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The Game Boy: Why Six Days in Fallujah’s Doing It Wrong, and How We Can Make Things Right

Nathan Grayson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:03:31 -0500

In an understandably controversial move, Konami and Atomic Games recently demonstrated their upcoming “realistic” shooter, Six Days in Fallujah. The game – apparently supervised by the hardened eyes of soldiers who actually fought the debatably good fight – will focus primarily on the Second Battle of Fallujah. And as much as I enjoy the beautifully orchestrated, occasionally tear-jerking fictional plots of games like Call of Duty 4 and Brothers in Arms, I think Konami’s bold leap is a necessary one.

There’s just one problem, though: They’re doing it wrong.

Many publications were recently invited into the trenches of the still deep-in-development title, and – as many dejected “first impressions” articles can attest – Fallujah’s gameplay’s paradoxical lack of realism stands out like, well, Rambo in a shootout. Take this bit, for instance:

“In another clip, the player broke off from his squad, crouched up behind two insurgents who were firing on US soldiers, and took them out from a few feet away like some kind of renegade commando. I may be ignorant of this particular battle, but I've certainly never heard of any Army ninjas breaking off from their squads and capping insurgents solo. Maybe something like that has happened once or twice; either way, the videogamey nature of the moment seemed entirely out of place,” said Shacknews reporter Nick Breckon.

In essence, the game handles like a slightly less testosterone-splattered Gears of War. Characters slide from cover-to-cover, pay bullets no more heed than buzzing flies, and regenerate health after a few moments of downtime. Where’s the grim and gritty reality the game’s developers have been touting so vehemently? I mean, I’ve never had the pleasure of eating lead outside of a videogame (and even then, many of said bullets had faces), but if I had snuffed out lives in the streets of Fallujah, I’d be offended.

War isn’t a game. It’s pulse-pounding, strategic, and exciting, sure – but it’s not fun. And that’s why Fallujah falters.

But really, it’s not entirely Atomic Games’ fault. Listening to USMC veteran Michael Ergo talk about Six Days in Fallujah, it sounds like the development team entered the fray with good intentions.

“It's an all-encompassing experience,” he said, speaking of his time on the battlefield. “There were a lot of times that were intense; there were a lot of times that were boring. I went on patrol and we adopted a puppy. There's so many things that go into my experience in Fallujah that there's no one word that encompasses that.”

It appears, then, that while Six Days in Fallujah ‘s structure is taking pointers from movies like Blackhawk Down and Fullmetal Jacket, it’d be better served by Tivo-ing a few documentaries. After all, realism and entertainment rarely go hand-in-hand, and artistic liberty’s a volatile substance when mixed with freshly controversial subject matter. So why have Konami and Atomic Games decided to flip logic the bird and take the landmine-laden road of potential controversy?

Because otherwise, they’d risk tarnishing their record with a “bad” game.

Let’s be honest here: videogaming is an entertainment medium. Books can be “boring” (that is to say, their speech-to-explosion ratio can be greater than 1:1) and still have critical worth, as can movies. But modern-era games, at the end of the day, won’t garner anything more than a morbidly curious glance from the mainstream if their gameplay’s fun factor isn’t dialed up to at least an 8.5 out 10. You can probably guess where I’m going with this now; we need to change our judging criteria if we really want big-budget games that aren’t about wise-cracking, emotionally vacant bullet sponges.

Don’t think Six Days in Fallujah is the only game that’s suffered because gamers refuse to alter their conception of fun, either. Recently released shooter Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard was positioned as a cutting parody of machismo-reliant FPSes like Duke Nukem, and, when it came to tickling players’ funny bones, the game performed admirably. However, as of now, the game’s eating crow with a Metacritic score of 53/100. Why? Because while its comedy routine wowed the crowd, all that goodwill was outweighed by “mediocre” run ‘n’ gun sections. As a result, you can probably surmise, very few people purchased the game.

Just as Six Days in Fallujah should be an in-depth, even educational (!) “documentary shooter,” -- with all the chit-chat and downtime that entails -- Eat Lead was a parody shooter. Yet, in spite of its obvious merits, reviewers and gamers judged the game by the same criteria they’d use to judge any other humdrum shooter. And I’m sure that Atomic Games and Konami are afraid Fallujah will suffer a similar fate, so instead of using their realistic setting to its maximum potential, they turned it into, well, just another videogame.

Interactivity is videogaming’s greatest strength, but it doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all of every gaming experience. If a game is funny, it should be rewarded; same for games that are more fascinating than fun. Today’s videogames are a collusion of factors – writing, sound design, acting, graphics, etc – of which gameplay is only a part. Gameplay, then, shouldn’t necessarily tip the scales when matched against a game’s other aspects – unless, of course, the game’s completely unplayable.

So what I’m proposing is this: Let’s be a little more open-minded from now on. Sure, Game X’s graphics might not sizzle like Crysis’ tropical vistas, and yeah, its gameplay may not be as buttery smooth as Gears of War 2, but so long as it’s not trying to be those games, it shouldn’t be knocked for it. We don’t lump certain documentaries together with John Woo flicks just because they both feature guns, so why do it with videogames? If a game’s clearly attempting to take its genre in a different direction, let’s drop the list of bullet points and cut it some slack. Otherwise, developers will have no choice but to continue rehashing the same variations on a theme, and eventually, games will become boring.

Six Days in Fallujah may very well turn out to be another victim of our ill-informed, gameplay-dependant system of critical judgment, but we can still change. Gameplay-schmameplay -- my monocle’s getting a bit dusty, and my beard could use a tug or two; so here’s to a future where games will interest and engage, instead of just providing us with big-boy replacements for action figures and Legos. And the best part? We’ll like it.

The Game Boy is the soapbox Nathan Grayson stands atop to pass down proclamations about the world of gaming. This is the column’s first installment, but here’s hoping for many more. Like, multiple installments per week, even, if you’re up for it. Also, they won’t all be this long. Promise.

I don’t need TruSkill to tell me that I’m an FPS badass

Norman Chan — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:25:06 -0500

Shadowrun is the first Windows LIVE game that enables cross-platform gaming. I’ve been playing it for the past week on both my Vista gaming machine and on the Xbox 360, and while I’m not quite ready to give it a full review, I need to get a few initial impressions off my chest. First off, the game definitely doesn’t fall into the 60% range that some early reviewers would lead you to believe. Multi-hour gaming sessions for the past several nights with editors from Maximum PC, PC Gamer, Official Xbox Magazine, and GamesRadar is evidence enough that I’m not alone in having a lot of fun with the game. The unique balance of old-school shooter skills and magic/tech ability management makes for a refreshing teamplay experience. That said, here are ten things (in no particular order) I wish were different in Shadowrun. Again, don’t take this as a verdict of any sort – you’ll get my full review in the Sept issue of MaxPC.

More game modes – The game ships with 3 game modes: Raid, Extraction, and Attrition. All three center around capturing, holding, and escaping alive with an artifact (flag). What about Team Deathmatch or plain Deathmatch? Even if these vanilla modes aren’t as fun as the flag-centric ones, they wouldn’t be difficult to implement. Variety is good.
Switch sides in Raid rounds – My current favorite game mode, Raid, sets up one team on defense to prevent the other team from capturing the artifact. As fun as it is, being locked on one side for the entire match is a bit frustrating. I’d like to see sides swapped every round to mix things up.
More context-sensitive team commands – With a gamepad, the directional thumb pad offers three commands to let teammates know that areas or clear or to call support. On the keyboard, these callouts are activated using the Z,X, and C key. It’s useful for the headset impaired, but really, only three commands? A Battlefield-esque context sensitive communication menu would be much more functional. Or, how about a...
Text chat box – I’m outraged that this staple multiplayer feature was omitted from Shadowrun. How else am I going to let the other team know “gg no re” or“omg hax?”
More death camera options – One cool teamplay feature in Shadowrun is the ability for you to voice-chat with teammates even after you’re killed. This way, you can let them know where your body is and call for a resurrection. It’s too bad that the only death-cam is a third-person tracking view. An additional first-person view wouldn’t unbalance the game, and an option to turn free-cam on would help newbies learn the levels.
TruSkill stats – The in-game matchmaking system uses Truskill: tracking your gameplay stats to pair you with comparable players for evenly balanced rounds. It’s too bad you have no idea what your skill level is, nor can you browse through your global stats. The game rewards you with an achievement for killing a hundred enemies of each class – I’d like to know how close I am to securing those Gamerscore points.
Random game settings – Aside from full gameplay modes, I’d like a random settings mode to randomize player classes, starting weapons, and magic/tech abilities. A “Summon” ability only match would be so fun to play!
Global rankings – Not only is Shadowrun’s TruSkill system hidden in the background, there’s also no way to see how you’re stacked up against the rest of players in LIVE. Part of what keeps me playing multiplayer shooters is the promise that with persistent play, I’ll be able to move up some ranking ladder to show off to my buddies. It’d be fascinating to see how Vista gamers stack up over time against 360 players. In fact, there’s no way in-game to tell what platform members of a server are using.
Better party system – The party system keeps groups of friends together between match and server changes, but aside from a plain lobby, party members have no indication that the leader is searching for games. The invite system integrated into the LIVE guide is cool, but I’ve experienced many occasions where party members were randomly dropped or restricted from joining open parties mid-match.
Single player campaign – I guess it’s a little unfair to demand that Shadowrun have a single-player component since the game was built from the ground up as a multiplayer shooter. But every time I use the teleport ability or summon a minion, I can’t help but imagine how awesome these abilities would be in a fleshed out single player campaign. I’d like to think that someone on the dev team had the same thoughts and that it’s in the works. Pretty please?

If some of the features mentioned above sound familiar, it’s because they’re already either in most PC multiplayer shooters like Unreal Tournament or on 360 games like Gears of War. In fact, the other game I’ve been playing a lot of recently is the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, which has interface and gameplay features so robust that it should be the standard for all LIVE multiplayer games to come. It’s a little disconcerting to realize that the beta of the multiplayer component to a completely separate single player game has in many ways more to offer than the full priced Shadowrun. It’s just too bad that Microsoft has no plans to let PC gamers in on that fun.

Dear lord that’s a lot of snow

Norman Chan — Tue, 15 May 2007 04:03:44 -0500

It’s here! Today marks the release of the first real playable DX10 gaming software. Granted, it’s just a demo of the the upcoming PC port of X-Box 360’s Lost Planet, but it’s also a heavily modified port sporting fancy smancy DirectX 10 effects. Early adopters of nVidia’s 8800 DX10 video cards and Windows Vista finally have something other than tech demos to utilize their hefty investment. Life sure is looking grand!

Capcom was courteous enough to include a benchmark with the Lost Planet demo, which actually comes in two varieties – a DX9 vanilla version and suped-up DX10 counterpart. Both weigh in at around 350mb, so the DX10 demo here doesn’t seem to have the extra large textures promised in their original announcement. What it does feature, however, is full Shader 4.0 support and advanced geometry shader effects, as demonstrated by a massive serving of particles in the form of snowflakes.

Running the demo on an dual-core FX60 and 8800GTX with 2Gb of RAM, my system was only able to churn out framerates in the mid-teens with game settings maxed out at 1920x1200. A few screenshots from the benchmark are included below, including the images from the video settings menu to show in-game options. Note the red X-Box style “back” button on the bottom left hand corner of the menu – either someone forgot to swap out a menu graphic or Capcom really wants you to play the game with a gamepad.

Full resolution screens are linked as well, and I’ll be posting some DX9 comparisons shortly. Stay tuned!