Why FPS Campaigns Are Crap

[Disclaimer: I am going to use Black Ops as the example in my argument because BO’s campaign is famous for being the “best of the series” that has become the canon for first person shooters. This means that I will spoil some parts of Black Ops, so if you haven't played the campaign yet, keep reading, and you'll be glad you didn't.]

I think I know why I really don't like the single player campaign in first person shooters, and it basically boils down to this: what’s the point really?

What’s the point of Black Ops single player? To build to that final nuke moment because of loud noises and flag waving and everybody giving the player character thumbs up and high fives because I’VE SINGLE HANDED-LY SAVED THE DAY, HOORAY!? Or is the point to induce epilepsy with those ridiculously over used and unnecessary transition editing? Those are things that happened in the campaign, and the dangerous epiphany will soon realize itself–there is no point to the campaign story.

Still, I think the first step into exploring the main point is to explore what the campaign actually is. And what the single player campaign is, unfortunately, is basically the zombie mode with human models. And I say this not just in terms of AI, but more importantly, their purpose: to get killed by the player to make the player feel good about themselves.

I don’t really care that the human AI is more advanced and capable as a challenge to the players compared to zombies, but they’re basically just zombie mode at level 50. And I have no problem with the zombie mode because the zombie mode is meant to be a light hearted distraction of racking up points and strategically moving around a restricted space with a balance on resources.

That’s brilliant because the shooting mechanic is the game, and there are no narrative to befuddle the point. It’s a game, so here are game mechanics. Here are some “theoretically” well balanced resource management mechanics with strategic level design and a strategic timing design. The whole point is to compete and cooperate with your friends by getting points by shooting enemies. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than that. And for what it’s doing, the whole design works very well.

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Tags: Call of Duty Black OPS

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Douglas Hamer

June 27, 2011

Had to register so I could comment. This article is crap. What could the goal possibly be? To convince us people who like singleplayer campaigns to be converted to your light? Let me tell you why singleplayer campaigns are fun: atmosphere and escapism. The amazing music, the great cinematics, imagining being stuck deep behind enemy lines and having to crawl under bushes to avoid the path of an oncoming patrol. The fact that your enemy actually act like people in a war zone. Let me put this straight: humans playing video games do NOT AT ALL act like people in a war zone. They act way less like actual soldiers than video game AIs. Very quickly, playing a multiplayer game, you will realise you are just playing against 15 mouth-breathing, obese, spotty nerds- you are most definitely not in a bunker in South Siberia. There is no escapism or fantasty or atmosphere at ALL in multiplayer games. There is just people doing weird jumps and crouching and abusing game mechanics as much as they can. BORING. If I want a cerebral challenge or a skill challenge I will play chess or go boxing. If I want some atmosphere and something completely different from my regular life, I will play an intense singleplayer campaign.

Makes me think you have absolutely no soul. Robert Chang, I am disappoint.

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Robert Chang

But the idea of "fun" in a serious warzone narrative just doesn't fit. Also, what you're describing, that the campaign is about fun atmosphere and escapism, is what the mode is supposed to do, not what the story of the narrative is. And that's more what this article is about. The singleplayer mode may be purposed to let the player become some generic super soldier behind enemy lines to experience how fun it is to kill generic enemy characters, but that's just single player zombie mode. The overall narrative and story arc has no point in that there's no interesting narrative or story to be told, because like you've pointed out, the single player mode is not really about telling the story. It's about being fun.

And I'm not talking about the narrative of multiplayer modes. Like I've said, they don't have any, and that's fine because the multiplayer modes aren't about a directed story at all.

Your response makes me think that you haven't read the whole article.

Yes I read your article. I don't know what you enjoy about video games, it must be something like the feeling of competition, conquering a worthy adversary? You derive 'fun' from winning at capture the flag? That's good for you, go ahead and enjoy that. I'm telling you that I and countless millions of people derive 'fun' from being surrounded by an atmosphere, with music, custscenes, people saying things in character rather than 'learn 2 play noob' or 'FFS stop spawncamping!!!', changes of scenery, a story progression...etc. Yeah the story arcs in these games are not high-fiction but some of them are gripping enough. The singleplayer campaign of CoD 2 was fantastic, 3 different people in World War 2, 3 different sides, lots of interesting places and characters. Some of the CoD 4 storyline was good too. This facile comparison to single player zombie mode is ridiculous. It's like you airbrushed out the cutscences from CoD singleplayer. I mean, have you even seen the intro for CoD 4??? It's a huge, atmospheric cutscene. The fun in the experience is imagining yourself in that hot, sweaty, humid terrain, being taken in a car to your execution, watching the military killing civilians out the window as you pass.

Anyway, if you want some interesting story in an FPS campaign buy a game called Deus Ex.

I have played Deus Ex. And the campaign story was very interesting. But what you're attributing to a good single player campaign is what I'm attributing to its problem. Specially, I'm saying that these campaigns are more about atmospheres and music and being fun rather than telling a story.

This way, there really are no story arc in the modern CoD games. It's basically just loosely strung levels with high production value cutscenes in between. It's more about a roller coaster ride of loud noises and flashy visuals rather than actually developing a story arc. And I agree, roller coaster rides can be fun, but they make poor story telling. And for a mode with its heavy emphasis on cutscenes, they really don't add any value narratively. It's just all flash, but no substance. I think the campaign in modern CoD games (specifically Black Ops) is very much similar to the second Transformers movie.