I was playing Modern Warfare’s singleplayer campaign last night (yes I fucking know), and was struck by the incongruity of the health regeneration in the game. It’s basically the same damage forgiveness system as Halo’s shield regeneration, right? If you take fire, you can either tough it out or duck into cover and rebuild your strength for another go. As a game mechanic it treats the player a little more kindly than simply giving her a static pool of life points that only renews or depletes in response to interactions like getting shot or stepping on a medical kit with her boot. Sure, you got shot, but you shook it off after a second; maybe it was just a graze that stunned you, or the adrenaline kicked in. These are rationalizations, really, for a strangely gamey system that softens the difficulty of the game a bit.
On the other hand – big stupid what if question incoming – the only reason that the player needs forgiveness is that taking too much damage results in a fail state. You die, get a pithy anti-war quote from some who ought to know, and restart in ludus res at one of the game’s generously-distributed checkpoints as though the death had never actually happened. The only way to end a mission is to keep soldiering through until you complete all of the objectives given to you.
How come?
