The Game Plan 04.06.07: The Purpose Driven Gamer

Posted by James McGee on 04.06.2007

So, I was playing Gears of War the other day and, amid an intense shootout, I thought to myself, "Self, this fast and furious gunplay is all well and good, but what this game really needs is a rhythm-based mini-game where I have to defuse a bomb by listening to electronic tones which, when played in the proper order, recreate the melody to ‘Smoke on the Water.'"

"Hold onto your butts." --- Sam Flippin' Jackson, Jurassic Park

I guess an introduction is in order. I am James McGee, one of the new voices here at 411Games, and every week I'll be standing on this soapbox I like to call The Game Plan and calling ‘em as I see ‘em in the world of video games. I want to start by thanking Ashish and Newbs for giving me this opportunity. At the risk of sounding all teary and emotional, this is honestly a dream fulfilled for me. It's very rare that you get to mix business and pleasure, but being able to write about something I enjoy is just such a case. I started gaming when I was but a wee lad and, except for a brief hiatus during my college years, have been playing faithfully ever since. Now I kind of have to play games, since it's my job and everything. What a sacrifice! Anyway, I hope this is the start of a long run on 411, and that you'll enjoy what I have to say. Well, people, here we go…

So, I was playing Gears of War the other day and, amid an intense shootout, I thought to myself, "Self, this fast and furious gunplay is all well and good, but what this game really needs is a rhythm-based mini-game where I have to defuse a bomb by listening to electronic tones which, when played in the proper order, recreate the melody to ‘Smoke on the Water.'" Frustrated by the lack of Deep Purple goodness in my shooter, I switched over to a game of Tetris on the PC. But after a while, I realized that, while stacking blocks has its own particular charm, there was virtually no plot to the game. Why was I stacking these blocks? Did I work for some shadowy government agency trying to thwart an international terrorist ring which, through the dastardly dropping of multi-colored blocks, sought to crush democracy, capitalism, and all that is good? Having been twice disappointed by the lack of depth and innovation in these supposedly "great" games, I turned my back on the gaming industry and vowed never to play again.

If you can sense the sarcasm in the above paragraph, give yourself a cookie. Sure, both scenarios are exaggerations to the extreme, but these are really not far off the mark from some criticisms that I've heard leveled against games in the past. For that matter, every form of entertainment—from movies to music—has suffered the same fate from time to time: critics with a bad habit of comparing apples to oranges. I think the only fair thing to do when judging a game or anything else is to ask "What is this thing trying to be? What is its purpose?" Once you answer that question, you figure out if it succeeds at being whatever it set out to be. If not, then it's a failure—even if there are elements to be praised, it still hasn't done the job it set out to do. If it has succeeded, only then can you start picking it apart and looking at whether it does anything to transcend the core purpose. The truly great ones often bring something more to the table—some innovation, new perspective, or something truly revolutionary. But something doesn't have to break new ground to be successful. It simply has to be very good at what it does. This "Purpose Driven" philosophy is basically how I approach any form of entertainment, and its one of my guiding principles not only as a reviewer, but as a fan.

Since I'm also a reviewer over in 411movies (how's that for a cheap plug?), let me use a cinematic example. Ghandi depicts the life of a historical figure, while Charlie's Angels is all about women in tight leather kicking butt while things blow up in the background. Ghandi's main goal is to accurately portray the life of the title character. It happens to also be moving and inspirational. Does Charlie's Angels break any new ground for its genre, or for movies as a whole? No, not really. But saying one is a better movie than the other is really an unfair comparison, because the two films have different goals. If I was in the mood for an emotional, uplifting drama, I wouldn't grab Angels off my shelf. On the other hand, if I wanted fight scenes and explosions, Ghandi would bore me to tears. Ghandi is probably a more "significant" film, but then Angels really has no such intentions; it just wants to be entertaining. There's nothing wrong with that.

It never occurs to anyone to criticize Tetris for not having a story, because that obviously isn't the game's purpose. It is simply a puzzle game, a brain-teaser. The simplicity of the game is part of what makes it successful. But once you start seeing living characters and a plot in games, people's expectations become greater, sometimes unreasonably so. Even in the face of all the accolades it's received, Gears of War has often been criticized for a lack of innovation. Rod Fergusson (a producer at Epic Games, the studio which created Gears) finally spoke to those critics earlier this week. "There's no mandate in the games industry that we have to make games that are totally innovative," said Fergusson. "The mandate is to make games that are fun." He isn't just defending his product—this guy obviously understands how games work (or at least how they should). Gears is a shooter, plain and simple. Its focus is on killing the bad guys, and the story and gameplay all serve that purpose. Honestly, it doesn't do anything terribly innovative. However, everything it does is refined to near-perfection. Contrary to what some critics would have you believe, there are puzzle elements in Gears; they simply center around things like how to kill this mammoth monster or how to cross this particular stretch of battlefield without dying. Anything else would ruin the action-oriented groove the game has going for itself.

I realize this is a pretty simple way of looking at things, but even with all of the respect I have for games (or movies) as an art form, I think it's the best way. I'm not saying that just because something succeeds by its own rules that you have to like it. There are plenty of games and movies I hate precisely because they manage to be exactly what they try to be, and I happen to not care for what they're trying to be. My point is that you can't hate something for not being what it has no intentions of being. Judge things fairly or not at all. That's the Purpose Driven Philosophy.

I hope you've enjoyed this first edition of the Game Plan as much as I enjoyed putting it together. I'm open to comments, questions, and adoring fan mail, so if the feeling moves you, drop me a line. See you next week.