作者：Brandon Sheffield

两周前，Conan O’Brien以“白纸玩家”的身份对《生化危机6》进行了评价，他并不是游戏爱好者，也不了解这款游戏蕴含的意义，只是以智者的独到眼光体验这款新作。

缺乏可信度

Conan在扮演主角Leon Kennedy时，做的第一件事便是跑到女性AI同伴旁边，表示：“我已经接近她了，她会有何反应。”当然，她不会有所行动。Conan嘲笑道：“在现实生活中，她肯定会有所表示。比如离我远点。别开这种玩笑，Conan，我已经有男朋友了。”

显然这只是为了营造幽默氛围，但也会迅速影响到现代游戏的主要斗争模式。游戏与环境呈现出越加逼真的画面，我们越希望游戏角色具有社交功能，比如与玩家互动。

为此，在接下来的场景中，O’Brien知道自己的前进方向，并试图采用最直接途径，但却被椅子挡住了去路。他开玩笑道：“一个扛着枪的出色家伙居然会碰到小折叠椅。”但有多少游戏评论家探讨过这类问题？我们不是也经常遇到类似的问题吗？在我体验《生化危机6》演示样本中的Chris Redfield战役时，具有健康恢复功能与无止尽消灭丧尸体力的强大英雄却难以爬上平坦的斜坡。

生化危机6(from gamasutra)

回到O’Brien上，他似乎对游戏中的“表扬”功能产生了兴趣，你可以利用它称赞AI或玩家伙伴，并伴随赞扬手势。而针对Leon，却是怪异的翘拇指赞扬手势，为了娱乐，O’Brien连续重复这种木偶式动作，此时Leon会不断重复“谢谢”与“多谢”言语，并不断颤巍巍地举起手势，好像有一根无形的线在拉动这一动作。

这是个具有现实感的场景，但开发者却有意制造出不符合角色行为的场景。这种画面应该更适合电影《A Weekend At Bernie》，而不是出色的动作游戏，但他们却致力于营造这种效果。

当然，O’Brien并未完成这8分钟的游戏视频，因此我提出了以下补充。单从该样本来看，其中存在一系列与现实违背的事件：

-丧尸可以跳过窗户，但你不行（除非是特殊允许）。

-在启动过场动画前，它已删除所有可能存在的补拍画面。

-你可以多次射杀某个卧地敌人，但除非他们“清醒”并追逐你，否则这些举动不会对他们造成伤害。

-践踏某个丧尸的脚，直到其头部爆裂。

-从丧尸那盗取斧子，做出特殊举动，而后扔掉。“这把完美斧子的功能高于我的护卫小刀，我最好扔掉。”

-杀死拥有枪支的敌人时，人们总会忽略落下的枪支，在你已经耗尽弹药的情况下，这种举动很奇怪。

问题是，当游戏规模越大（游戏邦注：《生化危机6》中存在4场5小时的战役），它的情节就越是拖塌而零乱。

细节与整体的脱节

当你拥有一个大型项目时，你很容易为了整体效果忽略细节。游戏评论家曾批评《生化危机6》中偶尔呈现的缓慢战役，个性随意的敌人，以及空洞的故事情节。甚至在基本层面上，该游戏并未制作出与游戏世界的出色互动方式。

生化危机6(from gamaustra)

一般而言，有关这种怀疑总会引发争论——“该游戏发生在虚幻世界中，当然不具有真实性。”的确，游戏中存在丧尸，你也具有生命再生功能，但该场景应具有紧凑感，并能坚持自己的原则。我认为，在所有事情都可能发生的世界中，为何我无法爬山？如果换作正常且完全真实的世界，这确实是十分糟糕的设置方式。《Uncharted 3》便能说明这点——在主要斗争中，某个理论上的坏人打算采取行动，但主角Nathan Drake却阻止她。他有大量机会可以杀掉她，但他从没这样做，尽管事实上他已经在战争中杀掉上百个敌人。至今为止，我们仍难以平息这类困惑。

而AAA游戏至少应存在某个可信服方面。那正是《生化危机6》背离的原则，在此之前，他们已包含巨大战役与复杂故事。评论家已注意到这些细节，这些细节可能在头5分钟就能让玩家获知整个游戏体验感。开发者应同时关注细节与整体效果。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Conan O’Brien, Resident Evil 6, and removing an A from triple-A

by Brandon Sheffield

Two weeks ago, Conan O’Brien featured Resident Evil 6 on his “clueless gamer” segment, in which O’Brien, not a game enthusiast, plays through new games with the fresh eyes of an intelligent person who is not well-versed in the existing tropes of games.

This winds up being not only an excellent critique of Resident Evil 6, but also of many of the things we take for granted in triple-A games as a whole.

Believable characterization

The first thing Conan does in the game, playing through the campaign that stars RE4 protagonist Leon Kennedy, is run up to his female AI companion and say, “I’m gonna get really close to her and see what she does.” Naturally, she does nothing. “At this point in real life, a woman would say something,” the comedian quips. “‘Get away from me. That’s not funny Conan. I already have a boyfriend.’”

This is clearly done for the sake of humor, but also quickly cuts through to one of the major struggles of modern games. The more realistic our games and environments look, the more realistic we expect them to be socially, and in terms of the interactions they enable.

To that point, in a subsequent scene, O’Brien knows where he needs to go in the game, and tries to take the most direct path – but he’s blocked by some scattered chairs on the ground. “Cool guy with gun blocked by small folding chairs,” he jokes — but how many game reviewers have discussed this same problem? How often have we been confounded by invisible walls? In my own playthrough of the RE6 demo, in the Chris Redfield campaign, our muscled hero with regenerative health and infinite stamina for kicking zombies can’t seem to climb a mild slope.

Back to O’Brien, he has a bit of fun with the “praise” function, which allows you to give your AI or human partner a compliment, along with a gesture of appreciation — in Leon’s case, this is a bizarrely jerky thumbs-up. O’Brien repeats the canned, puppet-like animation a dozen-or-so times in a row, for comedic effect, as Leon says “thanks,” and “‘preciate it” over and over, spasming his thumbs-up-holding arm in the air as though it were pulled by an unseen string.

Again, we have a realistic looking environment, and a scenario the developers wanted to be intense, shattered by behavior that is inconsistent with the generally tough and capable characters with which we’re presented. This animation would be better suited to the film A Weekend At Bernie’s than a serious action game — and yet there’s a button dedicated to it.

O’Brien didn’t play through the whole game in his 8 minute video, of course, so here are a few of my own additions. From the demo alone, there is a laundry list of things that kick you out of the narrative:

- zombies can hop through windows, but you can’t (unless specifically allowed).

- cutscenes get rid of all pickups that may have been around before you triggered it.

- shoot a prone enemy as many times as you want, but you can’t hurt them til they’re “awake” and coming after you.

- stomp on a zombie’s leg til its head explodes (amusing, but unfortunate)

- steal an axe from a zombie to do a special move with, then throw the axe away. “This perfectly good axe is way better than my survival knife, I’d better toss it.”

- when killing enemies with guns, dropped guns are fully ignored, which feels odd when you’re out of ammo.

The problem is that when a game gets so large (the game has four five-hour campaigns), it becomes sprawling and scattered. As Simon Parkin says in his Eurogamer review, “This is Resident Evil on a seemingly infinite budget, no idea too expensive, no whim beyond scope. The swollen statistics even spill out of the game and into its creation, which called upon over 600 internal and external staff to deliver it ahead of schedule.”

Missing the A in “detail”

When you have such a large project, it’s easy to — inverting a metaphor — miss the trees for the forest. Reviewers have been critical of the game’s at times plodding campaign, its personality-free enemies, and its rather inane story. But even at the basic level, the level of intelligent interaction with the world, the game falls short.

The usual argument here is about suspension of disbelief – “this game takes place in a fantasy world, of course it’s not realistic.” Sure, there are zombies, and sure you have regenerating health – but the universe should be cohesive, and adhere to its own rules. I’m meant to believe that in a world where those things are possible, I can’t climb a hill? That’s actually worse than if it were a normal, completely reality-based world. Games like Uncharted 3 exemplify this handily as well – the main conflict surrounds one theoretically evil person trying to do something protagonist Nathan Drake doesn’t want her to do. He has many chances to kill her, and never does – in spite of the fact he’s already killed literally hundreds of people in the campaign. It’s hard to suspend your disbelief that far.

When it comes to triple-A games, at least one of those As should come from believability. And that’s where games like Resident Evil 6 are running off the rails, before they even get to their bloated campaigns or convoluted stories. Reviewers notice these details, and they inform the entire experience for players within the first five minutes of play. You’ve got to notice the trees and the forest both.

To end with another quote from master game reviewer O’Brien; “It’s Resident Evil 6 – I hope this helped.” (source:gamasutra)