This entry is my contribution to the Blogs of the Round Table for this month.
I've been playing Battlefield 1943 and Crash Commando on the PSN quite a bit lately and it recently dawned on me that they are nearly the exact same game played out in different perspectives. They share an underlying pick-a-weapon-and-kill-or-be-killed mechanic but because one is a 3D first person shooter and the other a 2D side-scroller they are drastically different experiences for the player. I'm going to look at five ways in which they differ as a direct result of their spatial representation then decide if this makes one mode of representation stronger than the other. But first a quick run-down of the games.
Battlefield 1943
If you've played one online FPSer you've pretty much played them all but the general gist is as follows. You pick one of three soldier types (which determine the weapons available to you) and you and your team battle it out on small islands trying to capture and control specific bases on the map. Along the way you try to kill as many opposing players as possible. You see through the eyes of your soldier and have full control over direction you look. This is important because it is vital that you pay attention to the space around you. Attacks can come from behind, to the sides, and even above. Play continues until one side depletes the other's "energy bar" by getting the requisite number of kills, with more energy deducted per kill based on how many bases your team controls.
Crash Commando
The fundamentals here are the same as in Battlefield - pick a soldier (in this case a set of weapons) and destroy the opposition. Unlike Battlefield there are several game modes such as a free-for-all deathmatches and objectives-based maps where one team has to blow up certain objects while the other team defends. Crash Commando, however, is not an FPSer. You can see your character at or near the center of the screen at all times. Enemies are clearly visible when you are in range of their weapons and for the most part all the action occurs on screen. It's your classic 2D side-scroller so you never have to worry much about anything happening off screen.
Here are the key differences I see between the games.
Point #1: Crash Commando is less frustrating.
It's par for the course with either of these games that you are apt to get killed frequently when you first start playing multiplayer. However, repeatedly dying in Crash Commando doesn't make me want to throw the controller at the screen as much as it does in Battlefield simply because in almost all cases you can see who killed you. Heck, as a general rule you can see them before they kill you so you know you at least had a chance of taking them out first. Dying in Crash Commando is a matter of not being fast enough or accurate enough rather than being ambushed by an unseen enemy. In Battlefield you are often killed without ever seeing your killer. Without the HUD that indicates who killed you and how you'd never know who or what took you down! This sort of dead-but-don't-know-why is a staple of the FPS genre and generally what drives new players away from them, but it's largely unavoidable because your perspective leaves you blind to a large portion of what's going on around you at any given time. In Crash Commando your local area awareness is nearly complete regardless of how skilled you are at the game. You don't have to worry about controlling a camera to focus on threats so you end up feeling responsible for your own deaths because you could see them coming.
Point #2: Battlefield 1943 is more visceral.
Crash Commando is very bloody. Any death, even a clean sniper shot, causes a player to erupt into red bits. Battlefield lacks any blood - deceased soldiers disappear leaving only their packs behind. Yet Battlefield leaves me feeling more uneasy, more terrified, and more shaken after I've taken a hit or been fragged. The limited field of view makes you agoraphobic, always frightened of what may be lurking behind or to the side, or who may be straight ahead but too far away to see. Space in Crash Commando is far less open and far more visible and that makes you feel more secure at any given time, especially when no enemies are around. In Battlefield you feel as though you are at the center. Taking a sudden hit raises your heart rate as you scramble to find an all but invisible threat before it's too late. The difference in effect is similar to the difference between horror films that rely on shock value and those that are more subtle, showing less and letting the viewer's imagination create the scares.
Point #3: Battlefield 1943 encourages more team-based cooperation.
For the most part Crash Commando's "teamwork" consists of doubling up on firepower. Because any and all threats are visible on screen at all times there is little need to flush an enemy out into the sights of an awaiting teammate. Battlefield encourages this type of team work because it allows you and a partner to watch each other's back, letting you focus on threats in one direction without worrying about what may behind you. Without any real ability to ambush or need to protect one other other than when threats come from opposing sides Crash Commando's teamwork ends up feeling like little more than a Contra clone.
Point #4: Battlefield 1943 has a greater variety of distinctive weapons.
Strictly speaking Crash Commando has more basic weapons than Battlefield (11 compared to 9), but for the most part its primary weapons are identical. They may have different levels of damage, speed, or reload times, but with the exception of grenades and grenade launchers each weapon has the same range - the length of the screen. The 2D playing field limits the weapons' distinctiveness because you don't have weapons that are better or worse at different ranges. In Battlefield you have long-, short-, and mid-range weapons, each of which can be used at different ranges but with greatly diminished returns. Each weapon, then, has a unique feel to it and will appeal to different types of players leading to more diverse player types. In Crash Commando most players tend to play the same because once you've learned how to use one weapon you've basically learned them all.
Point #5: Crash Commando lacks a Roshambo dynamic.
One element common to many multiplayer games is the psychological guessing game offered up by some sort of rock-paper-scissors dynamic. In Battlefield this is based on the type of unit a player chooses and the range at which they fight. A sniper will take out an infantryman any day of the week, but a fast moving rifleman at mid range will make him wish he'd never picked up a scope. Crash Commando lacks this because its fast pace, relatively limited active playfield, and similarity of weapons means any player's weapon choice has a nearly equal chance of defeating any other player's weapon choice at any time. This puts the emphasis much more on your physical reflexes than the ability to analyze and predict what sort of weapons and strategy your opponent will use.
Overall it looks like 3D is the clear winner in this contest. While the way in which it limits a player's view may be a bit frustrating and therefore discourage many new players from getting into the genre there's a reason that side-scrolling fragfests haven't really caught on. Both the level of immersion and the depth of strategy are greater in Battlefield than in Crash Commando. It's unclear whether 2D side-scrollers are inherently incapable of delivering the dynamics of an FPSer at as high a level as an FPSer itself. Any thoughts on how to overcome some of these limitations?
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