Dead Space, Extraction, and the Value of Movement

Hey everyone! Long time, no see. I'm working on graduating this May and, somewhat unfortunately, have chosen to devote my time to things other than writing articles. That is not to say, however, that I've forgone my game playing, research and design. I am now the proud owner of a PlayStation 3 and am every so slowly working my way through Grand Theft Auto IV (finally). I've also been playing through Burnout Paradise, Flower, and MadWorld, not to mention keeping up with Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I'm making some pretty intensive analyses of above games and, in the not to distant future, will have posts here discussing them. I'm also working on a two very interesting discussions of Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus. On top of playing video games, I am a firm believer in research of video games and game design theory. Naturally, I extensively read articles all over the Internet, but I am also quite enjoying Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, lots of wisdom.

That's my update on life. But I want to talk for a brief period about Dead Space and its upcoming Wii incarnation, Extraction. Check out the trailer:

EA is aiming to label Dead Space: Extraction a "guided first person experience." And though the game is essentially an on-rails shooter, I think EA has a right to posit their games as they please. Anyone seeking to innovate, in whatever manner, deserves gold stars in my book. And, based on what we know, I think they are attempting improvements to the genre. The on-rails shooter has a meaty history, including Time Crisis and House of the Dead. I also think many would agree with me that Killer 7 is an on-rails shooter, and an excellent one at that. Wii particularly has received much favor from the light-gun genre. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was designed specifically for Wii, but games like Rayman Raving Rabbids, Call of Duty: World at War, and Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 feature specific light-gun modes. While these all may be fine and good, it's starting to get a little out of hand , actually. So when yet another on-rails shooter is announced for Wii, it's easy to say "pshaw" and move on with life (with full motion, zing!), Extraction bears a particularly interesting design.

My initial reaction to Dead Space: Extraction was "lame." I'd basically decided that the genre was of diminishing value and that Extraction was likely a cash-in on Wi''s 50 million units. I've since changed my mind, however. And here's why: Dead Space is perfectly suited to on-rails gameplay. Even more specifically, Dead Space is perfectly suited to on-rails gameplay on Wii.

I've played Dead Space, or rather, the first four chapters on hard mode (before my friend returned it to GameFly; I intend to purchase and finish it this summer). My friends and I actually had a blast playing the game. It is highly polished, quite beautiful, and fun. We would watch each other play, with much back-seat gaming, and weigh the pros and cons of the various weapons and upgrade paths. I do not believe the game was particularly scary, except for the fear of dying and having to restart. Fear and vulnerability is something I've been thinking about a bit and will introduce in another post. But Dead Space is an enjoyable game, and at the least very interesting, and is making a marked transition to Wii.

My cause for reconsideration of Dead Space: Extraction was two-fold: the plasma cutter and the value of movement.

The default gun of Dead Space is the plasma cutter. Because of the limb-dismemberment focus in Dead Space, the plasma cutter is truly the ideal weapon for facing the game's necromorphs. The plasma cutter fires a short line of plasma, the rotation of which can be adjusted with the alternate-fire button to be horizontal or vertical. Skillful employment of the plasma cutter comes down to manipulating the reticule's rotation and, obviously, aiming effectively. Do you see where I'm going with this? In Dead Space: Extraction, rotating or tilting the remote on its side rotates the plasma cutter vertically, as well as serves as the alternate-fire button for every other weapon. There is something extremely tactile about this mirroring of in-game action with real-world control.  It's amazing how such a minor change can have such a massively-damaging impact. Expounding the implementation of this control in Extraction is the other key element to fighting: aiming. Aiming via Wii's sensor-bar has proven to be quite effective thus far, and Dead Space: Extraction is likely to follow suit.

This adaptation of control got me to thinking about other potentialities about Extraction, which ultimately led me to an interesting thought: the value of movement. Dead Space is a third-person shooter and, unlike on-rails shooters, allows for full range of movement in the world. As Isaac, players are free to go where they please within the levels. Additionally, unlike Resident Evil 4 and 5, Isaac can move, albeit slowly, while aiming and firing. Let's examine a few basic reasons players move in the game:

1. To advance in the levels.
2. To pick up items.
3. To maneuver around necromorphs.

Obviously, advancing is an important goal, one achieved via movement. Picking up items may seem trivial but,  while playing the game, I found it to be a pointed aspect. Finally, and most importantly, tactically maneuvering around, and often fleeing from, necromorphs is essential to winning battles. There is a fourth reason for movement: exploring the game. The game's setting, the space craft the USG Ishimura, is a beautiful creation. Exploring and taking time to note its craftsmanship is fun in its own right. Therefore, I would indeed say that movement is, in fact, of value in Dead Space. Its omission would likely be a mistake.

However, given these aspects of the game, exploration, puzzle solving, etc., in terms of challenge, Dead Space boils down to a serious of fights with necromorphs. And of the necromorphs, there are only a few, (slight spoilers perhaps) the standard zombies, the babies, the gorillas, the bat-stomachs, and a couple others. Zombies mob Isaac from all angles, and running to a more optimal firing position, so that the zombies group together, is vital. Gorillas need to be dodged, generally with the help of stasis, and backed-around to hit their exposed butts (line gun ftw). The difficulty of these enemies drastically changes with chosen difficulty setting. To kill a basic zombie, the number of shots to the limbs doubles between medium and hard. The need for maneuvering and/or fleeing the enemy, therefore, scales with difficulty. Even so, aside from the aforementioned, killing necromorphs by and large requires little movement. Aim, flip the reticule, and shoot.

I do not think this is bad. And, again, maneuvering around enemies is an important part of gameplay. But most of the player's time in combat will be spent shooting, standing still, not running around. This is to the game's benefit. With the camera, and with the the transition between aiming (bringing up your weapon) and moving (putting down the weapon), switching between the two too often would be tiring. I'm not saying that Dead Space is exclusively aiming and shooting, I'm saying that aiming and shooting is what Dead Space does best, and what it primarily features.

Dead Space: Extraction, though potentially perceived as a nerfed rendition of its big brother, is designed specifically to Wii. Wii has less power than the other consoles, it's fact; Dead Space in its original form could not run on Wii. So necessity calls for change, either in the form of significantly reduced polygons and enemies, or, better, via a complete overhaul. Dead Space: Extraction removes free movement (though it will reportedly allow for branching paths). We don't know enough yet to say whether players advance forward automatically point-to-point or move gradually on a line, ala Killer 7, but the limited movement will work well, I believe.

"Strategic Dismemberment" was a tag line for Dead Space, and rightly so, because it is certainly a high-point of gameplay. What EA is doing with Extraction, under the limitations of a less-powerful system, is to highlight the qualities of Dead Space and not offer movement for movement's sake. The phrase "a guided first person experience" is apt. Extraction looks to do offer all of the original's best aspects, and just maybe, improve upon them. From first-person, yes, with limited movement, yes, but Extraction retains what matters most: the challenge of properly dismembering limbs.

As I said before, light gun games are a proven genre; they're fun. Dead Space works so blatantly well as a light gun game, it's amazing nobody thought of it sooner. Dismembering limbs is the new head-shot. And within the confines of the genre, lack of movement loses nothing; indeed, controlled play, limitation of movement and options, may enhance the game. It's like tree sap. 97% of sap is water. By boiling down the sap, we are able to procure the sweetest 3%, the wondrous maple syrup.

Further Notes on A Melding of Concepts

1up has posted an absolutely excellent interview with Prince of Persia devs Benn Mattes (producer), and Michael McIntyre (level designer). The interview is long, but covers a ton of topics, including interesting ideas on co-op design, and offers some truly great insight into the minds of these developers and the philosophy of Ubisoft Montreal. I would highly recommend reading the article. But for my purposes, the developers discuss at length the game's level design, which I also discussed in an article a couple of days ago.

Their explanations differ slightly from my own earlier conclusions, particularly the use of the term "linear," but I think the end result is the same. They explain themselves far better than I ever could, so. . .Commence Quotations!

Ben Mattes:
But not sandbox. We literally tried sandbox and it didn't work. We literally had level design that was fully beautified. It was shippable quality -- we had post effects, and everything was working in it. And we brought it to be playtested, and no one got any flow because they were overwhelmed with choice. You still had the ingredient-based controls: A to jump, B to swing off the ring. And yet they'd jump and land on a beam, and then they would just stop, because they didn't know, "Should I swing off of that pole or climb on that ledge or go over to that crack or climb up that wall or drop down to that beam?" So every step was slow, and we weren't getting that flow through the world that we wanted.

Michael McIntyre:
For acrobatics, we wanted them to be Prince of Persia-like, meaning they require inputs -- different inputs the whole way along, not like Assassin's Creed where you hold down buttons and you just flow and go. As soon as we knew we wanted that philosophy, the idea of an entirely open world wasn't working, so that was where we really had to decide to differentiate ourselves with a very controlled open world with a network of designed paths -- that's when things really started working for us on the design side.

Ben Mattes:
Yeah, when we made that decision to go to the network structure, everything just opened up to us. One of the great things about this network structure is I really believe we found the recipe -- I don't know if it's the only recipe, but it's a really good recipe -- for giving the player some of the freedom of an open world game, i.e., "Do I want to go there first or there first or there first?" putting a little more authorship into the hands of the player in terms of the experience they're going to have when playing the game, while maintaining the benefits of an on-rails, hold-your-hand linear game. Because we can more or less be guaranteed that every X number of minutes, you're going to have a relatively major set-piece type of experience, and you're going to encounter something spectacular, and we're going to push the story forward in an important way because of the way the world is organized.

We really think that fans of Drake's Fortune and God of War and Prince of Persia and all those linear action/adventure games who've never played a sandbox game, they're not going to walk into this game and suddenly feel overwhelmed by possibility, because they're still going to have the benefit of Elika's compass power, and the map structure, and the way the world is organized to have a more structured experience. But people who really like the sandbox games should hopefully feel like they're in control a little bit more, so they kind of get to dictate how the game unfolds -- and hopefully, they'll enjoy that element as well.

Interesting stuff, for sure. Ubisoft's priority was on retaining the spirit of Prince of Persia, which meant creating an environment that promoted acrobatic flow. The game hasn't come out yet, but based on everything I've seen and read, I think their final conclusion on level design will prove effective.

A Melding of Concepts

The battle of level-based versus open-world games has raged since the early days of video games. Mario and Sonic were level-based, but Metroid and Zelda featured worlds open for exploration. Indeed, the two game design models are engaged in a never-ending tug-of-war. A few years ago, the commercial and critical success of Grand Theft Auto 3 KO'd the long popular level-based design, decrying level-based games as "linear." In this generation, for a game to be called "linear" stands out as the worst form of sacrilege.

Meanwhile, open-world games were a fascinating new breed, unbound by the constraints of a level-based structure, allowing players to stretch their virtual arms and relish in the beauty of freedom, exploration, and choice. Games that relished in open-world design include Crackdown, The Incredible Hulk, and the Mercenaries series. But as the past-generation fades and the present hits its limelight, critics and game designers alike have bored gaping holes into the formally lauded open-world structure, revealing many pitfalls of its own. The tug-of-war continues, with both level-based and open-world games planting their feet firm before the mud-pit.
Ubisoft's Far Cry 2 was released only a couple of weeks ago, and the reception has been fairly split. Just look at Gamespy and Gamespot's catch-lines for their respective reviews of the game.
Gamespot's Shaun McInnis writes, "...Far Cry 2's first-person action squeezes every last drop of potential out of the unique African setting." Whereas Gamespy's Fargo writes, "Visually breathtaking and ambitious in scope, Far Cry 2 falls shy of it's amazing potential."
McInnis goes on to write, ". . .Far Cry 2's free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person combat." Fargo, meanwhile, writes, "The pacing of the game is way off. The majority of your time is spent driving to or from missions or safe houses or bus stops." And continues, "Far Cry 2 could've easily been a four-star game or higher if the focus would've been on the missions and not the travel."

Similarly, Chris Remo wrote an opinion piece about Far Cry 2 on Gamasutra, about authored narrative versus emergent narrative. Remo writes:

The game's persistent component parts feel designed to convey a convincingly (but not flashily) coherent world, but even more importantly to increase the chances of memorable things happening. [...] In fact, the game tries to define a set of rules and an environment in which memorable experiences are likely to happen, and simply lets the player loose in its world -- a fascinating prospect.

Clearly, people are of split opinion on open-world structure and of Far Cry 2 specifically. But each of these three commentators above make valid points. McInnis believes that Far Cry 2's open-world meshes well with its first-person-shooter gameplay. Fargo feels the open-world structure (of Far Cry 2, at least) creates a cohesive world, but is hindered by hideously repetitive sequences. Remo, on the other hand, is excited by the "prospect" of memorable, emergent gameplay scenes only made possible by the game's open-world. Who is right? They all are, really. But lets look at some more examples.
A game which eschews the open-world structure, soon to be released, is Blue Omega's Damnation. Damnation is a level-based third-person shooter which emphasizes verticality. In fact, the game is often marketed as "Taking the Shooter Vertical." Jacob Minkoff was interviewed a few months ago in Play Magazine. In the interview, he defends Blue Omega's decision to keep Damnation level-based in a time when both publishers and gamers seemingly refuse to invest in anything but open-world. And I think Minkoff makes something very clear: level-based is not synonymous with linear. Level-based games have accrued this stigma of linearity, which even itself isn't bad but has been painted black by critics and forum-goers. Even so, Minkoff explains why level-based games can be fun without being linear:

I sort of equate it to the idea of a three-year-old getting their own soda from the soda machine. I love coke, and I love orange, and I love lemonade, and I'm going to put them all together--but then, oh my god, I don't want to drink this! I think that's the feeling that occasionally happens, it's like, you want choice, well here you go. Here's every choice you could ever want. Well, now there are so many choices I don't know quite what to do. What we're trying to do [with Damnation] is find that balance. You've got choice. You won't feel trapped or claustrophobic or held down in the game, but you're not set adrift.

To achieve this, every level in Damnation has a clear objective in the distance. The player's goal is to reach that objective by any means necessary. In the same Play interview, Minkoff likens the concept to a famous trilogy: "Lord of the Rings is all about that. Tower, get to it."

Taking the shooter vertical is more than just a marketing line, its a design foundation. Blue Omega didn't want for Damnation to fall prey to the pitfalls of the open-world genre, but also wanted to avoid the negative perception of the dullness of linear progression, and so they designed with a mantra of interesting, tall level design. The levels in Damnation offer multiple routes for tackling situations; players have to be both observant and skilled to make the most of the environment. Additionally, players have access to a "spirit vision" or a self described "wall hack" which allows them to see the glowing auras of nearby enemies. Everything works hand-in-hand.

And this is really the core philosophy behind Damnation: The levels, platforming, shooting, spirit vision; everything was designed in unison to function cooperatively. The game wouldn't be the same in first-person; the freedom of platforming would likely be lost. Likewise, the game wouldn't be the same with an open-world structure. You're probably thinking by now, "Well of course; that's obvious." Is it? The only reason it seems obvious is because Blue Omega designed a cohesive structure. They could have just as easily tried to fit Damnation into an open-world structure, but as is, the attempt would have failed. The point is that neither level-based nor open-world is "the right way." Both offer their own opportunities and limitations. Good design is taking advantage of either form and building a game to mesh with the chosen structure.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Another platforming game soon to be released is Ubisoft Montreal's Prince of Persia. Unlike Damnation, Prince of Persia takes place in an open-world. But just like it would be incorrect to label Damnation as linear, it would be unwise to label Prince of Persia with all of the negative connotations recently associated with the open-world structure. In an interview with IncGamers, Thomas Delbugeut explains PoPs unique structure:

Granted, there are a lot of things that are different about this Prince of Persia – the prince is completely different, the atmosphere is completely different – but we wanted to keep all the core elements that make it Prince of Persia. We lost most of that trying to incorporate an open world structure. So we went back to the drawing board and created more of a network thing, which allowed us to get more of those step-by-step sequences. It was a lot more interesting and ended up giving us the game we have now.

A network. Not open-world, not level-based, a unique approach to level design. In a Developer Diary, Producer Ben Mattes describes the structure "with an analogy" of a highway system, wherein players choose different routes connecting various cities in the world. As with Damnation, the routes are specifically designed to function with the Prince's acrobatic abilities and powers. Wall-runs, slides, pole hugs, shimmy's: sounds linear, doesn't it? But Montreal has in-fact (presumably, of course) completely avoided the stigmas of both level-based and open-world structures by merging the two forms. It's worth noting that Prince of Persia is different from open-world games such as Mercenaries 2 or Far Cry 2 in that it's not focused on emergent gameplay situations. But that's actually the beauty of the design. Prince of Persia is about scripted gameplay sequences; it's a puzzle-platformer. But by opening up the world halfway with a split-path structure, Ubisoft has avoided any prospect of being undermined as linear.
There's one more game coming out this winter that forgoes open-world structure for straight-up level-based gameplay. Not to say it's linear, either. I'm talking about Mirror's Edge, the first-person parkour game developed by DICE.

Chris Remo (again) recently interviewed Mirror's Edge producer Nick Channon for Gamasutra. In the interview, Channon discusses the philosophy behind the game's structure:

I think it's just looking at what you've got, looking at where your strengths are in your game, and in your mechanics, and building the levels out around it. And the fact that we could've gone open world, we could've made a game that felt very open, but we went for a more linear story, and we went for a more level-based game -- and the reason for that was that we wanted to pack as much action in as we could.

As soon as we'd have gone open world, I think that would've watered it down. So I think that was one learning, in the fact that a lot of people think, nowadays, that open world's the way to go, and it's the next-gen thing -- I don't think I believe it is.

It's clearly right for some games, absolutely, but you can actually get a lot more in, at times, in more of a level-based [game].

Channon hits the nail on the head. Open-world structure is right for some games, but it wasn't right for Mirror's Edge, and DICE realized this. DICE had goals, priorities. And like Blue Omega has also done, Mirror's Edge has been designed for every aspect to work cooperatively. Something I didn't mention earlier, Ubisoft didn't feel the open-world structure catered to the intense, one-on-one fights that were to take place in Prince of Persia; they weren't making Dynasty Warriors, and they knew it. So Ubisoft designed the world alongside the combat structure, so the two fit together like a nice little puzzle. In a similar manner, DICE had certain things they wanted to accomplish with Mirror's Edge, among them being a strong, linear narrative. And to achieve this, they designed the game with levels, because they felt it fit their intentions and motivations. But a linear narrative does not mean linear levels. Far from it. In the same interview at Gamasutra, Channon expounds upon the above statement.

You have to give a choice; it can't be just, 'Do this, do this,' you know. And that's what we've done: We've built every level out to have lots of choice, and I think the thing that we're really pleased about is that, actually, the amount of choice in every level is just limited to your imagination. Which really plays in the movement, and the parkour elements that we talked about.

You see what Channon is saying? Level based. In part to help the narrative, but still offering freedom of movement, split-second, instinctive choice, to complement the fast-paced action. Additionally, DICE has consistently said that they want the levels to be replayable. How many times have you played the demo? Exactly. Much like time trials in racing games, the levels in Mirror's Edge are intended to be played again and again, encouraging players to find, and successfully perform "that perfect run."

Here is the point of my rabble: it's about the design. Level-based, open-world, a mix of the two, they're all correct so long as the game is designed from every perspective, every facet, ever aspect to work cooperatively as one cohesive unit. Far Cry 2 was designed open-world to keep player's immersed in the illusion and to encourage experimentation with the nigh infinite weapons and approaches available to any given situation. Damnation promotes experimentation with approach as well, but in a completely different manner with a level-based, vertically oriented structure. Prince of Persia blends the benefits of both worlds to maintain its puzzle platforming gameplay without feeling overtly linear. And Mirror's Edge focuses high-speed action within a linear narrative by offering split-path levels.

The tug-of-war between the the two sides is likely to continue, but we're also starting to realize that both approaches offer plenty of opportunity for effective gameplay scenarios if designed properly.

Update: Mirror's Edge Discussion Continued Here.

Tomorrow: Linear is Fun

Sources:
Sonic and Knuckles from Neoseeker
All other images from Gamespot