It was recently revealed by an Eidos employee on the company’s forums that Deus Ex 3, which is in development at Eidos Montreal, will employ a regenerating health system. To many die-hard Deus Ex devotees (and I’ve discovered that there really is no other kind of Deus Ex devotee), this is akin to a devout Catholic discovering that beneath the stately papal vestments, Hiz ‘Oliness routinely sports Spider-Man Underoos. With skid marks.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Spider-Man Underoos, or skid marks, for that matter — you just don’t want to think about them rubbing up against the pontiffularposterior. (Some things should at least maintain the illusion of being sacred, after all.) By association, there’s nothing wrong with regenerating health in the proper context, but that context is not a Deus Ex game, nor any game that would call itself an RPG.
While the developers of Deus Ex 3 maintain that it will be a role-playing game, the notion of regenerating health (in lieu of inventory health packs) belies this classification because of a single, irrefutable premise; regenerating health requires non-action. Sitting behind a wall waiting for health to regenerate before moving on is a mechanic that essentially forces the player to stop playing the game in order to continue playing the game, and by extension removes two components which are vital to any kind of role-playing; inventory management and player-determined action.
The spatial inventory from Deus Ex succeeded because it struck a familiar, comfortable chord with many RPGers, whether their RPGing bicuspids were cut on the table-top or on phosphorus dots; the inventory presented a quantifiable index of their progress throughout the game, basically becoming the players’ visual representation of their character. Taking stock of your inventory and determining that you’ve got three health packs, four bioelectric cells, two rounds of 30.06 ammo, six Sabot rounds and a lock pick, and then making it through a particularly tough area of the game explicitly because you prudently hoarded your health packs is immeasurably more satisfying than making it through the same area simply because you’re good at hiding behind shit. Removing the illusion that the player is in complete control of his avatar’s condition drives a wedge between the player and the fiction that he’s created for that character independent of the game’s story, and in any RPG, that – more than blue spiky-haired emo protagonists – is the kiss of death.
Any game which, through the use of regenerating health, would force the player to adopt a tactical approach to all combat situations cannot in good conscience consider itself an RPG, since by definition a role-playing game affords the player the opportunity to – go figure – play a role, and adopt a style that appeals to his or her individual preferences. Take BioShock, an absolutely great game, which contained elements of character-building in available health and tonic upgrades; a magic system in the plasmids, with EVE serving as mana; weapon upgrades (two levels for every weapon in the game), and a system of morality (rescuing, harvesting, or ignoring the Little Sisters); for all its RPG tendencies, BioShock is most definitely not a role-playing game, in spite of the fact that it incorporates various aspects of player choice on multiple levels.
Enough of this complicated thinking bullshit, just let me blow stuff up and teabag total strangers!
Why? Because BioShock provides no alternative to the use of weapons or plasmids, essentially forcing the player to fight in order to succeed. Its lack of a visible inventory also separates the player from the fantasy of his own experience, as though Ken Levine and company did everything they could to distance the game from the supposed console-sales-killing moniker of “role-playing game.” In spite of the fact that BioShock feels as though it really, really wants to be an RPG, it falls short in several crucial areas, and was no doubt hamstrung by acquiescence to the marketing department’s concerns over focus group objections. The lack of a visual inventory, coupled with there being no way to review which tonics were installed without visiting a Gene Bank, ultimately hurt the game by intentionally placing a barrier between the player and any sort of feedback about the character’s status, aside from health and EVE status.
Deus Ex 3’s regenerating health feels, at this point, like the much of same thing; a marketing decision. No doubt someone at Eidos uncovered a statistic showing that games with regenerating health – Halo 2, Gears of War (2), Call of Duty 4 – move like buttery ass at the Playboy Mansion, and in a mind-bending contortion of cause-and-effect, determined that regenerating health contributes to good sales. This brand of logic seeks to reap the effect and benefit of hot-selling titles, without first attending to the cause; in this case, the Deus Ex franchise name alone is going to move copies of Deus Ex 3, in much the same way that Halo: Combat Evolved is what sold six trillion copies of Halo 2 within forty-eight hours of its release, and not the fact that it required the player to sit behind a barrier while watching Master Chief’s health bar refill. The same goes for Gears of War and Call of Duty 4, which sold well because they were good games that happened to have regenerating health. This correlation fallacy, or cum hoc, ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this) belies an inability to reason, and in the case of Eidos (as they proved with the release of Invisible War), also indicates a basic inability to market honey to hungry bears.
Making design decisions based on reaching the maximum number of consumers is fine, provided those decisions are supported by one or two objective facts, and not marketing department head-up-its ass false correlations. If, on the other hand, the decision to include regenerating health honestly had nothing to do with marketing, and is simply an attempt to get the player to progress through the game in a certain, developer-determined manner, that’s different. In that case, no one has any business referring to Deus Ex 3 as a role-playing game.
Of course I’ll play it anyway, regardless of its health system, and I’ll probably even enjoy it. Rewarding the concept of not-doing, or forced passivity, in any game that purports to be an action-RPG seems more than a little absurd, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a solid experience.
This entry was posted on November 21, 2008 at 2:14 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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The Case Against Regenerating Health
By GravityFailsIt was recently revealed by an Eidos employee on the company’s forums that Deus Ex 3, which is in development at Eidos Montreal, will employ a regenerating health system. To many die-hard Deus Ex devotees (and I’ve discovered that there really is no other kind of Deus Ex devotee), this is akin to a devout Catholic discovering that beneath the stately papal vestments, Hiz ‘Oliness routinely sports Spider-Man Underoos. With skid marks.
Not that there’s anything wrong with Spider-Man Underoos, or skid marks, for that matter — you just don’t want to think about them rubbing up against the pontiffular posterior. (Some things should at least maintain the illusion of being sacred, after all.) By association, there’s nothing wrong with regenerating health in the proper context, but that context is not a Deus Ex game, nor any game that would call itself an RPG.
While the developers of Deus Ex 3 maintain that it will be a role-playing game, the notion of regenerating health (in lieu of inventory health packs) belies this classification because of a single, irrefutable premise; regenerating health requires non-action. Sitting behind a wall waiting for health to regenerate before moving on is a mechanic that essentially forces the player to stop playing the game in order to continue playing the game, and by extension removes two components which are vital to any kind of role-playing; inventory management and player-determined action.
The spatial inventory from Deus Ex succeeded because it struck a familiar, comfortable chord with many RPGers, whether their RPGing bicuspids were cut on the table-top or on phosphorus dots; the inventory presented a quantifiable index of their progress throughout the game, basically becoming the players’ visual representation of their character. Taking stock of your inventory and determining that you’ve got three health packs, four bioelectric cells, two rounds of 30.06 ammo, six Sabot rounds and a lock pick, and then making it through a particularly tough area of the game explicitly because you prudently hoarded your health packs is immeasurably more satisfying than making it through the same area simply because you’re good at hiding behind shit. Removing the illusion that the player is in complete control of his avatar’s condition drives a wedge between the player and the fiction that he’s created for that character independent of the game’s story, and in any RPG, that – more than blue spiky-haired emo protagonists – is the kiss of death.
Any game which, through the use of regenerating health, would force the player to adopt a tactical approach to all combat situations cannot in good conscience consider itself an RPG, since by definition a role-playing game affords the player the opportunity to – go figure – play a role, and adopt a style that appeals to his or her individual preferences. Take BioShock, an absolutely great game, which contained elements of character-building in available health and tonic upgrades; a magic system in the plasmids, with EVE serving as mana; weapon upgrades (two levels for every weapon in the game), and a system of morality (rescuing, harvesting, or ignoring the Little Sisters); for all its RPG tendencies, BioShock is most definitely not a role-playing game, in spite of the fact that it incorporates various aspects of player choice on multiple levels.
Enough of this complicated thinking bullshit, just let me blow stuff up and teabag total strangers!
Why? Because BioShock provides no alternative to the use of weapons or plasmids, essentially forcing the player to fight in order to succeed. Its lack of a visible inventory also separates the player from the fantasy of his own experience, as though Ken Levine and company did everything they could to distance the game from the supposed console-sales-killing moniker of “role-playing game.” In spite of the fact that BioShock feels as though it really, really wants to be an RPG, it falls short in several crucial areas, and was no doubt hamstrung by acquiescence to the marketing department’s concerns over focus group objections. The lack of a visual inventory, coupled with there being no way to review which tonics were installed without visiting a Gene Bank, ultimately hurt the game by intentionally placing a barrier between the player and any sort of feedback about the character’s status, aside from health and EVE status.
Deus Ex 3’s regenerating health feels, at this point, like the much of same thing; a marketing decision. No doubt someone at Eidos uncovered a statistic showing that games with regenerating health – Halo 2, Gears of War (2), Call of Duty 4 – move like buttery ass at the Playboy Mansion, and in a mind-bending contortion of cause-and-effect, determined that regenerating health contributes to good sales. This brand of logic seeks to reap the effect and benefit of hot-selling titles, without first attending to the cause; in this case, the Deus Ex franchise name alone is going to move copies of Deus Ex 3, in much the same way that Halo: Combat Evolved is what sold six trillion copies of Halo 2 within forty-eight hours of its release, and not the fact that it required the player to sit behind a barrier while watching Master Chief’s health bar refill. The same goes for Gears of War and Call of Duty 4, which sold well because they were good games that happened to have regenerating health. This correlation fallacy, or cum hoc, ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this) belies an inability to reason, and in the case of Eidos (as they proved with the release of Invisible War), also indicates a basic inability to market honey to hungry bears.
Making design decisions based on reaching the maximum number of consumers is fine, provided those decisions are supported by one or two objective facts, and not marketing department head-up-its ass false correlations. If, on the other hand, the decision to include regenerating health honestly had nothing to do with marketing, and is simply an attempt to get the player to progress through the game in a certain, developer-determined manner, that’s different. In that case, no one has any business referring to Deus Ex 3 as a role-playing game.
Of course I’ll play it anyway, regardless of its health system, and I’ll probably even enjoy it. Rewarding the concept of not-doing, or forced passivity, in any game that purports to be an action-RPG seems more than a little absurd, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a solid experience.
It just won’t be a Deus Ex game.
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Tags: 3, Bomb, Deus Ex, Eidos, Gunther, Harvey Smith, Invisible War, Jock, Papal Vestments, Rocket Launcher
This entry was posted on November 21, 2008 at 2:14 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.