Modern Warfare 2: Some Notes

So Modern Warfare 2 is already setting sales records. And it has not shied away from conspiracy for even one second. Before release, Infinity Ward was releasing some advertising material that just baldly seemed built to piss some people off and get their game talked about pre-release. The simple acronym at the end of that linked video "Fight Against Grenade Spam" was worth a couple more Kotaku posts than the game would've gotten, and it seems to have cost them nothing. So, even before the really big news about that one level I'll talk about in a moment, Infinity Ward was deciding to show some balls here, and I don't think it hurt their sales.


*ahem* SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT *ahem*


The game only takes a few hours to beat, so hopefully some day we won't have to add that notice. So, yes, in I believe the fourth level, roughly forty minutes to an hour into the game, we have the infamous level in which the player is sort of a terrorist. They covered it on Fox & Friends this morning, picking a representative for video games who clearly hadn't been on TV before.*

The player is a CIA operative infiltrating a Russian terrorist's organization in order to get information, and take him or some other vague enemy down later on. During the loading screen, the player is told something approximating "You don't want to know how much we paid to get you in this far. You'll have to pay with a piece of yourself, too. Regardless, this way will save far more lives." Then, the player sees himself as part of a group of five Russians wearing bulletproof vests, with automatic weapons, walking slowly into a Russian airport lobby. The other people open fire on a crowded group of civilians, heavily suggesting that the player should follow suit to stay under cover. Most of the rest of the level, you walk slowly through the airport, shooting more civilians and police officers. The player can decide to not shoot anybody, with the only possible consequences being that they could still be shot by the few police officers present. In that case, the player would simply walk through the level as the massacre happens, without killing any civilians.

You are allowed to skip the level in-game. The game specifically asks you as you start it up if you feel you might want to skip parts, and you can do it from the start menu while in the terrorist mission as well.

No matter what you do, once you make it to the end of the level, the Russian terrorist group's leader shoots you in the head and kills you (or one of the characters you play, anyway) which then allows Russian police to discover your body and find that you're American, which becomes a casus belli for Russia to invade the United States in the coming missions. So, you can at least say, in being killed by the terrorist leader, that character is cemented as a bad guy whereas yours is certainly a good guy and a victim, whether or not he had to kill civilians.

So, hey people! It's a moral dilemma! That's good, it's interesting! We're trying to move video games up to other media, in which good guys can be bad at times and bad guys can be good at times! The crime boss protagonist doesn't always have to get what's coming to him! The superhero can save lives while also on crack! Rockstar Games has been doing something like this with virtually every game they release, trying to move video games up to where the same things are accepted in them as in movies, books, etc. Video games can have full nudity. How is that worse than actual moving pictures of full nudity?

I think we're past the point where this becomes a serious drive for violent game legislation again, at least in the U.S. I guess we'll find out.

*I just read this about the poor guy: "There are a few gaming sites out there bashing Jon for losing his train of thought early in the segment and closing his eyes towards the end as he stood his ground defending simulated violence in video games. I’ve known Jon personally for several years now, and what the asshats who are ridiculing him don’t know is that Fox contacted him that same day with just a few hours notice. In addition to Jon never having been on television before, the segment was filmed at 3:30 AM his time, which meant he wasn’t exactly “well rested” before going on air."

Blood Pressure Raised by TV Time

According to the study covered here, children's blood pressure may go up as they watch TV or play video games. Oddly enough, blood pressure increases independent of the body type of the 3 to 8 year-olds studied did not increase with regular sedentary activity or computer usage, but it did increase when the children watched or played on the TV. I wonder if wearing a special device to measure their blood pressure and trying to play a video game may have caused the kids some undue stress, perhaps.

Sphere Psychosis Game Released

I've started making my own games, so here's the first: Sphere Psychosis, an entry into the Unofficial TIGSource Vaporware Competition, in which you had to make a game that was never released. I chose Marble Madness II, and decided to make it 3d, with the Unity game development tool (definitely recommended).

Download it at GameJolt here (be sure to rate, please)

EDIT: Now available in web player format!

Different builds for Windows and Mac included, Quick Play online available for Windows users through GameJolt as well. There are only two levels in version 0.5 (if that's still the current version when you're reading this) and one is easy and the second is rather harder. Press Escape to return to the main menu if you get stuck (which happens a lot on Level 2).

I made the music in Melody Assistant, if you're interested.

Terrorism Can Be Fun With Red Faction: Guerrilla!

I've almost finished playing Red Faction: Guerrilla, and I'm having fun with it. The sledgehammer-swinging pure destruction is just so much fun, all on its own, that the rest of the game would have to be terrible to bring it down. Miyamoto famously asked his team to make a simple game with a cube jumping and make it fun before they could start on Super Mario 64, so I think it's a good design idea to just start with a fun physics element and work up with a game like this.

Anyway, I find it interesting that Red Faction hasn't gotten in any trouble from watchdog groups, given its content. It's not too vulgar, not the absolutely most violent game I've ever played, and the enemies are abstracted into Halo uniforms, so they're not very human. No, the thing is, this game casts you, the player, as a terrorist. Given that until very recently, the US has said they were in a War on Terror (despite the fact that it's just a method, and not a physical object you can definitely destroy), I would think this would be a bit more controversial than it is.

Yes, you're liberating Mars from an oppressive regime. But, the regime is the Earth Defense Force (which doesn't sound too evil) and they're a group that were good guys in the past, so I think that they're somewhat comparable to the US Army, as an army of liberators that have become occupiers, and have to use increasingly drastic measures to keep the terrorists from taking over the country. The game could have explored this in any number of ways, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen, having seen the last twist just now, which dodges the issue entirely.

Though you are a hero, you (somewhat) covertly go around and blow stuff up and tear down buildings, all in the efforts of getting the occupying military force to leave your planet! That's terrorism, just as the American Revolution was, and it shows that terrorism in and of itself does not equal Muslim extremists killing babies for no good reason. If only the makers of the game would actually try to bring up the issue themselves!

InFAMOUS Impressions Live Blog

My little brother is loading up InFAMOUS, and I'm on the laptop, and I can tell I have a lot to say about this extremely well-reviewed game, so here's a live recording of my reactions:

19:50: God, the writing for the opening sequence is ridiculously awful. There are so many cool ways they could do that, and they just don't. It's lame.

19:54: This is made by Sucker Punch, the company who made Sly Cooper, and it's pretty obvious when you think about it and watch the game. The main character of this game has the exact same animation as Sly does and his friend moves just like the hippo, whatever his name was. It's hilarious. Those were cartoon animals, and these are roughly realistic humans! Why would they keep the same movements?

19:56: I just hope that Trish doesn't move just like Bentley...

19:58: Murray was the hippo's name! And Zeke is his corresponding character here. Also, the main character, Cole I think, climbs lampposts like a raccoon.

20:00: They clearly spent money on the art, but apparently no money on a writer. Shame.

20:01: I've seen Flash games with more interesting "powerful moral choices" (Gamespot quote).

20:02: So yeah, your first "powerful moral choice": Either let people eat food, or kill them and keep the food for yourself. That would be better if we had any reason realistically to keep the food, but we don't, unless we just want to be pointlessly evil.

20:06: Why couldn't they update the animations from Sly 3, Santa? Why?

20:11: Games have too much tutorial crap now. It's much more interesting if I figure out how to do things most efficiently instead of constantly having that Zeke character tell me "Hang off the boxes to make yourself a harder target!".

20:15: I'm sorry, but you just shouldn't introduce a new character in a simplistically animated cutscene that the main character narrates. It feels weird when you actually hear that character for the first time, because you basically haven't seen them before that, you only heard narration.

20:17: Why must all gas pipes have random spots where they spew out, and why must that always kill our platformer protagonists?

Have a Reflective Memorial Day!

Download Stars 'n' Stripes here!

Enjoy this, the greatest Memorial Day game ever made, a program I wrote in Lite C, with some fantastic music stolen from LaLaLand 5. Now, I'll get back to trying to figure out Unity while I've still got twenty days of free trial left.

Telltale Games Anniversary Sale

Telltale Games, makers of the Sam & Max, Strong Bad, Wallace and Gromit, and Bone games are offering an anniversary sale until mid-June in which you can get any of their games for $5. Just use this coupon code at their site:

FRM-5A2-B9Q-DH7