McMillan’s Codex #37 By C.T. McMillan

Trailer Analysis: Infinite Warfare

Rather than film myself making faces and telegraphed gasps, I want to try something other than a conventional trailer reaction. I do not mean to sound like an arrogant snob, but I have played and seen enough games to the point I can divine story and gameplay from trailers. With the debut of the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer, I thought I would provide an analysis of what I found.

The series’ trend of copying other works is a relatively new phenomenon. Advanced Warfare borrowed from Metal Gear Solid and Black Ops 3 was Deus Ex: Human Revolution without the nuance. While comparisons to Halo are apt, Infinite is borrowing more from Gundam and The Expanse. As far as I can tell, the story centers on Earth being attacked by colonists called the Settlement Defense Front (SDF). Based on the name, Earth was probably oppressing the off-world colonies or lording over them like the British Empire.

In the first teaser, an SDF character who looks like Peter Weller was threating to “blot out your skies” and “bury you in darkness.” This force are clearly out for blood much like the Principality of Zeon and the Mars Congressional Republic. The teaser also referred to a nebulous “ascension.” Maybe the SDF feel they are an evolved form of humanity like Newtypes from Gundam and are exerting superiority by starting a war.

The fight against SDF takes you into the Solar System. Some planets I could make were one of Saturn’s moons, Mars, Venus, some space stations, and what looked like asteroids installations. I noticed the player using a grappling hook to pull an enemy close and slit his throat. Perhaps you can use the hook to navigate the zero gravity environments.

In terms of gameplay everything seemed normal until the player boarded a jet and flew into space. A large-scale battle ensued with bigger crafts in the mix. Early games had flying segments, but for a menial portion of the campaign. If most of the gameplay involves actual flying, that would be a step-up and a good fit for the setting. How can you take place in outer space and not include multiple full-blown flying segments?

I am not sure if the jump jets, dash, and hacking from Advanced and Ops 3 will be available player abilities in Infinite. Removing these features would take the series many steps backward when it needs to move forward. There may be mech combat with the appearance of a walker knocking over a tank. Perhaps the mech is an excavation vehicle for mining or construction that doubles as a weapon platform.

The sleek overdesigned aesthetic takes after Advanced. Helmets are closed faced with soft vests and cloth uniforms. For future shooters like Titanfall this is the standard look, but mixing hard shell full helmets with lesser armor does not work from an artistic standpoint. There needs to be unity between the pieces, a balance of hard and soft armor. Going full plate like most science fiction would work if the armor has to function as a space suit or adding more hard-shell to what is already there would be fine.

The final reveal in the trailer was a re-mastered Call of Duty 4. The short spot of footage does not make obvious if the game is a full rebuild or an HD upscale. Nevertheless, I am excited to revisit one of the most influential and important shooters of the last generation. I personally own the game for the Xbox 360, but if the updated visuals add to the already fun and memorable gameplay, I am open to picking it up.

Promotional materials can do all kinds of things for a product. They can inform, hide details, or create a complete falsehood for a build-up to shatter our expectations. I may be totally wrong about everything and Infinite Warfare will turn out to be something else entirely. We will never know until November 6^th.

_______

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #35 by C.T. McMillan

Sterling v. Homicide

Jim Sterling is a British born videogame journalist living in Mississippi and one of my inspirations. With a sharp wit punctuated by the passion of a religious zealot, he reports on the industry on his show, The Jimquisition. In between shows, Sterling releases shorter pieces like  Squirty Plays, which are first impressions videos that focus on games from Steam, the digital distribution service.  One such video set off a feud between him and an indie developer that would go on for years, culminating in a court case that could mean life or death for Internet criticism.

The developer in question is Digital Homicide (DigiHom), a small outfit that uses the open source Unity engine to produce games. One game of their games is The Slaughtering Grounds, a horde-based first person shooter. Jim discovered the title on Steam in November of 2014 and found the technical quality poor and unfinished with an aesthetic of disparate artistic assets. When Sterling posted a Squirty Play of the game, the preceding conflict between the two involved many exchanges over the course of almost two years.

In retaliation, DigiHom released a video called Reviewing the Reviewer, which was just Jim’s Squirty Play with a text overlay commenting on his commentary. Most of the annotations were insults akin to a child having a tantrum, critiquing Sterling’s character, and treating the video like a review. Rather than ignore the meltdown, Jim found the video quite hilarious and uploaded a response of him laughing at DigiHom’s humorless hyperbole.

After some drama on the Steam forums, a brief moment of calm, and Jim covering the rest of DigiHom’s game library, Robert Romine, one of two brothers behind the developer, challenged Sterling to an interview in July of 2015. In the 98-minute conversation, DigiHom questioned Jim’s ability as a critic, his personality, and called to attention his own use of premade assets, a big point of contention. Romine then demonstrated a gross misunderstanding of definition in regards to Fair Use and Copyright Law. He also accused Jim of harming him financially and emotionally by attacking his company by commenting on their games.

While the debate/interview was quite entertaining as DigiHom made arguments that essentially refuted themselves like a snake eating their tail, that 98-minute one-sided argument set off a whole new stage of the feud. In the following months, DigiHom would rebrand themselves multiple times to mask their releases, give away download keys of their games in exchange for votes on Steam Greenlight, and launch a smear campaign against Sterling that allegedly made death threats. The situation proved rather alarming because despite Jim’s impersonal covering of the subject, DigiHom remained steadfast in their pursuit to fight back. They seemed unable to separate themselves from the conflict and move on, taking every chance to stir up trouble.

All the drama and turmoil culminated in a civil suit filed back in March of this year. Robert Romine’s brother James is suing Sterling on 10 counts of libel involving damage to DigiHom’s reputation for about $11 million dollars. The available court documents (55 pages to be exact) list the various charges and background in which the instances of libel took place.  The evidence of each moment is detailed and extensive, tracing back to when the feud first began with every joke, comment, and detail of relevance cataloged for reference.

How the case is progressing is unclear, but there is an obvious toll this debacle is taking on Sterling’s life. In a couple of the more recent episodes of Jimquisition, he has displayed signs of distress as the mounting issues related to the case have affected his ability to keep up with work. While any lawsuit can bring out the worst in people, the meaning behind the case is transcendent.

Being a critic with only a couple years experience, I have yet to be attacked on the basis of my work. Apart from critiques on quality, I have not been insulted for my opinions by people who found them offensive. Of course, I am not popular enough to incur such wrath, but I see where DigiHom is coming from.

Writers and artists pour their heart and soul into their work and expect at least some gratification when making their efforts public. No matter what we want our work will always be judged and we must decide if complaining about criticism is worth making our own lives miserable. Considering all the drama, DigiHom clearly lacked the mental and emotional fortitude to simply let their hatred for Sterling pass and move on with making videogames. Their drive for retribution has led them to the utmost extreme and they are bound for a failure that will have a ripple effect across the industry of Internet criticism.

There is a right answer, but because there has been no decided court hearing, we have to wait until judgement is rendered. I also wanted to keep it open to the reader because not everyone thinks Fair Use is just and some people see criticism as bullying regardless of the subject matter.  Yes, both Sterling (the critic) and DigiHom (the creator) are small players, but their case represents a turning point in the conflict of Fair Use, Copyright, and Content ID.  The verdict will either reaffirm that Fair Use is fair in regards to critics, or that creators can get away with destroying a critic’s livelihood because they did not like the criticism.

_______

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.

McMillan’s Codex #29 By C.T. McMillan

Call of Duty: Ghosts Part 2

 When writing fiction, establishing a sense of verisimilitude, the bridge between reality and fantasy, is important. That is why Tom Clancy can write about IRA splinter groups trying to kill the King: because there is a realistic degree of logic around the premise that people can identify. Verisimilitude is vital to narrative. Whoever wrote Call of Duty: Ghosts saw fit to leave out verisimilitude entirely. Why explain the minutia of a tacked-on story in game that is not good to begin with?

Why not?

The back-story is that after the Middle East is depleted of resources, South America would become the new oil haven. This prompts the rise and spread of the Federation from Venezuela. As the Fed took over, they were hunting down US born citizens and executing them for no discernible reason. Then America ordered the assassination of its leader before the invasion two years later.

In speculative fiction, this premise is plausible. South America has huge oil deposits that might be exploited in the event conventional sources are lost. To the US, this change would not make a difference due to fracking, but South America’s rise to prominence as a global supplier is a reasonable assumption. As a result, key countries in the region vie for control of the deposits, and what country is more skilled in the concept of centralized economic systems than a socialist “republic”?

But what would prompt an invasion if this country can claim dominion of oil rich lands? The most logical answer is the placement of the ODIN satellite. How could you not feel threatened by a kinetic bombardment platform hanging in low orbit above your territory? From the opposite perspective, this imagined United States probably felt intimidated by the Fed, and established a deterrent to prevent a possible ground attack.

That still does not explain why the Federation would invade. The Fed’s opening gambit was the capture of ODIN, which was used to open up a way into the Heartland by crippling the southern border.Of course, the Fed forces could have just destroyed the satellite. Why did the Federation proceeded with an invasion? Was it out of revenge for the assassination? Maybe the Fed wanted to keep its genocidal train rolling and wipe out America completely? It could not have been for resources if they are a wealthy world supplier. Did they want to halt domestic U.S. production of oil to increase their profits?

Here is the thing: the game does not explain or get into the background of the Fed’s creation and motivation. The information in the last three paragraphs is based on my assumptions. The game makes a habit of implying without further explanation because the writers did not foresee players wanting to explore any depth of narrative.

10 years after the invasion, the US and the Fed are locked in a stalemate. In addition to the wall along a no man’s land between Mexico and the Heartland, many cities are repurposed military installations to stave off attacks. As far as I can tell, America has been mostly successful in preventing further incursions. What is not clear is the sense of desperation.

The US is up against significant opposition in this scenario, but what happened to our allies? What happened to the fact we spend more money on defense than the next 34 countries combined, and significant numbers of our citizens are armed? Was our economy declining before the launch of ODIN? Did our reliance on oil imports lead to our demise? That would not make sense because domestic oil production has been on the rise for years thanks to the controversial and dangerous practice of fracking. If we could hypothetically afford to put an orbital bombardment platform in space, we can afford to defend our own borders.

Perhaps if the effects of the war were more defined and involved the player in that 10-year period, the steady decline of America’s fighting spirit would be tangible and sympathetic. It would make sense why many of your missions involve gathering intelligence and turning the enemy’s weapons on themselves. However, the game does not explain anything and drops you into the fight. You are given no incentive to suspect you are up against impossible odds except for when the characters say things are bad without showing you.

This brings to mind the game’s ham-fisted theme of fatherhood. You play as Logan, the archetypal silent protagonist, with a brother named Hesh (seriously?), and both of you look up to your father Elias, voiced by the venerable Stephen Lang. It is made obvious that your dad is a Ghost and he has been training you to join the unit. It is not clear how long this training has taken place, nor if his sons are prior service, but between the 10-year jump Elias has tested the boys and somehow strengthened their bond.

Too bad you do not see this story happen or develop sympathy. You are told you have a bond, and are never shown that bond through visuals, causal dialog, or any of the available methods in this medium. All Elias does is tell the boys what to do over radio, provide backstory, and say wise things. Such empty characterization a missed opportunity to explore the idea of a father training his sons to be soldiers.

What if Hesh wanted to be an artist and had contempt for Elias trying to force his lifestyle, while you listened and joined the Ghosts? What if Hesh had all these daddy issues up until the Fed invasion? He would be forced to become a soldier, leading to interaction with his father, maybe some quality time in the midst of war, and a renewed relationship. It would make Elias’s death at the climax more palpable–and the game did not even bother. I wrote a better story in this paragraph than the game’s entire script.

When gameplay fails, narrative must pick up the pieces, but the story of Call of Duty: Ghosts is a tragedy of failed potential that could have been better than a generic shooter. This is a lesson for all writers, especially of videogames, to look past the mere playability of your chosen genre, and strive to do something more memorable and alive. For a better shooter with actual depth to its narrative and characters, I highly recommend Wolfenstein New Order as an alternative.

_______

C.T. McMillan (Episode 169) is a film critic and devout gamer.  He has a Bachelors for Creative Writing in Entertainment from Full Sail University.