[For hisMonthly Musing, Eprahim shares his semi-controversial opinions and unhappiness at how he believes games are having their difficulty (and a whole lot of other things) reduced in order to appeal to a wider audience. Monthly Musing promotions are continuing throughout the entire month, so if you want to have a chance at seeing your blog on the front page,start writingabout this month’s topic. — JRo]
As I carefully hide between the conveniently placed boxes, I’m hidden between the shadows. Absolutely nothing can see me here. I see two enemies in front of me, chatting to each other. They’re holding their guns like your average Bond henchman. Not enough for me to warrant a kill. I look around me. There is no other way. Just that linear corridor. I check my gadgets. Already used everything I could. No way to sneak past them without touching them. I sigh, hit Q a couple of times and then press E. Fisher takes out his gun and with a move that came out straight out of Hollywood he lands a headshot on both guards. All I did was hit two keys, I didn’t even take aim. Disgusted, I quit the game and think: “Sh*t, this isn’t whatSplinter Cellis about”.
Now, let it be known that I have absolutely nothing against video game consoles. Last generation I owned a PC, a PS2, and an XBOX, and loved all of those. The term comes from the fact that, originally, the dumbing down of games came from hardware limitations. However, now the streamlining comes from publishers attempting to please a wider array of people. Consoles are just another victim of the phenomena today.
Chaos Theoryis my third favorite game of all time. It’s just too damn good. One thing I especially liked was how the most hardcore players could attempt to get past the levels without even touching guards. Less hardcore players could resort to interrogating a few people and then knocking them unconscious. If you like immersion in your games,Chaos Theorywas pretty realistic. Sure, you could pull out your silenced pistol and kill every guard, but it wasn’t what you would normally do. When listening to guards in the other room you could hear them chat about many things. You could hear them chat about their family, you could hear them chat about life, about their stories, a whole lot of things. They didn’t even hate you – they were just guys who didn’t want to necessarily kill anybody, people who wanted to get through with their day alive. Guards you felt sorry for murdering. That wasn’t the only appeal of the game, of course – the difficulty in the game was scaled just right. But it wasn’t easy, especially if you wanted to avoid firearms. You had to carefully think about each situation you were in to survive the mission. It was a game by the hardcore for the hardcore.
Then,Convictioncame along. After a scrapped open-world project, what we ended up having was a HollywoodGears of Warclone with stealth elements and gadgets that were only useful for murdering the most people possible. There were no security cameras anymore, there was no hacking, levels became extremely linear (even more than the firstSplinter Cell, and that’s saying something), interesting plots about cyberterrorism were switched out with some boring and annoying plot about some old guy trying to find the guy who killed his daughter. A question came in mind to all of theSplinter Cellfans which played the game – what the fuck happened?
Ubisoft Felt Splinter Cell Was Too Hardcore
When interviewed by EDGE, Ubisoft Montreal game designer Max Beland confessed that the publisher forced them to make the game as accessible as possible for the mainstream crowd. While that’s a honorable goal, Ubisoft seems to have forgotten that they were leaving out the most important thing out of the picture: the fans of the series. Or they did just not care. Probably the latter thing.
According to VGChartz,Convictionon the 360 sold 640,000 copies more thanChaos Theoryon the first XBOX. Ubisoft got what they wanted. But what about us, the gamers? The guys who helped theSplinter Cellfranchise to sell those first three games in the first place? “Nope, you guys have fun,” says Ubisoft. “we’re heading for the money!” And so,Splinter Cellbecomes yet another series affected by consolitis.
“Consolitis? What’s that?” Simple. Consolitis is the word used to define the dumbing down of a series to appeal more to the mainstream. It received this name from PC gamers back in 2004, when the first “infected” game popped up in stores.
Deus Ex: Invisible Warwas a failure under all aspects. A sequel to a legend which was universally praised by critics and gamers (and nominated best game of all time by PC Gamer),Invisible Warfailed to deliver under many, many aspects. Skills were removed, universal ammo was added, the plot tried to pick up ALL THREE endings of the firstDeus Ex(“Well durr dee hurr JC’s brain was eaten by Helios we have to save him but then the Dark Age happened at the same time somehow and the Illuminati rule the world”) and didn’t manage to make any sense in the process, a tiny and useless inventory was added removing the inventory tetris, the levels were far smaller than what we were used to, and the game ran on a heavily modified Unreal 2 engine which managed to be even worse than the engine for the firstDeus Ex. Not bad.
Invisible Waris universally known as the first game suffering from consolitis. The sixth generation consolitis is, however, a different thing from the seventh generation (now) consolitis. Back then, games weren’t dumbed down and streamlined due to making the game more accessible, but they were dumbed down because the hardware limits on consoles required it (and to be able to play it better with a controller). This is why “streamlining” to PC gamers is known by that name. Sure, you could make your games like they should be, but the price for it was very steep.Morrowindwas on XBOX, but it was plagued by horrendous loading times. We all played it on PC, though, so hey.
Speaking of loading times, I think it might be worth mentioning that Warren Spector, the man behindDeus Ex, decided to also ruin his second most well-known franchise,Thief.Thief: Deadly Shadowsran on the same engine asInvisible War, was plagued by loading times the first two didn’t feature (thank you, XBOX RAM) and was far more linear (go figure that non-linearity is the biggest characteristic that sets the formerThiefgames apart from other stealth games).
It was not until 2006 that a new strain of consolitis would emerge, however. Ladies and gentlemen,The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
WhileMorrowindhad come out on the XBOX in a honorable way,Oblivionwasn’t lucky enough to enjoy the same fate. The game was a sequel toMorrowind, but it improved little to nothing aside from the combat. Level scaling was introduced, a mechanic which would make you have difficulties fighting rats at level 25 and would have you winning over Daedra at level 2. The dialogue was severely dumbed down (All the text that was inMorrowindwhen you talked to people was gone). Stats were actually far less useful than inMorrowind(a minigame were introduced for lockpicking. Instead of a high or low chance of opening the lock, your stats only decided what kinds of locks you would be able to open and partially helped you in the minigame). All the interesting environments that were inMorrowind, which are still fantastic to explore today, dissapeared in favor of a more bloom-oriented, uniform and general landscape. The handmade dungeons ofMorrowindgave way to the randomly-generated and useless world of Oblivion. There was no emphasis to explore anymore, and even if you did attempt going out in the landscape you would emerge defeated and generally bored as hell from dungeons which only had twenty gold coins and some terrible equipment in them.
Most RPG gamers consider it a step back fromMorrowind, but the mainstream absolutely adored the game — mostly because it wasn’t appealing to a certain type of gamer anymore, but because it was universal to any kind of player. And that strategy worked.Oblivionsold over three million copies and won several GOTY awards. Great news for players who enjoyed the game. Not great news for fans ofMorrowind.
So what’s the future for the rest of the franchises? The ones still untouched by the taint? I’m not really that sure, actually. Consoles already proved that it’s not their fault anymore – but the practice still continues. Even console owners are getting bitten in the ass by consolitis – seeSplinter Cell: Convictionat the beginning of this article. Did I mention every game affected by the disease? I really doubt it. Have we already forgotten aboutCrysis 2? What aboutOperation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising?Dragon Age 2?Supreme Commander 2? MaybeBioshockbeing a dumbed down version ofSystem Shock 2? Perhaps your favorite franchise has already been affected by consolitis? The plague is vast. But are we doomed to only get consolitis-affected titles from now on?
I don’t actually think so.
If you look at the PC side of things, there are still a lot of awesome games out there.The Witcher,Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga,S.T.A.L.K.E.R.,X3: Terran Conflict. Games made by gamers, for gamers. That doesn’t look like it’s about to change any time soon.
And for consoles,Human Revolutionis looking pretty damn good. Developers appear to have pinned what madeDeus Exso good. And instead of just following the mainstream like it has always been, they’re making the mainstream follow the game. They’re pushing the players towards actually thinking about what they’re doing. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Don’t forget about the hardcore gamers, gave developers — remember that they’re the ones that will always be with you. Not the fratboy which picked upConvictionat his nearest Gamestop just because it had guns on the cover. you’re able to create an utopia where the hardcore and mainstream can live together. It only depends on you.
