[TerranUp16]

The following is an analysis of the design of the Modern Warfare 2 level, "No Russian". The analysis adopts a neutral stance on the game as a whole as well as the morality of the sequence. The analysis seeks only to delve into the game design of the sequence and to analyze its success and/or lack thereof and why it succeeded or did not.

Disclaimer: I have not physically played the level. Unlike others of this club, when I choose not to buy a game because I feel it does not meet my standards, it is not worth my money, or I have some other issue with it, I do just that- I do not buy it, nor do I pirate it. In this case, I made a slight exception to my usual policy of completely avoiding such activities and wholly scorning them so that I could watch this sequence and others. I have watched the the "No Russian" level played through in its entirety once and I have observed the Airport sequence of the level (which is the focus of this analysis) twice fully. Both times my goal has been observation- of the level and of the reactions of others playing and/or watching. I have also conversed with multiple people who have played through the level entirely in order to assess their thoughts on the sequence. These actions are sufficient for me to conduct a proper design analysis.

The following contains spoilers

Overview of the Sequence:
In the first mission of Modern Warfare 2, the player takes control of a US Army Ranger and partakes in an operation in Afghanistan whereby the US forces are making a sweep through a city to reclaim it from hostile militants. Supposedly, General Sheppard is so impressed by the player's performance that he recruits the player into the CIA and places the player in Makarov's organization (Makarov is the chief villain of the game) undercover.

The premise of "No Russian" is that the player again takes control of Joseph Allen (the Army Ranger turned CIA agent), and Makarov has decided to go on a rampage at an airport in Moscow. Makarov brings the player along for the ride as they walk through the airport and slaughter innocent civilians and then fight with a plethora of security forces who belatedly respond to the massacre. At the end of the mission, Makarov executes the player and leaves him to die while Makarov and his cronies escape. The Russians discover Allen's dead body and find out that he is an American CIA agent and blame the attack on the US and start what amounts to World War 3.

"Carry-ins" to the Sequence:
Infinity Ward does make an abbreviated attempt to attach the player to Joseph Allen somewhat, doing this through granting the player control of the character during the first mission. However, Joseph Allen is really just presented as a generic trooper. There is some dialog with General Sheppard at the end of the mission, but the only real hope for a connection with the character that Infinity Ward has here is for the player to sympathize with Allen having been a soldier who put himself in harm's way in the first mission and who now continues to do so but is ultimately betrayed by his commanding officer (General Sheppard). Through this link, Infinity Ward creates a minimal amount of attachment to the character and a general "statement" on the heinous nature of Sheppard's actions. However, the attachment is not strong enough for most players to translate into the player feeling any kind of emotion for Allen as he either watches the slaughter of innocents or partakes in the slaughter of innocents- Allen's psychological profile is very much a non-factor.

Visual Analysis of the Sequence:
While the graphics of Modern Warfare 2 suffice to create a believable-looking airport and relatively human figures, the animation falls deeply into the uncanny valley. The facial expressions of Makarov and his men are mostly stock animations and not notably modified for the sequence. The panic animations of the civilians come across as decidedly robotic and inhuman. Worse, the animations used for crawling away from the player and/or Makarov's cronies are recycled from Modern Warfare 2's "Last Stand" multiplayer perk (enemy combatants make use of this in singleplayer quite often). This particular animation recycling has a massively negative impact in that is provides a link between civilians and enemy combatants and serves to severely weaken the impression that the civilians are innocent and/or that they are different than the combatants. Effectively, the animation utilized for the civilians makes them seem inhuman and quite possibly related to combatants, and this all serves to make the civilians no more than virtual targets with no additional significance attached to them.

Analysis of the Design of the Sequence:
The sequence breaks the first tenet of being a videogame- interactivity. Interactivity and the ability of the player to impose his/her will upon the character he/she is controlling in-game is what separates videogames from movies and other non-interactive media. Games such as Deus Ex stake their very greatness on leveraging the interactive capabilities of videogames for the purposes of forwarding the storyline.

Modern Warfare 2, at first, may not appear to break the tenet of interactivity. It allows the player to move via WASD/analog stick, grants the player camera control, and even allows the player the choice to partake in the slaughter of civilians or to simply watch. However, the game fails at being truly interactive as Makarov is within just a few feet of the player, and the player has a loaded gun. A gun that, in real-life, Joseph Allen would be able to turn on Makarov in an instant to kill Makarov and at least attempt to halt the slaughter. Modern Warfare 2 does not allow this. If the player attacks either Makarov or one of his cronies, the game either displays a "Mission Failed" screen (your cover has been blown) or renders Makarov/his crony invulnerable and you are pretty much screwed at that point and killed (and you must restart the level).

Modern Warfare 2 could have handled the player's rebellion and refusal to sit by idly in multiple ways. First, the player is murdered at the end of the level anyway. At the cost of shortening the level (and, this really should not matter since the game already offers the player the ability to skip the level with "no loss of plot"), the game could keep its current method of making Makarov invulnerable and ensuring that Makarov's squad can kill the player. The mission would end and the player's dead body would still be found and the plot elements of the mission would be preserved. Deus Ex and other games have leveraged such situations to great effect, where they create the illusion of allowing the player to make a decision despite that the result is forced. The net effect though is that the player does feel like they successfully made the decision to rebel, and in this case whether he/she succeeds in killing Makarov or not makes no difference because the player at a bare minimum made the statement that he/she would rather sacrifice his/her life to attempt to halt the massacre of innocent civilians than to idly stand by and watch it happen.

Second, the game could allow the player to actually murder Makarov and to significantly alter the overarching storyline because of this decision. Again, games like Deus Ex have done this with excellent success, and this is definitely the optimal and most interactive solution. However, this does require a sizable amount of work on the developer's part to account for these plot changes and to propagate such changes throughout the game.

Game Design vs. Cut-Scene Design:
Infinity Ward's stated intent for the sequence was to reveal the depths of Makarov's brutality. From this line of reasoning, it follows that they do not want Makarov killed and also do not want the player to miss Makarov's brutality (by doing something like attacking Makarov and getting killed before the end of the level). Of course, the issue with the latter part of this stance is that the player can skip the level explicitly via menu options, so it makes no design sense not to also allow the player to skip the sequence through the player's in-game actions.

Note how the issues posed in the above paragraph stem from interactivity concerns. The biggest problem with the execution of the sequence is that the design aims that Infinity Ward put forth, aims to display Makarov's brutality, are not interactive. Instead, they are theatrical. Because Infinity Ward includes the interactive components that they do, there are expectations for proper interactivity but the design seems very much to actively work against such. Again, while it is commendable that Infinity Ward offers the option for the player to slaughter civilians or not slaughter civilians, that decision is wholly moot without also offering the player the ability to actively protest against the slaughter (particularly since in this case the player's character certainly has the means to "protest" and then some). Infinity Ward would likely have been better to treat the sequence as a cut-scene and to completely remove control of the character from the player (maintaining the first person view would be acceptable; if the character would not partake in the slaughter, then allowing the player to maintain limited camera control- but not WASD control- would be acceptable as well). This approach would allow them to graphically illustrate the slaughter merely as a statement of fact, that Makarov is brutal and this is what he does (in fact, taking this approach likely would have allowed for improved animation as well because the camera could be directed and/or the sequence could be choreographed more carefully). At the end of the slaughter sequence when the security forces finally begin to show-up in force, control could be transferred back to the player for the duration of the level.

Comparing Storyline Advancement- Modern Warfare 2 to CoD 4:
Call of Duty 4 contained two somewhat interactive cut-scene sequences which many players will immediately draw parallels towards when discussing Modern Warfare 2's airport sequence. In my opinion, CoD 4 executed both of its sequences excellently, while as conveyed above, Modern Warfare 2's sequence fell quite short of the mark set by CoD 4 and in fact Modern Warfare 2's sequence suffers from sloppy design. So, why do the CoD 4 sequences work better than Modern Warfare 2's?

CoD 4's first sequence puts the player in the body of a Middle Eastern head of state. The player is bound and shoved into the backseat of a car, guarded by a militant in the backseat and a militant in the front seat. The player has limited control of the camera to look out the window and to observe the brutal anarchy that is taking place as the car drives towards the place of the player's character's execution. Everything the player observes from the car is carefully scripted and choreographed and thus while the animation is perhaps not completely out of the uncanny valley, it is presented in the best possible light unlike the animation in Modern Warfare 2's sequence. When the car arrives at the execution square, the player is hefted out of the car and still bound and there are more than enough militants around to ensure the player would remain subdued despite any attempt to break free. In short, it is presented to the player that they have no options and no control and that makes proper, logical sense. The player is brought up to Al-Asad who subsequently assassinates the player, a sequence the player continues to observe in first-person. This sequence is essentially just a cut-scene that grants the player camera control. The player does not intimately know his/her character but he/she knows the status of his/her character and has a rough idea of why such events are transpiring and what they mean. The sequence presents the brutality and hostility of the militants and Al-Asad's extreme measures successfully. No input is needed from the player and, in fact, even the assassination of the player, the player does not *need* to feel any personal connection to that, although any personal connection the player forms with his/her character that the assassination taps into is a bonus.

The second sequence in CoD 4 stems from a nuclear device blowing-up in a Middle Eastern city. The set-up is that the player has been hopping in the shoes of Sergeant Paul Jackson of the US Marines for quite a bit, fighting Al-Asad's forces. The Navy Seals detect the nuclear device and US high command orders all units to clear the area as quickly as possible to avoid the nuclear blast. The player is on a transport helicopter and is fleeing but the crew of a Cobra attack helicopter that had provided air support for the player's squad was downed by hostile fire and the pilots are under attack from enemy militants. The player's commander decides to mount a rescue operation despite that may compromise their chances of getting safely outside of the blast radius of the nuclear device. The transport chopper lands and the player and his/her squad get out and rescue the pilot. The helicopter then takes off again and continues its flight. Then the nuclear device detonates. The chopper did not get far enough away and it gets caught in the blast. It crash-lands and the player's screen goes black. The player wakes-up and is obviously severely wounded from the crash. The player is able to limp around the crashed chopper, surveying his/her dead squadmates and the affect-affects of the nuclear blast outside of the helicopter. Eventually the player's character can no longer stand and drops down. The player can crawl around for a little longer, but ultimately the player's character dies. Here, like in Modern Warfare 2, the player is given WASD and camera control. Unlike in Modern Warfare 2, the reasons for why the player cannot exercise full control and change events is obvious. There are no enemies, and no "temporary allies" shooting civilians. There is no event that the player can even attempt to put a stop to or change in some manner. The nuclear explosion already happened, the chopper did not get away fast enough, and now all the player can do is survey the devastation before he/she dies of a mortal wound. The decision to allow the player to move around works in the sequence's favor as the player can't go far and the area is contained well-enough so that it does not matter that the player can move around and move the camera, for the whole area is designed cinematically. Granting control here is merely an extension of maintaining the integrity of the first-person viewpoint and continues to tie the player to Paul Jackson. And it also does an excellent job of ensuring that the link between attempting to save the downed Cobra's crew and the transport chopper getting caught in the blast because it didn't make it out in time and the results of that remains strong. In fact, the only interactivity issue with this whole sequence is that the player could not attempt to subvert the commander's orders to land the chopper to save the Cobra pilot, but the player would be up against multiple Marines and the whole point of even protesting the decision would be to try and improve the player's chances of surviving which, challenging a bunch of marines to a fight in a chopper won't do that.

Effectively, both of CoD 4's sequences were treated as cinematic opportunities to convey a deeper level of the storyline that the normal CoD gameplay cannot, on its own, convey. Modern Warfare 2 instead opted to integrate its sequence more closely with its gameplay, but in doing so created a sloppier presentation and also raised issues with the small degree of interactivity in CoD games to begin with. Modern Warfare 2's sequence, in order to succeed, required the player to emotionally invest him/herself in Joseph Allen and his situation, but the brief amount of time the player spent with Joseph Allen before this sequence (particularly compared to the time the player spent with Paul Jackson- of particular note as well is the spacing of that time where the events that led up to the nuclear blast and Paul Jackson's death came in rapid succession whereas Modern Warfare 2 took a lengthy side trip to Siberia) did not allow for that. Still, even then the game could have perhaps gotten off by thrusting the choice on the player and going over Joseph Allen's head, but this path was crippled because of the inability to attempt to kill Makarov and to prevent the slaughter (be that effort futile or not). The interactivity precluded the sequence from standing as just a cinematic to convey a point, as did the intent to make the sequence more game-like which resulted in much less refined presentation of the slaughter which in turn made the civilians seem more like virtual targets and/or robots than actual people.

Conclusions:
Why did Infinity Ward bother with the sequence at all? It has already caused enough controversy that they need to provide an option to allow players to skip it. Plot-wise, it graphically illustrates how a CIA agent would be found at the crime scene of the slaughter, but the between-missions briefing map could have conveyed this through speech (and did as well, I might add). The graphical option does seem more appealing, but when the execution is botched (as described above) then it can actually hurt the quality of the game and even the plot line (while the plot effects of the mission still hover at the edges of feasibility, at least if the level were not playable then Infinity Ward could have fallen back on more believable methods for having a dead CIA agent at the scene and/or players would not think as hard about that the CIA agent could have killed/tried to kill Makarov- or, if the game left the description of events vague enough, players could have assumed that the CIA agent died trying to kill Makarov).

However, I am not certain that Infinity Ward/Activision only went forth with the sequence to create controversy (and controversy = sales, like it or not). It's definitely possible and perhaps even likely, but I certainly cannot and will not try to prove that. It is equally possible that Infinity Ward was trying to create a sequence that lived-up to the heights set by its CoD 4 sequences and Infinity Ward just did not succeed in that attempt this time.

I will say though, the sequence is one that should not be seen as controversial in terms of the subject matter. The poor execution and Infinity Ward's inability to turn colored dots into believable real people precludes the sequence from seriously allowing players to simulate the mass murder of civilians. However, at the same time, by no means should the sequence be seen as some kind of "great art" as it unfortunately fails in its intentions to provide the player with a meaningful situation and choice in that situation. It does not strip most players internally down to their barest essence because it neglects offering players a key option.

[Brain?!]

I'm gonna be the first, but not the last to post this...

tl;dr

[SniperX]

tl;dr

[Messer]

I'd give you rep but all I got is hep

[Avalon]

tl;dr

nice.

[Cizzo]

tl:dr

Controversy leads to further inspection and observation which leads to more sales.

Example, Kanye West and Taylor Swift...as soon as that shit happened they were pasted all over every media source in existence. Like 40 different youtube videos of the same thing.

Like some people say, there is no such thing as bad publicity (unless you're Chris Brown)

[ninjafish]

I was going to read it but I actually intend to play the campaign at some point, and didn't want to ruin the story line if any.

[Ice Man]

I had no intention on reading it. tl;dr

[Zenebatos]

Terran, I've read what you had to say on the post, but I think I will have to side with IW on this one for various reasons.

As you might know, this scene is probably the most important one that the whole game has. It sets the backstory for the rest of the game, and, by definition, it cannot branch out too much.

Take Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for example. In the game, you play as Big Boss during the cold war, decades before the first Metal Gear game. As such, you get to meet a number of big players from the MGS franchise. One that comes to mind is Revolver Ocelot. On various instances in the game you have the chance to shoot ocelot and kill him. Doing so, however, results in an instant Game Over. Why? The game declares your actions to be the cause of a "Time Paradox". Ocelot is a major player in the MGS franchise, and as such he needs to stay alive. Here, Konami gave the player a "false" sense of freedom: they let you kill ocelot, but doing so causes an instant Game Over, forcing you to ignore him if you wish to continue.

Another scene that comes to mind is the beginning of ESIV: Oblivion. In the scene, you are escaping through the castle sewers with the king. The player has full control of his character throughout the whole scene. Suddenly, the king talks to you and fears that his time has come. In this instant, the player loses control of his character, and can only watch as an assassin comes out from the shadows and murders his king right before his eyes. Sure, it is upsetting that I lose control of my character and that my king dies, especially in a game that relies so much upon player decisions, but it serves a purpose, because with the king alive, the dragonfires would never go out, and the realm of oblivion would never be a threat.

I believe that IW chose to "force" the player to kill the civilians as a way to do 2 things. The first one would be to portray the hard decisions that people have to sometimes make. We are constantly told that what is "for the greater good" is not necessarily the correct thing, and the entertainment media just rolls with this, glorifying people who choose to save one life and jeopardize thousands in the process in the various movies and books that they churn out. People who do things "for the greater good" are scorned, and seen as lowlifes. It is inside of this blob made of "everybody can be saved" stories that IW, thankfully, decided to go with the "greater good" ideals for their CIA character. Sure, this results in a backstory that woefully portrays the extremes Murphy's Law can sometimes produce, but it serves it's purpose. I, for one, am glad that they choose to actually give us a visual representation of the catalyst behind the MW2 story, instead of giving it through voice cut-scenes like you mentioned up above.

You also mentioned that IW could've instead produced the scene using pre-rendered video. For this, I'd like to point you to 2 things. The first being MGS4. The game was(in my opinion) amazingly made, but critics often mentioned that the 45+ minute cutscenes it had were painfully long and that they did not have a place in videogames. I believe that IW was somewhat skeptical of making a long cutscene that gave no control over the player whatsoever, and as such decided to go with a more immersive approach. Another one is the Final Fantasy series. A few years back, Square Enix promptly decided that ALL final fantasy games would only have 2 cutscenes: and opening cutscene, and a closing cutscene, in order to shift focus from pre-rendered graphics into actual platform graphics. Perhaps IW as well chose to instead focus on real graphics instead of pre-rendered ones?

Now, you did mention up above that the animation of the sequence was terri-bad, especially the ones that the survivors showed. If this is how it truly is, then I will wholeheartedly agree with you. If they really want the player to feel bad for these innocent civilians, they might as well make them as human as possible, and not make them seem like robots or something like that. But I will gladly defend IW's decision to not include a more detailed backstory on the Army Ranger. Ever played a videogame where the main character never speaks? Chrono Trigger and Zelda both come to mind. In both games the main character never speaks, providing the player with an experience in which he is in the shoes of the main character.

And regarding the fact that the game is nothing like Deus Ex, let me just make this clear: It's not Deus Ex. It's not Oblivion either. It's not Fallout 3 too. It's Modern Warfare 2, aka a game series that isn't known for their storytelling, but for their intense gameplay and multiplayer. It's not an RPG, it's an action game. Treat it as such.

[TerranUp16]

My standpoint stems purely from that of a neutral designer. I am not expecting MW2 to be Deus Ex (the primary solution I put forth was simply that the player could attempt to kill Makarov which would result in Makarov and/or his cronies not dying and instead killing the player- games such as Deus Ex have proved that executing such in a believable fashion so that the player does not immediately call bs is quite doable, and while Deus Ex may be my example there, Deus Ex's design there proves universally applicable). The primary point is that the sequence does not need to be wholly played-through to set the backstory (again, IW even allows the player to skip it "without loss of plot"), thus allowing the player to end the level through his/her actions rather than via a menu option is a sizable evolution in design (and it has no impact on plot as the player still ends-up dead and the Russians can still find the player's body afterward and go forth with the plot as usual).

As far as the time paradox/greater good, there really is no greater good to not killing Makarov. The whole point of getting close to him is to do such. If you are already so close to him that he has given you a SAW and doesn't mind you watching his back while he slaughters a bunch of civilians, he has already made available to you whatever secrets he possesses that you can glean. So the point is to get close enough to kill him. Problem is, most people like living after they kill someone. But in this instance, if you rise against Makarov and try to kill him when he's slaughtering civilians, you may give your life but you may end the slaughter in the process. Even if the game turns that on the head, most players I am sure will appreciate the opportunity.

Basically, the two examples you provided aren't applicable because the player's character is not expendable and/or a certain person does not have to die (other than the player, who is executed in a manner similar to how Oblivion's king was executed, except the player is the king per se). In MW2, the character is wholly expendable and there is no reason the character cannot die at any time during the level.

In terms of the hard decision, the whole reason I was prompted to write this up at all was I surveyed player's reactions to the level, and they ranged from laughing throughout to just not being satisfied. Upon further inspection and inquisition, they pretty much offered up that they couldn't take the level seriously. Digging deeper, for many the reason they could not take the level seriously was because they were not drawn into the choice at all because their choice was not offered. Their choice being the one where they just try to kill Makarov. I don't much care about the message IW may have been trying to convey about the "call of duty", but if players are laughing-off your attempts at conveying such a message because they were not properly drawn into it, that is a major design flaw and pretty much precludes the message- at that point, you cannot possibly deliver the message to your intended audience because they are not listening to you. If IW wanted to convey *that* message, then they needed to rethink their approach to it.

As far as the backstory for the Ranger, I wasn't really suggesting backstory or talking or anything. Rather, I referenced Sergeant Paul Jackson from CoD 4. I have been playing through CoD 4's SP campaign on Veteran again and just finished the All Ghillied Up mission (so I am well-passed the nuke sequence). One of the crucial contributors to the effectiveness of the dirty bomb sequence is that you spend a significant amount of time with Paul Jackson (he never speaks, but you are him and you act for him). You see the events first-hand that brought you to your situation and then you see the realization of that situation. My only gripe with the MW2 character, and again this also came from feedback I received, was that well I couldn't find anyone really who felt like they had the kinda link with the MW2 character that they did with Paul Jackson. And by that, I don't necessarily mean the player understanding the character, but rather I am speaking of the character as a persona for the player. In MW2, the player never quite seems to develop a persona for the character as you do for Soap in CoD 4 and Paul Jackson in CoD 4 (and Gordon Freeman in HL2 ;)). Also, to be in the shoes of the main character, the player must be at some kind of peace with the decisions the main character makes/is allowed to make. Not allowing the player to attempt to martyr him/herself in the sequence directly contradicts any attempt IW made to put the player in the character's shoes wholly.

But anyway, I'm not particularly suggesting that I expected better from MW2. All I am doing is pointing out that from a design perspective, MW2's execution in this respect had flaws that led to a serious disconnect with its players. For a designer, it is valuable to look into the why and how of these so that designers can be aware of such when crafting their own games.

[Brain?!]

ninjafish said:

I was going to read it but I actually intend to play the campaign at some point, and didn't want to ruin the story line if any.

Yeah, same here.

[Avalon]

Brain?! said:

Yeah, same here.

Dumbledore dies.

[Brain?!]

Avalon said:

Dumbledore dies.

Snape kills him.

[Destroyer1990]

Avalon said:

Dumbledore dies.

Brain?! said:

Snape kills him.

dammit it all

[Zuccolo]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

http://colbertnoooooo.ytmnd.com/

[sizors]

earlier posts were too long for me to bother reading. all i want are cliff notes damn it!

on a side note, the level was pretty crazy. in the end it was just a video game. however in a few years when some psycho goes and shoots up a bunch of people they are going to try and ban this game and other games like it... the cycle will continue.

[TerranUp16]

Ima just leave this here

Quote

A couple different decisions in [developing'] the No Russian level could have had more impact on humanity than Braid will ever have in its lifetime

[TerranUp16]

I was just reading Blizzard's "Singleplayer Storytelling" on www.starcraft2.com and came across this interesting quote:

"Blizzard" said:

The development team kept the player's emotions in mind throughout the entire design process, because even the most precise tuning can be undermined if the player doesn't feel like he or she is in control.

My intent in writing this design case study was to convey pretty much that exact point which Blizzard has succinctly summed-up.