When Failure Shouldn’t Be an Option

by Daniel Feit, COMMUNITY WRITER

Friday, December 11, 2009

Editor's note: We discussed Daniel's post during last night's Pixel Revolt recording, and the questions he poses have stuck with me since. He may really be on to something here. Should games allow you to fail during scripted sequences? -Brett

I sat down with a friend's copy of Uncharted 2 the other day and played through the first part of the game. The story opens in medias res with Nathan Drake waking up in a train somewhere in the snowy peaks of Tibet. Drake quickly realizes that the train car isn't so much on top a mountain as it is dangling off the side of one. A quick tumble later and he's hanging for dear life over a vast emptiness. Death awaits below.

At this point you actually take control of Drake, and you must climb your way up the car to safety. Each shimmy that Drake makes sways the train a little bit, and the car is slowly falling apart as he climbs. When a pole snaps free from the side of the car, Drake's only chance is to swing and leap onto a narrow handhold. I rocked back and forth with the analog stick, pressed the X button and... Drake completely missed the handhold and plummeted to his demise.

Of course, the game gave me another chance to scale the train again, but the second time around, all of the cinematic peril and tension had evaporated. Everything happened just as it did before. I knew exactly when each bolt would break, when each chair would fall, and when each component would collapse. Events that thrilled me the first time through now glaringly reminded me that I was playing a video game.

Why should there be a chance for Drake to fall here? Why bother allowing for failure?

"Because it's a game," some of you might respond. "Because otherwise you're just watching a movie," others might reply. To those rationales I'd say that the game designers clearly had a distinct, theatrical vision of how this story begins. It's a very solid mix of scripted moments and interactive moments. We don't need a random death to remind us that this is a video game or that Nathan Drake's life is at risk, because the only consequence for failing is rewatching/playing the sequence again.

My issue isn't necessarily with the fact that I had to restart the climb all over again; it's that I had to restart at all. Most of the climb is a strictly guided experience. You can only move in certain directions and jump in a few places. It's not like I chose the wrong path. When I got back to the falling pole bit, I did everything just as I did it before, only this time Drake grabbed the side of the car and kept climbing.

This issue reminds me of my experiences with Resident Evil 5, another game that has some excellent cinematic elements marred by forced "interactivity." In that game, the developers chose to use quick-time events, something I absolutely despise. Watching Albert Wesker dodge bullets and drive his fist through walls looks really cool the first time. Watching him do it three, four, even five times in a row because I didn't press two separate buttons at the same time is pointless.

So far Uncharted 2 has been QTE-free, but jumping off of that train felt as irksome as getting shot by Wesker in the middle of a cut scene. It's no different than one of those "press X to not die" traps: When an exciting cliffhanger can be interrupted, it lets the air out of my fun balloon.

I am not calling for an end to player deaths or to the loss of progress after a failure. These "penalties" have their function and can be used responsibly to teach players how to better their problem-solving skills. What I am calling for is an end to cramming these penalties into otherwise dazzling cinematic scenes. They are unneeded and unwanted.

Daniel Feit was born in New York but now lives in Japan. Follow him on Twitter @feitclub or visit his blog, feitclub.com

Tags: Resident Evil 5, frustration, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, failure, Quick Time Events

Problem? Report this post

Comments (22)

Add a new comment

Travis McReynolds

November 19, 2009

I thought the same thing when playing through this and a couple other scenes in Uncharted 2. Dying in the intro doesn't improve the players knowledge of how to play/what to look out for AND it breaks immersion during an awesomely theatrical moment.

Report | Reply

Lance Darnell

November 19, 2009

I completely agree. I think God of War does the QTE sequences well. If you screw up it is not game over, but Kratos simply gets pummeled and then has to try again. How do you like Uncharted 2 as a whole?

Report | Reply

Daniel Feit

November 19, 2009

I actually died three times during the first chapter, but it was the one during that first climb that really annoyed me. The other ones were ostensibly skill-based (running and jumping onto something) that I suppose I did screw up all on my own. But that first jump, I have no idea how I missed. It's right there in front of him! I have never played God of War (yeah, I know, very much interested in the new Collection) but that sounds like a decent way to handle QTEs. Not great, but decent. And Uncharted 2 is terrific so far. I climbed up a train, shot some dude, found a knife that looks like it belongs in Evil Dead II and that's about it. In other words, I saved at the start of Chapter 2.

Report | Reply

Lance Darnell

November 19, 2009

Daniel, you MUST try God of War!!!!

Report | Reply

Alex R. Cronk-Young

November 19, 2009

Good point. Maybe there are more creative ways that things like this can be addressed? The first thing I can think of off-hand is the most recent Prince of Persia which just started you right back where you died. That may not be ideal, but it's at least a start to exploring a new way to do this sort of thing.

Report | Reply

Alex Martin

November 19, 2009

That's why I liked the new Prince of Persia - for the most part, it does what I meant to do. The game takes so much into it's own hands that there's little room for tiny mistakes. If I died, it was because I pressed jump at entirely the wrong time or I went in the wrong direction. I thought this article was going to be about Heavy Rain - the game that carries on if you fail and has no "game over" screen until the very end (I believe). It was still interesting though :)

Report | Reply

Jeffrey Sandlin

November 19, 2009

Yeah i completely agree with this article. If games want to be an engaging story experience they have to remove some of the game at a few points simply because their is nothing that takes you out of a good story in games faster then dieing and restarting a sequence.

Report | Reply

Daniel Feit

November 19, 2009

Alex, I haven't played much Prince of Persia but I did appreciate that non-punishing style. Unfortunately, I've been told that QTEs show up during boss fights. Another Alex, I played [url=http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/09/heavy-rain-2/]a demo of Heavy Rain at TGS[/url] and LOVED it. I can't expect every game to deliver that many alternate outcomes to each scenario, but the fact that I made a mistake and the scene didn't end was terrific. Jeffrey, I agree provided they are trying a theatrical approach. Half-Life was a great game that (almost) never took control away from the player. I wouldn't change a thing about that classic, expect maybe the Xen levels.

Report | Reply

Brett Bates

December 11, 2009

Your post reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about Uncharted 2. Near the end of the game, there's a scene where Drake races across a bridge as it collapses. I got through it in one shot and found it a thrilling conclusion to a tense scene. My friend had to replay it five times because of some mistimed jumps and felt it to be an exercise in frustration. I think you've got a fantastic point here. Let's hope it trickles down to developers!

Report | Reply

Brian Shirey

December 11, 2009

I haven't had the chance to play any of the games mentioned here, but I pose the question. What is the difference between a QTE and playing through a linear 2d or even 3d level like we half always been doing? Is not hitting X or the RT at the appropriate time the same thing as jumping over a pit in mario, escaping from Zebes, or jumping from hand-hold to hand-hold where the his obviously only one way to properly get from point a to point b? The only difference that I can see is that instead of the traditional game where everything is done "in-engine", they have presented the timed button presses we've always been used to in a cinematic view that if done otherwise would not provide the proper camera angle without disorienting the gamer. Sometimes, in order to do some of these one-time scenes they would have to create a whole control scheme for it and introduce the gamer to that control scheme prior to the scene. All for what purpose? So that the director can trick the gamer into thinking they have a choice in how to complete the game?

Report | Reply

William Figueroa

December 11, 2009

Well, games should allow for failure, even if it disrupts an awesome sequence. Isn't that what separates games from movies nowadays?

Report | Reply

Evan Campbell

December 11, 2009

I definitely had the same notion after finishing Uncharted 2 a second time. Honestly, I am not sure how you would clean those sequences up. I strongly prefer them over QTE but I agree that sometimes they serve as a mood killer. I think developers really just want to find ways to make the player feel involved. I mean strip away the penalty of death and what do you have? The sequence mine as well play itself. Whats would be the point of even putting that train sequence in the game at that point? Having no real solid solution for this issue I stopped myself from writing about it- so I am very glad that you posted it here! I will say, when everything comes together those sequences are breath-taking.

Report | Reply

Brett Bates

December 11, 2009

@Evan: I think the point would be to get you familiar with the controls and the notion of climbing in the game. You can do that without death. I don't think eliminating death in that sequence would have made it feel more rote -- especially since I assume most of us got through it without dying.

Report | Reply

Aaron Betts

December 11, 2009

I've always been the kind of gamer who considers difficulty and challenge to be overrated when it comes to having fun in games. I like my games being super easy, its more fun for me and doesn't break immersion so I would consider a no fail form of design to be a good thing, especially in highly scripted sequences. I understand that older gamers tend to think the opposite and I still cant really figure out why. Why is bashing your head in frustration over dying 20 times because you set the game to nightmare considered 'fun'? Seems more like a waste of time to me.

Report | Reply

Jeffrey Puritz

December 11, 2009

I agree that it is not the best opening for someone who has not played the first uncharted but it is not uncommon. InFamous, which I really enjoyed; did the same thing and it was frustrating but ultimately became one of my favorite games this year. Personally, I prefer a game that gently levels you up but I can only think of a spare handful that do...

Report | Reply

TJ Harrell

December 11, 2009

@Aaron: Sure, sometimes there are certain scenarios in a game that might prove to be extremely frustrating when the difficulty is set high, but once it's cleared, the feeling of having clearing it, despite its frustration, is often very rewarding to those who enjoy a real challenge. This happened several times for me throughout Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and I cannot wait to try it on Crushing difficulty. On the subject of Uncharted 2's scripted events (and for such events in other games), although I enjoy watching cinematics in which there is no action required from me, I always prefer interactivity over passivity, and this especially holds true for later scenes in any game. The first scene in Uncharted 2 may be teaching the player the controls, but perhaps the following cinematic is also teaching the player the consequences should you fail this particular jump? On what Evan stated in a previous comment, if we do not want consequences (most often death) for failing in a cinematic that has only one right path or answer, then players might as well let it play in its entirety without action on the player side. This does not go for simply the first cinematic in Uncharted 2, but for all of its interactive scenes and such scenes in other games. But, I know it would not be as enjoyable for me.

Report | Reply

Aaron Betts

December 11, 2009

@TJ Yeah their have been some exceptions I've come across but I tend to find most games still resort to the same old 'just give the enemies more health and the player less ammo' form of difficulty ramp up which doesn't add anything to the experience for me. When the actual gameplay is altered then I find the higher difficulty much more tolerable and enjoyable. Dawn of War 2 did a good job in that regard. Scripted events I think come down to a game by game basis. Uncharted 2 did them very well, I only died maybe twice during the entirety of the game when it came to the big action gameplay segments. Apparently alot of people had difficulty with the tank level, I somehow managed to beat it on my first playthrough without dying yet on my 2nd and 3rd I was cursing up a storm :P

Report | Reply

Chris Williams

December 11, 2009

While I didn't have quite this experience in Uncharted 2, your point absolutely rings true for me in the game I'm currently playing through -- GTA IV. (Catching up on the backlog!) I'm really getting into the story elements, but a few of the recent missions I've played have had me cursing up a blue streak and taken me right out of the narrative, specifically some of the longer missions like the Elizabeta mission at the old bombed-out hospital or the bank robbery with Packie. The storyline for bank job is fun and exciting, if somewhat predictable, but it gets really old really fast after you get killed trying to make your escape. Obviously in a situation like this, the danger of dying is a necessary element, but do they have to make you start all the way back at Packie's house, find a car, drive all the way back across town to the bank and go through the whole thing all over again? Talk about pulling you out of the experience. I definitely had to walk away from it a few times. At least once I completed the mission on my sixth or seventh try, the reward was significant. But by then I was just thrilled to be able to move on to other things. Now if I could just win that stupid race with Brucie and get that mission off my map...

Report | Reply

Alex Gagne

December 11, 2009

Another Alex chiming in... I figured it would be a good time to bring up how ahead of the game Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was. Whenever you died by unceremoniously falling to your doom you would reset to the last checkpoint with the prince saying "Wait wait...That's not what I remember happening..." or something along those lines. It was a little cheesy, but it worked by giving context to your in-game death as it relates to the story. Man, that game was really far ahead, wasn't it?

Report | Reply

Evan Lewis

December 11, 2009

In my opinion, it isn't the penalty of death that makes a game, but the interactivity. If you can create an experience that will suck the player into the world then you've got something. If death gets in the way of that, then bypass it. One option might be to make a checkbox in the options menu to get rid of death during more scripted sequences. To use the example given, say Drake misses the swing from the pole to the handhold. Instead of plummeting, maybe he grabs onto a lower handhold and has to climb back up to the one he should have grabbed in the first place. It might be a nice middle ground between what we have now and what Heavy Rain seems to be trying to do. I realize this isn't ideal, as it would probably be a lot more work on the part of the developer, along with the problem of deciding what the "more scripted" parts actually are. It also touches on the whole hardcore vs. casual, "are you really beating the game" mentality, but I think it's an interesting thought nonetheless. All I know is that I would have more fun being immersed in the cinematic quality of the game.

Report | Reply

Gerren LaQuint Fisher

December 11, 2009

I think there's a degree of looking to the past that needs to be considered in this discussion. Think about what this sort of design was intended to be a solution to. Back when FMV's became all the rage (and eventually overused), there was a common complaint of being taking out of the game for the sake of doing something to make a game cinematic. Daniel, you may hate QTE's but they were pretty much a response to a gripe back in that time. So is this entire sequence. Ultimately, I just think it's hard for a designer to cater to everyone. While Daniel feels it would be better to just go through that sequence without failing, I personally think if we're going to push in that direction we might as push to the point of me not controlling Drake at all. To me, it's the opposite end of the "forced loss battle" highlight's 1UP's The Grind RPG Cliché Roundup. You know the entire "I just blew a bunch items in a battle I ultimately had no chance of winning because the narrative needs me to lose." Much like Daniel's thought, this was an idea intended to boost the narrative experience while keeping interactivity. I personally find both to be more annoying time syncs than immersive. If I know I'm in a forced-loss battle, I immediately stop caring and trying, breaking immersion. Likewise if I know I'm in a no fail sequence, I stop caring because there's no peril and the immersion is broken. Like the force slow walk sequences in 3rd-person games like in Gears of War or Batman: Arkham Asylum, you're reminding me I'm playing a game by doing something in games I don't like; taking away meaningful agency for a forced experience. I personally think there are cut scenes for that, but again that's my own style. And to cater to me is to likely make another gamer unhappy. You can't please everyone.

Report | Reply

Daniel Feit

December 13, 2009

First of all, thanks to the editors who bumped this onto the front page and added such purty pictures as well. I guess I need to figure out how that works. @Brian, the difference between QTEs and pressing buttons in the regular game is substantial. I know jumping over a pit in Super Mario Bros is just one button at the right time, but when I'm controlling Mario that means everything is up to me. I can see the pit, decide how to approach it and then I get it right or I don't. If I don't, then I probably learn what do to the next time. By contast, a QTE is a movie that occasionally flashes a command. You can't prepare or think it over, it's just "PRESS X RIGHT NOW!" It's as banal as a banner ad on the web. @Gerren, just as developers had to learn how to move on from FMVs, soon they will outgrow QTEs and stunts like this. I can't complain about the slow-walk scene in Batman, since all those Scarecrow sequences were smashing the fourth wall and therefore less immersive. I'll take periodic helpings of that insanity if it successfully creeps me out, like Eternal Darkness or these scenes in Batman did.