It's a wonderful thing when you can bring two seemingly random things together and find some way to compare them. Video games, in particular, are always vying for your constantly split attention, and while some are particularly good at luring the internet browsing attention, others are far more deserving, which brings us to "Battlefield 4" and "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon." The first was just revealed a couple days ago, while the second hit store shelves recently. At first glance they have nothing to do with each other, but spending time analyzing one or playing the other, there's a jarring similarity - both of their campaigns seek to immerse players on visual and audio communication.
Under this filter, the success of animation, audio cues and other game engine bells and whistles to achieve desired effect, there's no doubt that "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" is the superior game. And I say this understanding "Battlefield 4" has a ways to go before I can actually play it. How unfair, you might say, but EA is asking us to make these kinds of judgments based on a measly 17 minutes in the first place. How unfair of them as well.
Let me just be clear here, we're comparing campaigns, not multiplayer, in which "Battlefield" has found far more critical success than the single-player campaigns ever will. "Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon" has some pretty nifty multiplayer too, but I can't imagine many of you holding up against "Battlefield" for any reason. I wouldn't expect you to, but comparing what EA is striving for in the single-player campaign to what Nintendo has achieved with "Luigi's Mansion" isn't so audacious.
Let's make a judgment. Every so-called realistic military shooter, the entire genre, is an undeniable joke. You cannot make a game and call it war, where death equates to respawning and you can press E to "Fly Helicopter." The "Battlefield" franchise, as of late, has made a name for itself crafting and showing off the Frostbite engine in all its attempts at realism, reflecting the tiniest rays of light off wet helmets, casting a glint off your up-close comrade's eye or emitting a bullet echo in conjunction with the wideness of the space around you. It's all very impressive up until you realize you're still just playing a first-person shooter, taking cover and shooting down scopes, sprinting over collapsing buildings and escaping stalking helicopters. EA wants us to believe in this world they're building in "Battlefield 4," not because it has anything to do with reality, but because it's super pretty. I won't, I can't, it's impossible to do when you've just survived an entire building crumbling to pieces above your head, followed by a prime opportunity to robotically cut off a soldier's leg. Your hand shakes a little, the fear seems to bubble inside the poor guy, but then you press E to "Cut Leg" and the sequence moves on to the next ridiculous sequence. Realism is not possible in a video game, it never will be, it's not the point.
We may spend another entire generation convincing ourselves that visuals equal immersion, but it just isn't the case. Crafting a cohesive world, one that makes sense within the context of itself, using visuals and animations to bring it all together and, most importantly, quitting all efforts to pull the curtain over gamers' heads with every new "next-gen" release, that's how you make a game. Luigi gets it. "Battlefield" simply does not.
In the end, EA and DICE are just making interactive movies. $60 interactive movies at that. Everyone else, mostly, is trying to make games.
