Video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops are being turned into interactive films

[Praxius]

A screenshot from Call of Duty: Black Ops video game. Picture: Treyarch / Activision
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Evidence! Video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops are being turned into interactive films | Online Video Games Reviews & News | News.com.au

IT'S a mission filled with guns, explosions and car chases. You have to infiltrate a military compound filled with hundreds of enemy soldiers trying to kill you.

So how do you survive it?

By standing around and watching.

An unamused gamer has posted a video of himself playing the first mission from new game Call of Duty: Black Ops on the "hardened" skill setting.

He doesn’t falter. He doesn't die. He doesn't even fire his weapon. He just walks through the mission letting the scripted action play itself out.

Last week news.com.au published an open letter to famous video game designer Peter Molyneux, complaining that his games have been stripped of everything that made them games. Now they're just interactive films.

Well, it seems Molyneux isn't the only culprit in the industry.

Gamer "T2DMrBungle" has shown just how ridiculous things have become with his video of Black Ops, the biggest selling game of all time that smashed entertainment records when it was released this month.

"It's basically just a movie. All I'm really doing is just watching things happen," he says over the top of the video.

The clip shows the first mission of the game. Several soldiers, including the player, must infiltrate a Cuban military base and attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro.

There's a war raging all around. Fighter jets scream overhead. Bomb shells rock the buildings.

It should be a serious struggle, an adrenaline-packed fight to survive.

But instead the player just sort of wanders through, watching all the other computer-controlled characters shoot each other.

The scene is so heavily scripted that it requires almost no human input at all. In other words, it's an interactive film — not a video game.

The full video is below. It's funny. It's sad. It goes for 15 minutes. In case you don't have time to watch it, we've saved the best bits of the commentary:

"This is all just awful. I blame the consoles for this by the way. PC games used to be special. If you own an Xbox or a PlayStation, you are part of the problem. In fact get the f--- off my channel."

"Thank God for the slow-mo in this scene. I just cannot keep up with the action."

"You know, I remember playing Half-Life 2 like five years ago and even back then the NPCs knew how to look at me when they were talking."

"I hope you guys appreciate what I did for you. It was very, very hard to sit here and do nothing while all of this action happened around me."

That's pretty damn sad and I noticed this when I played Call of Duty 4..... I never got why these Call of Duty and other FPS's like CoD are so popular...... the gameplay, the story lines, the variety, basically everything is spoon fed to the player with zero flexibility, imagination or any inclination that the player needs to use their brain to do anything constructive other then to stick something in your sights and click your mouse to fire.

The fact that someone could easily make a YouTube video where they have it on a pretty difficult setting and get through a level with very little effort is one thing....... making a YouTube video where you have it on a pretty difficult setting and they get through a level with zero effort, zero risk to their character, they don't take a single hit and don't even fire one round themselves...... AND the game basically played & beat the level without any involvement on your part...... that's just a pathetic waste of time and money if you ask me.

And for the Record, Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 were masters when it came to interaction and NPC's that knew wtf they were doing..... in most areas of both games you needed to think, time yourself and have some level of skill in order to avoid dying.... either by enemies or the environment. Both HL 1 & 2 did spoon feed you the flow of the game, in that the storyline was linear..... but combat was almost always different each time and you sure as hell couldn't just stroll through a combat zone and not expect to get shot.

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[mentalfloss]

PC snobs are worse than console peasants.

I've been having a blast with Goldeneye Wii which seems to be the perfect blend of cinematics and gameplay.

 

[Ariadne]

My son has been playing the game ... I'll have to see what sort of feedback he has on it.

That's funny, and sad, at the same time. All that shooting going on, and probably most of the players think they're doing the shooting. What happens when it's a multiplayer game and no one shoots?

 

[shadowshiv]

I think I'll stick with Fallout 3 at the moment.

PC snobs are worse than console peasants.

I've been having a blast with Goldeneye Wii which seems to be the perfect blend of cinematics and gameplay.

It's not always the case of them being snobs. Many PC games get "dumbed down" so that they can work better on the console(as they can't be bothered to make the PC version as good as it's capable of being). I am getting tired of getting cheap console "ports" of certain games, ones with save-points(hello, I have a PC. I should be able to save anywhere as I have the space) and hard-coded graphics that don't take advantage of beefy PC systems.

I think there are many excellent games for the consoles, but it does not sound like CoD: Black Ops is one of them.

And speaking of Golden Eye, I can't wait for them to create a single-player version of Golden Eye: Source for the PC. At the moment, it is multiplayer-only. It looks really good, and I loved playing it for the N64.

 

[Avro]

I got through HL1 and 2 in about ten hours....easy and predictable but I loved them both, I have easily spent 1000 hours playing HL2 deathmatch and still play it to this day from time to time.

I am currently playing rainbow six vegas on realistic setting and I'm having a bitch of a time finnishing it.

 

[mentalfloss]

It's not always the case of them being snobs. Many PC games get "dumbed down" so that they can work better on the console(as they can't be bothered to make the PC version as good as it's capable of being).

Greedy publishers. They don't want to make the effort to customize both products. This isn't really a fault of the market per se, as much as it is that publishers aren't willing to put in the effort to appease both audiences.

And speaking of Golden Eye, I can't wait for them to create a single-player version of Golden Eye: Source for the PC. At the moment, it is multiplayer-only. It looks really good, and I loved playing it for the N64.

Keep waiting. I've been waiting for that baby since the original half life. Multiplayer looks fun, but also, good luck finding many people to play online with. If you have a strong computer, I would recommend checking out Dolphin and playing the single player version of Goldeneye with that. That is, of course, after you buy the retail Wii game.

 

[Spade]

Question: Are war games programmed by the Friends of Fascists?

 

[Praxius]

Hey I'm a fan of consoles for certain types of games.... the Wii is the best console to date when it comes to handling First Person Shooters. Although the Wii isn't as powerful as the X360 or PS3, it's adaptability and controls are almost just as good as a PC's Mouse/Keyboard combo. I haven't played the new 007, but I heard good things.

But when it comes to FPS games..... they go on my PC...... the last Call of Duty I played was World at War and after playing through it once, I got about 1/4 of the way through a second time before I lost interest in its linear and heavily scripted gameplay and uninstalled it.

Right now I'm switching back and forth between Oblivion and Far Cry 2.

The first time I played Far Cry 2 was on my brother's PS3 and was impressed...... the PS3 controls were still annoying as hell with your typical BS Console controller setup that makes aiming a pain in the ass, the auto-lock was disorienting, and turning around quickly was total crap..... but the graphics, gameplay and some unique features in the game like the weapon selections and aging/rusting/jamming/breaking was pretty cool..... so I picked it up for the PC.

Of course once I got it on the PC, the graphics were even better and all the control issues I had on the PS3 were gone, so I could immerse myself in the game without having to worry about being limited by an ineffective and out-dated controller.

^ And the other thing I liked about Far Cry 2 is that it isn't linear or heavily scripted...... the game is made up of two 20km x 20km square Sandbox maps you can wander around in as you please. The story line is a little linear in some areas and regardless of the choices you make in the game, they all lead to the same conclusion with two possible endings...... but it still leaves you plenty of room to go do what you want, when you want, how you want, for however long you want.

Which is far better then going through a heavily scripted game that always finishes in almost the exact same amount of time each time you play it through...... with very little being different each time.

Heck if people want that kind of gameplay, there's always this:

Question: Are war games programmed by the Friends of Fascists?

I don't get your joke.

 

[shadowshiv]

Greedy publishers. They don't want to make the effort to customize both products. This isn't really a fault of the market per se, as much as it is that publishers aren't willing to put in the effort to appease both audiences.



Keep waiting. I've been waiting for that baby since the original half life. Multiplayer looks fun, but also, good luck finding many people to play online with. If you have a strong computer, I would recommend checking out Dolphin and playing the single player version of Goldeneye with that. That is, of course, after you buy the retail Wii game.

That is true about the publishers being greedy. Some of the ports I have seen were atrocious(the Spiderman port for instance). I am still ticked off that a game that was created for the PC(Halo) ended up getting second-class citizen treatment for the PC in the future. Because of that, I don't have any desire to play it.

I am also a little irked at what went on with Fable. We got Fable(with The Lost Chapter) for PC, and then for some reason they decided to not release Fable 2 for PC even though they had originally planned on doing so. I have heard rumours that Fable 3 will eventually get released for the PC, and if it does I hope they release it as a Fable 2 & 3 combo. I would buy both.

My computer is almost 5 years old, so I wouldn't consider it to be overly strong. I am also not super gifted when it comes to the reflexes needed for a good multiplayer FPS game. I would be so much fodder for the better players. It is fun to play with friends, but some of the people online are WAY too serious and make the experience not fun at all.

I don't own a Wii, so I wouldn't be able to play the Dolphin game either.

 

[lone wolf]

Some of them are pure propaganda targeted at kids too....

I had the grandkids for a few days last week - boy 3 girl 7. The weather sucked so ol' FRED and Mister Muzak were the entertainment. If you want to see PETA propaganda, just check out the McDonalds and KFC games. Fur coats? Maybe. Soyburger 'n' meat grease? Gimme a break today.....

 

[DurkaDurka]

PC snobs are worse than console peasants.

I've been having a blast with Goldeneye Wii which seems to be the perfect blend of cinematics and gameplay.

That's one game that would almost make me buy a Wii, that game is a classic.

What happens when it's a multiplayer game and no one shoots?

Umm, Second Life? Most boring game/simulator to every grace a computer screen lol

 

[karrie]

Has anyone seen the video of the X Box Kinect racing game that does the same thing? You come out in the lead so long as you do nothing and just let the car drive itself.

 

[mentalfloss]

It's just like real driving!