Valve has a lot of clout in the gaming world, and certainly they could be considered one of the more artistic studios out there. Half-Life was brilliant in its storytelling and design, Counter-Strike could practically be considered a professional sport if we started keeping track of those things, Portal was considered for God only knows how many praises, and Half-Life 2 was able to capture nearly almost all of the magic the first had while at the same time visualising War of the Worlds. Even the original Left 4 Dead could be considered a historically important boon for the multiplayer community out there.
Yet, despite all of that, pumping out a quick sequel undermines their credibility in so many more ways than simply trying to make a quick buck. When Chet Faliszek explained in this interview to defend the sequel, I generally believed what he had to say. It's nice to know that Valve would support its employees to try new things and practice their own creative skills, and I firmly believe that the sequel won't be a huge ripoff. We all know it will even be a good game. However, that's where the praise ends.
Let's ignore the ripoff question, because I'm not entirely sure if I buy into that yet. Sure, we all know that game developers are money grubbing fiends that will screw you at every chance, but so many Valve games have been supported well after releasing new games that I sort of doubt this is the last time we'll be seeing significant updates to the original Left 4 Dead.
From an artistic standpoint, wouldn't it have made sense to embrace the quick sequel release as an homage or even an influence? I haven't delved too deep into the info, but the overall impression is that it will only be bloodier and gorier and slightly different in a few ways. It will offer a different game experience at first, but it will very quickly become more of the same. I'm sure I'm going to like this game, but I see it as a Left 4 Dead 1.5 instead of 2. If they announced that this would be the first in yearly episodic $20 campaigns that serve as "sequels", I'd be more embracing.
Tweaking the AI director is a great idea, but will ultimately become just as predictable as the first game. It really got me thinking about horror and thrills in gaming. I understand that Left 4 Dead is a fast paced team-shooter and that it's more about the tension than the scares, but many years of multiplayer gaming has taught me that if anything is controlled by a computer, there isn't much you can do to prevent it from becoming completely predictable. Even if you add in 50 extra subroutines for the AI director to deal with, the gamers will have it figured out in a couple of weeks without thinking twice. Yes, the music gave most of it away in the first game and that they aren't really trying to kill the player off. It's about keeping the campaigns different each time. I get that.
It just got me thinking about games in general and how it is ill suited for horror. It's great for the first playthrough. Resident Evil was scary as hell at first, but once a player killed a couple zombies, the zombies weren't scary anymore. It seems obvious, but once you know where you'll be scared, you just won't be scared again. It would be just like watching a scary movie, letting a scary part happen, then immediately chaptering back to watch it again.
To the credit of game developers everywhere, I give a lot of credit to the effort that has gone into trying to keep the scares alive, but it just never seems to work. In Doom 3, it was pretty easy to figure out when you were going to be attacked only a few minutes into the combat. It was as easy as looking for anything that glowed red, then get your shotgun out and have fun. The entire buildup was a giant tease of what could have been, then once you were attacked, all of that buildup went out the window. In Eternal Darkness, they did a great job of choosing a specific kind of freak-out that I'd love to see more of in games. You just can't play the game again without giggling a little instead of wondering if your GameCube is sentient.
For every randomization that games have thrown in, it's usually being pulled from the same bag of tricks that you already know. At least that's better than games with "scary" spawn points being in the same place every time.
Can it be solved right now? Well, yes and no. Let me illustrate just how hard it is to create a game that stays scary even after a couple of playthroughs. Sorry Chet, you will not be the first to solve it.
Unfortunately, you have to pull from a stable of preset options to begin with, otherwise there are no scares. If you walk into every room and there are just enemies or traps in random places, it's already broken and won't scare anyone. You have to define a certain set of hazards that can get the player unhinged.
So say that the team chose to have a set of player smashing walls, a leaping werewolf, a falling corpse, a swarm of zombies, and a chainsaw guy.
You have a set amount of rooms to place these traps in. Now, if you place each of these traps in the same place every time, it'll scare gamers the first time through, but not the second time. That's also assuming they survive. If they don't, then they are immediately pre-prepared for what's going to happen. If that werewolf lunges, then the gamer knows exactly when and were it's going to jump and have a gun on that position the entire time. If there's a chainsaw guy, they won't be unhinged at all and will focus more on the mechanics of taking it down then being freaked out at all. The squishy walls will simply be a retry puzzle rather than a panic room.
So say you decide to randomize the rooms. Well, gamers are mechanically intelligent for the most part, and while you may make the average 6 year old piss themselves, any other gamer will already know what's coming and have it all planned out. Jump into any game of Left 4 Dead, and a good group of gamers will immediately react the second the Tank music flips on by assuming whoop-ass positions or making a quick dash to the safe room. Sure, the other special zombies can make it difficult, but I've seen good groups make short work of what is supposed to be a frantic game-changer. Gamers know how your system works, and spend more time thinking about beating your system than living the "experience" than even they realize.
So if the player is prepared for whatever order or traps you throw at them, then your only other option is to randomize even more. Make the wolf jump from a multiple locations. make the ceiling collapse every now and then instead of going horizontal. Have the swarm of zombies alternate between coming in through one door and randomly pick how many doors will bring on the flood. Maybe the corpse will drop before one of these scares as a fake instead of the real scare.
In this case, you're still stuck with the player being prepared, because even though the locations are a bit more random, the strategy is basically the same.
In Left 4 Dead 2's case, add a few more tricks and this will be their spot on the chart. They have seen the strategies, and instead of really scaring the gamer, they are using counter-strategy which is more about challenging the gamer than putting them in a spot. Yes, a swarm will run at you while you're forced into the middle of some alarmed cars. That's still no different than the first game. The strategy will be the exact same, just a little different and more challenging. That's not thinking in the horror sense.
Yet, there's only so much randomization you can do before you have to come up with another system entirely. Say you took the above example a step further. That's when cheapness and glitches become more prevalent.
Say the werewolf doesn't have preset locations to leap from. It's then able to insta-kill you from behind, and most likely won't even scare the gamer. Instead, they will be staring at a red screen going "WTF?", and they'll probably be infuriated. Maybe the chainsaw guy will be on the far end of some room, giving you ample time to blow its brains out before it can get within ten yards of you. What if the zombies changed in numbers and either depleted your ammo completely or didn't let you even get a good fight in before you walked away victorious. What if corpses dropped too often or too obviously and just served to replace rain?
If you want to solve this problem, you really have to pay more attention to how the movies pull it off. You can watch something only so many times before you become used to seeing limbs fly or having a cat fly onto the screen from seemingly nowhere. There are some games that have figured a certain part of this formula out. Resident Evil 4, for example, had one of the most signature sounds in gaming: the chainsaw rev. There were times in the middle of a tense firefight when that sound would go off and change everything. It's worse when you know what's coming, know how to prepare for it, but have no idea about the when and where. Remember Psycho? It was much more frightening to hear the footsteps at the end than to actually see Bates run into the room.
Don't be surprised if you see a little more unpredictability in Left 4 Dead 2 because of things like this. The car alarm worked for about 3 rounds in the first game, and it is an effective way to nail the party for being careless or frantic. In the sequel, if the gamers know the swarm is coming, then Valve will probably throw a few tricks at you. Maybe the zombies don't come at first, and the group is left sitting still ready to fight. Then the zombies come in from behind a few seconds after the party scratches their heads for a second.
Knowing what is coming without the necessary details works in gaming. Gaming developers, and Valve included, should understand this. You cannot pack a game with cheap scares or scripted behavior. It works the first time, but never again. Resident Evil, F.E.A.R., Dead Space, and even Left 4 Dead with its AI director have been entertaining and tense, but they haven't mastered keeping a game fresh with chills. They tweak it, but it never works.
If you're Valve and you're serious about this AI director thing, think about this for a second before you start propping the system up again. Personally, I think I know how to solve this little problem, but I'm not telling you because as much as I think that would love to play the game I have envisioned, I'm so not letting that idea fly without some cash and some input. Since that's not happening, the best I can tell you is this: find a way to keep the gamers looking over their shoulders. Make them worry, not empowered. Let them know what's coming, but don't give it to them. A game player is so unattached from the character they are controlling that they don't care if they lose in a firefight or get cheaply whacked by a flying car. Up the ante and make things more threatening and let the gamer dwell on it for a second. You have to draw the player into the drama somehow. Don't attack the character. Focus on attacking the gamer's brain. Eternal Darkness at least showed that it was willing to break walls just to get under the gamer's skin.
Yeah yeah, I know, then it won't be the game we're all used to, but I have to direct my rant somewhere, right?
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