Let me ask you ----”what is the one element that hasn't
changed much or at all in videogames for 20 years or since it's
inception?”
The answer is : An overly simplistic
approach towards conflict & resolution in both gameplay &
narrative.
Take a series such as Call of Duty. The main
villain or bad guy is one man/terrorist that needs to be
stopped/killed/eliminated. To do that, the games sets the player on a
path to killing millions of soldiers/terrorists across different
parts of the globe (read: levels). On the very last level, the player
gets to put an end to the bad guy in a scripted moment or an in your
face, slow-mo cutscene.
Now compare this structure with older
8bit games. There's a big bad boss & he sends all his minions to
fight you. You fight wave after wave of enemies across different
levels. At the end you face the boss in a pattern based fight and
beat him. End credits.
The main difference in both these
variants of games is little more than a higher degree of presentation
& interactivity. The framework is strikingly similar.
One of the fundamental aspects of
morality is the distinction between the evil men & the
evil in men. It's the invisible line between justice &
revenge. Videogames as a medium have evolved in interactivity &
presentation techniques, perhaps even in public perception but pretty
much remains grounded when it comes to vision. To be more
specific, when it comes to conflict & resolution.
Most videogames are simply content with
engaging the player in a path littered with 'kill-or-be-killed'
encounters. Sometimes they give the players a bigger arsenal of
options to kill their targets or more navigational freedom in the
environment, but still pushes them down the same road. Instead of
letting them choose their own resolution towards the conflict, the
majority of videogames just drop the player right into the conflict &
propel them towards a path of singular resolution. For the most
cases, the resolution arrives at the player's trigger finger than a
well thought out decision. Morality exists mostly as an external
layer, a binary choice.
Evil choices take it's toll |
Many Videogames tend to show an
undercurrent of the battle between good & evil in their
depictions of a conflict. But to be brutally honest, there's nothing
'heroic' about the actions of the proverbial 'good guy' or the
protagonist. Sometimes their actions, which generally results in mass
murder when seen in a bigger picture, makes you wonder on which side
you really are. Conflicts in videogames rarely end without him/her
slaying their way through. Even games that offer multiple paths does
it mostly to add variety to the kill & rarely stray from the
formula. In the end, the protagonist is just another bad guy who
happens to be much better at killing his/her enemies & fulfilling
objectives.
The resolution part of the conflict is
not even taken seriously in most Videogames' circumstances. The
player is more defined by his/her acquired perks or the amount of
levels gained than whether he/she made the world a better or a worse
place. The First person shooter (FPS) genre is a prime victim of this
sort of bland depiction. Kill 5000 people in order to stop one
terrorist, really? The bad guy decides to kill millions of people to
prove his point & you, the player is given orders to kill millions
of people to prove him wrong. Ok, that was an oversimplification but
the only way to deal with conflict is to simply obliterate it by
becoming better at the same things the 'enemy' does. What's the
point of complex, realistic characters in narratives when the majority
of the player's time is spent putting a bullet through people? Most
of the experiences of a player comes from real gameplay moments, not
from elaborately designed cutscenes.
The total absence of “an other way”
towards conflicts rightly justify the accusation that most videogames
are little more than an indulgent of the player's power fantasies.
Although the power of personal choice exists, almost none of them lets
the player go out with clean hands. I know the whole black &
white logic sounds a bit irrelevant when it comes to videogames.
After all, 'real world' situations are the primary source of
inspiration for many videogames, where a morally ambiguous approach is
considered appropriate. Whether in medieval times or in this 21st
century, any serious form of conflict rarely ends without resorting to
morally questionable deeds. Morality hardly comes into play in the
harsh reality. That's why one would be hard pressed to find a
videogame protagonist who's not morally ambiguous.
But here's the thing----the essential
element in Videogames as a medium is imagination. Is it really
that hard to envision a conflict where besides the usual gray
approach, a different, morally correct path can be made viable?
Must always the player has to enter a hostile zone with guns blazing?
I know that there are several games that offers a non violent or
stealthier approach but the existence of those games mostly serves as a
deviation from a broadly accepted rule than the introduction to a
whole new frontier. I am not against the fact that Videogames can't
have violence in them cause it's real hard to make a game mostly about talking.
Instead I am of the opinion that the
violence factor & it's implementation has gone totally off the
charts. Remember back when Modern Warfare 2 put the player in the
shoes of real world terrorists & depicted a mass murder in an
airport or Modern Warfare 3 blowing up a little girl in front of the
player, just to show the extremes of real-world terrorism? These
moments are basically exploitative of our real-world fears than
actually adding depth to the conflict or giving any sense of meaning
to the lives lost.
Shock without awe |
The contextual aspect of a videogame
serves a major purpose in depicting morality. Games such as the
Hitman series or the GTA series lets you experience the world through
the eyes of a bad guy. When you are playing as someone already
established as an unapologetically bad person or a hired killer, you
are expected to do bad things. In the same way, in the Batman games
the player can't kill cause Batman doesn't. From this perspective
games like COD or Battlefield are more 'war simulators' than anything
else. But look at Farcry 3 where the only way out is to turn into a
ruthless killer from a sensitive & ethical person. The game
simply doesn't provide any other way. Although there is a bow, the
game doesn't have sleep darts, only explosive & flaming arrows. It
forces the player to embark on a violent path that only escalates as
the game progresses & ends with a binary choice that allows the
player to simply wash their bloodied hands.
On the other hand, the morality system
in the Mass Effect series suits itself just fine. It runs deep &
doesn't let the player get away without facing the consequences of
their own actions. Although the Paragon/ Renegade based system
presents a difference in means to the same end than lead towards
different ends altogether, it still establishes the truth that it
takes more than weapons & fleets to save the galaxy.
The only game in this generation (that
I've played) that faithfully shows the difference between Justice &
Revenge is Dishonored. Having played the game first in my usual
bloodthirsty ways, my expectations of a 'non-lethal' second
playthrough wasn't very high. I was mostly expecting a different
ending & a lengthier experience. Maybe a few different cutscenes
here & there. But after playing through in it's entirety, I was
blown away. It was so satisfying, so fulfilling to witness the big
picture of the City that I had just made a better place through my
actions. It was so easy to turn into a monster in a plague infested
World filled with monsters, abominations & treacherous people. But
I showed mercy & didn't lose sight of what's truly important and
the World was all the better for it. All the bad guys were punished &
shamed, the plague eradicated & a Golden age was ushered. Of
course, it all came without a single loss of Life. There couldn't be
any happier ending.
Now of course the narrative framework
of Dishonored created a World where it's pretty logical why simply
butchering through guards, soldiers & npc's (non playable
characters) would result in a terrible & ultimately defeating
ending. But at the same time, certain npc's & the game itself
(through the last mission) lauded the player as a hero. The game
acknowledged that the player's non-lethal action didn't come from a
place of avoidance of further trouble but from a sense of doing the
right thing. Dishonored absolutely nailed the distinction between a
hero & a killer. It showed that the means are as important as the
end itself.
The non-lethal route in Dishonored
wasn't in any way less challenging than the usual “kill-anything-that
moves” route either. The game proved that not only a morality
centered direction towards conflict is possible, it can be as
satisfying.
Now why can't the majority of
Videogames take such directions towards conflict-resolution? Must always
an end have to arrive through the barrels of a weapon? I know it's
how most things work in the real world. But if Videogames as a medium
has to evolve from a commercialized entertainment to objects of art
worthy of serious study, they have to break away from the parallelisms
of the real & the fictional without losing relevance. Art can be
as realistic as it wants, but shouldn't be limited to being a mere
photograph of real Life.
Comments
Post a Comment