Overanalyzed: Dead Man’s Hand
Dead Man’s Hand. Everything this free kill (and make no mistake, it is a free kill in any close-quarters scenario) stands for is in direct opposition to one of my most fundamental life-outlooks, the belief that people should not be rewarded for sucking. And to be clear, this rule far transcends MW3, gaming, and any other form of recreation or competition. It applies to life, on the whole. When any portion of our society comes to expect rewards for inadequacy, this is an indication that our society is in decline—intellectually, functionally, socially, etc. It’s very curious to me that Infinity Ward chose to include such a potentially disruptive feature into the game—a creation whose environmental balance is already dangerously fragile. This deathstreak (though to some extent the idea of deathstreaks in general) represents a far more egregious error than the likes of overpowered weapons or poor spawn behavior in that this is no mere oversight or lack of polish. Infinity Ward, astoundingly, took deliberate action to utterly compromise the very foundation of their game’s genre, the first-person-shooter. Put simply, Dead Man’s Hand chips away (albeit slightly) at the very concept of death having consequence. In these games, two opposing players engaged in a combat typically know two things: 1) That the victor of this engagement will survive and be provided with an opportunity to move forward and accomplish more, and 2) the loser of the engagement will not only suffer the statistical and positional blow of their own life lost, but also fail to attain the statistical boost of a life taken. Dead Man’s Hand removes the latter consequence, and effectively nullifies the traditional understanding of in-game engagements and the mechanics that govern loss and victory (failure and success) by literally punishing players for succeeding. It is worth mentioning, however, that this critical error on Infinity Ward’s part has thus far been only mildly abused. Still, the potential for massive-scale exploitation is ever-present—another dark cloud looming above a by-and-large enjoyable game.
And before someone points it out I’ll just say that yes, the implications of Dead Man’s Hand are ostensibly less protracted in objective gametypes. However, I think my criticism is nonetheless valid, considering that deathmatch-style gametypes are and have always been at the core of the Call of Duty multiplayer experience.
