Topic: The Destruction of Hardcore Gaming for Mass Appeal

[cecil-kain]

I just had the rare pleasure of reading this brilliant article while browsing the latest E3 news.

Although Castlevania is not mentioned, these issues should speak to the heart of all hardcore gamers.  Lords of Shadow is but one example of how cinematics and heavy-handed, linear narratives have undermined the fundamentals of the hardcore gaming experience...

http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6380559/gameplay-is-dead-long-live-gameplay

Gameplay is Dead. Long Live Gameplay!
June 5, 2012 12:13PM PDT
Kevin VanOrd
By Kevin VanOrd, Senior Editor

E3 2012: By focusing on cinematic excess, studios are alienating those of us who want games, and not films.

Following 2011's trends of turret sequences, quick-time events, and cinematic set-pieces, E3 2012 has showcased its own share of quick-time events and cinematic set-pieces. On one hand, this is a sensible marketing approach. The more movie-like the showing, the easier it is for the publisher to control the pace and content we see. They want us to see explosions, carnage, and dudes in heavy armor shouting words like "delta" and "bro" and "Go! Go! Go!" The alpha male audience responds with fistpumps and high fives at highly controlled scenarios that may or may not reflect the gameplay at large. Even more standard gameplay can look remarkably cinematic on these stages: the developer playing the game has spent hours practicing and preparing so that we see exactly what they want us to see. It can be hard to tell what events are organic to the game, and what events are scripted and impossible to avoid.

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And thus my biggest disappointments were the games that stuck so closely to the script, and Resident Evil 5 may be at the top of the list. It was all button prompts, explosions, corridors, quick-time events--and a tiny bit of zombie shooting. In other words, it was all the tired western game cliches in a game I hoped would avoid them. Tomb Raider left me similarly unimpressed, though I know I risk the wrath of the Internet hordes with such sacrilege. We saw gameplay, sure--highly linear gameplay down a single corridor. That corridor was made up of a zipline, a river, and a parachuting bit, but it was a single corridor nonetheless. (Though to be fair, in one place, you could take the route above, or go below. That helped give an ounce of flexibility to a few seconds of the game, at least.) Throw in an abundance of cinematics and quicktime events, and you have the prototypical modern video game, albeit one in which the protagonist can withstand a few bullets but is rendered bloody by errant tree branches.

Don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think "linear" is a dirty word, and there is value in gaming experiences that guide every player down the same basic rails. In some ways, these demos represent the direction of many big-publisher releases. The thought process: to gain a large audience, games must be more like films. The Call of Duty franchise didn't invent this approach, but it popularized it, and in so many cases, you can almost hear the voice of a studio’s head honcho saying, "How can we make our game more like Modern Warfare? How can we make it even more cinematic?" Other choice buzz words/phrases I imagine come up include "visceral" and "turn it up a notch."

Even the games that we expect to feature plenty of flexibility and open-ended appeal kept their freedoms tightly in check for the purposes of the show. Crysis 3, for example, will likely be full of freeform action, but the focused presentation kept the pace moving quickly, without hinting at the flexibility you expect from the franchise. The same could be said for Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which (hopefully) will feature plenty of ways of executing your foes, but moved so quickly--and relied so heavily on the mark and execute mechanic--that it looked like the game was playing itself. The less said about Black Ops 2 in this regard, the better, of course. (Look! Hovering drones can do the shooting for you!)

Thank the heavens, then, for the developers and publishers that understand that we love games because they're games. Ubisoft understood this better than any other publisher when it came to press conferences, which is part of what made Watch Dogs one of the most talked about games of E3 2012. In the GameSpot war room, we traded glances and tried to make sense of what we were seeing during the game’s demonstration. And then the pieces started to fall into place. We saw multiple protagonists. Third-person action, hacking, and an open world in which you can view private information about perfect strangers. The game did the talking, and the press responded. We didn't need a litany of explosions, "Press A to Avoid Boulder" prompts, and collapsing skyscrapers to entertain us. I can go to any random Michael Bay movie for those things. I came to E3 for the games.

[knightmere]

Sad but true, and it seems Castlevania has fallen into this trope as well.  The good old days are all but gone.

[e105beta]

I just had the rare pleasure of reading this brilliant article while browsing the latest E3 news.

Although Castlevania is not mentioned, these issues should speak to the heart of all hardcore gamers.  Lords of Shadow is but one example of how cinematics and heavy-handed, linear narratives have undermined the fundamentals of the hardcore gaming experience...

http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6380559/gameplay-is-dead-long-live-gameplay

I know I'm going to get shit for this, but...

I cringe when the word "hardcore" gets thrown around, because its very usage attempts to classify gamers into a value system, where "hardcore" gamer experiences are somehow more complete than "non-hardcore" or "casual" experiences.

This article, in particular, makes me cringe because this guy does a lot of complaining without really explaining what he expects.

His argument is somehow based around how he wants games to be less cinematic, but then references Watch Dogs as this breath of fresh air, when the Watch Dogs trailer was a very passive, cinematic experience. I mean, I dislike what the Call of Duty franchise has done to AAA gaming during the recession, but in the same 9 minutes of gameplay that trailer took place over, I'd be forced to shoot over 70 Russians (or whatever you shoot nowadays) in CoD, which is arguably a ton more gameplay that actually requires some skill from the player.

Then he pays some lips-service to how he doesn't think 'linear" is a bad thing, but then he passively implies how games with flexibility and open-endedness are somehow more 'hardcore' than the games that guide the players through content 'on-rails'. The problem I have with this is that, if hardcore implies a traditional gaming experience, then flexibility and open-endedness are in no way a traditional aspect of gaming. Castlevania was hyper-linear up until the advent of the Metroidvania, and even then Metroidvania's (and by extension Metroid) were notable and unique for their exploration elements.

By the end of it, all I really gathered from the article was that:
A. The author doesn't like explosions
B. The author doesn't like quick-time events

And my response to that is while I agree that our industry is having a big problem with copy-catting and stale gameplay, particularly among shooters, the AAA industry isn't under any big threat of losing the "soul of the gamer" or, to the topics implied message, that Castlevania is by any means becoming a victim of the "cinematic excess" that the author is accusing the industry of because of some longer, honestly far-inbetween cutscenes, and the occasional, and many times completely option, button mash QTEs.

EDIT: To be clear, I think all of his complaints are very valid, and he makes a few good points, but the ultimate message of the article is completely lost in how it was written.

[beingthehero]

Well, Castlevania has been immune from the "casualization" of gaming. Since SotN, Castlevania's trend has been towards accessible games that are open-ended to increase re-playability, and also including collection-type systems like Lament's relics, Aria's souls, and Eccelsia's glyphs. Granted, OoE was also surprisingly tough for those who expected an easier romp.

The only game in which the focus on casual gameplay came at a detriment to my enjoyment was the latest Ace Combat. It was stupidly easy, and the game just wanted to hold my hand so hard. Combat easily became an interactive cutscene, to the point where some enemy fighter jets literally wouldn't go down until they were over a certain point so they could crash spectacularly.

It's strange, because the pinnacle of that series, Ace Combat 04, is rather easy on its normal mode and sold quite well. But what do I know, I'm just a humble Mr. Prunyuu.

[Gunlord]

Very lucid points, e105 and beingthehero. I would also ask if this supposed 'casualization' of gaming might be an artifact of the E3 conference itself. Remember, they want to drum up sales as much as possible, which means they'd choose the most crowd-friendly games to show off at this thing. More 'hardcore' gayms might go under the radar or be saved for later, more specific conferences.

But I am no more than a prunyuu myself....uyuuu!!!!

[e105beta]

Very lucid points, e105 and beingthehero. I would also ask if this supposed 'casualization' of gaming might be an artifact of the E3 conference itself. Remember, they want to drum up sales as much as possible, which means they'd choose the most crowd-friendly games to show off at this thing. More 'hardcore' gayms might go under the radar or be saved for later, more specific conferences.

But I am no more than a prunyuu myself....uyuuu!!!!

I think E3 is an excellent example of that, yes. While I disagree with the concept of advertising to mom and dad at a gaming convention, there's no denying that companies are using E3 to do three things:
A. Advertise new hardware
B. Advertise games that utilize new hardware
C. Advertise mega-blockbusters

If you look at all of this year's conferences, it was all about advertising the new hardware that was coming out, and the latest gaming trend, the "asymmetrical gameplay experience". There were a few games mentioned, but they were either games that were so big we had already heard about them, i.e. Assassin's Creed 3, or games that were being developed to show off the hardware, i.e. Nintendo Land

This is why I actually admire Nintendo right now. While their main conference was their hardware/casual show, they at least understand the fact that their core audience wasn't going to be pleased by a few cinematic blockbuster showings, and are dedicating a whole hour to showing off the 3DS library, which arguably has all of the core games right now.

[Flame]

I like cinematic games. But then I like movies, so seeing how a game nowadays can have the same production values and feel of a movie, that the technology and power to do it has gotten that far, as compared to last console generation alone, is fascinating to me. I loved how cinematic LoS looked. Like the way the Camera specifically worked to give you amazing views of the environment like a movie.

But again, im also easy to please when it comes to a game. or at least i feel I am. As long as i like it gameplay and artistically wise, Im satisfied. that wont stop me from pointing out flaws, but I'll still enjoy it and want more.

Videogames can be an art. And a game that feels very movielike, such as, say, LoS- definitely are proof of that argument being a very valid one. I dont think it's a BAD thing, it just has to be done WELL, which is easier said than done.

Yknow, like movies. Transformers and Battleship were total shit, but then you get something like the Avengers, which is an amazing thing to watch.



TL;DR, Opinions.