them. The best example: “I am the celestial gardener, policing the planet of the stink weeds and poisons which leak out even through the cracks in the cold asphalt sidewalks of the city of Sin!" This entry establishes the motive of the Postal Dude. His mission is to cleanse, police, uproot. He elevates himself with moral language, but his aim is subverted throughout the game with humor. A particularly disturbing yet subverted entry comes near the end of the game: “Black leather smoke coils up my nostrils tingling with death's surprise. Human remnants cling to my clothing like bloody briars as I continue to wade, hip deep in flesh, bone and viscera. Bad neighborhood coming up!" The majority of the entry consists of harsh and sophomoric imagery, reducing human remains to an annoyance and a hindrance to the Postal Dude’s clothing and movement. Yet the entire passage is subverted by the conclusion in which the Postal Dude seems to be excited about entering the ghetto, calling it a bad neighborhood as if he is a suburban housewife. The final sentence functions as a dumb non sequitur, standing out in comedic contrast to the horrifying imagery before to create tension.

The sound design in the game offers sparse but ambient effects in between the cacophony of screams, gun fire, and explosions. The guns and explosions are dull and lack any sort of punch making them completely forgettable. The finisher move in the game, wherein the Postal Dude executes a gunned down enemy by shooting them fatally, is preceded by a digital low-end brass sound effect going *dun dun*. It alludes to the Jaws theme, defining the Postal Dude as a predator who partakes in killing innocents. Each level intro offers churning and psychotic industrial sounds as the player reads the diary entries. These ambient tracks are very disturbing and lend to a feeling of schizophrenia while reading the sillier ones. Several levels contain blaring repetitive sounds that create a sick feeling as one plays. The first level has a chilling wind that overtakes all other sounds, defining the level as an oppressive wasteland. The air force base level has an alert horn blaring constantly throughout, lending quite a dangerous and eerie feeling to the level as a whole. The use of sound effects as ambient music placed very high in the master mix lends to the disturbing side of the game’s personality.

All these aspects create an incredibly ambivalent game. Although the violence, shrieks, and ambient cacophony of sounds make the game lean more as an uncomfortable experience, it still is balanced by goofy caricatures of violence and one-liners. If Postal 1 exists as evidence of Valve’s hypocrisy, then Hatred must resemble it closely. Hatred must match the ambivalent tone as well as presentation and justifications for violence. If it doesn’t, then Valve is exonerated of claims of hypocrisy.

"It's funny. Because it's not."

Hatredy

The Hatred trailer contains a cutscene as well as several bits of gameplay. Analysis will be pure speculation on the final product based on what the developers themselves have chosen to show the public. As such, I will compare the game to Postal, looking for similarities and contrasts. In the trailer, we witness the Hatred Guy’s motivation and his execution of it in some early gameplay footage. Much like in Postal, he seeks to murder civilians because of a deep-rooted misanthropy. He refers to everyone in the world as insects saying, “I just fucking hate this world and these human worms feasting on its carcass.” The statement contains the same ugly and bad metaphors that demonstrate the character’s stereotypical hate and tortured expressions. Unlike Postal, the Hatred Guy explicitly refers to his mission as a “genocide crusade.” Although this does elevate the extremity of the game’s goal above Postal 1, it does so in name only. Both games feature genocidal vocabulary. The Postal Dude’s diary entries always allude to his mission of cleansing and genocide via its reference to humans as insects or a pile of decapitated remains. As far as character design, the Hatred Guy dons a floor length black trench coat and sports long black metal hair. He is a stereotype of an abhorrent mass murderer, but does not fall into the caricature that the Postal Dude does, who sports odd looking glasses, a cross and smiley face pin. The seriousness of his presentation lends to the dark tone of the game.

The gameplay likewise defines civilians as the enemy. The player runs about shooting at enemies at a much brisker pace than Postal. Explosions abound allowing the player to take out multiple enemies at a time. Executions also make a return, allowing the player to kill downed enemies by either stabbing them, shooting them, or clubbing them viscerally with one’s weapon. The executions themselves are much more detailed and grim than Postal’s, featuring up close looks of terror. Here is where Hatred is vastly different from Postal 1. Whereas Postal 1 contained tongue in cheek humor, Hatred does not. In fact it amps up the extremity and excises any sort of humor that bought some balance to Postal’s fringe elements. None of the civilian enemies in the trailer are armed. They don’t stand their ground and attempt to defend themselves. As the player approaches and guns them down, they run away shrieking. The only enemies that provide any sort of defensive resistance are police officers who will stand and fire back at the player. This key difference is the root of the discomfort others feel when watching the trailer.

The sound effects and music in the trailer are horrific, much like the worst sounds in Postal. People beg for mercy, shriek, and cry in pain as the Hatred Guy enacts violence. Executions feature grimey sound effects such as blades going in and out of flesh. The voice acting is clear and never caricatures, opting instead to horrify the player. Targets begging for mercy abound as the Hatred Guy finishes them off and their bodies go limp covered in blood. The score is churning heavy metal that intensifies the feelings of horror as machine gun chatter pounds the player’s ears, heightening the brutality and horror.

The tone and presentation contrasts Postal 1. Aesthetically Postal 1 achieves an industrial look with goofy caricatures and harsh ambience. Hatred instead opts for death metal darkness and realistic representations of people. The serious tone of Hatred is why it affects people so much. Hearing one liners and silly cries of pain in Postal deadens the game’s horrid atmosphere and mass murder. Hatred offers no such solace. As such, Valve’s allowance of Postal 1 was not a precedent, making comparisons between Postal 1 to Hatred a false equivalence. The games are similar, but ultimately Hatred’s tone and goal of mass murder of unarmed civilians has no peer. Their decision was not one of hypocrisy, but one of business. I don’t think Valve gave into criticism as much as they were drawing a line in the sand with Hatred on the wrong side.

"The right which would be translated in latin
by the word 'vas,' meaning sacred duty"

Valve's Responsibility

I’m happy that Valve reinstated Hatred. Moral panic and exclusion is normal, but art and entertainment exist for their own sake and many times challenge the norms in existence. Was Valve’s decision censorship? Of course it was. Was it brought on because of the massive puritan campaign Hatred? I don’t think so. Valve sent a message by restoring Hatred on Greenlight, one saying that even games with fringe themes will be tolerated and sold. The reach and magnitude of Valve as a distributor affords them a responsibility to dictate what is and is not acceptable to be sold. Their responsibility ideally involves selling products no matter the themes and making sure they work properly in order to protect the consumer from predators. Of course we have a long way to go concerning that. The ideal would be how Netflix treats film, allowing sexually explicit films such as Nymphomaniac, Blue is the Warmest Color, and Shame as well as violent media such as Only God Forgives, Reservoir Dogs, and Killing Them Softly.

The systems within Hatred have existed in many games. But the surface the developer chose in order to revolt against politically correct trends has drawn ire from many. It is exceptional in just how uncomfortable it makes people. Adrian Chmielarz, a game designer who directed Bulletstorm and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, spoke succinctly in an interview on video game violence and how Hatred approaches it differently. He stated, “Violent video games satisfy the desires we don’t admit having, but being able to find an excuse for all the murder keeps us believing that we’re still rational, decent human beings. That we’re actually doing ourselves a favor, letting off steam in the most harmless way possible.” The excuse he speaks of is how games contextualize their violence. Postal does so with humor and by giving the civilian enemies weapons with which to fight back. One does not seem as cruel in the quest for catharsis when one kills another who fires back. But Hatred does not do this. Chmielarz continues, “Games like Hatred remove the veil.” One has no justification for shooting the civilian enemies. They do not fire back and in fact run away. The game revels in just how out in the open its horror and misanthropy actually is. The game is dark and playing it requires one to revel in harsh fantasy. Playing Hatred will be a horrid but ultimately victimless act. It’s one that should exist on Steam and I encourage you not to play it.

Forgotten Films: Only God Forgives

There are several films from the past few years that I think did not get enough attention or discussion. I’ll aid in ending this unfortunate reality by starting a series of posts called Forgotten Films. First is Only God Forgives by Nicolas Winding Refn, my favorite film of 2013. (Spoilers for the entire film ahead)

The Unnatural and Redemption

            Only God Forgives has a reputation. It’s a violently odd and incoherent beast. It presents dark themes native to Shakespeare and Greek myth, but in a post-modern vessel. The film aggresses one’s sensibilities while it pulls no punches. The exposition is confusing, vulgar, and violent. Its rising action is cripplingly slow, leading to a climax that explodes like very few films can yet still manages to subvert expectations. And its falling action does not just drop, it careens straight down, unraveling until you can barely stand to be alienated any longer by the oddness of it all.

            Only God Forgives immediately assaults the viewer with a strange world. It introduces the audience to Julian and his brother Billy. They run a muay thai gym for young men to train and compete as a cover for their drug business. During a trainees’ fight, their lieutenant does a drug deal with a woman. The boy ends up winning, is congratulated, and paid by Billy as Julian blankly stares. The room is dark and foreboding with extreme blood red light accenting it. Billy turns to Julian, uttering, “Time to meet the Devil.”

           

            Billy seeks punishment for his sexual relationship with his mother. During the film’s dinner scene, their mother Crystal says, “You know how boys are. Competitive. And with Billy being older and having the bigger cock, it’s not that Julian’s was small but…Billy’s was enormous!” The audience has their Oedipus. Instead of killing his father (Julian took that into his own hands), or blinding himself, the unnatural act pushes Billy to seek death. But he cannot facilitate death himself. He understands that he has committed a grave sin and his self-hatred pushes him to seek damnation by God, the ultimate authority.

            The film transitions to the neo-noir streets of Bangkok. Dark alleys, bright red and blue neon lights abound as Billy stalks the city. He stops upon a brothel and tells the pimp inside, “I want to fuck a 14 year old girl.” The pimp shrugs off the unnatural request in an attempt to redirect Billy’s attention to the girls in the window. Billy’s neon-lit ephebelia continues. “Do you have a daughter?” The pimp nods. “Bring her in. I’ll pay you 15000 Bat.” The pimp gives up and Billy assaults him and the women inside the brothel. Billy does not want to have sex with a young girl for the pleasure. One look into his and Julian’s face shouts that they are incapable of feeling pleasure, natural or not. The heinous crime he seeks to commit is to bring justice down upon himself. He continues down the streets, ambling like a barbarian waiting for civilization to strike him down.

            Billy smells the arm he beat the women with, taking in their perfume. He stops by a madame and her young daughter, fantasizing of murdering and raping her. A smash cut back to Julian looking at his hands connects the act of sex and violence to human hands. Julian holds them open then tightly closed. His upper torso and closed fists resemble the statue of a younger and more muscular muay thai fighter behind him.

            The film cuts to Chang, walking down the street. Chang’s otherworldliness becomes apparent by his manner of appearing rather than arriving. He enters a room with Billy on a bed and the young girl in a pool of blood on the floor. Billy sits there, no longer blank but withdrawn knowing that judgment has come and Hell will follow.

            The editing during the climactic fight scene reveals the statue near Julian’s ring to be of Chang. The film cuts between shots of Chang mercilessly beating Julian and the statue. Chang was a legendary fighter in addition to his supernatural position. Whereas Billy and Julian use their fists for unnatural acts (killing and raping young women, killing one’s father), Chang has used them to reinforce his dominion and dispense justice. The proximity of Julian to the statue suggests an inverted covenant the two have. Unlike the Binding of Isaac, Chang never asked Julian to kill his father as a test of his devotion. Julian is more like Macbeth than Abraham. The acts of patricide and filicide represent affronts against nature. God makes sin, man then sins, now man must seek redemption. And now the film begins suggesting that Chang is Old Testament. Both Billy and the father of the dead girl must be redeemed.

            Chang brings an old man into the room. He is Choi Yan Lee, the father of the young girl. Chang blankly looks at a saddened Lee and says, “How could you do it? How could you let this happen?” Lee is bewildered, replying, “I didn’t do anything.” Chang stares mercilessly and ends the conversation. “Now’s your chance to do something. Do what you want.” Chang leaves the room and the father brutally murders Billy. God is not seeking murder, but he is allowing it to occur to restore balance to civilization. Nature has purged the unnatural.

            The film cuts to a nighttime shot next to a highway. The police encircle Chang and Lee as low-end brass blares, summoning discomfort and foreshadowing Lee’s redemption. Lee sits on his knees cowering before Chang and begging for his life.

Lee: I’m sorry. My apologies. Don’t kill me.

Chang: What are you sorry for?

L: You were there. You know what I did. He killed my daughter.

C: Why did you kill him?

L: Because he killed my daughter.

C: You knew what your daughter was doing. Why didn’t you stop her?

L: How else was I to make ends meet. I have four daughters and no sons […] don’t you understand?

Chang approaches mightily and unfazed by Lee’s begging, causing Lee to look away in shame. Chang finally states, “This isn’t about your dead daughter. It’s about your three living daughters. This is to make sure you never forget them.” Chang materializes a sword from his back and slices off Lee’s right arm.

            Lee begs and deflects responsibility for what happened to his daughter, but Chang places the blame on Lee as it is his duty as a father to protect them. In order to redeem Lee, Chang slices off his right arm. Responsibility, action, and redemption are all values centered around the hands of the characters. Hands specifically are an important symbol in Refn’s films. They enact sex when open and violence when closed. Thus cutting off an arm is a neutering of power and sexuality while warning the rest of humanity about the wrath of God. The only chance at redemption is through physical justice. Lee now stands as a testament and has been redeemed for allowing his daughter to die. He is right with God and society.

            The next scene begins as Lee’s shrieks fade and Chang’s blade stops ringing. A steel eyed woman walks in. She is Mai, an exotic dancer in a strange relationship with Julian. He sits, blankly looking at her as she ties his hands to a chair. Sorrowful music plays as Julian looks longingly at Mai masturbating on the bed. He wants to engage with her physically but is unable to touch her. Julian murdered his father earlier in life out of jealousy for the father’s and Billy’s relationship with Crystal. Patricide began an Oedipal sin. His transgression against nature pushes him to fear redemption and its high costs, thus he is unable to experience physical pleasure.

            Julian begins to hallucinate, fearfully imagining himself walk down a hall leading to a dark room. He slowly places his arm into the darkness, reaching into the unknown of his subconscious. Chang appears and slices off his arm in the hallucination as the film quickly cuts back to Mai climaxing. Once again, violence, redemption, and sexuality are linked together. But more importantly, unnatural violence and sexuality has made natural sexuality impossible for Julian. The inverted covenant requires Chang to redeem Julian.

            Julian’s unnatural past followed by his final act against his mother of feeling inside the womb of her corpse illustrates his fractured psyche. He is not normal and cannot become normal on his own. His mother’s involvement only brings about revenge plots against Chang when she should be pushing for him to become redeemed. Her existence is that of a towering and incestuous hedonist. She spites Julian when he refuses to kill Choi Yan Lee. She arrogantly seeks the death of Chang. And when her warpath sets Chang’s sights on her, she invokes maternity so that Julian protects her only to later dismiss him as an after thought before her death by Chang’s sword.

            Julian’s exploration of his mother’s womb is fruitless. He returns to a club, watching women from a distance, unable to touch them or to feel peace. Chang enters, looking softer as and full of grace. The ending, alluding to the too-good-to-be-true hallucination at the end of Taxi Driver, finds Julian in a pastoral setting. Nature surrounds him, Chang, and the police encircling them. Julian holds his arms out, bloodied and dirty from killing his father and feeling his mother’s womb. Chang’s mystical sword comes down and the film ends. Julian is no longer unnatural, but he is now physically incapable of sex and violence. He is sterile, but he is redeemed.