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Portal 2: The Greatest Story that Didn't Need to Be Told

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:16:00 -0600

Portal 2 is finally here, and having played through the single-player campaign in less than twenty-four hours, it’s time to reflect on the experience. THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS. Seriously, this entire entry literally reveals and ruins the entire story and gameplay experience of Portal 2. If you want to experience the game without spoilers, stop right here. Otherwise, read on.

Portal 2 is a visually stunning game. The environments, ambience, sound design, and overall play experience is truly a marvel. In fact the only thing that makes playing the game difficult to enjoy is that, well, it’s part of the Portal story. Now, I realize that’s a little confusing. The core of Portal is necessary here and it’s not any less enjoyable; in fact it’s even more enjoyable. The puzzles are new and interesting, and the newly-introduced mechanics put a refreshing touch on a game style that was already damn-near perfect to play. So what’s the problem here? Why does Portal 2 just not feel right?

Valve has created their greatest game that never needed to exist. When I say this, I mean that they’re telling an unnecessary story. Portal 2 as a sequel provides answers to questions like, “what is the history of Aperture Science from the 1970 era onward?” and, “how did GLaDOS come to be?” Problem is, nobody asked these questions.

It’s sort of like your grandfather’s stories about fighting in World War II. He has a way of telling them, a story he’s created specifically for you as an audience. He knows where you’re coming from, and he knows the best way to tell the story to you; the result is a cherished memory. That’s what Valve gave us with Portal. Portal succeeded because of its quick one-off narrative, a story with no marked beginning or end. Part of the allure to the story was that while magnetically interesting, dark, and hilarious, it was also a mystery.

It’s when you start answering questions that never should have been asked that the story becomes something perverted. When you poke and prod grandpa for more details, you risk hearing about the grotesques of war. The rape, the starving civilians, the murder of armed young people. Not only is hearing this unnecessary, but it’s causing you to look back on the original story unfavorably.

I blame part of the lacking narrative experience in Valve’s decision to implement an actual loading screen between levels, a mistake I cannot point out enough or make little of. These loading screens absolutely kill the pacing of the game, and what’s worse, this is the first title they’ve chosen to do this with. They’ve come up with a less-than-great idea and have put it in the game in which it will do the most possible damage! Simply leaving the frozen-screen loads in place from every other Valve title would have preserved the flow of the narrative a hundred-fold. When the narrative isn’t that good in the first place, that’s saying a lot.

But hey, thanks for letting us zoom in.

What really causes things to get out of control in Portal 2 is how Valve starts to tell this story (that doesn’t even need to be told in the first place). The sheer scale of the unseen underbelly of Aperture as it used to exist in the sixties and seventies, built upwards toward what it is now, is so grand in scale that it exceeds “unbelievable” and goes right on to “utterly ridiculous.”

While I have to give the design team credit for their creativity, at Valve this often goes unchecked until it mars games that were perfectly good to begin with. The voice work in the game is spectacular and the writing is witty and enjoyable, but the severity of the comedic element approaches campy and, again, corrodes some of the darkness and mystery of the series. By its ending, Portal 2 turns the series into a very large joke.

Literally every element that caused delight in the first Portal is back in Portal 2, but it’s been given such a burst of camp that makes it awkward when compared to its predecessor. Hilarious dialogue? Try more dialogue delivered by wackier characters! Crazy physics elements? MORE physics elements powered by shooting portals at the ACTUAL MOON! Instant cult-classic heartwarming song? Old news, have a high-powered dance beat club track that’s just embarrassing to listen to!

If that’s not enough, your reward is the most pointless, misguided, laughably terrible ending possible! No, really, a giant leopard-spotted turret is going to sing “what a shame” to you in choral Spanish! I WISH I were kidding.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing the game. I just liked the series and the story of Aperture Science a lot more before they created this bastardized, needless explanation. The story of Aperture related to Black Mesa, fit right into the Half-Life canon (a facet that utterly excited me beyond belief) and now it’s become a depressing attempt at humorous fan-service. But then, why shouldn’t it? The clamor for a sequel (and following release hype) were so astronomical that not making a sequel would have been lunacy.

Somewhere in the word “lunacy” I’m looking for a joke about moon rocks to make fun of this game, but it’s escaping me right now.

It’s critical to note that while I’m calling it the greatest story that never should’ve been told, I’m absolutely not saying it’s a game that shouldn’t have been made. It should have been made with a sole focus on cooperative play, and if it absolutely needed to include a campaign, one that didn’t kick over the beautiful Portal sand castle.

Portal is now about a science company from the sixties that performed wacky and zany experiments on olympic athletes using moon rocks and mantis blood, run by a loving-wife-turned-robot (who was a lot cooler when she was just a homicidal robot, let’s be honest). Team Fortress 2 now solely revolves around acquiring hats. Given Valve’s poor track record of taking stellar IPs and turning them into bad jokes, I have very, very little hope for Half-Life 3.

The Effects of Gender as a Contextual Feature on Gamers

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:45:00 -0600

There is no arguable reason that Halo protagonist Master Chief isn’t a woman. There is no justification for not creating Devil May Cry hero Dante or The Legend of Zelda hero Link as female characters. No basis exists for the decision to make Samus Aran of Metroid fame not male. Characters in all forms of media have varying applications of appeal based on their contextual features (that is, appearance in “context” or how it relates to the “text” of the media) and gender is no exception. What gives gender a distinction however is that its practical use – the decision to make a character male or female – has a very defined, expected outcome. The genders of video game protagonists have a direct effect on the player’s motivation, experience of empathy, and the perception of violence within the game. Players will experience varying levels of motivation to complete tasks within their games dependent on the contextual features of the avatar, or in-game representation, they control. Motivation to complete tasks begins outside the game world for the player. Enjoyment of violent content for example varies by gender and males are drawn to this content more than females; males also have a tendency to like games with a mature ESRB rating more than females¹. Historically studies have shown that females prefer traditional games such as card games, board games, puzzles, and trivia games; males in contrast, despite enjoying all genres of games studied, show a preference for role-playing games, strategy games, and action games². These preferences (whether intentional or subconscious) will ultimately have an obvious overbearing effect on the player’s desire to complete goals within the game. The gender of the player-character, the protagonist of the narrative, similarly affects this drive to succeed.

In a study conducted in 2010 Shu-Fang Lin, Ph.D. explores the following concepts: firstly that players participating in violent play will experience differing levels of guilt correlating to the ability to justify their actions. Secondly that the measured experience of guilt will correlate directly with how much the player enjoys playing the game. Lastly that gender will moderate the relationship between these concepts. Lin studied a group of game-playing students from a university with an average age of 21 and assigned them randomly to the proposed play conditions. Findings of the study showed that a significant interaction occurred between contextual features and gender as related to enjoyment of a game; females enjoyed playing characters in non-violent games more than playing those in violent games whether the characters actions were justified or not (e.g., females received less sense of arousal from playing characters that stand to gain from mercenary action in games like Hitman, et cetera). Lin shows that it has previously been suggested that males are more capable of deactivating the self-regulating process arising from thoughts related to immoral or “evil” actions in the game world.

Most player-controlled characters in video games are male. Historically video games have been considered an element of the “boy domain” and were, as a result, “for boys.” This concept itself stems from a long cultural pattern of rewarding gender-specific play activities in children, often coupled with punishing gender-atypical play. Girls who play video games “are likely to be rejected by their peers for playing what is considered to be a cross-gender stereotyped toy. Consequently their needs for inclusion and affection will not be met by engaging in video game play³.” Halo is not an exception; the protagonist and virtually every other in-game entity is male. It should however be mentioned that – to its credit – the series has added a strong, non-sexualized female (albeit with distinctly masculine features including a muscular frame and extremely short hairstyle) to its non-player roster. Still it remains unanswered why exactly Master Chief could not have been a female character.

According to Lin’s research there are at least two issues worth considering: firstly that male players will have an increased level of stress and difficulty assuming the role of a female as a result, and secondarily that female players who do engage the game will have difficulty mitigating even the justified violence psychologically. These concepts do not change the game, its style of play, goals, or narrative however. The game of Halo itself remains unaffected, and is arguably the same experience start to finish with a female leading lady.

The effects on the player in these cases is both obvious and unfortunate; boys dislike playing female characters and girls dislike playing male characters (or playing altogether for fear of rejection). Male and female players both exhibit heightened levels of stress when playing a character of the opposite gender, which Lin’s results argue causes a decreased level of play enjoyment. Yet games continue to appeal to young males, the industry’s widest demographic (Federal Trade Commission, 2000; Sherry et al., in press). Master Chief of Halo is male for arguably one single reason: that more males play – and therefore purchase – games than females. Mathematically, more people will play Halo if the protagonist is male. Within the context of the story it remains certain that no discernable differences would occur if Master Chief were a woman. In fact such a change could potentially invite innumerous new players to gaming (the first-person shooter as a genre in specific). Currently females are left with a lack of strong, non-sexualized female protagonists in justified context within action games. Samus Aran of Nintendo’s Metroid has become the poster girl for strong female characters unsupported by male influence, and players who want more are often left to seek out non-western role-playing games to find a fierce leading lady.

Women have a difficult time accepting agency as male characters, a difficulty that can result in a disconnection with in terms of play, loss of motivation, and an overall lack of empathy. In strong cases females will often be negatively stimulated if the actions of their male avatar are immoral or “evil.” In a study considering the likeability of video game characters based on contextual features it was discovered that 61% of observed males overwhelmingly committed the most violent acts willingly, compared to less than 17% of females⁴. The levels of empathy expressed by female video game players is in constant challenge by an oversaturation of male player-characters placed in situations requiring violent resolution. Few exceptions exist but the most notable is The Boss, the final antagonist of the Metal Gear game series. The Boss, founder and commander of an elite military unit, was selected by 1up.com as one of the most attractive non-sexualized women in gaming: “[she] comes off as… attractive through pure competence and nobility. As much a mother figure as a mentor, she represents one of the rare occasions where a lot would be lost if a central character’s gender happened to be reversed⁵.” Unfortunately The Boss is a non-player character and playable characters of both genders presented using these qualities have yet to become a trend in the game industry. Previously discussed, this problem with disconnecting and termination of empathy as a result of females controlling violent actions seems to now be at the forefront of the decision to make most game protagonists male.

Violent acts in video games, whether justified or unjustified within the context of the narrative, are accepted differently by players as a result of gender (both that of the player and the avatar). That is, violent actions are more acceptable to the player if the player is male and the avatar is also male. Female players controlling a male protagonist will experience a disconnect when asked to perform violent actions, the severity of the disconnection dependent on variables that include justification of the action. Female players experience a similar disconnection when carrying out violent actions as a female character though their level of enjoyment is considerably less affected (whereas enjoyment will decrease drastically in the former scenario). It is also critical to note that males experience a similar disconnect when playing as female protagonists, though the level of severity varies inversely with the amount of violence in the game. Male players will experience less of a connection to the game preparing meals as Mama in Cooking Mama than they would acrobatically gunning down enemies as the sexually-charged female protagonist of the eponymous Bayonetta. Identification with the player-character is integral to the experience of the game, what Cohen defines as a vicarious experience that allows the player to “extend [his or her] emotional horizons and social perspectives⁶.” These vicarious experiences – temporarily “trying on” alternative roles, imaginatively – become difficult when players have to not only assume actions that he or she has personal moral apprehension for but also assume the opposite gender to do so.

Gender as a contextual feature has an overbearing effect on the motivation, empathy, and acceptance of violence within players of both genders. Video games as media remain under the influence of outdated media patterns that enforce video games as part of the “boy domain,” presenting young, adolescent, and adult males with campaigns of violence and rewarding them for participating – patterns that solely exist today as the byproduct of a sales industry. More males play games than females (amazingly in spite of females making up a higher percentage of the world’s population), therefore more males must purchase games than females, therefore men are the primary target market for a given game company’s revenue model. It is unfortunate that these patterns ostracize women as gamers, so much that the contextual features within the media subscribes to these patterns and offers them little in terms of connection or reward. For all the progress made in the visual quality of 3D games throughout the past 15 years – climbing from pseudo-3D sprite characters in Quake to fully-rendered gorgeous models of Crysis 2, and the increase in relatability it affords – the “gender leap” has yet to be made.

What remains to be seen is the result of a mainstream, highly-anticipated game title featuring a strong female protagonist who is able to complete her goals without the use of violence. Provided that a game affords a polished experience, well-crafted and expertly delivered plot, characters with depth, and a high level of enjoyment, the gender of the protagonist should ultimately be a secondary consideration. Males and females alike enjoy gaming and the industry will benefit from equal gender consideration in the contextual features of player-characters.

1. Lin, Shu-Fang, Ph.D. Gender Differences and the Effect of Contextual Features on Game Enjoyment and Responses. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2010: 13-5.

2. Lucas, Kristen and Sherry, John. Sex Differences in Video Game Play: A Communication-Based Explanation. Communication Research, 2004: 5-31.

3. Lucas and Sherry, ibid.

4. Lachlan, Kenneth A., Smith, Stacy L., and Tamborini, Ron. Models for Aggressive Behavior: The Attributes of Violent Characters in Popular Video Games. Communication Studies, 2005: 56-4.

5. Sharkey, Scott. Top 5 Most Attractive, Non-Sexualized Women in Games. www.1up.com/features/top-5-attractive-nonsexualized-women

6. Cohen, Jonathan. Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences With Media Characters. Mass Communication & Society, 2001: 4-245.

"Bullshit."

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:06:34 -0600

“Bullshit.”

- DICE, on the decline of PC gaming

My Inner 11-Year-Old Loves MK Challenge Tower

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 00:12:00 -0600

I have a certain fondness in my heart for Mortal Kombat. I found the first game in a shopping mall Aladdin’s Castle on pure accident. I’d spent my afternoons glued to coin-op Ninja Gaiden, N.A.R.C., Final Fight, Alien vs. Predator; enough games to fill a list ten pages long. I was a child of the arcade, spending hours every summer surrounded by digital white noise and flashing lights, and the FBI logo is permanently etched into my brain thanks to the “winners don’t use drugs” campaign. The day I walked into that arcade and Mortal Kombat was there, front and center, I instantly took notice.

The love interest that would develop between my childhood self and Mortal Kombat has lasted into adulthood, so embedded in my soul that the very idea of rebooting the series saw me jumping out of my chair with elation. So when the internet was abuzz with word of the newly-introduced “Challenge Tower” I began investigating right away.

Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera (one of the lucky bastards lucky enough to play the reboot but tight-lipped due to embargo until release) takes a look at the video released today by NetherRealm Studios and breaks down what the Challenge Tower is all about: “a series of 300 challenges that test players’ ability to perform fatalities, fight under different conditions, and try a variety of characters… a wonderful way to get a feel for the game.”

Kuchera says the Challenge Tower will be a great edition to the game that will let players get used to the characters and really learn how the fighting system of the game itself works. Personally, it’s just another bit of information to keep me drooling all over myself.

The new Mortal Kombat releases this April.

Mortal Kombat’s Challenge Tower a Bloody Way to Learn Game

Did BioWare Build "A Better RPG?" with Dragon Age II?

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:04:00 -0600

Destructoid is one of many gaming journalism organizations to get its hands on the newly-released Dragon Age II demo, and offers up a response centered around BioWare’s intentions with the much-anticipated sequel. BioWare is well-known for keeping player metrics submitted by their games during play, metrics that track what sort of play actions players take and how they respond to the game. Things like how many more players create warriors than mages, for example. And in these metrics the developer has a gold mine of information to put into how to successfully improve on further titles. One of the key issues BioWare took to addressing in creating Dragon Age II was that players were dropping out of Dragon Age Origins and disengaging after the first hour.

Destructoid goes on to briefly detail the narrative of the demo, focusing on its beginning: players get to jump headfirst into the gameplay with a character as powerful as he or she can possibly be and “go nuts,” the developer explains. No character customization to worry about, no stats to manage. The game will begin with action at the expense of all else.

Later as the narrative begins (a re-telling of the protagonist’s tale) the narrator is tasked with providing facts, such as what the character actually looked like. Here the player encounters the character customization screen for the first time. The interface in the demo is, for lack of a better description, nonexistent. In BioWare’s efforts to simplify the game they have drastically oversimplified it; the player’s interaction with stats and tactics is now minimal at best.

Has BioWare built a better RPG? No. They’ve built an RPG more easily accessible by everyone in an attempt to dissuade a fraction of players from disengaging early in the game. But at what cost? Will hardcore fans that crave the logistics and stats be pushed away by this simple, watered-down offering? Time and critical response will tell; Facebook and Twitter have been inundated since the demo’s release with praise and ire alike.

Dragon Age II releases March 2011.

Building a Better RPG: Hands-On Dragon Age II Intro

Bulletstorm Worst Game Ever, Causes Rape

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:54:00 -0600

Is Bulletstorm the worst game in the world? That’s the question posed by Faux News (sorry, Fox News) in their typical fact-free, hate-mongering fashion. Fair and balanced journalism it’s not, typically the Associated Press style guidelines discourage professional journalists from leading an audience into a particular belief with a weighted headline. But let’s face it, Fox News is far from professional and its typical viewer base is convinced with little more than a headline. John Walker of Rock, Paper, Shotgun takes a look at Fox’s “investigative reporting” into Bulletstorm and what can be found, while not surprising for Fox News, is no less embarrassing to them and needlessly hurtful to the gaming industry.

Perhaps the snippet that has garnered the most media attention regarding Bulletstorm since the release of its demo is the use of sexually-rooted terminology such as “gang bang” and “topless” for in-game skills. When a player completes certain actions, such as killing more than one enemy with a single attack for example, he is awarded points for a “gang bang” attack. Fox News purports that this inclusion will literally cause rape. In response to this Walker breaks down Fox’s reporting step-by-step to show how a tiny piece of information can be snowballed into a full-scale attack on the game industry:

“It’s an excellent example of letting a loose fact mutate as the story goes on. It begins by saying that the game “ties” violence to sex acts by the use of sex-themed words. Then they quote various medical professionals, the first explaining that, ‘If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm’s explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant.’ Now it has become ‘explicit language.’ That’s cited words like ‘topless’ in case you’d forgotten. Then the next quote moves things on a stage further. ‘Carol Lieberman, a psychologist and book author, told foxnews.com that sexual situations and acts in video games (highlighted so well in Bulletstorm) have led to real-world sexual violence.’ We’ve gone from a word appearing on-screen that puns something naughty to highlighting sexual situations. Like a man being topless? Apparently so. And then they hit their mother lode. Lieberman adds, ‘The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games.’

And there they have their story: Bulletstorm, and games like it, cause rape.”

Walker goes on to debase the entire story as multiple gaming journalists have done at this point, citing fact where Fox News relies solely on fear-mongering misinformation. Fox has the advantage of knowing their viewer-base does not care to fact-check, coupled with a strong penchant to want to believe that video games cause rape and murder (these are the same American citizens that believe all foreigners are terrorists). Facts like the 85% decrease in rapes in the United States over the past three decades at a steadily-dropping rate, for example. Facts like how Carole Lieberman is actually a television psychologist that has done no critical study in gaming and has failed numerous times to cite her research and findings to support her claim.

Luckily for the rest of the world, Karma is a bitch. Lieberman’s book sales on Amazon.com have plummeted since sticking her foot sharply in her mouth.

Will Bulletstorm Murder Your Children? (No)

Game Developers Shouldn’t Read Their Own Forums

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:52:00 -0600

Destructoid’s Jim Sterling offered a write-up early in January regarding Spiderweb Software (a small indie title developer that focuses on demoware) founder Jeff Vogel’s article instructing game developers not to read their own forums. Sterling refers to Vogel’s three leading arguments for his case: it’s unproductive to read about how much people hate you, it’s not helpful, and the temptation to respond with anger.

It should be considered common knowledge among keen users of the internet today that user forums are the unmitigated cesspools of the web. Sterling goes on to support Vogel’s stance, citing his personal experience in dealing with what he refers to as, “bitter… raging nerds.” He’s right, for the most part, as forums have become stomping ground for aggressive and anonymous bashing of not only the developer but other users, and any other person that may come to mind.

Sterling agrees with Vogel’s belief in a developer not reading their own forums, but criticizes him for not suggesting a means of resisting the urge. Perhaps it’s best that I myself am not a developer in charge of public relations, because I would suggest a developer-run forum that served to provide news and updates, but did not allow user registration or posting. It’s my belief that airing of opinions belong on fan-created sites, and see nothing wrong with sparing developer forums for official information. But then, I may have been head of an oligarchy in a previous life.

Vogel: Game Developers Shouldn’t Read Their Own Forums

A Very Glitchy Q1 for Gamers

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:05:00 -0600

First quarter is turning out to have a buggier-than-normal release slate, to the dismay of gamers everywhere. Among heavily-reported buggy releases are titles like Fable III, Fallout: New Vegas, and now Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Microsoft can at least be thankful that the Kinect isn’t on trial by itself, as recent weeks have shown a lot of overly-critical response to the software giant’s new toy. To be fair, however, the Kinect is the least buggy of any of the titles mentioned here. Problems with Kinect are more consumer expectation being out-of-scope than the product not working as intended (unless you’re African American).

The worst cases go hands-down to Fallout: New Vegas and Call of Duty: Black Ops, who are failing to run for a significant amount of PC gamers despite far exceeding the technical requirements. But let’s face facts here, is anyone really shocked at a buggy Bethesda release?

The big question to be answered with Black Friday and holiday shopping looming around the corner is whether or not publishers will roll out the much-needed patches, fixes, and updates before sales start to hurt?

Why Medal of Honor is Better Than Call of Duty

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:48:00 -0600

Now that Call of Duty: Black Ops has released (if you can call it a release), I finally feel a little justified in re-earthing my months-old claim that, “Medal of Honor will be better than Call of Duty: Black Ops.” I was right, and here’s why.

Release

Medal of Honor had a lot pushing against it during it’s pre-release campaign. The first and most obvious was its inclusion of the Taliban as the game’s antagonist as a playable force (the implication here being that the player could opt to play as Taliban and kill American forces). Personally, I was excited at this premise. At some point American consumers and advocates are going to have to stop crying over things like this (or using it to further their political or media ground). It remains an intelligent design choice to include the opposing force in a military shooter as a playable asset. Whether it’s Nazis, Soviets, Afghanis, Cubans, or other Americans (Call of Duty: Civil War, I’m looking at you EA, make it happen) we have to accept that at some point in history, members of an opposing force have killed American troops. Belly-aching and boo-hooing until even the choice is taken away is, frankly, un-American.

What this all leads to is that the coin was weighted against Medal of Honor from the start. To begin with, it wasn’t Call of Duty. Die-hard (re: morons) Call of Duty fans had already consigned to not giving it the time of day. Add military bases refusing to sell the software as well as concerned parents and consumers now lobbying against its release because of the poor media portrayal, and it’s amazing Medal of Honor shipped as many units as it did.

Call of Duty: Black Ops released to a wide anticipation, going as far as receiving an almost full-page ad on the Steam store on its release day. But unlike Medal of Honor its launch did not go without incident. The PC version of the game is unplayable to a wide number of gamers, as can be proven by a quick visit to any gaming-related forum. Subject-matter aside, it’s hard to call a release “successful” when your released product stutters down to a grinding halt every few seconds. Maybe it’s just me but this is not indicative of a completed, high-quality product.

Verdict: Call of Duty: Black Ops set massive sales numbers but is tainted by poor performance and unplayability. Medal of Honor had a lot of ire against it before even releasing, and still managed to do fairly well in a market dominated by Call of Duty fans (re: idiots).

Plot

Medal of Honor has a plot that strives for a good balance of creative realism and fun, and it achieves it successfully, though an unfortunate side-effect is an extremely short play time. Medal of Honor’s creators worked with military professionals to create an authentic experience that not only plays better, but just feels better in general. The best criticism that players could come up with was that they didn’t understand military jargon. If that’s your chief complaint against a story, the story isn’t at fault. Your lack of general knowledge is to blame.

Call of Duty: Black Ops has a story that I would willingly believe was written by an eighth-grader. It’s hokey, campy, unbelievable (in a bad way, not in a fantasy epic way), and it’s cringe-worthy to endure. And that’s exactly what you do with the Black Ops plot; you endure it rather than enjoying it. Treyarch has successfully written a story that has to be tolerated, but to their credit, perhaps there’s a measure of planned success in that process. If sales are indicative of anything, Call of Duty’s player base is either very low-intelligence, very adolescent, or both. Call of Duty: Black Ops is a story that feels like it’s been written by idiot children for idiot children, and the world is eating it up. The worst perpetrator is the dialogue, which borders on insulting to anyone who isn’t a teenager with a bad attitude, dumb haircut, and whiny music collection. There’s a small amount of sadness when an authentic experience is trumped by a ridiculous, sophomoric plot being packaged as an authentic experience.

Truly, a surprise is in store for our adolescent future servicemen and women who endeavor to be unrealistic super covert soldiers that work directly for the president and have secret codes installed in their brains to subvert the other secret codes installed in their brains. My inner eleven year-old is doing back flips, and my adult self is figuring out how to euthanize him.

Verdict: Medal of Honor has a great, original, engrossing story that’s fun to play and great to appreciate. Call of Duty: Black Ops has a really cool story that’s a lot of fun if you’ve ever eaten glue or fallen down the stairs more than once.

Graphics and Sound

Both Medal of Honor and Call of Duty look great, at times. Medal of Honor feels and looks very dry, which works well within its setting. Arid outdoor areas feel arid, indoor city areas feel trapped with heat and constricting, and add to the tense nature of the scene. The weapons are realistic and well-constructed and the characters are modeled very well.

Black Ops feels “wet.” Character textures, in particular, have an overly glossy sheen that makes me feel more like they’re animated Barbie dolls than humans. If Treyarch was shooting for a sweaty, glistening look, they overshot “sweat” entirely and landed square on “cooking oil.” When you’re not focused on your buddy’s patent leather face, the landscapes do look very well done. Well done, that is, right up until a cutscene zooms in to show you more of your surroundings, and the specular lighting wraps specific objects in an orange glow. What I can surmise is intended to be sunlight takes small objects like barrels, building roofs, and generators and sets them aglow in orange, sticking them out from the scene like irradiated boxes.

In contrast, the sound stands apart significantly between the two titles; most obviously present to the player is the quality of voice acting work. Call of Duty: Black Ops pulls out some major stops to employ big names like Ice Cube and Ed Harris to voice Bowman and Hudson respectively, and the talent shows. Both Ice Cube and Harris give life to their characters and are pleasant to listen to. In typical shooter fashion in which the main character is given vocal presence, unfortunately, Mason is voiced by what sounds like an unseasoned amateur. If I didn’t know any better, I think it would be safe to assume Treyarch’s choice to go big on a few stars has bitten them in the ass by leaving them with a leftover voice budget barely big enough to afford cousins and neighbors to fill the other roles.

Medal of Honor, again, shines in its realism. Voice actors sound not only trained in the subject matter of their dialogue, but comfortable in its delivery. Moreso they accomplish this without the “star factor” of big screen actors, which lends itself to feeling more realistic in that each member of your team feels like just another soldier you’d find in the service.

Weapon sounds, environment sounds, and score all do very well in both titles. Call of Duty makes it a point to mimic the Apocalypse Now famous Robert Duvall scene in Vietnam, making sure to include “Fortunate Son” as the backing soundtrack to your debriefing. Barring the inclusion of a surfboard and a liuetenant screaming, “Charlie don’t surf,” the scene feels copied almost shamelessly rather than in tribute. While normally this would score points with me (as anything in reference to such wonderful cinema should), their ham-fisted attempt comes across as cheap.

Verdict: Both games sound good enough to maintain the mood and sell the story, but Call of Duty repeatedly falls flat when poor voice work breaks the pace.

Overall

Call of Duty: Black Ops is not a good game. It’s not terrible, but it isn’t good. Is it worth playing? Sure, I could justify almost anything as worth playing at least once. But it certainly is undeserving of the cost required to do so, the hype leading up to doing so, or the stuttering and lag problems that make doing so impossible for PC users.

There is little redeeming about a magic soldier made out of plastic that’s been coated in bacon grease and his socially inept magic soldier friends visiting the four corners of the earth in complete secret, killing high-priority magic bad guys on orders from the late John F. Kennedy. At least, there’s nothing redeeming about it in a game that has historically sold itself on authenticity. These are the sort of elements I would expect, and equally enjoy, in a Tom Clancy-inspired title. Black Ops embarrasses itself as it stumbles through its paces.

Medal of Honor was a short game, a flaw that when coupled with, “it’s not Call of Duty” ultimately led to generally less-than-stellar reception. It is interesting, even pivotal, to note that most complaints lodged against it (it’s entirely linear, it has on-rails sections, it’s short) are equally true of virtually every Call of Duty title released.

At least Medal of Honor runs without stuttering down to a halt.