Action Game Level Design

Today, I'm going to talk to you about Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Both are action games with the same basic mechanic, shooting things in a first person perceptive, and some similar overall goals, such as making the player feel empowered. However, both these represent entirely different approaches to both level and game design, Modern Warfare 3(hereafter referred to as MW3) has a simply incredible misunderstanding of what makes games compelling, and Half-Life 2(hereafter referred to as HL2) is a nearly pitch perfect game, both a pinnacle of its genre and a incredibly admirable piece of game narrative. Let's break down every element of the games, and talk what makes one superior to the other.

Presentation: MW3's engine may be a little old, but it's put to great use. The sense of detail that went into every scene of mass destruction is insane. The scope and scale of the levels is really remarkable, and the fact that the game handles it without any jerks or frame-rate issues is impressive. It clips along at 60 frames a second. Now, if the MW3 engine is old, HL2's is ancient. While cutting edge at the time, the graphics now look blurry and occasionally muddled. However, art direction and technique more than make up for aged polygons. The facial animations and voice acting are both solid and add a real life to characters that are already well written. The various enemies are all distinct and interesting in visual design. It has a unique aesthetic awash in industrial metal, dystopian suburbs and disturbingly slick sci-fi buildings. MW3 does keep things somewhat visually interesting with its globe hopping schtick, but mostly has fights in grey or brown urban areas. While MW3 is more impressive technically, it doesn't match the artistry of HL2.

Gunplay: First of all, both games control very well. Call of Duty's slick, accessible controls are a large part of why the franchise is so popular. The game handles different elements with astonishing ease. Your character moves at a nice pace and everything feels really satisfying. HL2's controls, while not as viscerally appealing as MW3, have a nice flow and movement to them. HL2's combat has a great emphasize on traversal  and thus it's easy and fast to get around, while still slow enough to let you absorb the game's world. However, the gunplay itself falls far in HL2's favor. First of all, HL2 has various distinct enemy types. You have your traditional soldiers, but also giant man eating insects, three different kinds of alien zombies, giant walker aliens, and helicopters. All of the enemies have distinctly different purposes. Slow zombies are lumbering and dumb, but difficult to deal with in large numbers. They act a misdirection for the fast zombies, who force you to pay attention to your surroundings and think fast so you won't suffer a painful death. The zombies also have a nice little trick to them. They carry alien creatures on their heads -- known as headcrabs -- that control them. If you aim for the head, you will kill both the zombie and the headcrab, but if you shoot the body, the head crab can survive and attack you. Thus lends itself to more interesting shooting mechanics because every shot has a more profound consequence, which is further accented by the limited ammo. I could probably spend a while talking about the design of each enemy, but then we would be here all day. MW3 has one enemy type. Maybe two if you count snipers. Maybe that's a little unfair, but you essentially handle the groups of common enemies in the exact same way. If there are distinct differences between the groups of soliders you fight, they are never made explicit and so it has little to no impact on the game experience. This creates a sense of repetition and staleness to the whole game. While HL2 is constantly evolving with new weapons and enemies, MW3 often feels stuck. There is no sense of progression.

The guns themselves control very well in both games. However, the ability to carry several guns at once gives the combat in HL2 a depth that MW3 doesn't really manage. It allows to to pick and choose guns for every situation, adding a deeper level of strategy to each encounter. Adding a limited ammo supply, you've got a deep engaging meta system at work. When you get a new gun in HL2, it's a big deal. It's something that changes the game entirely. MW3 utterly fails this potentially interesting aspect. In MW3 you can only carry two guns at once, although you can pick up weapons off of enemies or just found around the environment. Halo does this and it works well. However, Halo's weapons are very distinct, and many are self explanatory. MW3, under the pretense of realism, has actual weapons. While everyone playing probably knows what a AK-47 is, very few would know what a PKP PECHENEG or a MSR are, much less the difference between those and other guns of the same type. This combined with the lack of ammo in the weapons enemies carry and the extraordinary amount of ammo the designers give your starting gun, the game actively discourages you from experimenting with the game mechanics. Particularly since the multiplayer puts a strong emphasis on creating your own play style, this is a huge loss of engagement for the game and one that could have been fixed very easily.

Level Design: This is the basic thing that MW3 does poorly. The visual design is muddy. The enemies look like environment and look like your allies, leading to a tremendous amount of visual confusion. This coupled with you being constantly shot at from every angle, this to a game that feels cheap and frustrating. Half-Life 2 is always visually clear, and because it doesn't have a regenerating health system, the game doesn't need to throw enemies at you from all directions. The information the game presents to you is helpful, clean and classy. HL2 steadily and carefully introduces new elements to its core gameplay making the game design feel expansive and constantly growing. MW3 does throw new elements at its player often, but then drops them at the tip of a hat, so little to no depth is ever able to be cultivated out of those elements. You're given new toys, but they are only used once in any meaningful way. The sub-mechanics of HL2, such as driving cars, are given entire levels to grow and change. The car-boat-thing in the early part of the game is really good example. It starts out with you trying to avoid simple obstacles, then avoiding obstacles while fighting bad guys, then dodging obstacles while avoiding a helicopter. Is as a simple and clear progression that both escalates the difficulty, and makes the player feel like they are growing stronger, because the game is progressively teaching the player how to play. The vehicle segments in MW3 are brief and are mostly an excuse to show you spectacle. They have no weight as game mechanics. This illustrates the tremendous problem at the heart of MW3's level design; it doesn't respect the player. It tries to create excitement by forcing control out of the player's hands, and constantly orders you around. The levels are essentially corridors and the game still feels the need to place markers to show you where to go. The game is more a roller coaster than a true interactive experience. I don't know if that can be really called a bad thing, but I know this: Games can be so much more. Action movies will always create funner set pieces than games. So, it feels like a very pointless exercise to try and recreate something that can be done better in another medium. As something of a counter point, Half-Life 2 does have moments that feel very much like this. However, most of them are grounded in the mechanics. Even if the game is linear, it still feels as though you are making decisions, as if you are driving the action. The game gives the mechanics space to breath and grow and gives the player room to discover and enjoy the game. MW3 is so concerned with showing off how cool it is that it totally loses what actually makes games engaging.

Narrative:  MW3 has such a mind boggling misunderstanding of modern war, that it has two nuclear armed nations actively fighting against each other, without any threat of nuclear war. Well, ALRIGHT. HL2 on the other hand, has a much better understanding of the cost of war. While both games totally demonize their villains, the war in HL2 has victims. It has a cost. Part of what makes the finale so cathartic, is the incredible odds you see your comrades facing in the previous level. You have squad mates that are dying around you. So when you become incredibly powerful, easily able kill dozens of enemies, it packs a much bigger punch than any of the heroics in MW3.

In conclusion, Half-life 2 is really good. A masterpiece. Modern Warface 3 is, well it's bad. It was clearly made of some really talented artists and programmers, but it all is put to very little use. It just shows a little thought about the medium you are operating in goes a long way in creating a great experience. At least the multiplayer is pretty fun.