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DOOM
Ah, Doom.
Really, this video turned out to be more trivia-focused than I had really intended it to be. Which is sort of a shame - around halfway through editing it (after writing, shooting, and gathering tons of video and audio clips) I had a few additional thoughts.
First of all: colored keys, man. They were an awful McGuffin when every level had you looking for the same damned cards/skulls over and over. But at the same time, they drove gameplay forward mechanically - you were always in pursuit of a specific goal, be it a key or a door or an exit. It was the use of discreet, ludic indicators of progress that gave the gameplay context and purpose. We don’t have much of in the way of that sort of motivation in first person shooters anymore - we’ve shifted almost exclusively to narrative contextualization in order to press the game forward. And it’s not that that’s a bad thing, necessarily - I just think it’s silly to be over reliant on a single technique as a motivator for the player when we have other gameplay driven alternatives available to us.
Mind you, I’m not calling for a return of three primary colored keys. But too often in modern first person shooters I find myself placed in a tunnel lined with enemies and am told “Your character really wants to go to the other end of this tunnel - better get going!” I’d like to see attempts made to make progression not just narrative driven but somehow gameplay driven as well - especially in first person games where, if you’re not actively roleplaying, it’s nigh impossible to get any emotional involvement in the protagonist. “Master Chief really wants to save Cortana” doesn’t necessarily mean the player will find any inherent delight in chasing after Cortana. Ludic goals are goals that are intrinsically interesting to players- they require no narrative buy-in. We don’t see them enough.
I called the level design “playful” in the video, and I think that encapsulates what I think levels are lacking these days. Not in the “fun, cutesy” sense, but in the sense of design that provides players with a space to traverse that plays off of, inverts, or generally forces the player to explore the mechanics they’ve been provided. I’ve walked down too many hallways with a few offshoot rooms and a few too many boxy warehouses with crates for cover. Give me giant, hand-shaped levels or gimmick levels where only one type of ammunition or power up is available; give me levels that toy with my expectations of how mechanics are applied. It’s actually something Half-Life 2 did really well - the entire Ravenholm section was made scary in party by simply reducing the amount of health and ammunition available to the player any given time.
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13 Comments
Ian Ferguson
February 13, 2012 at 9:46 AM
I’d call this sense ‘Kinect’
(only kidding)
Infinitron
February 14, 2012 at 6:30 AM
Hi Chris.
I thought I ought to clarify. What I was referring to on the Codex, when I wrote about “walls of text”, wasn’t necessarily about narrative. In fact, the RPGCodex is a critic of games that emphasize narrative over gameplay.
What I miss is *verbosity* in games. I miss the days when a serious game was expected to have user interfaces like this:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/kingdoms-of-amalur-reckoning.68502/page-11#post-1941166
Words are detail. I like detail.
Anyway, I’m loving your videos. Keep up the good work.
Skyway
February 14, 2012 at 9:32 AM
Sup.
Since you appear to be an FPS grognard with a penchant for open worlds and narrative-gameplay cohesion, I’m curious about your thoughts on the STALKER games. Well, the prestigious RPGCodex magazine also brought up The Void as something that could relevant to your interests, but I’d be careful with that one.
Overall, enjoyed your videos quite a bit. Even if I don’t always agree, it’s nice to see someone actually have a thought-out point to their ramblings, as opposed to meeting their quota of edginess and crappy visual jokes.
:brofist:
Erick Ensign
February 15, 2012 at 3:35 AM
Have you played Borderlands? Rage rips it off on so many levels it’s not even funny.
krellen
February 15, 2012 at 7:57 PM
So?
Does everything created have to be unique and original? Do you know how little entertainment there would be if it did?
Super.licio.us | Superlevel
February 16, 2012 at 5:00 AM
[…] Errant Signal: DOOM games retro video doom history […]
Thomas
February 20, 2012 at 6:41 PM
Collect the keys is no more intrinsically involving than ‘take out the AA guns’ really. It’s not actually creating any desire to progress, just a limit on your progression. We still have lots of ‘find the fusebox’, ‘pull the lever’ ‘fix the timer’ objectives and it’s normally seen as story fail.
I agree about having more twist levels though. I guess CoD has it’s sniping level, it’s rail levels, it’s use x-gun levels, it’s infra-red levels, chase levels, air strike levels, radiation levels, vehicle levels which covers a lot of the sort of things you mentioned but…
Hmm. I don’t know actually. Maybe you’re actually asking for levels where you can see it’s actually a level made by a person. Are you a little tired of context in games possibly? I think I could see how someone could feel like that
Joe Larson (@CymonsGames)
May 7, 2012 at 3:11 PM
I love that you’re using DoomGL for the in game footage. Way to stay pure there, buddy.
A personal history of game music: Part 4 - A Time of Transition | Magical Adventures in Pixie Land
July 21, 2013 at 5:30 AM
[…] and watch the Errant Signal discussion of Doom. Go on, I’ll wait. Right, good. As he says, the music in Doom - like […]
Lethal Guitar
January 4, 2014 at 12:35 PM
You mentioned that you’d maybe create a dedicated video about Rage. Are you still planning to do so? Because I’d love to hear your thoughts on that game!
Keep up your great work!
this domain
September 25, 2014 at 10:34 PM
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I truly appreciate your efforts and
I am waiting for your further write ups thank you once again.
Super.licio.us | Superlevel
March 31, 2015 at 8:59 AM
[…] Errant Signal: DOOM games retro video doom history […]
Alfred
February 11, 2016 at 10:08 PM
Super Mario World and Mario and Luigi:Superstar SagaIggy=1Morton=2Lemmy=3Ludwig=4Roy=5Wendy=6Larry=7There are several patetrns.Larry is always the 1st or 7th.Iggy always has one world in between him, and LemmyRoy, and Morton always are 2nd or 5th.Wendy always has the water world if there is one.Ludwig is always 4th or 7th.This only includes main Mario games, and Mario, and Luigi.