Back in ye olde days of video games, the player was responsible for taking care of their character. Mario needed a carefully measured running start to execute a jump with an ideal trajectory; Link mowed entire acres of grass with his sword looking for hearts; Solid Snake had to scavenge every inch of an abandoned laboratory in order to find a single Ration that would allow him to breathe comfortably until the next firefight broke out. Nowadays, thanks to Halos invention of the overshield concept, players are encouraged to be lazy about health management. Did a sniper just tear a structurally superfluous hole in your abdomen? Did you just take a rocket-propelled grenade to the teeth? No problem. Hang out behind a rock for ten seconds and youll be fit as a fiddle.
Health regeneration is problematic because it reduces the sense of urgency that makes video games so fun. If your most pressing issue is that you need to find a tree to hide behind while all your wounds heal like youve got an adamantium skeleton, whats the point in having a battle plan? Just run in, take out as many faceless thugs as possible, and duck behind some foliage when your screen starts turning red. It makes sense in puzzle games like Portal. You're not meant to keep track of resources like ammo or health, you're supposed to be focusing on getting across a room. But twisting your ankle after hurtling through a trans-dimensional wormhole and needing a breather to regain your composure is much more believable than taking a hollow-point .45 round to the gut and being right as rain seven seconds after the bullet leaves your spleen.
Eller likes a lot of old video games, and some new video games. Follow him on Twitter (@JordanEller) for updates about articles, but mostly silly jokes.
