An ongoing discussion between Aaron and I has been over calling video games games. While this won’t be that article, it was the inspiration for it. Going into a video game with the idea of beating it and accomplishing everything is pretty much par for the course for every gamer. However, games are changing. What we have now are interactive experiences where the importance is placed more on experiencing the story rather than “beating” it. The bad thing about going into a video game with this mindset is that it can now have a negative effect on the overall experience with these new types of games. Heavy Rain is a shining example of this new style of video games and what we will use to examine the idea of not gaming a game.
Heavy Rain, if you don’t know, has many branching paths within it. Even though there may be one outcome for an event, there are many ways that you can get there. Let me give an example that isn’t too much of a spoiler. If you want to know nothing about the game, I suggest you skip ahead to the next paragraph, but this really isn’t anything major in the story. In a scene where you play as private investigator Scott Shelby, you enter a convenience store that eventually gets held up. Now, the player can sneak around and bash the robber over the head with an object, or more than likely, they will be seen and forced to talk their way out of the situation. I say more than likely because the game really sets you up to “fail” the task of hitting the assailant over the head. In a way, it wants you to confront this man in a conversation and see if you can talk your way out of it. On my play through, I botched grabbing an object to hit him with and had to negotiate with the guy. However, talking to Aaron, he tried a couple of different times because he wanted to do the scene perfectly. In a game where the player is supposed to constantly be moving forward, he was taking the time to complete a sequence without messing up. That’s basically what sparked this article.
It got me thinking about how many different gamers out there probably played this scene in the same manner that Aaron did. I would guess there are actually quite a few out there that did and that did it for a couple of different reasons. The main reason that I would assume players would redo sections in a game like Heavy Rain is the fact that we just like to do things perfectly. If we know that there are “better” outcomes than others, we want to experience them, and if we think we’ve ruined those chances, we will just give it another shot. We’ve been so conditioned to redo something in a game when we mess up that we make ourselves do it even when the game is letting us move on. Think about all of the times that you have missed a jump in a game. The game just starts itself back over at the last checkpoint. In a way, that’s what we’ve become trained to do in a game that actually tries to rail against that.
The other reason that gamers do this, and one that Aaron pointed out to me, is achievements or, in this case, trophies. As crazy as it may seem, people love their achievements and will stop at nothing to get them. I know that this was actually a big reason for Aaron replaying the scene a couple of times. He thought that there would be a trophy for doing it perfectly. This is where the developers are at fault and can help gamers get over this mental hump of gaming the game. While Heavy Rain may never stop when you mess up and promote playing through it just on instincts, the meta-game of collecting trophies is still very much a game in the traditional sense. Players are tasked with collecting as many trophies as possible, and most gamers now go into a game with the mindset of getting achievements or trophies. As Aaron discussed with the multiplayer in Modern Warfare, there are almost two opposing philosophies at work within a single game. Now, I know that taking achievements away would have people burning themselves in the streets, but for a game focused so much on the narrative, maybe there should be trophies just for completing big milestones instead of completing a scene in such a specific way.
Aside from the above paragraph, I’m really here to reach out to you, the gamers, on this topic. I know that it’s hard, but getting the most out of a game like Heavy Rain starts with you letting go of all of your gaming history. What we once knew as games just aren’t the same anymore. Challenge has now been replaced with conflict, and the resolutions for these conflicts are many. If gamers can stop trying to out think the game and stop trying to do everything perfectly, then a game can be enjoyed how it was initially intended. There is so much more emotional impact in a scene when you just keep moving on, and you are really forced to live with what just happened. I know that it is a tough mental block to break though, but trust me, if you, as a gamer, can let go and just enjoy the experience, you’ll find that the experience is actually completely different than what you’re used to and well worth it.