First-Person Shooters Are Not Like Movies and That is a Good Thing

Bryan Young

Spring 2001

I went with Kthor to the Toy Convention in NYC earlier this year and that pretty much broke me.  It was the sixth consecutive year that I petitioned Hasbro to add a story to Monopoly.  How much fun can the game be without a story?  Who is that old man?  Why are the top hat and the shoe competing?  Once again, they denied my request.  I don't think boardgames will ever be half the widely accepted art movement that, say, German Expressionism is until somebody at Hasbro tries to stretch themselves a little.

-- Chet “A Road to E3 recap”

The study of computer games in general, and the First-Person Shooter (FPS) specifically, is a new field of research. Much has been written about the effects of these types of games, positive as well as negative, but little if anything has been written about the games themselves or the culture of the people that play these games. In many ways, this paper stands as an exploration into what makes a single-player game fun (a paper I have written about what makes multi-player gaming fun serves as the companion to this one).

This work, along with its companion, is laying the groundwork and trying to determine, if only in a broad and inexact manner, what FPS’s are, culturally speaking. This essay is merely a focusing of the telescope (or perhaps the microscope) in an attempt to figure out what exactly it is that we are looking at. Once the subject is in focus, then it is possible to decode and deconstruct what is in the field of vision. The study of gamers and gaming must achieve some sort of clarity, and this paper is one attempt to bring single player gaming into focus.

When most critics discus computer games, they tend to do so in terms of motion pictures. On the surface, it seems that such a comparison is appropriate and justifiable. Both mediums are transmitted via both audio as well as visual means. Both appear on screens of some sort. Both have come to be created by teams of people. Both are forms of entertainment.

However, these similarities only go so far. The use of the phrase, “on the surface” was not accidental. Any meaningful similarities between the two mediums appear only there: on the surface. All of the comparisons listed above are only superficial and deal with form not content. A hand-grenade and a pineapple are similar in form, but are drastically different in content.

The fact that the similarities are only skin deep does not stop most critics from attempting to apply the standards of one medium to the other. Since computer games are much more recent developments it is almost always the standards of movies that are applied to games. This has been done to such a large extent that a formalized school of computer game criticism that does not apply the standards of motion pictures to games has yet to develop. It is not surprising, when seen in this light, that when computer games are evaluated using the tools of the film scholar, computer games almost always come up lacking.

Computer games in general, and First-Person Shooters in particular, should not be thought about or evaluated using criteria that were created to discuss motion pictures. To do so is a disservice to what computer games are. This misapplication of ideas serves to create an atmosphere where computer games appear inferior to motion pictures which leads to game producers attempting to create games that are more like movies. Movies are not games and in order to make games more like movies they must be made less like games. Gamers have created their own standards for what makes a game fun and interesting. Those criteria are not the criteria for a good movie. Computer games have been wrongly judged in terms of movies and by trying to make good movies, computer game produces are inevitably going to make poor games.

Steven Poole notes that horror themed games, such as Resident Evil, are often compared to horror movies (66). In fact Resident Evil, a zombie-themed game that originated on the Sony Playstation, goes so far as to borrow camera angles from horror movies in order to make the game seem more like a movie. So strongly did the publishers of the game wish to emphasize the game’s filmic quality, Night of the Living Dead creator, George Romero, was hired to direct one of the commercials (Ibid. 66). One of the biggest criticisms of the game, however, was exactly those cinematic camera angles. While they created drama, they also “always seem[ed] to change at the most inopportune times, like when you step around a corner to shoot a zombie or when you draw a weapon” (MacDonald). The attempt to make the game more like a movie has had a negative impact upon the gameplay.

Poole tells us why it is that the horror genre “provides the aesthetic compost for supposedly ‘filmlike’ videogames” (66). He states:

No one has yet claimed that a videogame is like a good comedy film (though it may be funny in other ways, as is Grim Fandango, a rococo puzzle-solving RPG with delightful cartoonish graphics), or that a videogame tells a heartbreaking romance. The answer is that the horror genre can easily do away with character and plot; it is the detail of the monsters, the rhythm of the tension and shocks, that matter. Plot and character are things videogames find very difficult to deal with.

The fact is that Silent Hill and Resident Evil resemble each other far more than they resemble any film you care to name. (66-67)

Like the horror genre, action movies can also, "easily do away with character and plot." The very title of the genre, "action," states what is the most important element of the action movie. In this way, if FPS's are to be compared to movies, it can be said that the FPS is an action movie stripped of everything that can distract from the action. In its most pure form, the First-Person Shooter has very little plot or character development.¹ The FPS is an action movie purified and distilled down to its essential ingredient: action. If evaluated in these terms, the FPS can be seen as being superior to action cinema, rather than inferior to it. Unfortunately, most discussions of videogames that compare them to motion pictures do not use this criterion to compare the two media forms.

When compared to motion pictures, videogames in general, computer games specifically, and the FPS most specifically are prone to the criticism that they are weak on plot. Although this is often true, this lack of a strong plot is often presented as a deficiency and a means of making the videogame medium and the FPS genre appear to be lacking when compared to motion pictures, and thus less important or less serious.

In a number of ways, this comparison is faulty. In emphasizing the video part of the term videogames, those who make this comparison are committing a grave error by forgetting that while videogames may in fact be categorized under the wide umbrella of types of video, they are more firmly placed under the umbrella of types of games. First and most importantly, Videogames are games. The fact that they are video is of secondary importance. When people write about Monopoly, they do not criticize it for its lack of plot. When people discuss videogames, they should not criticize them for their lack of plot.

The First Person Shooter, made famous by games such as Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem, is arguably the most popular form of computer game on the market today and the type of videogame that is the most likely to be criticized for its lack of plot. In the FPS, the attempt is made to immerse the player into the game by showing the game from the point of view of the character. The player sees the game world through the character’s eyes (hence the term first person). In most FPS, the player sees an arm jutting up from the bottom of the screen that is most often carrying a some sort of gun hence the use of the word shooter (see figure 1). The intent is to make the player feel as if they are in the game. Notice that the intent is to make players feel as if they are in the game rather than watching the game.

Gameplay in the FPS most often consists of running around through a series of corridors shooting anything that moves and looking for a way out.² Critics are correct when they say that the plot of these games is shallow and secondary. The plot for Doom can be summarized as being about demons that have taken over and you are the last man who can stop them. The story for Quake and Duke Nukem both involve repelling alien invasions. In many of the games, the plot is only told through the manual that comes in the box.

Clearly, plot is not the point. Action is the point. If a comparison to movies must be made, then it is more accurate to say that they are like the last half of an action film when the plot has been explained and all that is left is for the hero to beat the bad guys. There are other types of videogames in which plot is much more important. The role-playing game (RPG) series Final Fantasy is so well known for its plots that a Final Fantasy movie is going to be released this year. On the other hand, there are types of videogames that have no plot at all. After all, what is the plot of Tetris?

The notion that the FPS must have a plot is not only pervasive amongst the critics of the games; it has become a part of the mindset of the developers as well. This compulsion to plot is becoming more and more of an obsession within the gaming community and it is starting to have a negative effect on the games. The recently released game Soldier of Fortune is a victim of this unnecessary plotting.

Based on the magazine of the same name, the game revolves around a real John Mullins, a real person who is a former soldier of fortune, and his fictional attempts to recover stolen nuclear missiles and avenge the death of his partner. The gameplay is compelling. The game itself, however, is probably most known to the public due to its “realism.”³

In most FPS games, when you shoot an opponent, regardless of where you shoot them, they die in the same way, usually grasping their stomach and falling over. In Soldier of Fortune, when a person is shot in the leg, it is possible to actually shoot the leg off of the character. The same applies to his head, arms or groin. In the aftermath of Columbine, however, the creators, Raven Software, went to great pains to provide a parental lock out feature, a warning screen that appears every time the game is started, two different versions of the game (one with the dismemberment one without) and a very large bright red sticker on the box that warns parents of the level of detail contained within the game. The effectiveness of all this is, of course, debatable.

While playing the game, however, there are portions where the actual playing stops and the player is expected to sit there and watch and listen as the story unfolds. One of the "cut scenes," as they are known, is a stereotypical action scene. In the third person, rather than the first, we see the John Mullins character plant a bomb, run out of the building, and dive to the dirt as it explodes (see figure 2).

There are scenes like this on every level and the game even ends with another cut scene straight out of the movies. Mullins partner, a black man named Hawk, has been killed (in a cut scene of course) and after he has gained his revenge, Mullins returns to base and comments that he would like some time off. His colleague (or boss -- even with the cut scenes it is unclear who this person is) tells him that, unfortunately, he will not be able to take his vacation as some trouble is brewing. The man then introduces Mullins to his new partner. The partner is *shock * a woman. Then Mullins and his new partner get into their SUV and drive into the distance.

The scenes where the player is forced to watch the Mullins character perform actions that could have easily be performed by the player themselves are the most extreme cases of when the cut scenes break the flow of the game. Cut scenes of this type have the effect of taking the control of the environment out of the hands of the players. When these cut scenes occur, is it nearly impossible not to be frustrated.

The game puts forth a set of rules and expectations for the player. For example, on one level, the player is told that he must blow up a base. There is little to tell the player that, at key moments, control of the game will be taken away from them; therefore, using the established parameters of the gamer, the player naturally expects that they will blow up the base. Unfortunately rather than blowing it up themselves what actually occurs is that the player watches the base get blown up. The player is moving from area to area, getting closer and closer to the goal and then the game suddenly stops and the player has to sit there and watch a movie.

That most games allow you to hit a key and skip these scenes, is a doubly revealing feature. It reveals how disposable these plots are and it also shows how irritating players find these scenes. It seems obvious that inserting cut scenes in this manner is an attempt at making first person shooters more like motion pictures; however this is a trend that is not only wrong minded but also ruins the flow of gameplay.

There are ways that cut scenes can be used without hurting the gameplay. The problem with cut scenes like that of the bomb planting is that it jars the player and interrupts the flow of the game. The player does not do the act; the act is done to the player (Poole 81). The cut scene involves the player's character and so in that way it takes control away from the player. There is another type of cut scene however.

A very common element in many FPS's is using levers or switches to activates something somewhere else in the level. In Soldier of Fortune, there is a scene in the first level where the player throws a lever and the game plays a short cut scene of an overhead door opening. This door is located outside the player’s field of vision and so this cut scene lets the player know what the effects of what they have done. This illustrates a type of cut scene that does not involve the player's character directly, but gives new information about what is happening within the game. Scenes of this type can be a means of enhancing the player’s awareness of the surroundings and can aid the gameplay.

This type of cut scene does not show the player's character. Instead it shows the results of a character's actions. This difference is a key in determining whether a cut scene has the possibility of detracting or adding to the enjoyment of the game. An "active cut scene" shows the character doing something, but it is not action that the player controls. It takes control away from the players and makes them a spectator. A "reactive cut scene" shows the effects of a player's actions. This type of cut scene furthers the gameplay by letting the player see the results of what they have done, thereby eliminating frustration that could result from the player running around trying to find the results of their actions. In this way it helps to further one of the elements of flow by providing, “clear, unambiguous feedback to a person’s actions” (Turner 48). When the switch is thrown and a short reactive cut scene plays, the character gets immediate feedback. An active cut scene, however, disrupts the flow of the game not only, as previously discussed, by turning the player into a watcher, but also, like cheating, by disrupting the “ordered rules which make action and the evaluation of action automatic and hence unproblematic” (Csikszentmihalyi 47). Active cut scenes can, therefore, be seen as akin to cheating. They de-empower the player and make the gameplay experience unrewarding by introducing elements that are incoherent and contradictory to the player’s expectations.

By using cut scenes, the game creators are making the game more cinematic, this much can be agreed upon easily. But what cannot be agreed upon as easily is whether or not this is, in general, a good thing. If games such as Soldier of Fortune can be said to have a narrative, then the specifics of the narrative, aside from the cut scenes, are created by the player. For example, when three guards confront a player, the player has the choice of how to react to them. The player can kill guard one, then three, then two, or can kill guard two, and run past them, or any of a number of variations.

The game creators have painted the backdrop and have set the scene, but it is up to the player to act out the part. If it is a play, it is an improvisational one. The director lets the actor loose on the stage and lets the specifics of the story develop organically. The player is an actor, not a viewer. If the scenario of the game is that the player is to plant a bomb in a missile silo, then it is up to the player to decide exactly where to plant the bomb. The player should be able to plant the bomb wherever they want -- even in an area outside of the target zone where the explosion would be ineffective. In the Half-Life mod⁴, Counter-Strike, if playing a bomb scenario as a terrorist, this type of action is possible. In Counter-Strike, the bomb can be planted anywhere within the bomb area.⁵ Soldier of Fortune (SOF) does not allow players to do this. In contrast to Counter-Strike, the bomb in SOF is not a selectable inventory item.⁶ In fact, it does not show up in the player’s inventory. The player is not even allowed to plant the bomb in the correct location, so control over that minor detail of the narrative is denied the player. When the player reaches the bomb plant point, a cut scene takes over. The narrative is taken out of the hands of the human and the player goes from being an actor to being a viewer. The person playing goes from creating the narrative to simply interpreting the narrative.

In this way, any of the empowering effects of computer games are undercut. In the actual playing of the game, the person in front of the keyboard is in control. The decision of who to kill, what actions to take and how to take them are theirs. It is true that the actual number of distinct, unique motions may be limited – there are only so many different types of movement the programmers can include (in many games it is impossible to lie down, for example) – but the ways and the order in which those combinations are put together are infinite. Also, it is true that the decisions of what to do are somewhat limited, as you cannot decide to take your character down to the beach for a nice day in the sun. In that way it may be a false sense of empowerment, or a very limited form of empowerment, but in the gameplay the player still does at least feel empowered, they feel in control. The same cannot be said of cut scenes. Therefore, whatever sense of empowerment that comes from playing a first-person shooter is eliminated and the player is de-empowered and made powerless. Maybe cut scenes are to blame for school violence?

The instant a cut scene comes on the monitor, the player disappears. At that point, the game has no player, only a watcher. Watchers are unable to effect the events that are unfolding on their monitor. Moreover, in that moment, it cannot truthfully be said that they are watching a game. To call it a game implies that the person paying attention to it is involved in some sort of activity, be it mental or physical. While watching something, be it a cut scene, movie or infomercial can certainly be said to be some form of activity it is not the same sort of activity that constitutes a game. To this end, it cannot be accurately said that when a cut scene appears, that the person is watching a game. At this point, the computer program ceases to be a game and is something much more akin to a movie. In some ways, it would certainly be possible to judge the merits of a cut scene using cinematic criteria, but to do so would miss the point. While it is indeed very much like a movie and it may suit our purposes to call it one, the person who started the computer program did not double click on that icon for the purpose of watching a movie. They did it to play a game. There is no gameplay in a movie. While there may be said to be a type of flow in movies, it is not the type of flow that the player desired when they started the program and more importantly the change from one type of experience to another has the ability to destroy all flow.

One of the key distinctions between motion pictures and computergames is that the structure of traditional films, like that of traditional stories, is concrete. A movie has a specific beginning and end. There is no doubt as to when the beginning of the movie is and while there may be questions as to what happened at the end of a movie, people always know when the movie has ended even if it is only because the credits roll. Is the distinction of beginning and end so clear with computer games? There is a definite beginning. “You are almost always told that you “are” someone and that “you” must do this or that. This beginning of the game is the same for everyone, and it is at least supposed to be “read” before you start playing… the end is a little more unclear” (Kirksæther). If your character gets killed, is the game over? Or is the game only over when you have defeated the menace?

The simple answer is, “yes.” The end of a computer game is when you stop playing it. If one decides to stop playing a game half way through the first level, did they reach the end? It is certainly true that “the reading of the game ends” (ibid.). But is this any different than when someone gets tired of a movie and walks out of the theater or turns off the VCR? Once again, the simple answer is, “yes.”

It is important to remember that players of well-made computer games are not viewers of games. To use the analogy of acting again, they are the actors in an improvisational play and the programmers have set the scene. With movies, television, radio, print and most other media that have interpreters rather than participants⁷ the product is (always) already formed. It has already been completely produced; it just awaits consuming.

Computer games however are pre-produced to a more limited extent. They are only wholly produced when they are played. The creators can create the back-story, and a situation as well as a setting, but it is up to the players to act out that scenario. If the player decides, for whatever reason, to end the scenario, then on some level it can be said to have ended. The ways that players can end a game can be split into three broad categories: (1) The player plays the game until the main boss⁸ has been defeated. (2) The player gets killed and does not start playing again. (3) The player decides to stop playing even though their character is still alive and they have not defeated the ultimate evil.

Category number one is the most like a traditional movie. The player has played the game until they have reached what the game producers intended to be the final, definitive, narrative-ending finale. The player is doing what the creator wants. The companies, in the purest, most traditional form, expect a person to play the game until they have gotten through all of the levels that the makers have produced. The End. Now go to the store and buy another game.⁹ This is the ending that almost anyone would accept as “the end.” This ending can be problematized, however, by at least two ways: replay and underplay.

If a person gets to this authorial ending and decides to replay the game, is the person playing simply re-playing (akin to re-reading) or are they still playing? At first glance, it would seem that what they are doing is re-playing. They are doing what they did before. But is a basketball player re-playing a game or is he/she just playing? Now the voice of contention may say that this is a leading question. “A basketball player is playing basketball,” this voice may say, “but they are playing a new game. It is not the same game they were playing before, but simply another gaming session.”

This may be true, but how is a gaming session defined? Basketball has four quarters and baseball nine innings. Is each quarter or inning to be considered a separate session, a separate game? No, of course not. “But that’s different,” the voice proclaims. “Those are the rules. That is a definition of the game.” Well, what is the definition of a gaming session of a FPS? In most FPS’s a person can die an infinite number of times and be reborn and go on to reach the authorial ending. While it may be argued that each death is, technically, the end of a game, surely, it is not practical to do so and to consider this the end of the game would be most unusual. Dying is an accepted part of the FPS gaming experience. If a player does not die at least once or twice a level, the game will be thought too easy. Clearly, to gamers — to the people that play these games — dying does not have to mean the end of the game if they do not want it to (this shall be discussed in depth later in the paper).

So, if it is to be accepted that death is not necessarily a reason for declaring a game over, then why should reaching the authorial ending mean that the game is over? One of the key differences between playing another game of basketball and starting over at the beginning of a FPS once it has been beat is that basketball involves multiple human players that can never recreate their performances even if they wanted to. Therefore, every game of basketball is unique in the details. Multi-player sessions of FPS’s are alike in this matter. An online game of Counter-Strike is never the same twice. However, the single-player game is not played against other people. As the designation suggests, there is only one player. The other things in the game are part of the tools to entertain one’s self.

If I go out to the basketball court and make up a little game, when does the game end? It ends when I want it to end. If I am at tennis practice and I make up a little game where I try to hit the balls into a certain spot, does the game end when the machine is out or balls or can I reload it and continue my game if I want to? The ball and the court were made by other people, just as in a FPS. If someone wants to take that equipment and use it in some new way, to bounce a tennis ball off a wall for example, is that a misuse of the ball? Or is it just a use that the creator of the equipment in a different way? Just because the people who made Soldier of Fortune intended it to end when Mullins and his new partner drive off to their next mission, does that mean that the game is over? Not if I don’t want it to be.

The little voice says, “yeah, but you are making up your own game now, a different game than the one that came out of the box.” Then the question is, "does that matter?" So what if I did change the rules? There is a point here when the argument becomes one of privileging the author. Does is matter what the author wants? That argument typically leads to the death of the author. While that argument is certainly valid, that point is not unique to computer games.

One argument that is unique to this form is to remember that the author is not the performer. The player is playing a role. The player, as actor, is playing a direct role in producing the text and therein lies power. Although it is unprofessional and almost never happens, if they wanted to, actors on the stage could refuse to end the play. They have the power to decide when to stop. Because they are participants in a mediated activity and are physically distanced from any authorial control the FPS player has much more license to exercise this power than does a traditional actor who might be dragged away by security if they tried exercising too much power. Again, the game is empowering. Because the player is an equal (perhaps majority) partner in producing the gaming experience, they have the power to decide if the cut scene of John Mullins and partner driving off is the end of the game or not.

The other problematizing element is what I call underplay. In a game like Doom, for example, there are secret levels, and in a game like Deus Ex, there are multiple ways of doing things. So if the player gets to the authorial end and does not play through the secret level or does not go through, say the back door, has the player played through the whole game? Can they be said to have played to the end? If a person uses a cheat code to skip to the last level, have they played to the end? This becomes more problematic with a game like KISS Psycho Circus: the Nightmare Child in which the game allows you to start with any of four chapters. If you only play three of the four chapters, have you reached the end yet? How can you tell? Again, it is only the end if the player wants it to be.

The second broad categorization of when a game can end is when the player dies. As previously stated, death is an expected and in some ways necessary part of the First-Person Shooter and if a person playing the game does not die at least once per level, then the player will quite likely feel that the game is too easy. There are exceptions, but in most FPS’s, Soldier of Fortune included, there is no penalty for dying. In this way, the FPS is different from a game like Pac-Man. In Pac-Man, while the main goal is to get as high a score as possible, a second, and perhaps more pressing goal is survival. If Pac-Man dies too many times, then it is game over, insert another quarter. Death in a FPS is not permanent and it is not irreversible. Typically, a player can save as often as they desire and restart the game from the exact spot they saved it at.

Part of the difference in game design lies in the fact that Pac-Man and games like it were built and designed for the arcade while FPS’s are made for the home. The rules of Pac-Man were designed in such a way as to create a situation where length of play is limited and the player has to put more and more money into the machine if they want to play more. It is in the interests of the arcade owner to make a game that eats quarters. The FPS, however, has no such motivation. A person buys the game and takes it home -- end of monetary transaction. There is no economic benefit to designing a game intended for home use with such a limitation. Perhaps this difference of design philosophy is one of the reasons why FPS’s that are controlled by traditional -- non-light gun based -- methods have been less successful in arcades. They were not designed as quarter eaters and as such when they are converted into quarter eaters, they do not survive the conversion well.

As a digression, it is interesting to note that Doom was originally designed to have a limited number of lives and to keep a score using a point system (Cover). Had the creators of Doom elected to keep these elements, the gameplay would have been very different. Players would have been concerned about death and getting all the points that they could. With the removal of limits on lives and a point based scoring system, the game is freed of these concerns and is allowed to center around something else. It is allowed to be about the play itself rather than the external things. Players are given license to explore new areas and to try new things. An example of a technique that probably would not have been developed if a person had a limited number of lives is the rocket jump.

The perfection of rocket jumping was facilitated by the freedom given by unlimited lives. A rocket jump takes advantage of the fact that the rocket launcher has recoil; it pushes the player back when it is fired. Someone, generally credited as being the gamer who goes by the name of Thresh, discovered that if you fire at you feet and jump at the exact right moment, the recoil will push the player up into the air, allowing him/her to jump higher than they normally would be able to and thus access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible. If death had consequences in a FPS, then things like this would be harder to perfect.

Similarly, while playing the KISS-inspired game, there was an area on the level called Acropolis 3 where it looked like it might have been possible to take a short-cut by jumping at precisely the right angle, onto a slanted roof and then over to a ledge. Obviously, this was not the way the game designers had intended the player to go. Because there was no real penalty to trying that route, I was free to make several attempts at jumping across. This is part of the fun of the game. Once the monsters in an area have been killed, there is, if one so desires, time to explore and try to find secrets and shortcuts. If there were a death penalty, then this exploration and experimentation would not be able to occur because the player would be concerned with saving lives. Clearly then, the game does not end when a player dies.

This leaves only one possibility for determining when the game is over: when the player decides it is. As the player is an equal partner in creating the gameplay experience, and it is not possible for the creators of the game to come to your house and delete the game, it is then left up to the player to decide when the game has ended. If a person is playing a one on one game of basketball and they take their ball and go home, the game is over, the other player’s feelings be damned.

It is important to note that in the determination of when the game is over, it is not necessary for the player to consider the plot or narrative of the game. When I quit playing the original Unreal halfway through, it was not because I found the plot to be weak; it was because I found the gameplay to be boring.

Victor Turner credits Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi with defining flow as “a state in which action follows action according to an inner logic which seems to need no conscious intervention on our part; we experience it as a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment, between stimulus and response, or between past, present, and future” (47). In my interviews of gamers, one of the questions I continually came back to was, “What do you get out of computer gaming?” It seems that enjoyment of computer games derives from the flow experience. “The flow experience… is the crucial component of enjoyment” (Csikszentmihalyi 11). In his work Beyond Boredom and Anxiety, Csikszentmihalyi sets out a framework for defining, analyzing and studying flow within autotelic activities. Through his research, Csikszentmihalyi was able to identify six defining characteristics of flow. First Person Shooters are games and “games are obvious flow activities and play is the flow activity par excellence” (emphasis his) (Csikszentmihalyi 37). Therefore, FPS gaming, when done well, should be a flow activity.

One of characteristics “of a person in flow is that he is in control of his actions and or the environment. He has no active awareness of control but is simply not worried by the possibility of lack of control” (Csikszentmihalyi 44). This is generally true of people who play first person shooters. They believe in the game and they know unambiguously whether or not the action that they have taken is the correct one. There are no shades of gray in the world of FPS’s. Either you hit the person or you did not. Either you are alive or you are not. When control is taken away form the player, flow is disrupted. In his book, Trigger Happy, Steven Poole lists three instances of what he calls, “incoherence” which are responsible for ruining a game playing experience. Although he is talking about videogames in general rather than FPS’s specifically, his categorization still applies.

The first instance of “incoherence” he describes is that of causality (Poole 51). Although Poole credits FPS’s in general and Quake III specifically with a good deal of coherence because of rocket-jumping, this is not completely accurate because the rocket-launcher and other weapons in the games do cause certain types of incoherence. This incoherence of causality occurs in a FPS when, for example, a rocket launcher can blow a person into bits (or gibs), but cannot destroy a door.

Now there are certainly sound reasons for this incongruity; it is really hard to make everything deformable and the ability to blow up walls and doors would change the gameplay. However, it can be very frustrating for a player if they try to do something like that and it cannot happen. Within the construct of the game world, there is no logical reason why a rocket launcher can only hurt people and not the surroundings. It can be a source of frustration that disrupts flow.

In its first level, Soldier of Fortune takes this problem of incoherence to a new degree. This level takes place in a subway stop and the incoherence in question occurs when the player approaches the restrooms (figure 3). When the player tries to shot through the bathroom door, it cannot be done. This is not surprising, since the player cannot shoot through any of the other doors in the game. What is surprising (and it is certainly intended to be a surprise) is that when the player starts to leave, one of the villains shoots a hole in the door and attacks the player (figure 4). Why should the bad guy be able to shoot down the door and the player cannot? While it is, as stated, a way of surprising the player, it is a dishonest way of doing it. It is an incoherence that can irritate and disorient the player, thereby disrupting the flow of the game.

The second type of incoherence is that of function and is considered by Poole to be “more serious” as it pertains to what he calls “’single-use’ objects” (51). “Single-use” objects are items within the game world that can only be used for one purpose and one purpose only. Some types of games are very guilty of this; such as in a fantasy role-playing game where a character needs a specific gem or spell to complete a task and then these objects are useless once the task is complete. As FPS games are typically fairly simple, they are usually fairly good about making items ‘multi-use.’ An example of this would be the grappling hook.

In many styles of Capture the Flag¹⁰, the character has a grappling hook was originally intended to help the players to access high and out of the way locations. Players, however, have applied the grappling hook to areas that they are not intended to be used in. For example, players can swing Tarzan style from area to area with the hook, they can shoot their hook at other players and injure them, or they can even shoot the hook at a low angle so that it catches into, say, a wall on the opposite side of the room, and when the player retracts it, they are pulled to the other side of the room faster than they could run.

In Soldier of Fortune, however, there does appear at least one type of single use item: the bombs that are used to blow up such items as the stealth fighter, the gun, and the arctic base. As discussed above, the bomb is not a normal inventory item. Unlike other items in the player's inventory, the bomb cannot be used anywhere the player wants. The bomb can only be used in specific areas. This “single-use item” distracts from the believability of the situation. It might as well be a magic gem because it has the ability to destroy any plausibility the game has built up to that point.

“The third type of incoherence is that of spatial management” (Poole 52). Because characters are computer-generated, every movement they are capable of making is preprogrammed into them. Players cannot come up with new movements, only new combinations of movements. Because of this, the architecture within the game world must be built to certain specific dimensions or the characters will either get “stuck” in certain places, or will not be able to get into certain places at all. Because the combinations of movements the players can put the characters through is nearly infinite, it is practically (in the strictest sense of the word) impossible for the designers to test a map to make sure that every single area is accessible and that characters will not get stuck. Every gamer has at one point or another had the experience of their character getting stuck on something that looks like it should not be an obstacle. This incoherence of spatial management disrupts flow. It distracts from the reality of the game and draws attention to the artificial-ness of the game, ruining the fun of the game.

When gamers mention a FPS that has a good plot, the game that is most often mentioned is Half-Life, but what is the plot to Half-Life? See Appendix A for the complete story, but the story can be summarized as this: You are Gordon Freeman, a scientist. Your experiment goes wrong, opening a gateway to another world and allowing evil aliens to come through. The government has sent in a team to clean up the operation by killing everything, including the humans. You must save the day.

Ask a gamer to name a few FPS games that had bad plots and Doom will probably come up. As one of the originators of the genre, it is certainly forgiven for its poor plot (to see a full description of the plot see Appendix B). The plot can be summarized as this: You are a soldier in the future. While vacationing on Mars, a horrific accident occurs releasing evil beings and Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, is taken over by them. You are sent to repel the invaders.

As one can see, these plots are not that much different. The main difference between the two, as far as plot is concerned, is that in Half-Life you get to watch the experiment go wrong, and in Doom you arrive only after it has already occurred. Clearly, this is not a big difference, and certainly, it is not enough to make one of them the worst and the other the best. Although people are using the word plot, what is going on here does not seem to actually be about plot. It seems to be about implementation of the plot and how well the plot is integrated into the gameplay.

In conducting interviews for this project, I encountered just such a confusion over what plot was for a first-person shooter.

Bryan: In first-person shooters, how important is plot?

Jeff: Very important. If you have a GUI [graphical user interface], a weapon, maps in front of you and you have to kill everybody that moves, that’s good for about three days. After which, it’s probably going to get deleted. If you don’t have some sort of objective, or a target or something changing, reaction to external stimulus. Like if you do this, then everything changes. From the perspective of a game developer, which I’ve talked to, doing something like that is extremely difficult. It adds untold size to the actual game and its very very hard to do. But I don’t’ see that as an excuse for having one solid plot base and that’s it. Just one plotline. If you do this you have some small objective. Case in point Doom: everything that moves is dead and there is no choosing. There is no real thought involved. If it moves, if it has pixels, you pound the hell out of it. And in the end you save earth. I mean you didn’t really do anything, you just shot everything that moved. But Unreal Tournament…

Bryan: There’s no real plot in that.

Jeff: There’s no real plot in that but there are differences. For instance you play capture the flag for a while and then you play assault, and then you play domination and then you play deathmatch [all of these are different types of gameplay, with different rules and goals]. There’s still changes. There’s still something different. For example, Assault I’ve never seen that before Unreal Tournament. I thought that was awesome. Domination as well. There’s certain things that you have to defend. These can all be construed as sub-plotlines, or sub-objectives. With Doom, everything that moves is death, so there’s no real plot behind that. Yeah, there’s no real plot line with Unreal Tournament but there’s still other objectives that you can do and stuff changes. That pretty much what that’s all about.

It seems here that what is being discussed is not plot or narrative. What is being discussed are different types of gameplay. So at least to Jeff what matters is gameplay. When I asked about plot, he did not tell me that the story of Doom was poor, but rather the way that the story is carried out was poor. Therefore, it seems that at least some of the time when gamers call out for better plots they are not really talking about narratives and story lines. In those instances, they are really asking for better gameplay. After all, does anyone ever say that Tetris needs a better plot?

So here we have a situation where people from outside of the community, like Andrew Darley who has written a book entitled Visual Digital Culture: Surface Play and Spectacle in New Media Genres but does not appear to really understand the games. They have an emic perspective and that perspective skews their views because they are mis-applying the old rules of movies and television to a form that is not like those forms, but only appears to be like them. Appearances can be deceiving.

A problem occurs when people within the gaming community read these criticisms. These critics all to often are applying an etic perspective on things and that perspective is, at time, misleading. To make an analogy, it is similar to Radway reading romance novels. Radway had a different literacy and thus read the romance novels differently than the group of women she talked to. Just like Radway, critics of FPS’s who are not gamers have a different literacy than people who do play games. Neither Radway nor Darley knows how to read the subject they are talking about. Radway, however, was insightful enough to see this and sought out romance readers to find out what they get from them, how they read them. Darley does not do that. To be fair, his book was not about FPS gaming in particular, but the fact still remains, he was applying his perspective incorrectly. My shoes do not have a particularly good plot, either. Neither shoes nor first-person shooters are about plot.

Darley reveals his ignorance of computer gaming when he sates that, “Quake is a clone because it is a version of an earlier game – Doom (1993) – only with minimal ‘improvements’ or changes” (150). For the record, Quake is not a clone of Doom. It is made by the same company as Doom, id, but it is not a version of Doom and the technical improvements (or ‘improvements’ as he puts it, seemingly indicating that there is no real difference) between Doom and Quake are drastic. Later in the same paragraph, he states that “the number of actions are more or less the same (walking, running, jumping, swimming, shooting and picking up things)…” which as any gamer could tell you, is not entirely true as it was impossible to jump in Doom (150).

Darley then goes on to make his bias toward narrative clear. “The so-called ‘back-story’ of Quake, presented in the instruction booklet that accompanies the game disc, is short and basic in the extreme” (150). “Nevertheless, I would suggest that the background story is a relatively minor part of the game genre – any significance that it pretends to have evaporates once the game is underway” (151). “In the action-oriented game certainly, though I would suggest this is true for most computer games, fictional narrative as it is traditionally understood is de-centered — relegated to a subordinate position within the overall formal hierarchy hat constitutes the game aesthetic” (151). “In terms of traditional narrative meaning, games such as Quake are even more shallow than the blockbuster movie or the music video” (154). That Darley has a chapter entitled, “The Waning of Narrative: New Spectacle Cinema and Music Video” certainly indicates that he considers the blockbuster and music video to be shallow and vapid in their own right and to indicate that Quake and the rest of the FPS genre are even more shallow is a damning statement.

Yes, First-Person Shooters are shallow in terms of narrative. However, Darley stops there and fails to discuss what these games are good at or how gamers enjoy them. He discusses interaction and image, but it seems clear that he does not value them as much as he values narrative. By saying that games are shallow in terms of narrative and then not stating that they are strong in other areas seems to make it appear as if FPS games should be strong in terms of narrative and that they are not is a crying shame.

Darley is not a gamer and this influences his perceptions. Any serious gamer would know that there were substantial differences between Quake and Doom. Additionally a gamer would most certainly use the phrase instruction manual, not a booklet, and would not feel the need to use the phrase “so-called ‘back story.’” They would simply say back-story without quotes. These may seem like petty and trivial differences, but they signal the fact that Darley is an outsider to the events that he is describing. In fact, he is not treating the games he discusses as games at all, but simply another form of (narrative) text and in this way he fails to take into account the individualized and unique aesthetic of gaming into account. Because of this, he is writing things that are not indicative of what a game like Quake is actually about from a gamer's perspective.

But Andrew Darley has a book that is part of the Sussex Studies in Culture and Communication series. He sounds important. While it is certainly unlikely that a majority of gamers have read Darley’s book, he is not the only scholar or critic that thinks that narrative and plot are important elements of gaming and therefore the message that plot and narrative are important to games is getting through.

It seems that gamers are looking at these criticisms and those letters behind the author’s name and assuming that those letters make someone an authority and therefore right. That a FPS must have a plot is a notion that some gamers get into their head, but once there, it runs headlong into the contrary thought that these types of game are fun. When that collision occurs, plot and gameplay can become synonymous. It is gameplay (not plot) that is the primary factor in making games fun. Therefore, if people are using plot and gameplay interchangeably, when a game has poor gameplay, it is very often said that the reason for that poor gameplay is a shallow or uncompelling plot. In reality, plot is simply one small element in gameplay, certainly not the whole of it.

It is not simply the common gamer who confuses these terms. Even people who make a living writing about games make this confusion. In his column, "Alternative Lives," Michael Wolf makes the case that computer games need better plots. In the column called, "Playing Great Stories," Wolf writes, "I couldn't help but notice some striking similarities between authors and game developers. Both create a world and populate it with characters. Both try to draw you into their story – authors with words, game developers with pretty graphics and fun gameplay" (105). Already he is leaving out a critical piece of the puzzle. For one, not all games have characters: Tetris. Secondly, this description leaves out a critical element of gaming: the gamer. For it is not only the developers that create characters, in games that do indeed have characters, but, as previously noted, the players also create their character. Even in a game like Diablo, where the majority of the gameplay consists of clicking things, it is conceivable that a player could decide to play the role of a pacifist and not kill anything. This would result in a character with a different personality. This would totally subvert the game designer’s intentions, and make the game a totally different type of game, but regardless of this, it is possible to do it.

Wolf continues by saying, "And both ultimately try to do the same thing – tell you a story that will entertain you, and, hopefully, move you" (Wolf 105). It is here that Wolf begins to (wrongly) equate plot with gameplay. Game developers are not "ultimately" trying to tell you a story. That may, rightly or wrongly, be one of their goals, but if the game is to be entertaining, then the game developers should ultimately be trying to make a game with good gameplay. Thus, traditional authors and game developers are not trying to do the same thing. They are doing very different things with very different tools and goals.

Wolf goes on to say that "Half-Life was a good first-person shooter even without the story, but the involving situations and high-stress moments in the plot made it a classic" (105). Certainly, Half-Life did have involving situations and high-stress moments, but were those because of the plot? It is important to note his choice of wording here. Wolf says that it is the situations and moments in the plot that make it a classic. Even Wolf himself does not go so far as to say that it was the actual plot that made it a classic. So although his column is about how games should have better plot, by his own admission, it is situations and moments that make can make a game a classic.

Involving situations and high-stress moments can be elements of plot, but they are not, in and of themselves, plot. They can also be elements in creating flow, and thereby creating rewarding gameplay. The phrase, "involving situation" is one that is fairly indefinite. What exactly is an involving situation? To call up the most common counter example, does Tetris have an involving situation? There are many that would claim it does. Two of the elements of flow is loss of ego and that “action and awareness are experienced as one” (Turner 47). When the blocks start to fall faster and faster, the player has less and less time to wonder, “Why are these blocks falling and where are they falling from?” or even to consciously think about the next move. Certainly then, someone playing Tetris can be said to be interacting in an involving situation.

Similarly, high-stress moments can certainly be found in Tetris. When blocks keep falling faster and faster and the player cannot make them disappear fast enough, that is certainly a high-stress situation that is free of plot.

The game developers set up the situation and they may set up an intended resolution, but without resorting to external elements which break the flow of the game, like the cut scenes in Soldier of Fortune, they cannot ensure that resolution will be what actually occurs. Here again, in games that empower the player, it is the person playing that has the ultimate and final say as to what occurs. SOF erred in this regard by creating cut scenes that needlessly take the power away from the player. These egregious cut scenes are those that show the player’s character performing actions that the player should be able to perform for themselves.

There are parts in Half-Life where you watch things happen. Again note the use of the term watching rather than playing, performing or any other more physically active verb. Just as in the scene from Soldier of Fortune when we are expected to watch Mullins plant the bomb, in Half-Life there is a scene where we are forced to watch an experiment go awry. Yet SOF is much more irritating and disruptive of the flow than Half-Life is.

The difference between the two games is the way in which the watching is done. As discussed, in SOF, the game switches from first person to third. The player is expected to watch his own character perform actions. In Half-Life, this does not happen. When something scripted happens, there is no shift from first person to third. The player is still in control of the Gordon character. The creators of Half-Life further their narrative by somehow isolating Gordon from the main action when he is not the one who instigates that action. In the scene in question, Gordon is in another room when the experiment goes awry and is physically unable to access the action and while it is not a cut scene, it still serves to advance the story, only in a much less obtrusive manner.

The player still has control over Gordon. If the person wishes, they can turn Gordon around and stare at the wall. This style of cut scene does not try to emulate a movie, as the cut scenes in SOF do. It tries to emulate a “real life” set of possibilities. There are certainly times when we see something happen but are unable to get there in time to be part of it. If it is something that we wish to be a part of, either to contribute or to stop it, then we will certainly try to get there. This is exactly what can happen in Half-Life. For example, when something happens in another room, behind a glass door, the player is not forced to stand there and watch; they can, if they wish, try to get into the room. In fact, the first time a player sees one of these scripted scenes, there is a good chance that they will try to effect it. The player will try to get into that other room, for example. If they try to do so, that certainly adds excitement, drama, and fun to the scene. It does not, however, add anything to the plot. In this way, Half-Life is more empowering for the player than a game like SOF, in which all of the most exciting moments happen during cut scenes.

In Trigger Happy, Steven Poole makes the point that “the purpose of a videogame, then, is never to simulate real life, but to offer the gift of play” (63). Poole makes a good point about what games are for and one of the things that games are not for. One of the hot buzzwords in the gaming industry at the moment is realism. Counter-Strike, one of the most popular online games, is constantly referred to in terms of realism. Soldier of Fortune was sold, in part, as a realistic FPS.

Bob Colayco describes SOF in these terms:

For better or for worse, Soldier of Fortune brings us 2 or 3 steps closer to the graphic reality of battle.

Carnage

Remember watching the beach landing of "Saving Private Ryan" for the first time? Even for us "desensitized killing machines," the battle scene branded into our minds some vivid, horrifying pictures of how it really looks like for someone to get shot or blown up. There were bullets slicing cleanly through the water, entering and exiting submerged soldiers as if they were nothing but sheets of paper. Then you saw the soldier confusedly searching the ground for his severed forearm. The tide ceased bringing in clean seawater, only the blood of thousands of dead and dying GI’s.

Keep out of reach of children

If there's any game on the market that could come close to delivering the same realism (and giving heart attacks to folks like Colonel David Grossman and Senator Joe Lieberman), it's Soldier of Fortune. Clearly it's not a game you'd buy for your 7-year-old brother or son, but for those of us who are mature enough to handle it, Soldier of Fortune is fantastic. The advanced locational damage and animations supply the player with an unparalleled experience. (Colayco)

Gamefan.com’s review of SOF states that, “The GHOUL rendering system is what makes Soldier of Fortune so amazingly realistic; this proprietary technology lends itself to the most realistic character models and animations seen on the PC platform, without any significant performance loss” (“Soldier of Fortune Reviews”). More than simply being part of the reviewer’s line of thinking, realism seems to be one of the aspects that Raven, the makers of SOF, wish to emphasize. This emphasis on realism can be seen in their use of a real mersanary as both a consultant as well as the basis for the main character in the game, as well as their attention to detail in the many ways that a player can dismember his opponents.

How does realism relate to gameplay, however? It depends on how that realism is defined and how thoroughly that realism is implemented. There is a point when too much realism stops being fun. If during the middle of a game, your character had to stop and get a good night’s sleep, that would probably not be very much fun. The screen would be black for several hours and if it were to be realistic, there would be nothing you could do to wake your character, AKA you, up and there would also be nothing else for you to do while the character slept. On the other hand, if your character started to suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation and your aim became erratic, you were unable to run as fast, and eventually you began to hallucinate, there is certainly a way in which that could be seen as adding to the gameplay, and as making the game more appealing.

Soldier of Fortune does not carry things to that extreme. In fact, the John Mullins character seems fairly immune to the realistic elements within the game. The feature of SOF that is most often described as realistic is the ability of weapons to blow off the body parts of enemies. The question is how does this feature improve the gameplay?

In a personal interview with a gamer that had played SOF, the ability to blow off body parts was described as:

Bryan: You have a Soldier of Fortune shirt on. Did you play that game?

Brian: Yes.

Bryan: Did you like it?

Brian: Yes. I liked it.

Bryan: What did you like about it?

Brian: The graphic intensity of it. If you shoot a guy in the leg, he’d be hopping around. You could walk up to him and blow his head off, I guess.

It seems that blowing off body parts is a fun novelty.¹¹ It was certainly one of the selling points of the game and it does certainly seem that in this instance the added “realism” of being able to amputate limbs does add to the gameplay. The game even keeps track of how many decapitations the player has performed. This allows for the players to create their own goals, such as seeing how many arms, legs or heads they can blow off. Of course, this is all simulated realism, as shooting a character in the arm with a shotgun at close range almost always leads to the same result of the character’s arm being blown completely away. The result in the physical world is neither as clean nor as predictable.

That being said, even within this limited bit of simulated realism, there are exceptions, areas of incoherence, where flow is disrupted. In SOF, while it is entirely possible for your character of John Mullins to blow off the arm of an opponent in the single player game, it does not seem possible for the computer controlled opponents to blow off the player’s arm. The situation here is literally one where the player can dish it out but cannot take it. It is not physically possible for the player to endure the same type of amputations as the enemy. It may seem at first glance, that it would be cool to have your arm or your leg blown off and have to finish the game with missing limbs. This would certainly add to the realism of the game. However, it would also add to the difficulty in a significant way. If the player gets both of his arms blown off within the first few minutes of the game, what fun would that be? It would be impossible for the character to hold a weapon, except perhaps a knife in his mouth, and since the game does not allow players to kick (very few, if any FPS’s, do) the only thing the player could do would be to run for cover. This may be fun for a few minutes, but without the ability to defend themselves, it would be extremely difficult to advance in the game.

For this reason, the incoherence that occurs when John Mullin’s character is unable to have his limbs shot off is a good one. Although it may temporarily ruin the flow of the game when a new player realizes that it is not possible, in the long run it helps the flow of the game by leaving more options available to the player. Even if the player decides that it is fun to run and hide from the enemy, there is nothing that prevents them from doing that with their body intact. So in this case, like that of sleeping example, lack of realism is actually helpful to the flow of the game.

The example of incoherence of causality that was previously described, the ability or lack thereof to destroy a door, is an example where lack of realism can hurt the game significantly. The player can literally shoot the head off of someone, but they cannot shoot down a door? And in a certain situation, the enemy can (that scene appears to be the only situation in which a hole can be shot in a door)? That is not realistic. It even can go so far as to disrupt suspension of disbelief.¹²

In a First-Person Shooter, realism, or lack thereof, has the ability to either enhance the gameplay or disrupt it. The solution, then, is that realism must be used as tool to serve the higher cause of gameplay, rather than a means unto itself. Inconsistency in the application can cause incoherence. Too much realism can also cause tedium and boredom. Games can be totally unrealistic and still have coherency. Without coherence, be it in the realistic or unrealistic elements, situations develop that have a tendency to cause the player to become “conscious” of that fact that they are in fact playing a game. This “consciousness” can cause a break in the flow of the game.

The very nature of a game that is set in an environment that simulates our world, as Soldier of Fortune does, inserts an element of realism into it. The game world looks like ours, and we are given no indications that it does not take place on our world. A set of expectations comes along with this setting. Normal people should not be able to jump over houses, for example. If a character has a skill of that sort, that introduces an element of un-reality to the game. This unreality is generally acceptable to the player if it is presented in a consistent manner, or if there is at least the attempt to explain why inconsistencies exist. In SOF, the ability for the enemy to blow a hole in the bathroom door is presented as an inconsistency and no attempt is made to explain why the player cannot break the door, nor is there an attempt to explain why that is the only door that can be broken. If the computer controlled players could break every door, it would be unsettling, but there would at least be some sort of consistency there. However this door is a glaring exception that shows that the realism of the game is inconsistent.

That people feel the need to compare computer games to movies seems to be indicative of the fact that computer gaming is both fairly new, as well as primarily being seen as something that is aimed at children. The form factor of the computer brings with it connotations and expectations of what games should be like. The games are played on what looks like a television. They do not have commercials (at least not explicitly) and so they must be like movies. This assumption has the effect of transferring the evaluative criteria from one medium to the next. It looks (superficially) like a movie and therefore it is natural to assume that it should be evaluated like a movie, e.g. in terms of plot and story.

This seemingly logical progression is flawed in that it only evaluates superficial similarities. These superficial similarities are only a small part of the story. It has been shown that applying the aesthetics of motion pictures to a First-Person Shooter can be detrimental to the flow experience. The comparison of computer games to movies neglects the heritage of gaming. They are games and therefore a game like Counter-Strike has much more in common with the childhood game of Cops and Robbers, or Cowboys and Indians than it does with any film.

The gaming industry has come under criticism by non-gamers, that is those that do not regularly play computer games, for not adhering to the standards of the film medium. Because this criticism comes from both people who are perceived as having come sort of authority because of their title or position as well as from more high profile and more highly regarded forms of mass communications such as magazines or television, some members of the gaming industry, as well as the gamers themselves, seem to have started to believe that computer games in fact should have deeper more complex plots and storylines. This causes elements of motion pictures to be inserted into the games. Unfortunately, as has been shown, these filmic elements do not always help to enhance the gameplay. In fact, as is the case with Soldier of Fortune, they actually serve as a hindrance and can cause frustration within player.

Many people within the gaming community, be they gamers or game makers, need to reevaluate and rethink what a First-Person Shooter is and what makes them fun to play. All games, be they computer, board or otherwise, live and die by gameplay. People with in the industry seem to assume that by improving the plot and storyline they will automatically make better games. The way that many game designers seem to be going about improving plot and story is by trying to make the games more cinematic through the use of cut scenes and dramatic camera angles. It seems that there is an important question that has been left unasked, namely, “Is adding filmic elements the best way to enhance gameplay in a First-Person Shooter?” Certainly opinions on the answer to this question will be varied, but it seems likely that with an infinite number of ways to enhance gameplay, the addition of filmic elements will low on the list. Hopefully by questioning the necessity of emulating motion pictures, game designers and players of all kinds, and those involved First-Person Shooters in particular, will no longer feel that the phrase, “just a game” is a derogatory remark.

Appendix A

The PlanetHalflife Guide states that the storyline of Half-Life is as follows:

Deep in the bowels of the Black Mesa Research Labs, a decommisioned missile base, a top secret project is underway. Information about the project is strictly on a "need-to-know" basis, and as a low level research associate you (Gordon Freeman) "need to know" very little. Each morning you ride the train to work from the employee dorms, you put on your environmental protection suit, you enter the test chamber, and you run stress tests on whatever odd devices have been delivered from some other nameless part of the Black Mesa compound.

But this morning is different. This morning, your test lab is suddenly the most important place on Earth-because something is going seriously wrong. Maybe it's sabotage-maybe it's an accident. Whatever the reason, reality is getting all bent out of shape. One minute you're doing your job, pressing buttons. The next thing you know, you're staring into an alien world. Something huge with too many arms is taking a bite out of your partner's face. An explosion of unearthly light....then darkness.

Disaster. Sirens wailing. People screaming. And everywhere you turn, people are dying--being eaten. Monsters are everywhere. Monsters--there's no better word for them. You head fro the surface, to get the hell away from ground zero, but the usual routes are unpassable--damaged by the disaster, infested with headcrabs and houndeyes and increasingly larger and hungrier creatures. Madness is the order of the day. You enlist the help of traumatized scientists and trigger-happy guards to get through high security zones, sneaking and fighting your way through riuned missle silos and Cold War cafeterias, through darkened air ducts and subterranean railways where you must ride a missle transport sled straight into the jaws of slavering nightmare. When you finally come in sight of the surface, you realize the aliens aren't your only enemies--for now the government forces have arrived with heavy-weapons goons, squadrons of ruthless containment troops, and stealthy assassin gals. Their orders seem to be that when it comes to Black Mesa labs, nothing must get out alive....and especially not you, the guy who made it all go bad. So much for the cavalry.

When your own species turns against you, where do you turn? You've uprooted a bunch of nasty government secrets. You've found a portal to another world, and an alien light comes shining through. Can it get any worse over there? Some things you just have to see for yourself.

Gordon Freeman

In Half-Life, you play Gordon Freeman. A native of Seattle, Washington, Gordon Freeman showed high interest and aptitude in the areas of quantum physics and relativity at an extremely young age. His earliest heroes were Einstein, Hawking and Feynman.

While a visiting student at the University of Innsbruck in the late 1990's, Gordon Freeman observed a series of seminal teleportation experiments conducted by the Institute for Experimental Physics (see Bowemeester, Pan, Mattle, Eibl, Weinfurter, Zeilinger, "Experimental Quantum Teleportation," Nature, 11 December 1997) (see also http://www.sciam.com/explorations/122297teleport). Practical applications for teleportation became his obsession. In 1999, Freeman received his doctorate from M.I.T. with a thesis paper entitled: "Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures By Induction through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength (ELW) Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array."

Disappointed with the slow pace and poor funding of academic research, and with tenure a distant dream, Gordon cast about for a job in private industry. As fortune would have it, his mentor at M.I.T., Professor Alex Kleiner, had taken charge of a research project being conducted at a decommissioned missile base in Black Mesa, New Mexico. Kleiner was looking for a few bright associates, and Gordon was his first choice. Considering the source and amount of funds available to the Black Mesa Labs, Gordon suspected that he would be involved in some sort of weapons research; but in the hopes that practical civilian applications would arise (in areas of quantum computing and astrophysics), he accepted Kleiner's offer. Apart from a butane-powered tennis ball cannon he constructed at age 6, Gordon had never handled a weapon of any sort-or needed to... until now. (“The Half-Life Story”)

Appendix B

The “Official” Doom FAQ states that the storyline of Doom is as follows:

In DOOM, you're a space marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Three years ago you assaulted a superior officer for ordering his soldiers to fire upon civilians. He and his body cast were shipped to Pearl Harbor, while you were transferred to Mars, home of the Union Aerospace Corporation.

The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with radioactive waste facilities on Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. With no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room.

For the last four years the military, UAC's biggest supplier, has used the remote facilities on Phobos and Deimos to conduct various secret projects, including research on inter-dimensional space travel. So far they have been able to open gateways between Phobos and Deimos, throwing a few gadgets into one and watching them come out the other.Recently however, the gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have either disappeared or been stricken with a strange form of insanity--babbling vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering an untimely death of full-body explosion. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job. Latest military reports state that the research is suffering a small setback, but everything is under control.

A few hours ago, Mars received a garbled message from Phobos. "We require immediate military support. Something fraggin' evil is coming out of the gateways! Computer systems have gone berserk!" The rest was incoherent. Soon afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky. Since then, attempts to establish contact with either moon have been unsuccessful.

You and your buddies, the only combat troop for fifty million miles were sent up pronto to Phobos. You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. For several hours, your radio picked up the sounds of combat: guns firing, men yelling orders, screams, bones cracking, then finally silence. Seems your buddies are dead.

Things aren't looking too good. You'll never navigate off the planet on your own. Plus, all the heavy weapons have been taken by the assault team leaving you only with a pistol. If only you could get your hands around a plasma rifle or even a shotgun you could take a few down on your way out. Whatever killed your buddies deserves a couple of pellets in the forehead. Securing your helmet, you exit the landing pod. Hopefully you can find more substantial firepower somewhere within the station. As you walk through the main entrance of the base, you hear animal-like growls echoing throughout the distant corridors. They know you're here. There's no turning back now. (Leukart)

Figure 1

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