A Return to Form: The Cyclical Nature of Gaming

People often say that culture is cyclical, meaning that what was popular a number of years ago comes back around as time goes on. I didn’t start to notice this until somewhat recently, but then again I’ve not been around long enough to really see this cycle complete one full rotation. One of the few areas that I’ve invested any amount of time to learn the history of is gaming, so maybe that’s why it’s place where I’m seeing this phenomenon first. Gaming, in the modern sense, has only been around since 1972 and most gamers today probably don’t really start counting until the NES exploded onto the scene in 1985. Maybe that’s why it’s easier to see the old styles coming back around the bend.

SIT ON UNCLE MAGNUS'S KNEE AND HE'LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT WHEN WE HAD TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES WITH A FUCKING DIAL INSTEAD OF BUTTONS.

Nowhere is this trend clearer than in the First Person Shooter Genre. As of the past three years, we’ve seen a return to the old fashioned run-and-gun style that made the genre was it is today. Moreover, the same titles that fashioned the genre are the ones taking us on a trip down memory lane: titles like DOOM and Wolfenstein.

Doom, as I’ve said before, damn near invented the FPS as we know it. Doom was so popular and influential that the whole FPS genre didn’t undergo any real change until Half-Life, five years later. DOOM (2016) takes what we thought a shooter was supposed to be and blows its head off. When your character is confronted with the usual narrative exposition dump, he pushes the monitor away in disgust; he’s got things to rip’n’tear. Gone are the pretentions to realism and regenerating health; your character gets ammo from destroying monsters in gruesome horrific ways and health kits are instantly applied as your character walks over them. 

Yes, this is how DOOM should look: Bloody, insane, and fun.

Wolfenstein: The New Order combines the old fashioned shooty gameplay with more modern touches, like some semblance of a story. While it returns to its roots, Wolfenstein: TNO also takes time to deconstruct the very tropes that it created. Yes, you play as William Joseph “B.J.” Blazkowicz, but instead of glorifying in his bloody rampages through Nazis, you take time to reflect on how tired and broken he is; you see what makes him strong and what makes him silent. The merge of new and old gives players poignant story moments and adrenaline filled missions, the best of both worlds, really.

It's rare that we get to see a hero look vulnerable in games; most are too obsessed with the typical male power fantasy to chance it.

This is not to say that the renaissance of early 90’s style is limited to the FPS of the world. RPGs are heading back to their roots as well. The classic RPG is sprawling and mysterious, like The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall or Fallout and though the graphics have certainly gotten a facelift, games like Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 aim to bring back that unforgiving magic many gamers grew up on.

Divinity: Original Sin, released in 2014, saw all of the hand holding that modern RPGs do and decided that, no thank you, it would rather chop off its own leg than leave you a map to their next objective. The kind of game where you can build a useless character and not realize it until halfway through the main story, it will vomit mountains of text at you and expect you to remember the details. Divinity: Original Sin cleverly stops short of the truly classic RPG chore of taking actual notes as you play, but it’s a near thing. Combat is turned based and based on action points and there’s enough side quests for you to faff about forever. If you’re looking to get truly lost in an RPG world, you no longer have to play a game with graphics like the stuff you scrape off your boots.

Pretty graphics and action points!? Where do I sign?

Wasteland 2 had one hell of gestation process. The original Fallout, a spiritual successor to the original Wasteland, was arguably intended to be Wasteland 2, but we had to wait 26 years for a true sequel. Wasteland picks up where the original left off, dumping you off at the ass end of nowhere. Comparing Wasteland 2’s atomic desert to Fallout’s is like comparing a gecko to a komodo dragon. If you hope to journey around the desert alone, better think again. Every door is trapped, every room is full of enemies, and I don’t think you’re too hot at disarming traps or lockpicking, are you buddy? You need to bring along a group of friends, but don’t feel bad if one or two of them bite the dust out there. A huge number of recruit-able characters can round out your squad. When you don’t have to give all your characters voiced lines, the possibilities are endless.

Ah yes, friendly locals! Surely this exchange will end in amicable tea parties and not one party looting the other's corpses.

I don’t know how long this nostalgia ride will go on, but I’m happy to ride it until it runs out of gas. Old games certainly aren’t perfect, and modern games have brought a huge amount of progress to the fore, not just in terms of visuals, but with new mechanics and design choices. Sometimes though, you miss a main character that moves at 40 MPH and guns that clear a room without reloading, or sorting through an in-game journal to figure out where you should be going. I’ll just hold out for a classic-RPG inspired Elder Scrolls sequel here in the corner.

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Where the Hell do I Go?: Direction in Games

Figuring out where to go is one of life’s really big questions. Choosing a career, romantic partner, or even a place to live can be difficult, frustrating, or just plain confusing. You would think that games, where somebody can design everything exactly so, would be easier to navigate, but you’d be wrong. Whether deliberate or not, a lack of direction can harm your enjoyment of a game just as well as bad controls or a boring story can.

But, what is good direction? How does direction make a game enjoyable?

Halo: Combat Evolved is a revolutionary FPS with lackluster direction. Out of the eleven levels, seven could easily lead you to confusion and frustration. Several of the levels are made up of identical corridors, so you can’t figure out which way was forward or backwards if you got turned around.

Aliens really love the color purple. Ever notice that? Why is that? Also, how do they know where they're going in this stupid ship?

Since Halo has no cover system, movement is very important during a firefight, which does play well with the level design. Assault on the Control Room (5th level) has glowing arrows on the ground, but in Two Betrayals (8th level), you have to navigate the whole level backwards so the arrows just confuse you. Also, if your levels are confusing enough to warrant arrows everywhere, you might already have a problem.

The level looks pretty straightforward, but you'll definitely spend a few minutes saying, "Wait, did I come from here?"

The alien design the areas in Halo could be a reason for their confusing nature, but as a game designer, you have to make sure your players can find their way through the game easily. The lack of direction here is a problem because it prevents you from progressing in the story, or fighting new enemies, which are the two principal fun parts of any shooter.

Okay, so I'm a green dot in a grey void. That's helpful for my adventuring.

The Legend of Zelda is another genre-redefining game that suffered from too little direction. Much of this may be due to the technological limits of the time and to their credit, the designers did a good job making the game world memorable enough to navigate, but the “map” in LoZ is useless.

It tells you your general position in the world, but only some of the time. Several areas of the map will not let you past until you have walked through them upwards of three times. Without any sort of landmarks on the map, how are you supposed to distinguish one green (or blue/red if you upgraded your armor) dot on the map from any other position? I think the game designers realized this, because there are several times when you get a hint along the lines of “GO FIND THE OLD MAN IN THE GRAVEYARD.” These hints are an example of the right kind of direction in LoZ; they point you to a distinct place, so it’s easier to figure out where you are and where you’re going. However, the main goal of the game are hidden behind hints like “SPECTACLE ROCK IS AN ENTRANCE TO DEATH.”

Where the hell is Spectacle Rock? Which rocks? There’s like 50,000 rocks in this game world. Are they ones shaped like eyes? Are the rocks a spectacle because they’re impressive? Stop telling me nonsense, Old Man!

LoZ has very impressive scale and exploration for its time, but it also has a mission: defeat Gannon, become the hero of Hyrule. Wandering about aimlessly can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually you want to make progress on your journey and a lack of direction prevents that.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a game aiming to capture the playstyle of classic shooters while feeling modern. It’s a pretty tall order, but Wolfenstein did very well in terms of scores and sales, so maybe they managed it. On the surface Halo and Wolfenstein: TNO might seem pretty similar. Both are FPS with a sci-fi bent where you travel to a world unlike any you’ve known. Both take inspiration from older FPS and both are regarded highly.

Wolfenstein: The New Order shows you a truly chilling future, but hey, at least it gives you plenty of firepower to deal with it.

Wolfenstein succeeded where Halo failed, however: direction and level design. Designed by (in-game) Nazis they may be, but the areas in Wolfenstein are very easy to navigate. Part of this is due to the fact that the areas are all very conventional. You spend your time in hospitals, prisons, and cities that are all lain out how you would expect them to be. Want to go up a level in a house? Find the stairwell. Want to find a first aid kit in a museum? Go the bathroom.

Hell, even the literal-actual moonbase is easy to navigate. If that's not good level design, I don't know what is.

The areas also change drastically as you progress through them, so remembering where you’ve been is much easier. The designers could have easily made the world very alien, given that 20 years pass under Nazi rule, but their choice to go with familiar environments means that you’re never unsure about where to go. You’re free to concentrate on the story, the gameplay, and finding secrets.

Hyper Light Drifter is a game in the same vein as The Legend of Zelda, focused on exploration and adventure. Much like in LoZ, you’re just dropped into the game with no real understanding of who you are, where you’re from, or why you’re here. Much like LoZ, Hyper Light Drifter focuses on simplistic combat with a few items and a big world map.

It's also a beautiful game if you're into pixel art.

Unlike LoZ, HLD starts you out on a linear path and then opens up to a huge world. This gets you more centered in the world and also makes choosing a direction to go that much less daunting. HLD also has a map that shows you the general world location, but it has landmarks that give you some idea of where you are in relation to everything else. There’s no stated “main quest”, but “objectives” are marked on your map so you have an idea of where to go.

You will be spending a looooot of time here, so get used to this map.

Their exact location is still a mystery, and given the several tiered nature of the world map, exploration is still more than required and encouraged to beat the game. If Skyrim is the preschool teacher holding your hand as you walk around the park and The Legend of Zelda is the person who puts a black bag over your head and throws you out of a moving car, then Hyper Light Drifter is hiking with a map and compass. You might not know exactly where you are, but at least you’ve got an idea.

Direction is important in life and in video games. Nobody wants to spend their whole life doing something they hate and nobody wants to wander around a game world pointlessly. In games like Elite: Dangerous, the exploration might be the point, but for most other games, some semblance of a path is needed. The next time you’re playing a game and don’t know where to go, ask yourself what the designers could have done to make finding your way feel organic, or if the lack of direction was a design choice, what are they trying to achieve?

Pace Yourself now

Some players think about pace a lot less than game designers do, which is a shame because pace can lie at the root of why players might appreciate their favorite games. Before we start, a quick definition of pace in video games, for those of you that aren’t familiar: Pace is the speed at which you move through a game. Pace can be how fast you move through levels, how fast the game shuttles you through the story, or even the speed of the combat.

But what is good pacing? How does pace improve a game?

You might think that action games need to have a constant ramp up as far as pace goes, and many do. However, some might argue that the best action games understand the importance of a little down time. Quiet moments give you a chance to explore the world that you’re in and understand what the characters are going through. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order did a great job with the little moments. In between bombastic combat sections where you literally fight moon-Nazis, you head back to your home base. Usually, you have a little quest to find some tools, or just explore for a few minutes.

Yes, literal moon nazis. Bet you thought I was joking.

Each time you go back, things change a little. Maybe a room once empty now holds a rescued resistance fighter, or maybe a civilian’s room is now empty. You’re never removed from the harsh realities of a Nazi dominated future. You can talk to the other characters and really get a sense of why you’re fighting, ensuring that the combat never gets too ridiculous or boring because it means something.

Wolfenstein: The New Order focused on environmental storytelling in the quiet moments, to its benefit.

Half Life 2 also understood how much a quiet moment here and there can mean. The opening plays much differently than the rest of the game, adding flavor and context with observation. You walk through a train station in City 17, meeting civilians and civil protection agents. You understand the oppression that the citizens of City 17 labor under, and you can get angry on their behalf. You can see how terrible this world is and how many of the people have lost hope. Most importantly, you’re given time to digest these feelings and the world. When you actually get to fighting, you have a reason beyond “oh hey this is fun.”

"Pick up that can, citizen." That simple line tells you so much about how people are treated in this new world.

Level design also has a huge amount to do with pace. If a level requires you to backtrack 500 times, it feels tiring or annoying. Conversely, if a level is just a straight line, it can feel a little too simple.

Shovel Knight is a game that excels at clever level design. The whole game is a callback to NES era platformers, from the look, to the gameplay, to the sound of the game. Much like those earlier platformers, the game has an overworld where you choose which level you want to play. Each level is uniquely designed with its own set of challenges, enemies, and treasures. Not only that, but each level’s pace plays into the challenges you face. Mole Knight’s stage, for instance, is filled with lava that you can “goo-ify” to bounce on.

Bounce, Shovel Knight. Bounce to your doom.

You spend most of your time in this stage hanging in the air, and the enemies are designed to knock you slightly off course as you fall, or be where you're going to land. The pace of this level is fairly slow compared to some of the other levels, but it never feels tedious.  You feel like you’re really improving as a player because you learn to deal with everything the game throws at you, despite the differing feelings of all of it.

Shovel Knight captures the Super Mario Bros. 3 style, where each level has it's own unique challenge and speed.

Does pace have to change from level to level, or do you need different levels to make an engaging game? Doom, a breakneck ride from start to finish, might have something to say about that. You’re dropped into a space station on mars with a pistol and you carve your way through hellspawn (and that’s all the story you’re getting).

John Carmack, Doom's lead programmer, once said, "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."

Doom is a game of reflexes, frantic movement, and keeping a cool head. The pace of Doom never really dips, it just sort of increases as you have the chance to use more intense weapons. Each level has a “par” time, usually under 5 minutes. The fast pace forces you to rely more on instinct rather than planning and the weapons and enemies are designed around this. Most enemies fire slow moving projectiles or need to use melee attacks. Many of your weapons follow similar rules, so you have to move around enemy fire and you strafe, jump, and run around pillars to return fire without eating too many fireballs to the face. A slow space marine is a dead space marine, according to Doom.

Doom is full of traps for the unwary player, but with quick feet and a quick trigger finger, you'll make it out.

So, we’ve seen how pace can be changed up to great effect, how levels can be paced to keep the game feeling fresh, and how a constant pace can tell you how the game is meant to be played. Pace tells us a lot about how the game designers thought about progression, atmosphere, and playstyle. Think about your favorite game. How was it paced? Where was that pace the most obvious? Why did the pace fit?