Half Life 2 - "Follow Freeman" level
Call of Duty 4 - Charlie Don't Surf level
I don't know about other people, but I find urban combat settings in shooters to be among my favorite. There is something about being in a chaotic warzone, bullets flying, rockets propelling, soldiers yelling in the distance, that gets me much more excited than your standard corridors and rooms in most shooters. Perhaps it's the feeling of being a small part of greater battle that is exciting. The battles also feel much more desperate and frantic. Any moment, you could walk around a corner and see an army of foes approaching you. It's not like a battlefield in the 18th century where everyone rushes at each other across a field.
Some games like CoD 2 don't get that feeling right. Everything feels very self contained in that game. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) and its sequel also didn't quite get the feeling right for me. The levels were too sterile. It was only your squad, occasional support, and Mexican rebels. There were no civilians, animals, or anything to make it feel like a living city. It may come down to something as simple as sound design. If I can hear shouting, gunshots, and other sounds of battle in the distance, like they're just over that wall there, I immediately like a level more than if they weren't.
A good non-game example is the end of the movie Children of Men, when Clive Owen's character runs through a battle in the refugee city looking for the baby. I couldn't find a good clip of it, but if you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about.
Anyway, that's one way a game developer can make me like their game more.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Your City Asplode!
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4 comments:
The team behind Children of Men, and - though don't quote me on this - I believe Cuaron himself admitted to being influenced by Half Life 2's style and its mise-en-scene. So your comparison is apt.
Interesting! Well I approve of their choice of inspiration.
Hey SB, I totally dig urban combat too! I think you're right in that sound design is super important - it's about the only way we can 'know' about anything we can't see in such a built up, urban jungle.
Do you also find that there's a fine line with these kinds of levels? I really don't enjoy it when they bog down like with trigger happy enemies camping every second corner waiting to blast you away 2 miliseconds after they spot you. Charlie Don't Surf from COD4 does that in a few places for me (or at least until I learned to flashbang rooms). It's quite the delicate balance.
Cheers.
Charlie Don't Surf was amazing until you get into the TV station room with all the TV monitors. Then it turned into a camp fest. That was the first frustrating point of the game for me. And really, at that point it was just another indoor level to me, so the desperate excitement of the earlier parts had worn off.
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