The "Evolution" of Games

There seems to be a growing notion within the gaming industry that games can no longer be one simple concept. Long gone are the days of the simplicity that we saw in Quake, Doom, or Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since a medium has to evolve in order to survive. However, with this evolution, games are often becoming more complex and are slowly beginning to alienate more and more disabled gamers.

What initially sparked this thought was EA's announcement of Need for Speed: The Run, a racing game in which, for the first time in the series, the player can get out of the car. Much to the dismay of everyone, they went on to show just what that meant. Though many people, myself included, thought they were going to take a route similar to what the Tony Hawk series did when they introduced the ability to get off the skateboard, it turned out to be completely different. The Run has you racing across the country while on the run from the police. The on-stage demo began harmless enough, with a traditional chase scene and driving sequence. It wasn't long before we saw the driver soon spring out of the car and start running on foot.

This sequence was not manually controlled, however. It was one giant cutscene with everyone's favorite gaming "evolution:" quick-time events. The driver began his action sequence by getting to the nearby rooftops and then jumping across them to timed button presses. This went on for a decent amount of time, failing to impress anyone. There were some events that had the player pressing a single button, rapidly mashing a single button, or pressing two at once. Eventually this action sequence led to the driver entering another car and continuing the level with another driving sequence.

Quick-time events have always been a bane of many disabled gamers, since quickly tapping a button and timed button presses can be nigh impossible for some. Heavy Rain was littered with these and scored very low on our Mobility rating. One thing that Heavy Rain did right, however, was that certain failed button presses did not lead to a game over, but instead a separate following cutscene. Unfortunately, I don't think Need for Speed: The Run is going to implement a similar strategy since many of the quick-time events looked to end in death if failed.

I'd like to say that this is a rare occurrence, but unfortunately I don't believe that to be true. The new Tomb Raider reboot that was shown at E3 also exhibited quick-time events for certain scenes. Perhaps developers can use an idea implemented in LA Noire, in which the player can opt to skip an event entirely if he or she fails to complete it after a certain number of tries. Something like that would be a true evolution of gaming, and we can only hope that it becomes just as standard as quick-time events seem to be becoming.