Overdrive: Why Games Need More Run and Gun

In a world of cookie-cutter shooters, "ordinary" has once again become the extraordinary.

(Sorry for the long absence, real life has (sadly) caught up to me recently. Moving sucks. - VR)

This past week saw the long-awaited, totally free, and shockingly well-polished Black Mesa. A mod a full eight years in the making - and technically still not finished - has recreated Half-Life from the ground up using the engine that powered its sequel. Needless to say, the bar was set quite high. Half-Life has long been considered a cornerstone of modern video games, and with good reason. When it released in 1998, Half-Life was considered revolutionary, and many of its design tenets, such as the use of scripted sequences to both advance the plot and create dynamic scenes during gameplay, are still used widely in modern shooters.

Black Mesa, amazingly enough, manages to not only maintain the spirit of Half-Life almost fourteen years after the game's debut, but also improve upon it in several ways. By refining level progression, puzzle solving, and scripted events, the Black Mesa team was able to polish the few rough segments that were present in the original game. It is very much a 90's shooter in the clothes of the modern era. This isn't to say that Black Mesa is without flaws, but it did an utterly fantastic job at hiding them, considering the project was done entirely by volunteers. Black Mesa's greatest achievement, however, may be the complete shift that the game will represent to players new to 90's-style shooters.



Valve has always been big on games littered with health packs, where finding that one vending machine while stuck at 5HP seemed like a godsend, even if you had to stand there manually dispensing sodas to increase your health 1HP at a time until the machine ran out. Even if you didn't find a way to regain health, the game benefited. The feeling you get while crawling around Black Mesa Research Facility knowing that hurting yourself while solving a puzzle or missing a single errant headcrab can mean instant death borders on paranoia - which suggests a great level of immersion in a game's universe.

My crowbar loves you too, headcrab.

These design tenets make Valve's games fairly unique in the modern shooter world - even the descendants of classic 90's shooters such as Duke Nukem have traded in high speed, high-risk running and gunning for regenerating health and endless waves of enemies. Gaming as a whole has suffered as a result. For a great example of how much games suffer in a world that holds your hand and lets you magically regenerate fatal wounds simply by retreating, consider the following. Spoilers ahead, but you've had fourteen years to catch up. If you haven't played the game yet, go do so now, then come back.

In Black Mesa, arguably one of the best scenes in the game comes just after rescuing a group of scientists from self-isolation in a medical lab. At this point, Gordon Freeman (the player) has fought his way through the Black Mesa Research Facility, going from ground zero of an alien invasion, through countless offices, across a forgotten tram system, past swarms of government HECU soldier death squads, and has finally made it to the surface, which will allow him to fight his way into the Lambda Complex and possibly halt the inter-dimensional takeover. The problem? He has to get someone to let him out.

Unfortunately, Gordon doesn't work at CERN, where everyone already knows to leave the doors open for him.

The scientists, who until now had been pinned down by aliens, HECU troops, and a horrible device of their own creation, are more than happy to let Gordon out. After disabling the device that originally entrapped the scientists, the group immediately runs towards the exit. Just before they return to the lobby, however, one scientist stops and points out a terrifying reality: it's simply too easy. Fearing for their lives, they ask Gordon to scout ahead and make sure the lobby is clear. Suddenly, HECU soldiers lock the door behind Gordon as he enters the room. The scientists panic as their worst fears are realized, and the game kicks into high gear.

What results is the following - a spectacular encounter that got my blood pumping like no other game has in years, and a battle that I never wanted to end:

I won't lie, I got chills the moment the music kicked in. A bizarre, zen-like quality washed over me as I strafed all across the room, only stopping to reload behind cover. The actual battle lasted at a minute and thirty at best, but felt like half an hour. It was nothing short of exhilarating.

Of course, similar battles play out across every major shooter to come out these days. Many of them involve far more explosions and enemies. Why does this one stand out?

Simply put, it all lies in the gameplay mechanics, namely the lack of regenerating health. Whereas one can simply go prone in Call of Duty for a few moments, be back at 100% and have had time to reload their weapons before resuming the fight, Black Mesa gives no quarter. Stopping and shooting from cover is generally a mediocre plan at best, as HECU troops are fairly decent marksmen, and failing that, soldiers with shotguns will rush your position and swiftly end you with a few solid hits. Your health isn't coming back any time soon either. Survival then becomes a matter of skill, rather than patience. Speed and efficiency become far more important than clever abuse of game mechanics and a cozy corner to camp in. At the end of it all, when the scientists come out of the hallway and stand in awe of your handiwork, you're given something that retaking the White House in Modern Warfare 2 completely failed to provide: a sense of satisfaction.

I understand that for many people, Black Mesa, and by extension, Half-Life's gameplay is very unfriendly. It pulls very few punches, and takes pleasure at making you squirm. Often, the game will push you down a path that will make you ask "how the hell am I going to get out of this mess with just 12HP?" But, I will argue that the effort the game asks of you is repaid in spades with the sense of accomplishment you get from thinking your way out of a bad situation. After all, Half-Life was originally called a "thinking man's shooter." With modern shooters, the previous question is almost never asked, but I do often wonder "why the hell am I still playing this?"

Games by their very nature should provide a challenge to encounter and overcome, providing enjoyment to the player as they do so. Modern shooters appear to have forgotten this, instead providing us with an endless array of identical bad guys to fight, never stopping to make us develop and apply clever solutions to unique problems. The challenge of games has disappeared, and with it, much of the fun has too. The removal of risk often means the removal of rewards, and when the rewards of games are no longer worth the time one has to invest in them, why play them anymore? Here's hoping that Black Mesa finally gives the industry a reason to let us make risks and allow the consequences to give us a memorable experience in the name of "accessibility." We're adults now - let's shift back out of first gear and bring back the adrenaline rush.