If 2007 was the year of first person, then 2009 was the year of third person. A simple, and accurate equation, but it is more complex than all that.
With the exception of retro-fuelled nostalgia, the games industry can rarely be accused of looking backwards. From time to time we certainly hold up anointed examples of videogame craft and skill above others, and we regularly pine for a return to our first experiences with Mario, Zelda, and other aged icons.
But it is unusual to see analysis of trends or innovation outside of the gaming canon; even more unusual to look at a year’s worth of games once we’ve wiped our hands of them with obligatory Game of the Year awards. These awards are often contentious and fiercely debated at the time, but rarely do we concern ourselves with the trends of a particular year after we’ve handed out our pats-on-the-back and shown the world just how thoroughly up with it we’ve been in the last 365 days. We rarely even return to the games of years past: unless they’re in the canon, we probably won’t revisit them.
I’d therefore like to return to just two years ago: the year 2007. This, as it was easy to see at the time, was the year of first person.
It was simple. 2007 saw the following games released: Portal, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Halo 3, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Metroid Prime: Corruption and Team Fortress 2. All of these games were widely praised as innovating within the bounds of the traditionally successful (but perhaps stale) first person genre. It is no stretch to suggest that this handful of titles comprise the most successful videogames of the year.
I won’t lie: 2007 was also a watershed year in gaming for me. It was the first year in a long time that I had returned to videogames seriously. I’d been dabbling for a long while, but not since the days of the Nintendo 64 did I play games on a weekly basis. I was invigorated by many of these games: Portal and Call of Duty 4 in particular caught my imagination. The following year I wrote a thesis on videogames and chose Portal and Bioshock as my subjects.
Clearly, first person was the future, and the future was now.
Yet with the hindsight of two years, there was clearly something else going on in 2007. There was a second-tier, less acclaimed rung on the gaming ladder occupied by a batch of inspired yet problematic third person games: Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Crackdown and God of War II. With the possible exception of Mass Effect (which seems to have subsequently come under fire), these games were at the time admired but widely faulted, and ultimately overlooked when the year-in-review season rolled around.
Yet it is these flawed works, not the polished gems of the first person genre, which have inspired the best of 2009.
For if 2007 was the year of first person, 2009 cannot be anything other than the year of third person. Assassin’s Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Uncharted: Among Thieves are to my mind the three best of 2009 (though I am yet to play first person Borderlands or third person RPG Dragon Age: Orgins).
Two out of three of these games are direct sequels to underwhelming 2007 games; both build to an extraordinary degree on the criticisms of the originals while retaining their flair. The third, Arkham Asylum, is strongly inspired by at least two major 2007 titles, and incorporates a whole history of the third person into a major licence. These games aren’t just well designed; they have the same vital feeling about them that the first person did in 2007. These are must-plays; they are the games that we’d show to someone if they asked why we spent all that time in front of a console this year.
The third person has for many years been the reserve of stale film-to-game licences, RPGs and Nintendo mascot vehicles. Yet this year I was never more refreshed than while playing in the third person.
By contrast, the year in first person has been mixed. Most of the best are merely dependably good: Halo 3: ODST, Wolfenstein and Killzone 2. All of these games are very playable, yet none of them are particularly innovative, and none of them will stick as major hits of 2009. You will of course have noticed one particularly high-selling first person shooter omitted from this list, but despite Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s immense sales, it was neither innovative nor particularly good. Well made, certainly, but compared to a game like Assassin’s Creed 2 it is far more an echo of all things great about the original than a true game of 2009. Even Left 4 Dead 2 seems to have copped a little flak for being either too hard or not quite up to Valve’s outrageously high standards.
Most importantly, the first person games of 2009 have failed to learn the real lessons behind the successes of their 2007 counterparts. They are instead content to regurgitate their implementations.
I suppose the greater point I’m making here, though, is that various eras in gaming exist as more than a neat encapsulation of their best. They are more than shorthand for ‘game x was the best selling game of year y’. They are cultural artefacts that represent trends and capabilities in game development. They go on to influence other eras, even if it is too difficult to divine it at the time.
As our culture takes from others, it also feeds in on itself. We would be wise to take notice every once in a while.
Related posts:
- RKD on… 2010: Part 1 – The “meh” year that was?
- What my television set can learn from videogames
- RKD on… 2010: Part 2 – ‘Iteration’ vs. ‘innovation’
Tags: Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed 2, first person, portal, third person
I’m glad the pattern didn’t hold true for 2008. “Year of the second person” would have sucked.
It has been an amazing year for third-person games. As well as the cream of the crop, that you mentioned, there was the inFamous vs. Prototype clone war, which was fun even if they are both ultimately forgettable games. Then there’s Demon’s Souls, which had a lower profile but may turn out to be a landmark game for some time to come, at least whenever difficulty and meaningful challenge is discussed.
Fair to say that all this third-person-ness was chiefly fuelled by the success of GTAIV?
No.
Or, rather, hell no! Heh.
Two of the three games I praise were going to get made regardless of whether GTAIV was even released. I personally don’t actually see a lot of correlation between GTAIV and the titles I mention, either. Do you?
I phrased that poorly. GTAIV didn’t get these games greenlit, but I suspect it influenced the tone.
Compared to its predecessors, GTAIV is a conspicuously serious game, at least on the surface. It isn’t “fun” in the same way that San Andreas is fun. Starting six months or so after it came out, I noticed a decline in chucklehead games like, say, Mercenaries 2 and Saint’s Row 2, and a trend towards a more serious tone in many action games. It could just be a trick of my memory, but look at some examples.
Crackdown was a fundamentally cartoonish game, marketed on its explosions and superpowers, whereas the first trailer for Crackdown 2 presents it with a much straighter face. inFamous and Prototype each had an angsty vibe, more so than, say, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.
All those examples are sandbox games, which is only one subset of the third-person action game. But when was the last time a Batman game treated its subject matter with such gravitas?
I haven’t played either Uncharted game, but I got the impression that Among Thieves was a little less jokey than Drake’s Fortune – which could be totally misguided!
Further afield, Resident Evil 5 was more akin to a modern war movie than Resident Evil 4, which had more in common with a schlocky B-grade horror film.
I see the Grand Theft Auto series having the same driving, standard-setting influence on (certain kinds of) third-person action games as Halo has had for first-person shooters. It is only one game among many, but it is the first point of reference for what works and what the audience wants in a certain kind of action game.
It is, of course, all part of a wider industry trend. Developers everywhere are itching to prove that they can do serious stories – and publishers are happy to let them, since BioShock and GTAIV have reassured them that seriousness is not a kiss of commercial death.
Does that ring truer to you, or is it all a false correlation?
Yes, that does ring truer, certainly. I’m still not sold 100%, though. I think there was a little backlash – not least among developers – over GTAIV: I’ve seen a lot of people complaining over mechanic faults (such as the painful save/checkpoint system) and the dissonance between the fiction and gameplay of the world.
It may have influenced the tone of Arkham Asylum, but I doubt that it had too much influence on Assassin’s Creed 2. AC2 is, apart from anything, notably less serious that the first game. It’s still hardly a-laugh-a-minute, but while the first took itself very seriously, the second is much more aware. And I’d owe that as much to critical feedback on the first than to any other game.
Right. It’s great to see a sequel fulfilling the potential of its flawed predecessor.
Daniel……are you going to do a Christmas review for all those new games that conveniently release around now? Dragon Age springs to mind and we both know someone who thinks it would be great!
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