As the graphical prowess of Xbox 360 games become a familiar and taken-for-granted normality, they have to individually reinvent themselves on a deeper level, in order to stand out from the crowded release schedules and stand up to the test of time. While it may be an obvious fact, good graphics only give a game temporary appeal since they can become outdated relatively quickly, but good game design is timeless and classic. An innovative design feature in a game may quickly become a selling point of its entire genre, with subsequent clones adapting it with ill-consideration merely to get a slice of the profits, but its original invention and subsequent reinvention proves that, as Epic’s mantra goes: design is indeed God.
Gears of War, one of their premier launch titles for the Xbox 360, proved them to be entirely correct. Although the fact that the game’s eye popping, designed-for-HD visuals heralded a new generation of gaming that was instantly recognisable and saleable, Gears of War was a rethink of action gaming by design. Its unique cover system, where taking cover behind boxes and barricades to avoid incoming enemy fire, perfectly blended action and tactics. Rather than just wading in guns blazing, you have the choice to position your character in relation to the enemy, and work out the best approach to engage them. It allows you to seamlessly switch from shooting to ducking in an instant, and quickly reposition yourself from one cover-providing object to another. Without compromising the game’s action-based roots, which if it did, would make it seem more like a Tom Clancy clone. The reason that the cover system made Gears of War such a standout title was because Epic took it as the game’s central premise, thinking carefully how it could be used to offer you a new kind of gameplay experience. The environments were specifically designed with the cover system in mind: open arenas and hallways strewn with boxes allowed you to apply the cover system’s tactics, and windows on high ledges gave you opportunities to ambush and snipe the enemy from above. It’s a gameplay feature, which is as visually thrilling as it is technically clever, perfectly filling the new-gen promise of graphics-plus-design that Gears of War promotes.
But Epic didn’t stop there. Two years later, the sequel, Gears of War 2, was released. By now, the graphics had been seen on a variety of games on the Xbox 360, and Epic couldn’t rely on the breathtaking visual impact that was so apparent last time around. So instead, they added to the cover system that players had become used to, tweaking and twisting it to create new thrills. Now, the glowworms provide mobile cover, and the pop-up and pop-down barricades outside the Locust Queen’s Palace demonstrate that the safety they provide is sometimes only temporary. Where before, you might have taken the cover system for granted, these features now force you to rethink your tactics quickly, preventing the cover system from becoming outdated and stale. Epic have shown that a core gameplay feature like the cover system doesn’t need to be completely reinvented for it to make a game exciting and fun to play.
This is the case with the cover system, which has a history that goes back to before Gears of War was developed. It hasn’t changed; it’s the games that have successfully utilized it which have done so, in order to accommodate it to suit their respective genres. While Gears of War is primarily an action title, the Metal Gear Solid series of games, another that successfully blends First and Third Person perspectives, has a stealthier basis. In this game too, the cover system is an integral part of the gameplay. In order to remain undetected, to be stealthy in other words, you have to cling to walls to avoid the sights of guards. Of course, original Xbox owners would have had first hand experience of this, when Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance was released on the console a few years ago. Trying to play it without the cover system would be like trying to play Gears of War without it: frustrating and nearly impossible.
Both these games use the cover system to suit their respective gameplay and genres, and have been all the more successful and standout for it. However, for every couple of games that intelligently use the cover system, there are dozens, which tack it on for a last-minute share of the glory. Games like Tomb Raider: the Angel of Darkness, where taking cover is completely unnecessary, save for perhaps getting a brief glimpse of Lara’s oversized cleavage as the camera awkwardly swings in too close. Also, what’s the point in being stealthy, when you can use her to blast everything in sight?
Another more recent game that abuses the cover system is Quantum of Solace. It’s a perfectly competent shooter, but as an excuse to show off Bond actor Daniel Craig’s facial likeness, the game forces you to endure a third person cover system that’s a pale imitation of the one in Gears of War. And it is forced: pinning you behind boxes as uninterrupted gunfire blazes overhead. You can’t reposition yourself efficiently and approach the battlefield from a different angle to flank the enemy. Instead, you have to take pot shots at your foes, killing them one by one to gradually lessen the incoming stream of bullets so you can move on. Almost every major fight in the game descends into a repetitive game of crate-crouching chicken, breaking up its natural flow and fast paced action. Quantum of Solace could easily have done without the cover system, and relied instead on clever enemy placement in more open-ended environments.
A gameplay feature is only as good as the game that uses it. If the game is designed around the feature from the ground up, then it’s likely to be thoughtfully considered. But if it’s tacked-on late in the game’s development without any real purpose, other than making an attempt to stay cutting-edge and competitive, it’s going to have a detrimental effect on the gameplay. The cover system is just a recent example of this. Any number of gameplay features, from stealth to recharging health meters, has suffered from this copycat mentality. And that’s the way the games industry works: a few shining examples of innovation followed by an influx of carbon copies. However, as Gears of War has shown, an old gameplay feature like the cover system can be re-invigorated and re-adapted to suit an entirely different genre of game than that of its origins. It’s not that these features have become outdated; it’s more that the games that implement them often do so with less than stellar success. It’s just as Epic say: for games, Design is God.
