Coffee Talk: When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong
Everyone needs to let out a bit of that pent up aggravation every once in a while. I get that. However, after finally getting around to watching the most recent Medal of Honor trailer, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy on a few levels. Now, before we get assaulted with hate mail and rabid comments: these words and opinions are 100 percent mine and not representative of Geekadelphia as a whole.
In recent years I’ve been turned off to just about every first-person shooter (FPS) out there aside from Team Fortress 2, the Left 4 Dead series and the recent free-to-play offerings Quake Live and Battlefield Heroes for essentially one reason: the attempts at extreme realism. More on why exactly this is bothersome behind the cut.
Players experience WWII’s Pacific front firsthand in Call of Duty: World at War
It’s not just the violence (but that is part of it). Rather, it’s how developers and gamers alike (not excluding myself at times) seem to be seeking an experience of the truest-to-life violence out there: war. While it’s obvious that these are just video games, I cannot help but be perturbed rather than excited when the Medal of Honor trailer’s narrator proclaims, “We are experts in the advocation of violence.”
Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions that I was present as a member of the prosecution when Sega was on trial for violence in video games back in the ’90s, just about every video game we’ve played had some degree of violence from the cartoon to the realistic. The issue here isn’t violence itself, but the level at which developers are creating and gamers are seeking it to be expressed in a Hollywood realistic environment.
It’s somewhat depressing that Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are becoming more commonly overheard words than Mario or Sonic. Perhaps this is due to both mascots showing their age, but nonetheless it’s upsetting that games seeking to emulate something I’m sure a considerable portion of us would never want to experience in reality have taken a hold of popular interest in gaming.
I have a mantra when approaching video games that goes a little like this: If I would never want to experience something in reality, why would I want to play a game surrounding that very experience?
Now, you and I both know that video games do not always have to be an escapist passion, but escapism takes majority of the reason why we all play them. It’s in this vain that I’m not sure video games can attempt to address the horrors of reality like film, music or written word can.
This is regardless of how much of an advocate you might remember I am for them being so.
Video games, simply put, are too young of a medium to attempt to address the atrocities of war, that I nor many of you know anything of, in a tasteful manner. This is due to video games genres like FPS and fighting games being simply too visceral (unavoidable, sorry) to express the sociological and psychological complexities of something like war (again, something many of us will most likely never understand). The instinctual experience of survival is the prime focus of just about any FPS, which leaves little room for developers to address said complexities adequately.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 depicts scenes eerily similar to current events
While developers like Infinity Ward deserve acclaim for realizing this issue and attempting to address it in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise, one can’t help but wonder if their message is hitting home. Most especially to the legion of bloodthirsty teenagers (anyone on Xbox Live or a multiplayer PC FPS will understand), furiously attempting to skip the dramatic and arguably poignant scenes to get on to the next head shot. Yes, those immature bigots you’re playing with are going to be sent out into the world someday by their oblivious parents.
I won’t bore you with trying to decipher why is it, then, that creators and players alike are attempting to explore these aspects of reality, but perhaps it’s simply because we have this relatively new medium through which we desire to explore whatever is possible and hopefully learn more about ourselves. Like all creative media, expression is a process of trial and error and it’s more than likely that video games are experiencing just that: growing pains.
But maybe, just maybe, we want to shoot something that isn’t a giant, slimy alien bug. That statement opens up a whole other can of worms related to why we would want to shoot each other (even in a virtual environment) that maybe we’ll address in future post if it’s requested.
Hopefully, some day in our lifetime this incredible, interactive medium will be able to address complex realities like war in a way that the other media can, but maybe that’s only possible through the process of improving upon the games we have today; slowly, but surely. One can only hope this will be the trend for the future.
Until then, who wants to get in on some Counter Strike: Source? It’s been far too long.
I can totally see how realism can make one uncomfortable, especially with war games.
I feel like the new Medal of Honor is doing it for another reason though. It’s told from the perspective of these secret American super soldiers (yes, I know there’s a real name for them, but I can’t recall it). The realism helps develop what’s supposed to be an incredible, true-life narrative.
Then again, playing these awesome, real characters via online multiplayer and dealing with racist a*holes screaming at me will CERTAINLY cheapen what’s supposed to be an awesome piece of storytelling.
It’s a tricky line to walk, I guess.
I agree with the premise here. It’s why i don’t really like mobster movies or the Sopranos, and why i gravitated towards video games in the first place: to escape the violence and mortality of real life. If i’m an army dude, my preference (all gameplay aside) will always be to fight aliens or zombies or monsters of some other fabric. It’s playing to both my interest in fantasy/IRL escapism, but also to my preferred themes of creative consumption – sci fi, fantasy/the supernatural and so on.
Plus war games are often over-steeped in history, not unlike tea that has been scorched and runs out of the bag. Even if it’s not some giant space bug (which even i can’t confront ad infinitum), i want it to be something more than re-addressing the same genocidal dark patches in our collective history.
@ Eric I believe their name is Tier One. Perhaps you’re right in saying that the issue is the audience and not the attempt at emulating reality. Regardless, I think games have a long way to go before they’re considered as respectable as other creative media in the realm of non-fiction.
In terms of engaging, sometimes poignant fiction I think we’re already there if not really damn close.
@Dr. J I totally agree with your position on games that address past tragedies like the world wars. I just cannot wrap my head around them. They serve more as a reminder of our nations’ ills rather than telling some groundbreaking narrative that changes the way we view the medium.
Hopefully in due time we’ll be at a point collectively as both developers and an audience that we can express these realities through video games. By all means this does not mean we should stop trying. That’s the beauty of video games: no matter what anyone says, they’re always (albeit slowly) progressing and pushing the envelope.
Interesting post. I don’t necessarily agree about the video game industry experiencing growing pains. I think society’s perception of video games is what needs to catch up. The technology is now available for games to do what movies have been doing for years – portray a story and have it look and feel believable. There have been how many movies about iraq? WW2? Vietnam? Games no longer allow you to be just a spectator. The fact that you and your morality is now pivotal in how the story plays out is a concept I think a lot of people still need to wrap their head around. Primary example that comes to mind is the airport scene is modern warfare 2. While I think that these “reality” styled games are completely legit and serve their intended purpose well – I too would much rather go on a dungeon crawl or fend off invading alien hordes any day.
I personally agree with you Joe on a lot of different levels. Video gaming is supposed to take us away from the droll, boring aspects of our lives. I however cannot fathom escaping to a world of panic, shooting and blood.
Here is where my comment will get a little wordy and tricky so bear with me for a minute. First of all, I do not think that a big brother government is a god idea. We should not force game developers to close up shop on these games, if we did movies and WORST of all more books would be banned for being to “graphic.” However, when I read a book, or watch a movie I can get really into, but my state of involvement is trance like. It is comparing my experiences to that of the movie/book. When it is over, I’ll even go as far as to say I really think about it for an extended time, but that is about the extent of it all. If I were to play an FPS I am not just absorbing it, I am participating in it. I am actually shooting them because they are different, or enemies or what have you. When playing these games, messages of how to shoot an appropriate lethal kill and to shoot all those who are not you or like you is a pretty hefty one to send out. We’d be daft if we didn’t believe that effects a person’s psyche.
I am not saying all FPS players are mindless drones who now want to go on shooting rampages, it just disturbs me to think that we are almost training (yes training, they use some of these games in MILITARY training) young people when their brains absorb a huge amount of information, how to properly assassin someone.
I just don’t get it. Shooting zombies or ducks or evil robots is cool with me. I mean, IRL you’re probably never going to shoot one of those things (except for the duck). I can see developers making those FPS’s as realistic as possible. I just think that when you make a game around war, where you teach the average American how to shoot plus giving them motives of shooting those people because they are different, you are laying the ground work for creepy nationalism and even a tint of racism… especially for those who have issues separating fantasy from reality.