Every week, sort of, features editor Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his "Rev Rant" video series. You can watch the previous rants here.
This week's rant is about how Modern Warfare 2 skillfully combines first and third-person characterization to give the player a feeling of shared agency over Soap McTavish.
It may just be me, but anytime I see footage from the last few missions of Modern Warfare 2 I am overcome with an aggravating desire to play the entire singleplayer campaign all over again, from the beginning, in one sitting.
I'm still amazed that people were whining about the game's length -- didn't Portal teach us the stupidity of such complaints?
Can't comment on MW2's length, but Portal wasn't 60 dollars for a 4 hour game. I feel there needs to be SOME price to length ratio going on. Some exceptions can be made if the game is exceptional (for instance, I honestly might not complain if they charged 50 dollars for Portal cause it's THAT good).
I think the fact that, in third person, Soap acts like a total and complete badass, and in first person, you guide him through a series of insanely badass moments (walking down a vertical cliff face to stab some poor bastard, final battle, etc.) really does a LOT to bring you and Soap in line with each other. It's really a case of the developer knowing exactly what your desires are, and then making Soap do that sort of thing while you're not him.
Although personally I found that me and my friend slightly went off Soap, once we'd seen/heard his character.
Then again, I also went off Price, which I had previously thought impossible. I'm still ready to like him again, but only when the script-writers decide to stop writing terribly clichéd war-poetry.
I think the length was enough. The thing with this game single campaign is that it leaves you feeling defeated even when you accomplish little victories like the one on the last level or taking back the White House.
This is like the Empire Strikes Back of the Modern Warfare games. So i think that's why by the end of the game you're left with a sour feeling, because it obviously is going to take a whole new single campaign in a future game to give you closure about a bunch of stuff that happened in the game: Makarov, the russian invasion, etc.
I spent $60 on MW2, and have played through the campaign to completion twice (once on hardened, once on veteran), and have barely played spec ops or multiplayer. And I have zero complaints about the game's length. If I don't, no one should.
Also thanks anthony for not rehashing your old points on (read: shitting on) the game this time.
Half life could do this if they wanted. They could bring back shephard and make him the silent protagonist, and have freeman actually talk for once. Maybe valve can learn from this game because it worked in here, why not in HL2? It'd give gordan a personality for once.
Portal was $10. MW2 was $60. There is a difference in expected length here.
You don't buy an XBLA game expecting 20 hours of gameplay. You don't buy a $60 release title expecting 4-6. That's just how it works.
I think people who really enjoy the multiplayer portion of MW2 would disagree with saying it's a short game. It's easily the best value in games for me.
OK, I totally disagree here, particularly with the idea that all first-person games need to have a silent protagonist to avoid dissonance.
Screw that! Why narrow our creative possibilities? Thief 1&2 are among my favorite games ever, and I love the fact that Garrett speaks during the game. The lines flesh out his personality and add character to the experience.
There's no rule that says "if you're playing a first-person game, you have to play as YOU", and there SHOULDN'T be. I WANT to be able to step into the shoes of a character that is not me. Sometimes I WANT to have another persona impressed upon me, rather than project MY persona into the character I'm controlling.
The base assumption here just really bugs me. If you have any imagination at all, the supposed disconnect should only bother you at first, after which (in a good game) you accept it and step into that other character's shoes. When well done, it only adds to the experience. Not every first person character needs to be a blank slate like Freeman. I'll take more creative variety, thank you very much.
When I first played the game, I thought I must have been confused about who Soap was in the first game but then realized I was confusing him with Capt. Price. Once I understood the relationship, I felt more vested in the character in a bizarre way.
Hey Burch, I live in Ahwatukee. Want to grab some beers and wax philosophical about gaming?
it's weird that people are still talking about the game length. If you're only going to play the single player then just rent it! ALOT of people however will play and love the single player, then either replay it on harder difficulties, get a buddy and tackle spec ops, and then get alot of buddies and play multiplayer for MONTHS. I think 60 bucks is worth all that to people that buy the game.
Anyway...I completely agree with the Rev today because I felt similar to him while playing the game. When I first fought alongside Soap, since I played MW1, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling almost like seeing an old friend or something. Sure MW never had the greatest character development or well almost any, but since I was once "him", I felt like my memories and his were shared. Throughout the rest of the campaign I was always hoping that I would get to step back into Soap's shoes now that we were grizzled war vets. I thought it would be cool to be that character again, and hoped it would happen. And wouldn't you know it they did! (SPOILERS) near the end of the campaign just felt so AWESOME. After all the crap that happened in the story and I saw the text giving me the heads up that I was Soap Mactavish again, and it was just us against the world, I didn't feel the least bit powerless. I felt like there was no way I could fail Even though the game gave me no special stat boosts or anything at this point, I just knew that me as soap = win, and that's it. And I got through that section with no deaths either! It was a crazy feeling and I loved it. Good stuff...all right, back to improving my K/d Ratio in multi-player now!
I actually despise the concept of the silent protagonist, and when I changed back to Soap in MW2, the transition felt incredibly disjointed in relation to the rest of the story that Infinity Ward had created. Instead of feeling like the badassed, cigar-smoking, mountain climbing sniper of the earlier game, I was once again relegated to the role of a lackey, a voiceless grunt. I believe that if the dialogue of a main character is not in tune with what the player is likely thinking, then it should either be due to a deliberate attempt to alienate the player from the character in order to flesh out the story as the game's creators see fit (i.e., the deliberate choice of a powerlessness Allen in No Russian), or it should be simply considered poor writing.
I cannot, however, properly attach myself to the role of a mute protagonist when I am fully able to converse and express ideas (with words) in real life. Also, it makes the character, who is inherently meant to possess some modicum of intelligence as a representation of the player, seem absolutely brainless in his inability to verbally address the the chaos, betrayal, and destruction that occur throughout the course of his story.
If I am meant to believe that Gordon Freeman is an extension of myself, then how can I do that when he can't verbally respond to what is going on around him? My own verbal and emotional responses to the game cannot be said to represent his in the game(for instance, my thoughts or verbal expressions considered as what the silent protagonist would think or say in a given situation), because in an instance where I might say "Fuck you" to one character, Freeman, the Charlie Chaplin of videogames, says nothing.
I'd rather a writer look at the situation, attempt to anticipate what I might be thinking in a given situation, and then express that as best he or she can through some type of dialogue, then be relegated to a character struck utterly dumb by lazy or poor writers.
I don't care if anyone reads this, I'm just glad that possess the ability to say it.
Im going to go out on a limb here, but who the hell actually wants this gameplay to continue for much longer?! The multiplayer is pretty cool, and the setpieces in the campaign are pretty cool. Really though I don't think I could take much more of the campaign than was included. Then again i'm not much of a shooter fan.
I think it would be better to have it the other way around: Gordon meets Shepard, who talks and thinks and acts on his own. He could make references to things from Opposing Force ("Hey, you're Freeman? I saw you jump into a giant portal, mang!").
I'm going to call the idea brought up in this Rev Rant "Multiplication of Awesome". You play as Roach, and think "I am awesome." Then you see Soap, and think: "Wait... that is ALSO me... I am twice as awesome!" And anything awesome Soap does is really YOU doing it. So your awesomeness multiplies.
@ LOLFONDU
Gordon Freeman does appear in half life when you're not controlling him. In Half life Blue shift, although his appearances are on a Video monitor, he can be seen doing his work. Does he really need to speak? I always thought the reason he didn't speak was so that the players personality is supposed to be that of Gordon, he is a blank slate to perceive their universe by.
What lastduel said. Thief was an excellent, excellent first person title, and the main character bothered to have personality.
I'm a bit irked that Gordon Freeman can not say anything and be lauded as such an amazing entity. What's the difference between him and a faceless, nameless person? Is that the point? Then Gordon Freeman is an idea, not a character.
Another interesting point is how players control Soap once Captain Price returns. Soap kind of has Price's role up until Price arrives, and he starts treating Soap like an inferior almost right away -- evidenced especially by the newer characters asking why Price is even calling him Soap, which is clearly a nickname that the character didn't make public knowledge.
Once Price appears, Soap becomes almost relegated to a subordinate again, regressing from hardened vet to standing in another guy's shadow. I think it gives a nice contextual explanation as to why Soap's personality diminishes when the player takes control. Price kind of dominates his character in a way.
Doing nothing all the time is precisely why Gordon Freeman felt so dissonant to me. I'm not a blank slate, therefore, inhabiting Gordon Freeman's shoes doesn't feel natural.
Nathan Drake feels a lot more natural to me, and he is on the opposite end of the "blank slate" spectrum.
Soap felt perfect to me RIGHT UP UNTIL he stopped talking. Soap was a great character with a lot of personality, and then when you step back into his shoes, he just shuts up immediately. I didn't feel like "I am Soap," I just felt like I was intruding on Soap, that he would've been saying things and cursing Makarov and bitching out Shepherd and talking about important stuff with Price, but he couldn't. I was there. Awkwardly.
CAn we get over MW2 already? It wasnt that great of a game. if it were a movie it would just be a big budget action flik that would be forgoten infavour of more culturaly relevent films. video gamers can be so immature...
I don't know, on the one hand having a silent protagonist allows for the unfolding of a story that has no reliance on you, or you as yourself to participate in the story.
On the other hand, having a silent protagonist feels lazy on the developer's part sometimes and like everyone wants to be just like Half-Life. I think many first-person games could benefit from the avatar actually having a personality.
Both have their strengths, but also their weaknesses.
I thought the Soap sharing thing was interesting too, but I personally hate the silent protagonist trope. Why in a first-person shooter does a character talking break agency, when a 3rd person POV doesn't? You're still "playing" the character. It makes no sense that just because you're staring out of the character's face instead of looking over his shoulder that he should lose all personality.
I like what the creator of Indigo Prophecy said about the limitations of games and agency. You're not playing as you. You're playing as Soap. You, like any actor, should be limited to doing what Soap would do - and Soap, as we've seen earlier - definitely talks. That said, the writers should do what was so effective in Gears of War, what Susan O'Conner talked about in her GDC '08 presentation and what Uncharted 2 did so well: mirror neurons. These characters should say what the player is thinking.
Do those things well and there's no reason why FPS protagonists shouldn't talk.
Well about this rant itself, ironically Anthony felt out of place when he was meandering, using circular logic and random thoughts, it was his first bonafide rant. Who would think a video series called "Rev Rant" would actually be an actual rant! How novel! This is how these videos are supposed to play out, not some high horse seemingly scripted gibberish.
Good job! You've finally had your first true rant(of course I couldn't be bothered to watch all of these but from what I've seen this is the first genuine rant).
I would like to add something to the length topic despite it being off topic. Did anyone else feel like it seemed Activision kind of forced Infinity Ward to end it with that ending sequence, and not continue to actually finish the true story. Was that just me? "No we can make it 4 hours long and make a shit ton of cash and still make a sequel no one will notice"-Bobby Kotick figuratively speaking.
To stay on topic I felt the bizarre changing from character kind of screwed the narrative a bit and taking a voice away from someone who did really made it out of whack more. That's just me however the game had some faults with it's storytelling and it seemed to just use certain aspects for certain cinematic moments that were amazing but weren't necessary. IMO.
They should have learned that the length of a game is in no way a factor of the games quality long before Portal, they should have learned it from REZ.
I have to agree, it kind of feels like in prey that you are in control of Tommy's body and thoughts are just kind of in your head like he's your concience or something. Like to me Fps appear to be the best way to give you the feel of "You" being the main character, and when Infinity Ward killed off the Roach (What I consider the "You" character) and brought you back as Soap it felt as though the story no longer had yourself in it but you had more of character driven story which would you only controlled soap to progress the story.
I kind of feel that if Roach had been killed early in the game, then probably wouldn't have felt as proper. I guess that's why only the last part is played through his eyes, but I think after seeing how far Soap has come most people wouldn't complain about controlling Soap.
You know, maybe it's just me, but when I became soap again, I instinctively played more badas than I did as Ramirez, or Roach. It was just seeing Soap do all those badas things throughout the game, that, spoiler I guess, when you had to fight your way through Shepards army & Makarovs dudes, I just went around mostly knifing people. Rambo style. Usually, I'd try to take everyone I could out, but, I just pushed through. It also made my trip down that stage on Veteran a lot easier than my friends on hardened.
Also, when you & Price are attacking Shepards lair, unlike the mission with Roach & Price, I didn't wait for the old man to give me orders, I did my own thing, sometimes ignoring him completely. So, even though he didn't talk at that point, the game made me want to continue his persona when I took control.
Have to add that comparing the length of portal to the single player mode of a $60 MP based game is not a very well thought out action. Anyone that bought MW2 looking for a long term single player experience isn't too bright either.
Interesting points, but I agree with a few other commenters that playing as two different soldiers who have no personalities until you leave their POV seems a bit boring. Perhaps in the setting of war, things get too hectic to pay too much attention to personalities, but in other genres and games I really enjoy changing my mindset to that of another character. I hate to bring up Gears of War 2 in a forum praising video games as an art form, but bear with me for one point.
In the over-the-top alien shooter that is GoW, it is fun to use character POVs as catalysts for storytelling. For instance, when playing as Dom, I tend to kick ass, take names, and use that chainsaw-attached-to-a-penis-attached-to-a-gun whenever anything so much as blinks at me. However, in Co-Op, playing as Dom, I traditionally played it safer, needing to keep me and my character safe so that we could make it to Maria. This changed at the plot shift, at which point I killed with no mercy harder than ever.
In a sense, this comment agrees with you. Perhaps character development and connection with the player best occurs when you see the character through the eyes of another. However, I disagree that the characters we play should be mute, as when used well, the developers can really weave a very interesting narrative within the first person.
Rev...don't take this as an insult, closer to a compliment, but more just an observation.
I do believe this new rant and the stuff you have going on with your game character relations cements you are well and truly mentally unstable.
Not that it's a bad thing. Stay nutty, world is more interesting with the nuts than the sane. Just saying, as this weeks rant ended I found myself saying with a laugh (and not as an insult, I'll repeat) "Damn! This boy is mental!" To which I then called my wife over, who is a nurse, and she just looked at me and went "Wow."
Be proud. Reality never got a firm grip on you! And it's for that reason I keep watching your rants.
I think the main component that makes going back to Soap and having him drop his character is that at the point where you become soap drops away from being the man in charge. Up until that point when you interacted with Soap from a third person, he was your leader, your guide. When you fall back into Soaps shoes someone else steps in to fill the leadership role and so he shuts his mouth.
You could almost see it as a character trait.. kinda.
I thought it was awesome to fight alongside Soap, but once I stepped back into Soap's shoes, it made it that much better instead of being Soap from the start of the game to the end. I got the same feeling when you play as Mona Sax in Max Payne 2 and you're running through the abandoned building and finally see Max Payne jump out of the window and fall to the ground, when you just did that yourself. Well, it was a cutscene, but still.
See, I don't buy the explanation everyone seems to have for why Soap shuts up--that Price is back so he goes back into a subordinate role. That just seems silly since there's that whole estate mission where Soap and Price are off doing shit and you can hear them over the radio yelling occasionally. Soap only stops talking when you start controlling him.
Personally, I thought the transition was super clumsy.
I like the way this was done in Mother 3. There were even scenes where you play as a mute character that, when watching the same scene again though someone else's perspective, would have dialogue.
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Contest:
2:20 PM on 12.16.2009 | 
Although personally I found that me and my friend slightly went off Soap, once we'd seen/heard his character.
Then again, I also went off Price, which I had previously thought impossible. I'm still ready to like him again, but only when the script-writers decide to stop writing terribly clichéd war-poetry.
This is like the Empire Strikes Back of the Modern Warfare games. So i think that's why by the end of the game you're left with a sour feeling, because it obviously is going to take a whole new single campaign in a future game to give you closure about a bunch of stuff that happened in the game: Makarov, the russian invasion, etc.
Also thanks anthony for not rehashing your old points on (read: shitting on) the game this time.
You don't buy an XBLA game expecting 20 hours of gameplay. You don't buy a $60 release title expecting 4-6. That's just how it works.
Screw that! Why narrow our creative possibilities? Thief 1&2 are among my favorite games ever, and I love the fact that Garrett speaks during the game. The lines flesh out his personality and add character to the experience.
There's no rule that says "if you're playing a first-person game, you have to play as YOU", and there SHOULDN'T be. I WANT to be able to step into the shoes of a character that is not me. Sometimes I WANT to have another persona impressed upon me, rather than project MY persona into the character I'm controlling.
The base assumption here just really bugs me. If you have any imagination at all, the supposed disconnect should only bother you at first, after which (in a good game) you accept it and step into that other character's shoes. When well done, it only adds to the experience. Not every first person character needs to be a blank slate like Freeman. I'll take more creative variety, thank you very much.
Hey Burch, I live in Ahwatukee. Want to grab some beers and wax philosophical about gaming?
Were Spec-Ops and MP blocked in the last 5 hours I haven't touched the game?
Great points, Anthony. The name of the mission "Just like old times" where Soap and Price are together again was a really nice touch too.
Anyway...I completely agree with the Rev today because I felt similar to him while playing the game. When I first fought alongside Soap, since I played MW1, it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling almost like seeing an old friend or something. Sure MW never had the greatest character development or well almost any, but since I was once "him", I felt like my memories and his were shared. Throughout the rest of the campaign I was always hoping that I would get to step back into Soap's shoes now that we were grizzled war vets. I thought it would be cool to be that character again, and hoped it would happen. And wouldn't you know it they did! (SPOILERS) near the end of the campaign just felt so AWESOME. After all the crap that happened in the story and I saw the text giving me the heads up that I was Soap Mactavish again, and it was just us against the world, I didn't feel the least bit powerless. I felt like there was no way I could fail Even though the game gave me no special stat boosts or anything at this point, I just knew that me as soap = win, and that's it. And I got through that section with no deaths either! It was a crazy feeling and I loved it. Good stuff...all right, back to improving my K/d Ratio in multi-player now!
I actually despise the concept of the silent protagonist, and when I changed back to Soap in MW2, the transition felt incredibly disjointed in relation to the rest of the story that Infinity Ward had created. Instead of feeling like the badassed, cigar-smoking, mountain climbing sniper of the earlier game, I was once again relegated to the role of a lackey, a voiceless grunt. I believe that if the dialogue of a main character is not in tune with what the player is likely thinking, then it should either be due to a deliberate attempt to alienate the player from the character in order to flesh out the story as the game's creators see fit (i.e., the deliberate choice of a powerlessness Allen in No Russian), or it should be simply considered poor writing.
I cannot, however, properly attach myself to the role of a mute protagonist when I am fully able to converse and express ideas (with words) in real life. Also, it makes the character, who is inherently meant to possess some modicum of intelligence as a representation of the player, seem absolutely brainless in his inability to verbally address the the chaos, betrayal, and destruction that occur throughout the course of his story.
If I am meant to believe that Gordon Freeman is an extension of myself, then how can I do that when he can't verbally respond to what is going on around him? My own verbal and emotional responses to the game cannot be said to represent his in the game(for instance, my thoughts or verbal expressions considered as what the silent protagonist would think or say in a given situation), because in an instance where I might say "Fuck you" to one character, Freeman, the Charlie Chaplin of videogames, says nothing.
I'd rather a writer look at the situation, attempt to anticipate what I might be thinking in a given situation, and then express that as best he or she can through some type of dialogue, then be relegated to a character struck utterly dumb by lazy or poor writers.
I don't care if anyone reads this, I'm just glad that possess the ability to say it.
/rant
I think it would be better to have it the other way around: Gordon meets Shepard, who talks and thinks and acts on his own. He could make references to things from Opposing Force ("Hey, you're Freeman? I saw you jump into a giant portal, mang!").
I'm going to call the idea brought up in this Rev Rant "Multiplication of Awesome". You play as Roach, and think "I am awesome." Then you see Soap, and think: "Wait... that is ALSO me... I am twice as awesome!" And anything awesome Soap does is really YOU doing it. So your awesomeness multiplies.
Gordon Freeman does appear in half life when you're not controlling him. In Half life Blue shift, although his appearances are on a Video monitor, he can be seen doing his work. Does he really need to speak? I always thought the reason he didn't speak was so that the players personality is supposed to be that of Gordon, he is a blank slate to perceive their universe by.
Millions and millions of people.
I'm a bit irked that Gordon Freeman can not say anything and be lauded as such an amazing entity. What's the difference between him and a faceless, nameless person? Is that the point? Then Gordon Freeman is an idea, not a character.
Once Price appears, Soap becomes almost relegated to a subordinate again, regressing from hardened vet to standing in another guy's shadow. I think it gives a nice contextual explanation as to why Soap's personality diminishes when the player takes control. Price kind of dominates his character in a way.
Nathan Drake feels a lot more natural to me, and he is on the opposite end of the "blank slate" spectrum.
Soap felt perfect to me RIGHT UP UNTIL he stopped talking. Soap was a great character with a lot of personality, and then when you step back into his shoes, he just shuts up immediately. I didn't feel like "I am Soap," I just felt like I was intruding on Soap, that he would've been saying things and cursing Makarov and bitching out Shepherd and talking about important stuff with Price, but he couldn't. I was there. Awkwardly.
We? What are you, schizophrenic?
On the other hand, having a silent protagonist feels lazy on the developer's part sometimes and like everyone wants to be just like Half-Life. I think many first-person games could benefit from the avatar actually having a personality.
Both have their strengths, but also their weaknesses.
I like what the creator of Indigo Prophecy said about the limitations of games and agency. You're not playing as you. You're playing as Soap. You, like any actor, should be limited to doing what Soap would do - and Soap, as we've seen earlier - definitely talks. That said, the writers should do what was so effective in Gears of War, what Susan O'Conner talked about in her GDC '08 presentation and what Uncharted 2 did so well: mirror neurons. These characters should say what the player is thinking.
Do those things well and there's no reason why FPS protagonists shouldn't talk.
Good job! You've finally had your first true rant(of course I couldn't be bothered to watch all of these but from what I've seen this is the first genuine rant).
To stay on topic I felt the bizarre changing from character kind of screwed the narrative a bit and taking a voice away from someone who did really made it out of whack more. That's just me however the game had some faults with it's storytelling and it seemed to just use certain aspects for certain cinematic moments that were amazing but weren't necessary. IMO.
(ps. Great rant.)
I kind of feel that if Roach had been killed early in the game, then probably wouldn't have felt as proper. I guess that's why only the last part is played through his eyes, but I think after seeing how far Soap has come most people wouldn't complain about controlling Soap.
Also, when you & Price are attacking Shepards lair, unlike the mission with Roach & Price, I didn't wait for the old man to give me orders, I did my own thing, sometimes ignoring him completely. So, even though he didn't talk at that point, the game made me want to continue his persona when I took control.
In the over-the-top alien shooter that is GoW, it is fun to use character POVs as catalysts for storytelling. For instance, when playing as Dom, I tend to kick ass, take names, and use that chainsaw-attached-to-a-penis-attached-to-a-gun whenever anything so much as blinks at me. However, in Co-Op, playing as Dom, I traditionally played it safer, needing to keep me and my character safe so that we could make it to Maria. This changed at the plot shift, at which point I killed with no mercy harder than ever.
In a sense, this comment agrees with you. Perhaps character development and connection with the player best occurs when you see the character through the eyes of another. However, I disagree that the characters we play should be mute, as when used well, the developers can really weave a very interesting narrative within the first person.
I do believe this new rant and the stuff you have going on with your game character relations cements you are well and truly mentally unstable.
Not that it's a bad thing. Stay nutty, world is more interesting with the nuts than the sane. Just saying, as this weeks rant ended I found myself saying with a laugh (and not as an insult, I'll repeat) "Damn! This boy is mental!" To which I then called my wife over, who is a nurse, and she just looked at me and went "Wow."
Be proud. Reality never got a firm grip on you! And it's for that reason I keep watching your rants.
You could almost see it as a character trait.. kinda.
Personally, I thought the transition was super clumsy.