I’ve
recently moved house and spent a lot of time doing DIY. I’ve also been playing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. DIY is
full of intricacies and I’d go as far as to say these are pretty much
limitless. The “Nemesis System” featured in Mordor
- which generates unique foes for the player algorithmically - is full of
intricacies, though these eventually run dry. That about covers the majority of
the content of this aborted missive, which is far too unwieldy for
me to ever hope of bringing under control. While I was lost in the maze of
drivel, I kept bumping into myself asking the same question: why, when the
differentiation between ‘story’ and ‘other’ content in open world games is
often so slight, can I spend many, many happy hours labouring repetitively,
only to lose interest in these same tasks the moment I’m not being pushed through
by a narrative?
Now, the
obvious answer to this is that I’m not actually engaged at all to begin with,
and if you’re happy with that explanation you can go off and enjoy the rest of your
day, ‘cos you’ve
certainly earned it. For the rest of us, let’s push on.
My greatest
misgiving with open world games is that there’s a fundamental sticking point
with their design. On the one hand you have these beautiful and increasingly
dense and detailed worlds that clearly take many talented people ages to make.
On the other you have systems*
imbuing these landmasses with relatively realistic weather conditions, temporal
cycles, seemingly autonomous inhabitants and aggy as anything cassowaries. And on the third hand - this one
emanating from the vicinity of your inner eye, wherever that lies on you - there’s
all the arguably one-note tomfoolery these wonderful places, with their almost
believable ecosystems and topographies, are filled with. The third hand, just
like its inclusion in that turn of phrase, is where the problems stem from.
*(“oh the systems” - Edge did a gushing cover story on Watch Dogs that’s a good deal more saccharine than this.)
*(“oh the systems” - Edge did a gushing cover story on Watch Dogs that’s a good deal more saccharine than this.)
There’s an
incoherence between the relentless drive to add complexity to game worlds and
the stagnation of the things we’re given to do in them. Mordor - just to get it out of the way - actually does provide the
player with a fair amount of things to do, even if they are almost all geared
around killing
things. They broadly fall
under the Assassin’s Creed
triple-tier system® of traversal, stealth and open
combat, with all three disciplines folding in on one another and making a
particularly sturdy dough. Throw in the Nemesis System, which regularly adds
variety and challenge to situations by augmenting the adversarial landscape of
a particular task, and you’ve got a flavourful - but not fruity, mind - mix.
The only thing missing from this ready to go rosemary-infused ball of delight
is something to make that stuff rise and fill the tin; something to tie all the
bits together and make it feel more than simply a breadbin, sorry, toy box, full of mechanics. (Food
metaphors are okay to use again, no? I heard opinions had gone full-circle on
them.)
This is
normally where the story - and by extension, the one-off scenarios usually
thrown into campaign missions - comes in. There are loads of examples to choose
from, but for argument’s sake I’m going to go with a recently memorable one in
the form of Far Cry 3’s “Kick the Hornet’s Nest” chapter. In it, the player is
tasked with torching lots and lots of marijuana plants while simultaneously
fending off attackers, getting high and listening to a looping version of the
Skrillex and Damien “Jr. Gong” Marley jam “Make It Bun Dem”. The weed-induced blurriness aside, very
little of the mission is expressly unique; you’re shooting men and burning
things, both of which can be done at almost any other moment of the game one
chooses. It’s the novel presentation, the repackaging of already familiar bits
and pieces which is where this particular segment shines. That the ‘banging
tunes’ and simple “I’m so effing baked, bro” visual treatment are in no way a
realistic portrayal of dabbling in huge quantities of green matters not: the
game - in maybe an apt metaphor for its entire existence - bluntly* gets its point across. I’m generally
okay with this sort of superficiality, because, well, at least it breathes a
bit of variety into the proceedings, and sometimes - as is the case with the
deliberately chosen example above - it can prove humorously entertaining, if
nothing else. This vibrancy, while not explicitly supplying narrative
exposition, at least feeds from it, imbuing mundane tasks with
small-yet-valuable pinpricks of individuality.
*(Pun/no pun intended, depending on your stance on puns.)
*(Pun/no pun intended, depending on your stance on puns.)
Mordor goes entirely the other way in this regard,
actually delivering one of the scantest narrative experiences of a big-ticket
game I’ve encountered in a long while. Structurally it reminds me of its
great-great-great-uncle Grand Theft Auto
III, in that most of its meaningful exposition is bundled into the
cutscenes which bookend missions; vignettes that usually take place in discrete
and otherwise unreachable locations hidden behind glowing icons and loading
screens. In keeping most of the story locked into the parts of the game the
player cannot influence, Mordor’s general
play experience remains remarkably similar - despite a steadily expanding
arsenal of offensive manoeuvres - throughout its duration. Mechanically, many
of these upgrades are flashier versions of existing powers, or buffs which
allow them to be used more frequently, injure more enemies or be used across
greater distances. What becomes apparent quite early on is that as these
abilities become available - and the proficiency of the player naturally
increases - everything becomes steadily easier. To combat this we’re presented
with more complex fodder enemies - one needs stunning to prevent a
counter-attack, another wields a massive shield and must be attacked from the
rear etc. - but this only works effectively to a point: a player paying
attention will quickly learn to recognise and thus best these ‘elite’ foes
whilst also dealing with the multitudinous Orcs surrounding them. It’s then
left, as is so often the case, to sheer numbers to ramp up any sort of
difficulty in the face of your unending march towards
probably-turning-evil-in-the-sequel. It’s inspiring stuff.
This, as
you might guess, would be all fine and dandy if it dangled little bits of
string over my face and outstretched, grasping hands; I liked Far Cry 3 after all, and that is full of
the same sort of practices. It’s the general blandness that pervades Mordor’s tasks which makes lots of it a
big slog, as if that metaphorical bread mix from earlier doesn’t, in fact, contain any seasoning at all, never mind the
hallowed herb rosemary. (Are two helpings of that metaphor pushing it a bit?
Probably.) What story is present is shallower than the ankle-deep water I end
up with in the bottom of the shower when I’m washing my hair (I have lots of hair). There’s an arc with
Gollum that is generally a tutorial for combat. There’s and arc with a Dwarf
that is generally a tutorial for fighting with and on Mordorian predators.
There’s an arc with an Orc that is generally a tutorial for the Nemesis System.
There’s an arc with the royal family of Núrn that is generally a
tutorial for the Domination ability which allows you to possess and exploit
your Orcish enemies. There’s an arc with a Gondorian bloke that is generally a
tutorial…for nothing actually, but it’s largely the only part of the game’s
entire plot that doesn’t feel to be in service of introducing or explaining
game mechanics. (I did all that repetition for a reason. Call it stylistic mirroring, if you will.)
Nowhere is
this lack of care more gut-wrenchingly smug than in the lengthy quest to find
out your companion’s name. He’s pretty much a deus ex machina for the whole
video game bit of Mordor, allowing
the protagonist to get killed after the tutorial (the proper one at the
beginning of the game, the one that tells you how to hold the controller and
not fall off your chair) and be reborn with superpowers. He’s the ghost of an Elf
wot was wronged by Sauron and he’s chosen to possess your boy Talion, the main ‘character’
(“he’s super broody and boring, boss”
“YES! I like it, we’ll take him!”), so he can enact some good ol’ physical
retribution. The only problem with this plan is that your ethereal chum can’t
remember who he is or why he feels so aggrieved. So, in the interest of not
trashing Sauron’s face without first knowing for sure that he needs a slap, he instructs you to run about in a
load of caves to find bits of his old Elf costume, the sight of which will
probably (they will) compel him to have perfectly chronological flashbacks. It
takes about half the game and far too many of these trinkets to dislodge the
truth: he is Celebrimbor, the bloke Suaron tricked into forging the rings of
power ‘fasands of years earlier. It’s a great moment, one that could only have
been made more meaningful if this information hadn’t been shouted
from the rooftops months before
the game was released, amid the (admittedly successful) push to make people
care about the game.
Mordor is emblematic of my whole beef with open world
games. So much effort goes into making them, effort that is then quickly
undermined by deluges of mediocrity once actual connective tissue is applied.
Having things play well should only ever be the bare minimum aspiration for
one of these large games - what with them being rather lofty undertakings to
begin with. Mechanical purity in isolation, I’d say, is perfectly acceptable within
the realm of a smaller, more focused experience. These offer (ideally) a small
selection of highly-honed mechanics with a focus on skilful play. They don’t
necessarily need or even suit elaborate narratives because a robust play
experience can be rewarding in itself. The problem I find with open world games
is that they aren’t focused enough to
operate in this fashion. Activities are regularly numerous and scattershot, vary
dramatically in quality and are often repeated many, many times despite being guff (I don’t even need to use examples: we
can all dig this sentiment). Without a rewarding narrative justification all we’re
left with is a load of tosh
with which to waste our time on, something I seemingly can’t do for too
long.
Whoops, it looks like I might’ve been right on the
money all the way back at paragraph two (we’re now on ten): I just don’t like
these games. But I do - or at least I think (or force myself to think) I do. I
like the giddy freedom to do anything,
even if that anything turns out to just be a dozen things copied until they appear to be infinite. I like the
ultimately hollow promise of a massive expanse of land ripe with possibilities
and stuff everywhere - even, to an
extent, after the realisation of its banality has sunk in. I like the
predictable unpredictability of a finite number of systems interacting with one
another to create moments of sheer “emergent” joy. I, I suppose, like those
trepidation-soaked first hours in a new open world, that possibility - even though
I know it to be almost impossibly unlikely - that this one will be different. A well-spun yarn does help to distract
me from the grind, but it will never be able to make uninspired play palatable.
Maybe I’m simply asking too much of the
genre, seeking too much variety and wanting a virtual world to be filled with
the incalculable intricacies of the real one, screws, drills, plaster, sandpaper,
heartache and all. If this is an impossible goal, though, why keep on trying if
all we end up with is expensive disappointment?
I earn a six-figure salary, own three homes and ride on a jet ski at least twice a week. What I don't have, however, is any peer group respect. This, unfortunately, is also measured in cold, hard cash, so if you respect my creativity and the free written gift I've just given you, maybe consider making it ever so slightly less free (and thus more respectable) by donating to my lovely Patreon, it resides here: patreon.com/ashouses. Chrz.
I earn a six-figure salary, own three homes and ride on a jet ski at least twice a week. What I don't have, however, is any peer group respect. This, unfortunately, is also measured in cold, hard cash, so if you respect my creativity and the free written gift I've just given you, maybe consider making it ever so slightly less free (and thus more respectable) by donating to my lovely Patreon, it resides here: patreon.com/ashouses. Chrz.
