And let us do that, too

Jan 31, 2009 05:01 GMT  ·  By

I played two games in the last two days dealing very differently with the most basic of game props: doors that players can move through. In Mirror's Edge on the PC, the character, Faith, runs and as such cannot afford to slow down in order to put her hand on a knob in order to turn it. She hits the door with either hand or foot to open it. In the demo of F.E.A.R. 2, which I’ve played on the PlayStation 3, the main character, who is one tough special forces soldier, tends to open doors only when I, the player, choose to hit an action button. Clearly, the slow, tactical movement of special forces soldiers is designed not to assault the integrity of the doors still standing in a place ravaged by destruction.

I say more Mirror's Edge, as far as doors are concerned, and less F.E.A.R. 2. Most games are about combat, about action, about fighting to get somewhere or fighting to get out of some place. Most games are set in war zones, destroyed cities, on alien planets, in perilous situations, ranging from alien invasion to civil war. Yet in all those situations, there are a lot of doors. And you need to push buttons to get to move to the other side of the door.

Videogame characters are tough (ranging in toughness from Space Marine to gruff mercenary material), capable of wielding swords, powerful magic, firearms or plasma rifles. All the above mentioned characters should be able to break down doors, shoot the locks off them, turn them to ashes by way of fireball, cut man sized holes in them with plasma cutters and blow them to pieces with a grenade. Getting through a door should not involve opening it, opening a door should only require pushing a button.

At the very least, if the game aims for realism and is set in a “real” setting, show us the hand of the character as it shoots down, turns the knob and opens the door, sort of like Far Cry 2 does. Give me something real related to the door that separates me from the rest of the world. Otherwise, let's move back to the key card system Doom implemented, blue, yellow, red keys, which separate each section of a level. If we don't want to go back to that, then let's move forward by learning to break down the doors in videogames.