Oversensitivity in Gaming

(I realized after I wrote this that there is technically a spoiler for Borderlands 2 in it, but it's about the opening video. So... if you are really that butt-hurt about me ruining the opening video....don't read this until you've at least seen that much. Go youtube it or something.)

    Alright folks, let's start this out by pointing out something that a lot of people are immediately going to argue with. I realize "games are different" when compared to movies. I know that since you are much more involved in the progression and outcome of a video game, that it warrants a bit of a different perspective. That's why we have the ESRB, not the MPAA. It's different, so it must adhere to different standards.

    Now, let's start with what caused me to get really pissed off about this. A steam user (who I will not name because I don't want to draw undue attention to them, plus it's not about them) posted a complaint about the Borderlands 2 intro. Now, I have to give them credit, they made sure to point out, multiple times, that it was his/her singular opinion that fueled this post. They pointed out that the intro to Borderlands 2 contains the dragging death of a wild animal. Now, I'm not completely insensitive. I love animals. I always get angry when I hear about some douchebag kids killing the neighborhood stray because they have nothing better to do. I get angry when I hear about what the Walt Disney company did to lemmings. And it's just plain depressing when some old woman claims she "loves" her 200 cats when all she is doing is making their lives a living hell by forcing them all to live in miserable conditions. Because these things are actually pretty appalling.

    With that said... When was the last time you saw a Skag beast walking around your neighborhood? I don't remember seeing them in any wildlife documentaries. And I will bet you 20 rupees right now that there isn't a single "Crazy Skag Lady" anywhere on this planet. Why? Because Skags are not real. They're an invention by the folks at Gearbox. And, as a completely fictional invention, they don't have rights. They're not really alive. They are made up, and we can do whatever the hell we want to them. Like blowing them to tiny pieces with rockets, hitting them with buses, filling them with sub-machine gun bullets, or just beating them to a red chunky pulp with our bare hands. All, by the way, things you could do in the first Borderlands game.

    This is a video game. It's not real life. If it were, I'd be a little more inclined to agree. But it's a video game that is rated "M for Mature (17+) for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Sexual Themes, and Use of Alcohol". When you buy a game with a character on the cover who is holding hands to his chin like guns and every other character on it is either standing next to or holding a deadly weapon... what did you expect? Because I sure as hell didn't expect a puppy-petting simulation. I expected exactly what it told me on the front cover. That's why the rating is there. The cover could be completely blank besides that ESRB notice, and I'd still know what I was getting into. That's also why it says "17+". Because the only way we, as a society, have to measure maturity in a consistent and reliable method is through age. It may not be perfect, but dammit, it's all we have. The ESRB has determined that anyone who passes an ID check for being of the correct age is perfectly capable of realizing that this game does not depict real life and thus, some of the acts contained herein may not be suitable for reenactment with Fluffy. This user also mentions the idea of "Violence in Context", or the idea that shooting them in the game when they attack you is very different than dragging them behind a moving vehicle when they are (possibly) already injured, then goes on to point out that they "can't stomach pretending to drag one to death for fun".

    Well, congratulations. That means you are a sane person. Here's the good news. You didn't pretend to drag one of these fake animals to death for fun. Hell, at this point, you haven't even shot one in self-defense. What you did, is watch a group of the game's (quite obviously mentally unstable) villains torture a wild animal. Then you saw one of them headbutt and knock out a fellow bandit, just for the hell of it, before perching himself precariously on the hood of a moving vehicle. Finally, you watched the whole group get hit by a damn train, likely killing them all.

    I have to be careful here, because while I have to point out that the creature is not real, I'm skating a thin line here. Because I'm all for making the game seem real. Immersion is something I will always have a hard time arguing against. It's what makes the game so much more fun. That suspension of disbelief is how you ensure the game can mean something to you. My point is, nobody raises an eyebrow when Superman takes a bullet like a drop of water, because it makes sense in context. "Reality in Context" is what we need to be concerned with. As long as you are immersed in the game and believe it all, that's the point. But as soon as you click "quit" you can take comfort in realizing that "No animals were harmed in the making of this game".

    What bothers me even more about this is that people think that because something is angering or appalling or horrifying, it shouldn't be in videogames. I most recently encountered this atrocity when I was reading about the new Tomb Raider reboot (which i still have high hopes for, despite its extensive delays). When discussing the game, one of the developers mentioned that in the beginning of the game, she gets captured, beaten, abused, etc. I don't remember the exact wording he used, but he essentially implied that she may have been sexually abused. Almost immediately, tons of people got up in arms about how horrible it was to have that happen in the game. What? Because something is upsetting and miserable, we can't talk about it? We can't show it? I understand this specifically is a very sensitive issue. But that's the point. It's a sensitive issue, but it DOES happen. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. You cannot censor something and make it go away. Censoring the discussion, representation or dramatization of something won't make the real thing go away. No matter how much we wish it would. It's like when the BBC censors and bans songs purely because they talk about (or sometimes are just perceived to talk about) things such as drugs, sex, and political views. Hell, the theme song to a Frank Sinatra film was outright banned from radio play simply because the movie had to do with drugs. IT WAS INSTRUMENTAL! Now, that is a very specific and slightly outdated example, but it's a mentality still goes on to this day. Some people think that not talking about things makes them disappear. And that if we don't expose people to something, they'll NEVER find out. The opposite is actually the case. Talking about things, and getting awareness out there is what helps people to deal with them easier.

    People don't get all up in arms over a girl being raped on your local prime time cop drama (anymore) because most people are intelligent enough to understand that it is horrifying, but it does happen. I realize that a lot of people play games to escape reality, but that's why I can almost guarantee you that Lara Croft will do a pretty damn good job of paying all those nice gentlemen back for their treatment of her. You don't put something like that in a game for her to just "deal with". That's why it's a videogame. Because you can do things that most people would not be able to. It's called empowerment.

If we had banned and outlawed everything that had "questionable" subject matter, then many amazing pieces of art would never have esisted. The supposed "Greatest Love Story Ever Written", William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" would have been banned. In case you folks don't know... (Spoiler alert) THEY BOTH FUCKING DIE IN THE END!

    Basically, what it comes down to is, people need to lighten up. It's a game. Nobody got hurt. And unless you decide to start reenacting the scenes within it, nobody really will be. It's one of the greatest upsides to the medium. I can come home after a shitty day at work and kill a bunch of fake people and animals as long as I want to blow off steam. And nobody will ever have to worry about it.

    We have to be VERY careful with how we present this on this site. Because I love getting into a game. Really experiencing it. But we all have to remember that no matter how much the plight of the Planet versus the Shinra Corporation touches us, no matter how much that Necromorph in the corner scares the living shit out of us, and no matter how much we hate how many times Ocelot has gotten plans to the fucking Metal Gear... at the end of the day, it's just a game.


        *23 Moogles were horrifically tortured in the writing of this article*

Life is a Journey

I was in the middle of writing a post about how Nintendo abandoned the audience that they've spent years making wonderful, meaningful games for to cash in on less-than-successful shovelware titles and rehashes when I had to stop suddenly to write this. I had to stop because my female friend, who was sitting directly behind me, just finished the game Journey for the first time.

Journey, a wonderful and beautifully constructed game by thatgamecompany (who also produced the games flOw and Flower), is more of an experience than a game, but presents that experience to you through its gameplay, which is something that many game developers seem to have a hard time capturing. Either the game lacks immersion, the gameplay is stale and detracts from the experience or the game falls short in both categories. Journey has simple controls and a well presented goal that make it easy to get into the game early on, which is good considering this game should only take you one or two hours to complete the first time. The main goal of the designers was to tell a story, which, in my opinion, should be the goal of any game designer, script write, author or artist.

The story that you're experiencing should be an integral part of a game, but that being said, a video game shouldn't need to take time out of the gameplay to progress the plot, and if it does, it should do so as briefly as possible to help maintain the immersion. Super Mario Bros., for instance, takes the time to show a brief cutscene before underground portions of the game and an even briefer bit of dialogue at the end of each castle to inform you that your adventure must continue to reach your final goal. Journey follows a similar pattern and only gives you a brief cutscene at the end of each section that explains a little more than your silent protagonist's travels could. Game designers need to be aware that most people who play their games aren't doing so to reach each cutscene or read every in-game novel they've written (I'm looking at you The Elder Scrolls series). There are other forms of media readily available to satiate our desires for written and visual entertainment. The ability to progress the story yourself is what creates the strong sense of immersion unique to video games. There may only be one direction to go on the map, but you get to decide to go there, you don't have to watch someone else do it. This is why people play video games, to feel like they're experiencing their own story.

She didn't make a sound the entire time she progressed through the game; didn't talk, didn't get up, nothing. In case you were unaware, Journey has a feature that allows someone else playing the game to randomly appear in yours and, as long as you don't lose sight of eachother, you can continue progressing through the game with them. So, very early in the game, she had someone show up in her game and help guide her through. Literally feet from the terminating point of the game, the other palyer stopped and started running around in circles. After 30 or so seconds had ellapsed, they stopped and started chirping (the circle button in this game allows you to make a chirping sound and is used by players to get their attention) at her. This was the point when I walked over to see how she was doing. She didn't know what he was trying to tell her, so I suggested she turn the camera to get a better look at where he had been running. When she rotated the camera you could see that they had used the path created by their character running in the sand to draw a small mural for her. Multiple hearts, some with arrows through them littered the ground around them. She immediately wanted to know if there was any way that she could contact this unknown person to say thank you. Luckily, the game lists the players you met along your Journey after the end credits of the game, so I let her send a message through the Playstation Network.

Now, I've beaten this game several several times, so the magic has worn off a little for me, but the end of this game still stirs up my emotions and fills me with a strong sense of accomplishment. I had never seen anyone do something like this before, however, and it made the game's ending that much more amazing. The fact that so much could be communicated with so little gives me hope for the future of video games, because that's what video games are all about in my eyes. Giving you the tools and letting you create your own experience, even if there is only one way to go.

The Video:

A good picture of one of the hearts:

Up Next?

Now that we've gotten that out of the way




...on to the less confrontational stuff.

I'm tired of biased reviews. So another part of this site will be several different sorts of critiques and reviews of both games and the industry as a whole. If I'm a fanboy of something, I should be able to point out this fact and attempt to overcome this bias to provide legitimate, helpful input. If that is not the case, then my colleagues will most likely step in and set me straight by providing an alternate view, or just calling me an idiot. But remember, while the reviews and opinions on this are just that, our opinions; we all assure you, that those opinions shall never be influenced by any group or organization or company who has interest in the outcome of such a review. We won't give a game a good review because we "have to love it". We won't be bullied into saying things that we don't believe. If it sucks. It sucks. And we'll be sure to tell you that. That's one of the nice things about not being some huge reviews site. We don't need to be sponsored by Eidos. Mr. Gerstmann doesn't work for us. Thus we can tell you without reservation that Kane & Lynch is complete crap (just as an example). Oh, and Eidos?

FUCK YOU.

Oh wait... that was confrontational too... Screw it.

The Concept

Players vs Gamers:

Welcome to the Ring
(or, The Concept)



For this project, I am going to adopt a set of terminology I encountered in a very well-written book given to me by a friend (I'll omit the name and description of the book in order to not detract from the importance of the idea it provided and hide an irrelevant bit of fanboyism on my part, both of which would dilute the impact). The idea of a split like this among a group I had always considered so close-knit struck a chord with me. It was like the Cyborg Ninja in the room: it might have been there all along, but until it cuts the enemy's hand off in the middle of a boss fight, you don't even notice.

A "Gamer" is a person who plays video games purely for the achievements, be they mental, or built into a system within the game/console/platform. The "I beat it" moment. The chance to check something off of their list. Bragging rights, and not much else.

A "Player" is a person who turns the game into an experience. A person who might be willing to sacrifice 10 frames per second for 4X anti-aliasing instead of 2X. The kind who will play a game again, just to experience the story, even if it doesn't change. They play for the immersion. The emotion. And even, the beauty.

A game to a Gamer is a statistic. A milestone at best.

For a player, it's an investment. An experience.

A player sees that one stray bullet that accidentally kills an NPC teammate as a loss to the team. A loss of capabilities. They may not go so far as to start thinking of how "Timmy the medic won't make it back out of City 17 to see his daughter again", but he sees more than the Gamer. A Gamer sees this as just another bullet that didn't hit the enemy.

<SPOILERS FOR THE GAME CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE FOLLOW>

Take, for instance, the missions "Shock and Awe" and "The Aftermath" from the original Modern Warfare.

Shock and Awe starts out as your typical "I'm a badass superhuman soldier" mission. You man an Mk 19 grenade launcher and shoot at several baddies from the comfort of your aircraft. After extracting a team of Marines and several other firefights, you watch your Close Air Support gunship get shot down just as you hear of a probable nuclear threat in the area. So you run in, shooting through more bad guys and work your way to the crash site. Then you, as the main character, personally carry the injured pilot back to your chopper and start your way out of the city. During the flight out, a nuclear weapon goes off in the city, knocking you and all the other helicopters out of the air. You can then stumble out of the helicopter in the aftermath and fallout of the nuke, past the corpses of your team and the pilot you just risked your life to rescue as buildings crumble around you and you slowly die. During the loading screen a large list of casualties sustained from the attack are listed, among them is the name of the character you were playing.

This level and it's imagery is pure art. And as much hatred as I have for the Call of Duty franchise, this scene is still one of the greatest examples of games becoming a true art form. The sound of the radio announcing a large number of casualties and locations of treatment facilities as you stumble out of the chopper. The bodies of your teammates laying around you. A teddy bear on the ground and the faint sound of children playing if you manage to crawl your way to a nearby playground. It was a scene that has very few equals. And sadly, a great number of people's only reaction to it was something along the lines of "Huh...that sucks."

It's just plain depressing that something like that goes to waste on the Call of Duty crowd... But I'll save that for a later rant.

<END CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARE SPOILERS>


But again, why this divide among such a normally united group of people? It started to happen when videogames started becoming popular with mass audiences. When they no longer carried the stigma of being for "nerds". Suddenly, everybody wanted to play them. And that large group of people, who didn't really appreciate games for what they are beyond a way to kill time, started to influence the games industry. And started to give us huge budget games, with very little in the way of advancement of the concept. We end up with a lot of very pretty games, that are all pretty much the same. But a game like Minecraft, which is not "pretty" in any sense of the word, can sell millions of copies and provide hundreds of hours of fun without even having a storyline or set goals.

Then you have the "casual" crowd. The ones who started the facebook game craze. These people have actually begun to steer the industry as well. And the fact that Uncharted 2 (a great game, by the way) has "Facebook Integration" and Angry Birds is now available for the PS3.....just plain sickens me. And one quick note, who really shares their videogame progess on facebook? Seriously? WHY!?

This is a declaration of war on the Gamer and their systematic effort to turn games into an endless stream of carbon copies. The people who really like videogames hate you. Us Players want you to leave our passion alone. Go back to doing whatever the hell you used to do. And take Madden, Call of Duty, Battlefield, and every single game made by Zynga with you...

We're tired of your shit. And this site is going to help us fight you all. Your move.

(Now, to give credit where credit is due, I would like to thank Benjamin Chandler for his section that explained "Gamers" and "Players" in the book "Final Fantasy and Philosophy" and a game's use as a Writerly Text, it opened my eyes to this horrible epidemic and was absolutely invaluable.)

--Vinciere