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Tag: FPS

Rethinking Mass Murder

Michael Barnes 19 Comments

The above panel is from issue #25 of Grant Morrison’s phenomenal run on DC Comics’ Animal Man. The pale guy is actually the author speaking directly to the character he’s written for two years at the point and the statement he is making is specifically about comic books and the state of the medium circa 1990. It’s a reflection on how grim, dark, gritty, and graphically violent comics had become in a rush toward feigned maturity and mainstream acceptance. It’s a statement about how the gee-whiz wonder and optimism of the Golden and Silver Age had been washed away by writers and artists over-eager to Frank Miller everything up, to darken the vibrant palette of comics to reflect the real world. I read this issue over the holidays, not long before the Connecticut school shooting.

Of course, neither that tragedy nor Animal Man have anything to do with violence in the real world, regardless of the pundits and opportunists that would have us believe that media is a causative factor in increasing the number of murders or violent crimes that we see on the news. People make choices, people have problems. Consumer media doesn’t make those or create those. Ironically, even the bloodiest, most brutal video games are less socially harmful than any given car commercial that promotes an illusion of American affluence or a reality show that celebrates crude, unbecoming behavior.

Between reading Morrison’s rather profound, simple statement against the darkening tone of the comics medium and thinking about twenty- twenty– children shot to death, I’ve been thinking heavily on violent video games content and in a way that I never really have before. Maybe it’s something to do with getting older, maybe it’s something to do with being a parent. Writing as someone who has never had an issue with violence in video games, movies, or any other kind of entertainment, I’m rather shocked to find that for the first time in my life I’m really kind of sick of being entertained by mass murder.

Brace for unpopular opinion. The anti-video games crowd isn’t entirely wrong about violence in video games. They’re wrong because they don’t understand that games aren’t non-stop slaughter-fests oozing with blood and rape. Most of the people that make comments about video game violence have barely played the games they’re talking about, if at all. It’s the exact same situation as with the Video Nasty, Satanic Panic, and Gangsta rap controversies in the 1980s The moral watchdogs don’t understand that video games have finer literary qualities like narrative context, signification, satire, and metaphor.  And that they are entertainment, and that it is OK to be entertained by darker, more questionable material. They don’t get that video games are an artistic medium that can- and in fact should- represent all aspects of human life including violence and death.

But what they are, at least in part, right about is that it has become too pervasive and there is a certain climate of brutality, nihilism, and devalued human life that games (along with other media) are promoting in the larger cultural spectrum. Witness any number of games released in 2012, where the primary action is killing somebody or something. Witness any number of games where the environments are broken, destroyed, or otherwise ruined. Witness any number of video game covers where the central figure is a “chin down, eyes up” killer of whatever stripe. Witness the aggressively macho, roughneck tone, sound, and visuals of many games. You cannot possibly claim with any degree of credibility that video games do not glorify, reward, and celebrate the taking of simulated life. Achievement unlocked, there’s pixelated blood on your hands.

Lionizing murder is one thing, but stripping death of all of its finality, meaning, and immense power is another. Video games are practically founded on frivolous representations of death without consequence or meaning, barring games such as Dark Souls that make dying an important mechanic in the game. But rare is the game that comes along saying to the player “hey, maybe killing all of these people was a bad idea”. Spec Ops: The Line did that in a particularly chilling way. The victims of a white phosphorous attack are revealed to be innocent civilians, not enemy combatants. I can’t think of another game that really shows the player what happens when they press a button and lots of people die. People that shouldn’t have died.

Video games have always been criticized for violent content. I recall reading a video games magazine sometime around 1983 or 1984 that had an article about what could happen if video games were made illegal because of their violent content. At that point, the most violent game you could play was the old Death Race arcade game. Decades on, and slaughter has become casual and in fact expected of the medium.

To some degree, it’s natural. Simulated violence is one of the key elements of any kind of play. When animals play, they mock fighting, competition, conflict, and aggression.  And people have always been entertained by violence from the gladiator arena to the Grand Guignol. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, and I do believe that there should be violence in video games because they, as art, should necessarily reflect who we are as a civilization. I’m still going to play shooters, because I love them. Violent video games are entertaining. But I do find that I am questioning why there are so many games that put the player in the role of a mass murderer- regardless of context, cause, or justification. Why is it always about killing?

Think about it. How many digital lives did you end last year, not including online multiplayer opponents whose on-screen personages map directly to a live human being? How many over the entire time you’ve played games? For my part, I can’t count that high. If the world of Tron were a reality, I would be a Hitlerian figure of evil. And so would you. Yet I’ve never once flinched at a headshot or a backstab. Have you? Why aren’t we shocked by decapitations, dismemberments, throat-cuttings, eyeball piercings, or evisceration? It’s all become so powerless, inert, without impact.

This adherence to a standard of killing as core design element is one of the key things preventing, I think, games from progressing as a medium. We- the people that buy and play these games- have set a very, very low standard that appeals to the basest instincts and desires, valuing murder fantasy over creativity, exploration, and transcendental reflection. We got tired of killing living video game people so we started re-killing video game people that are already dead. It just goes on and on, and it’s sad that there’s no end in sight.

There are exceptions, and they are important. Games like Catherine, Journey, and Little Inferno. Games that are about other aspects of the human experience than killing other people. Over the holidays the game I played the most was Waking Mars, an IOS title about exploring Mars. It’s a science fiction game, but there isn’t a trace of the kind of xenocidal, Aliens-influenced bug hunting that characterizes an overwhelming percentage of all the science fiction games ever made. Instead of shooting the place up, you observe lifeforms and learn about the ecosphere.  Yet it’s compelling, fraught with danger, and offers challenges far beyond killing everything and then shooting a boss in its glowing bits. What if Mass Effect did away with all of the shooting and instead was a game about exploration, discovery, and the pioneer spirit? Did Bioshock really need to be a FPS to tell its story or convey its message?   Why can’t more video games follow the example of 2001: A Space Odyssey instead of fucking Pitch Black?

Think about an alternate reality where mass murder in video games wasn’t acceptable- or demanded- by the audience, where creators understood the power of depicting death economically and with meaning. Imagine Assassin’s Creed in this world. Instead of cutting down hundreds and hundreds of random enemies, your character would spend the entire game gathering intelligence, observing, and preparing for ONE murder in a 20 hour game.  How awesome- and more profoundly thrilling- would that assassination be? Imagine more games like the original Rainbow Six, where one shot kills, every bullet counts, and the goal is to complete a mission- not just kill everything in sight as you walk through a shooting gallery toward an “objective marker” to press X and flip a switch and trigger a cut scene that serves as a phony justification for the actual gameplay and actions depicted.

There’s a reason that casual gamers flock to games like Farmville, Angry Birds, and the like. They’re going to games that DO NOT reflect the real world, they aren’t escaping like “hardcore gamers” are into a world of persistent, continual, and endless violence. They aren’t using silly excuses about “blowing off steam” or “getting out some aggression” to participate in this kind of simulated mass murder. They just don’t want to see it, and I don’t think that’s wrong. I think that’s actually more normal than locking in for two hours of constant death and killing during a Call of Duty session. And I don’t want to hear developers whining that games without guns and shooting don’t sell. Because they most certainly do, as evidenced by any number of games that aren’t about shooting versus Body Count, Inversion, Homefront, Syndicate, et. al. It’s just that there are a very small number of killing-centric games that have dominated the AAA market.

But why, developers, do you keep shepherding us down this road where mass murder is the overarching theme of the video game medium? The irony is that these games are rated “M for Mature” when they’re more often than not anything but that. Is there even a possibility for us to have a Cannibal Holocaust moment in this medium where people say “OK, that is taking this kind of entertainment killing and death worship a little too far.” I don’t know that there is, and as much as I like games about fighting, shooting, stabbing, punching, and blowing things up I find myself asking if those things are actually entertaining anymore. Mass murder has lost its thrill, and I’m more excited by a game where I’m watching how water affects a subterranean organism on Mars than I am by a good K/D ratio.

The pale guy up there, one of the best writers that comics has ever seen, says it all but I’m going to quote with liberty.

“They’ll stop at nothing, you see. All the suffering and pain and death in the video game world is entertainment for us. They thought that by making the video game world more violent they would make it more “realistic”, more “adult”. God help us if that’s what it means. Maybe for once they should try being kind.”

Call of Duty: Black Ops II in Review

Michael Barnes 5 Comments

After all of the chic whining about the Call of Duty franchise- whether it’s from retro-obsessed indie hipsters that ironically bemoan its glacial pace of innovation or from so-called “fans” that take to the ramparts over any perceived infraction of entitlement that results in a game lesser than the original Modern Warfare- it all doesn’t make a lick of difference. The game won, pal. It’s a cultural phenomenon, the blockbusting-est blockbuster in its medium, and it’s been a consistently successful brand not only from a marketing perspective, but also a design one. I’m not a Call of Duty apologist, even though I’ve been subjected to the “why don’t you just go back to playing Call of Duty” responses from forumistas chagrined by my not-so-glowing reviews of games like Portal 2 and Fez. I don’t have to apologize for it, it’s a good mainstream game. Every year.

This year brings us, of course, Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The good news that fans will want to hear is that it stays the course, maintains its core competencies, throws out a couple of sloppy curveballs and occasionally manages brilliance. Don’t hand your ticket to the man and get on the rollercoaster expecting it to be a Ferris wheel this time. If you know what to expect you’ll get in and enjoy it if you’ve already enjoyed it before. If you want a revolution in the way we play video games, I’d suggest you go looking at less polished, less expensive, less mainstream games.

The top-of-mind bad news is that the single player campaign is utterly atrocious, the worst that I’ve seen in a Call of Duty game to date. Sure, there are some neat tricks that Treyarch pulls off in it. There’s a surprisingly organic branching narrative with multiple possible outcomes- and sometimes it’s completely transparent as to what the actual choices or results are going to be. Who doesn’t want the freedom to pick a pre-mission loadout and party like its 1999 all over again? Then there are challenges, incentivizing replay. On a structural level, Treyarch was definitely on the right path. But everything else about the solo game is a wet sock.

The writing is incomprehensible, with the trademark Call of Duty machismo oddly neutered in a morass of bullshit espionage and, well, Black Opsian tropes. Big-name actors add no gravitas to the proceedings, no matter how many times someone says the word “cocksucker”. Between watching future super-soldiers suit up in flying squirrel suits (see also: New Super Mario Bros. Wii U), a hilarious scene where you shoot down multiple Hind helicopters with a Stinger missile while on horseback, an unintentionally funny hallucinatory one-man machete massacre, and a guest appearance by the original Panamaniac Manuel Noriega, I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking “this shit is really stupid” more than “damn, that was cool”. Something went wrong on the way over the top- and I usually like the silly, obnoxious machismo and ridiculous GI Joe-isms.

It’s also unfortunate that the storyline is yet another Brown People Shooting Gallery, moreso because once again the game makers have mistakenly thought that throwing an endlessly spawning parade of them at a player until they touch a checkpoint is fun. The environments, including some near-future ones, are more open than in past Call of Duty titles and that’s appreciated, but that goodwill is practically undone by some truly awful real-time strategy segments. Yes, you heard that right. There are a couple of optional missions where you’re put in charge of marshaling soldiers and robots around a map, occasionally taking charge of one to get the job done. AI is terrible, control is sloppy, and it feels like trying to keep molasses from dripping off a table. But hey, they tried, right?

Meanwhile, the multiplayer is as it always has been- which is to say that it’s great and it more than redeems the single-player game. Fast-paced, fatless shark tank action that feels hectic, immediate, and occasionally thrilling. Maps are great, modes are fun. Just keep the lads on mute if you want to retain your sanity, and I would advise you not to look through other players’ personalized emblems unless you just WANT to see an erect penis against a pot leaf background, ejaculating swastikas onto the silhouette of an AK-47. Like I said- you know what to expect.

The new Pick 10 system, whereby you have ten loadout slots to make a truly custom build, is genius and I hope that Infinity Ward and other developers carry it forward. It makes building a loadout a slight exercise in resource management and budgeting, and it also provides a greater sense of strategic import. I don’t like to use secondary weapons, so I can choose to not have one at all in favor of adding a “card” that gives me an extra attachment slot on my primary. I like instant-kill hatchets, so I take a card that gives me a second Lethal slot. The attention to balance and planning is impeccable, and I’ve found playing around with builds to be much more satisfying than in past Call of Duty games- or any other shooter for that matter.

Zombie mode, who knows. I’ve never cared for it, and it appears to have become more complicated than ever before. I’ve barely touched it myself, but it is the third part of the suite if you’re among the interested. I didn’t last long once I heard the annoying “funny” character voices.

It’s hard to call a game that bungles one of its tent pole offerings so badly great, particularly when you don’t really care for a second one that by most other accounts is great. But as a purely multiplayer shooter (with lots of options for custom games including bots), Blacks Ops II is great. No, it is not a completely new paradigm and yes, you will be shooting people, dying, and then shooting people again. That’s the genre, folks. Like Halo 4, it represents the most recent refinement to a hugely popular mainstream success. Treat it as such, and you might find yourself willing to overlook whatever components don’t work for you and getting plenty of value out of this title for months to come.

 

Halo 4 in Review

Michael Barnes 25 Comments

When I think of what makes Halo great, I think of things like simple, accessible shooter gameplay built on a rock-solid foundation of impeccably balanced and specialized weapons leveraged in sandbox-y encounters that invite me to develop strategies and overcome impossible odds. I think of raucous multiplayer battles that feel more like schoolyard games than uber-macho paramilitary kill-fests. I’m put in mind of epic vistas and setpieces where I’m taking down a massive enemy vehicle single-handedly or riding out across an alien terrain in a cool tank. Then there’s the sweeping, portentous music and the particular sound of it all- from the announcer that says “Sssslayer” to the report of one of the game’s ubiquitous assault rifles. These things are all part of what Halo is to me.

It was when I was firing one of those assault rifles early on in the single player game that I realized that I wasn’t playing a Bungie Halo game, but a 343 Industries one. It sounded bigger, meatier, and richer. Everything did. Come to find out, they reworked all of the sound and if it’s not an entirely new graphics engine, then I’m shocked because the game looks sometimes astonishingly good. Who’s really impressed with graphics anymore? Play Halo 4, and you will be. During the opening cutscene, I actually had to kind of squint to see if the characters were real actors or CGI models.

343’s effort is an immaculate piece of AAA game-making, reportedly the most expensive game Microsoft has ever made. It shows. This is the product of folks working at the peak of their technical and artistic craft, every single element of the production from texturing and character animation to interface design and dynamic lighting is almost staggeringly polished and refined to near-perfection. But most importantly, Halo 4 is a smash success following up on 46 million copies and $3 billion dollars worth of successes , regardless of who’s steering the ship. In other words, they got it right and it’s money in the bank. More than that, I think it is likely the best Halo game to date if only because it is so carefully studied, constructed on the established foundations of this massive franchise.

But following on from and building on Halo’s past also means that some of the other things I think about when I think of Halo are there. The not-so-good things, mostly connected to the single-player campaign. The first part of the “Reclaimer Trilogy” story is another somewhat vague framework for outstanding gameplay and a number of bravura action sequences- almost all of which are player-controlled, not cutscenes. Master Chief is back, as adverstised, as is Cortana. Complete with all of her horribly written, horribly executed comedic relief lines. Some of the emotional beats playing to the silly relationship between Spartan and AI actually had me groaning, which is a huge disappointment in a game that is otherwise best-in-class. Believe me, the scene where you’re practically a one-man escort for the world’s biggest Tonka truck will make all of the feeble writing worth sitting through.

So yet again, the writing and story isn’t what it could be. Since I’ve never really been invested in the Halo story or the transmedia surrounding it, I found myself wondering why in the hell I was fighting my way up to a button and who the hell the Forerunners are, anyway. It didn’t really matter, I had a great time anyway and I just sort of shrugged off the nonsense. Hell, if nothing else the soft-headed story dragged me through some really awesome-looking places across several different kinds of environments.

And I do mean dragged, because Halo 4 can be brutally, refreshingly difficult when played on the Heroic or Legendary settings, which is really what you should do. The difficulty makes every firefight, sniper alley, or desperate rush tense and exciting, with a great sense of reward when you work out that guerilla tactics will get you through an area or simply playing the stealth game and avoiding a fight altogether is the best option. And there’s always the issue of bringing the right tools to the bench, so to speak. I love that in Halo 4, as in past Halo games, the two weapons you’re carrying are a major strategic concern.

So Halo 4 is Halo, and all that entails- which is both exactly what I wanted it to be, but it is also a minor disappointment. I went into Halo 4 hoping that 343 would really rock the boat, upending the series and revitalizing it with new concepts and forward-thinking ideas. It seemed like the mandate was there with the changeover in stewardship. But they really didn’t change that much in the formula other than bringing in some challenging new enemies that fight nothing at all like the Covenant or the Flood and an entire armory to go with them. Sure, they put you behind the stick of a Pelican and there’s a new mech you can rampage in, but most of the game is, as stated, a continuation of ideas from past games including Reach and ODST.

A reality check is in order. Halo simply can not be innovative and groundbreaking anymore because it is such a successful franchise. The old saying goes, “don’t mess with success”. You don’t gamble on a release like this. You make a game that will please most of the people most of the time. The developers can fidget with some elements of it, but ultimately this game has to be Halo first and foremost, and it has to touch all of those Halo things. You can’t possibly say they failed in doing so. No, it’s not the latest heart-filled, scrappy indie game made with ten grand of Kickstarter funds and the pipe dream of remaking an esoteric 1990s PC game. But anyone who thinks that 343 didn’t knock this out of the park- while also setting the stage for the next generation of FPS games- needs to get their head checked. So what if they stayed the course. It worked.

However, this stay the course approach is mostly apparent in the single-player offering, which is extremely generous for a linear playthrough but virtually unlimited in replay thanks to co-op and modifying skulls. The multiplayer game, where many would say that Halo comes alive, has seen some pretty extensive renovation and I’m not quite sure yet what to make of it all both because I’m kind of overwhelmed by the changes and also because I need some more time beyond the review period to sort of let it all settle in. there’s a new leveling system with unlocks, killstreak-like weapon drops, and a much wider range of customization and ability options. it’s a fairly controlled set of variables, but it is still moving Halo away from the more egalitarian multiplayer game of Reach and all before and more toward a Call of Duty-like system where some players have, and some do not. I don’t mind ending a game feeling outperformed, but I don’t like feeling like I’ve just been outgunned because I don’t have the top unlocks.

The maps are awesome, as good as anything in past Halo games, and the game types are the usual mix of fun Slayer and objective types and there are tons of customization options for each. Many, I predict, will bemoan the loss of Firefight but rest assured that the new Spartan Ops game, which is sort of cross between Call of Duty’s SpecOps and Firefight, is likely to emerge as something far better. it’s a series of weekly missions, complete with cutscenes and narrative context, that can be tackled solo or with three other players. I really like that it’s practically a serial, ongoing campaign.

I’ve not even touched Forge or any of the theater options but they’re available for the interested. One of my favorite things about Halo has always been that it lets players play the game they want to play, and 343i has maintained this design principle. If you don’t like the new leveling system and abilities, you can set up games without them and go purely old school. If you hate multiplayer, there’s tons of single-player game to be had or you could never touch the campaign and solely play this online with friends or strangers across any number of game types. Halo is extremely accommodating, a true mainstream game that welcomes the hardest of the hardcore and the casual-est of the casual. At this level of the business, that’s a necessary goal.

Halo 4 is Halo, that’s what I keep coming back to when I collect my thoughts on the game. It is exactly what it is, and if you are already dead set against Halo or if you resent it for being a simple, accessible shooter or for any other reason, it won’t change your mind. But it also won’t give you anything new to hate, because the game is what you make out of it. The product itself is an amazing, enormous, and sometimes ravishing piece of software. The game is almost preternaturally refined, precise, and peerless in its technical execution. But no matter what it all is to you when you put it together in your mind, Halo 4 is Halo- definitively.

 

Dishonored- First Impressions of Dunwall

Michael Barnes 11 Comments

If you’re like anything like I am, with each passing year you think “it sure would be nice if someone would develop adventure-based FPS games again like they did in the late 1990s and early 2000s.” I’m thinking great games like Thief, System Shock 2, and No One Lives Forever- classic titles that were much more than just rote shooters despite the behind-the-eyes perspective. These were games that had a sense of focused narrative occurring in meticulous, handcrafted settings paired with a great deal of player agency, allowing for a specific story to be told with the detail filled in by core gameplay. Games like this are rare, but when we get a really great one it turns out to be a Bioshock. Or even a Metro 2033.

With this is in mind and with only a couple of hours of play to back up my claim, I’m already prepared to induct Dishonored into this esteemed fraternity of Really Great Narrative FPS Games.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve played a big budget, high profile game that really floored me and made me feel like I was playing the next great video game. The long spring and summer drought this year very nearly broke my spirit. I was beginning to think this generation didn’t have another truly great game left in it, especially not one with a new IP and without a 3 or a 4 appended to the title.

But from the very beginning of Dishonored, which sets up a simple plot without Michael Bay-class cutscenes, QTEs, or a bunch of bombastic AAA hullaballoo, I could feel that not-familiar-enough feeling of falling in love with a game and in particular its visuals, informed largely by a painterly illustration style evocative of artists like Maxfield Parrish. Then there are the slightly grotesque, almost caricature-like faces that evoke European comic artists. And there are moments both grand and subtle even in the first 20 minutes of the game that develop Dunwall as a new game setting to be reckoned with- the sad majesty of a whale suspended in one of this world’s whaling vessels, the bits of ephemera scattered across a desk. The blubberpunk (don’t call it steampunk, please) fashion and architecture of an impossible world.

As for the gameplay, I was shocked that there weren’t the usual array of gauges and visual indicators that most stealth games depend on. At least for the first couple of segments of the game, which include a great prison breakout, you’ve got to rely on instinct and observation to stay unnoticed rather than on line of sight cones, super-camouflage, or a magic color-changing gem. It’s only later on that you unlock a power that gives you some of these observational abilities.

I made it out of the jail without killing anybody. There were moments of great tension, of feeling like a total badass because I dipped between columns right under the noses of two guards. A couple of times I failed and wound up in combat, which is pretty tough on the Hard setting. Checkpoints are generous. The game wants you to try different things to see what works, it doesn’t want you to get frustrated by experimentation.

There were some clever moments as well, like throwing a dead body to lure rats away from a door-controlling crank. There was a blast of excitement as I blew open the doors, alerted the guards, and made a break for the sewers. I wound up escorted by a boatman to a pub run by loyalists opposed to the attempted coup d’etat that sets the story into motion. There I met the game’s crafter, who made me that wicked metal skull mask and sold me some sleep bolts for the crossbow. I’m playing nonlethal as far as I can.

Then, sleep. In dreams I meet the Outsider, who gives me the Blink ability, a short range teleport that is a master assassin’s dream. He also gives me a magic heart, that whispers secrets and beats feverishly in the presence of upgrade-granting runes. In the real world, it’s 4am and I’ve really got to go to bed. But I haven’t even thrown rats at anybody yet!

I can’t wait to play this game again tonight, and even though I hear that it’s short I think it’s a game that I can imagine revisiting on the hardest difficulty. It’s such a confident, assured design that pretty much says “fuck you” to many of the things the second half of this console generation has done so wrong. There is no bullshit multiplayer with multiple Corvos running around trying to headshot each other with a crossbow. There is no bullshit co-op, where Corvo’s bro has to be boosted up to a fire escape or revived when he’s down. There is just you, this rich setting, this brilliant art design, and this devotion to classic gameplay. No blubber. This is a focused game that does something very specific and it doesn’t burden you down with silly filler or needless bulletpoints to appease stakeholders.

Most importantly, these guys knew better than to just mimic the successes of Call of Duty, Gears of War, and other AAA titans. They drank from a deeper, older well of inspiration. We are blessed that they chose to do so.

Fingers crossed that the remainder is as awesome as the first night.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier- Who Shoots the Shooter-men?

Michael Barnes 8 Comments

One of the things that really strikes me the most about Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier isn’t that the gameplay is extremely slick and streamlined without ever feeling “dumbed down”, to use the term forumistas and Metacritic user reviewers often deploy to erroneously describe games that are slick and streamlined. It’s that its action is extraordinarily well-framed, well-executed and unusually well-filmed. The pitch is that you’ve got four sets of boots on the ground for some third-person shooter action with a light (and appealing) overlay of gadgetry and tactics. But it’s evident that there’s a fifth man among the Ghosts- a cameraman.

Sure, the fingerprints of Call of Duty are all over the game- the requisite Bayisms, tough guy talk about intel and stuff, and those magnificent men and their shooting machines. But whereas other military shooters aspire to be like action movies with setpieces, cutscenes, and rail sequences bookended by hallway shooting galleries, this edition of Ghost Recon uses some subtle and extremely cinematic techniques to create a visceral, seamless “you are there” sense of verite. While playing through the first three missions of the game, I kept thinking that the game really has a sense of geography, space, time, and distance. I came to realize that it was because once you’re in action, everything is very nearly shot (photographically) in a single, unedited take from start to mission end.

You’ll be over the shoulder of your soldier running cover-to-cover one minute under fire, the next the camera will pan around for a scene where you rescue a CIA operative. The perspective never changes or cuts away from this phantom fifth member, the cameraman. The camera pans back around, and you’re Oscar Mike again. It’s a brilliantly employed technique working in concert with simulated handheld “shakycam” and even overused gimmicks like the ol’ dirt-on-the-lens trick sell the illusion remarkably.

Yet it’s not strictly a filmic style. It’s near future, so there’s this cool augmented reality information overlay and virtual HUD that halos everything. Much like in last year’s Tom Clancy title, Splinter Cell: Conviction, giant words appear in the environment to tell you where you are or what you’re doing. It’s a neat, stylized effect. I get the idea that the game is showing the players what the Ghosts see in their super duper future googles, but since this is a third person game with such a strong sense of camera, these augmented reality effects could only be occurring in that phantom camera.

Another cinematic quality that keeps impressing me over and over again is how extremely well-scripted the missions in this game are. There’s a real sense of pacing, drama, crescendo, and aftermath. You’ll be creeping along in optical camo (octocamo?), tossing a pilotable UAV drone to mark targets and enabling a one-button command to your team to perform a simultaneous takedown.  It’s deliberate, methodical, and quiet. But then it all goes pear-shaped. Somebody saw one of those bodies you just made, and the next thing you know you’re ducking behind a crumbling concrete wall under fire from a machine gun mounted on a light truck. Shootouts are intense, over quickly, and feel appropriately dangerous. Civilians hit the deck. Watermelons in the fruit stand explode in vivid washes of red. Then it’s quiet again.

This game also uses on-rails sequences with heavy scripting, but in such a way that I actually like them. There’s been a couple of exfiltration goals where the character has to drag a VIP through heavy fire to a checkpoint. It’s you, the guy you’re dragging, and a pistol. Bad guys (who come in both brown and American varieties this time, in what must be a new trend) pop out. And you actually kind of feel like a bad ass popping them, not like you’re playing Hogan’s Alley. They’re integrated perfectly into the action of the narrative, creating tension. I haven’t seen a turret sequence yet. I hope that I don’t.

The quality of seamless cinematic visual technique along with this sense of rising and falling action are examples of the things that really distinguish the title from falling into the me-too military shooter trap. It hits all of the genre touchpoints- including some of the more clichéd or overused ones- but its style and the quality of the gameplay set this one apart. The gunplay is great, the cover system is as good as any I’ve ever seen, the stealth works, the gadgets are fun, and the team AI actually isn’t atrocious. There’s a lot going for this game, even in its single player offering which is supposedly a good 10-12 hour event. The multiplayer is good, but you lose some of the interesting film-like qualities of the single player game.

The single player story sucks, though- it’s not even trash action movie bad. It’s vague and empty. You do, like, special forces stuff. And there’s intel. Always intel. For some reason you have to go to Bolivia, shown on a science fiction map with cool fonts. And there’s hostiles!  As for the characters, who knows?  I can’t even remember the lead’s name and they say it every time you die. There’s a scene early on where they’re sitting in a bunk talking about car parts and listening to white trash nu-metal, but that hardly makes these soldiers real people. They may as well be commando raccoons, and the missions arcade game levels. I’m actually kind of OK with that, because the focus is on the gameplay rather than a Z-grade Hollywood script that I would likely care nothing about. It’s ironic that the game uses filmic techniques so well but pulls up well before it turns into another would-be interactive action movie. It stays a video game, and I appreciate its honesty.