I’ve decided something: In some games, I want the voice acting to be bad, I want the environments to be listlessly unbelievable, and I want all the characters to be two-dimensional, stupid and annoying. Just let them stay that way, please.
Nope, not going crazy. First of all, in
my latest Kotaku feature, I explain how the wildly fantastic
Infamous 2 helped me loosen up a little and learn to be the bad guy.
I’ve always been kind of uncomfortable with pointless violence in video games. Not because I think it makes people violent, or because I think it’s immoral, or because I think it’s “making a statement” of any kind on the real world. It’s just because, when I think of all of the possibilities in interactive entertainment, and the incredible things we can do with games — it’s a way to play, something fundamental to human nature, that can’t be emulated in any other medium — it’s always just kind of seemed weird to me that all we want to do is shoot things. Shoot people.
In that context, the content out there and the way some people play often perplexes me, even occasionally grosses me out. I feel uncomfortable with games that look too much like real war, for example. I dislike that developers sometimes utilize sensitive real-world imagery or events to create “impact” for their shallow, repetitive, cheez-ball cover shooters. Like, if you’re going to leverage real horrific imagery, real suffering, at least do something creative with it.
Right now, though, for once, I am wrecking the shit out of New Marais. I am a little bummed at how far my Serious-Critic thinking cap has taken me from that kind of pure, mindless joy that can keep you playing video games for hours.
These days, when I write, I feel responsible for encouraging people to ask for more than what we’ve got, to create more than what there is. But I used to love that pure chaos, the freedom to wreak havok. Loved it about Grand Theft Auto games, too, far more than the ponderous storylines or the missions, most of which I would avoid or let someone else play for me. Until the fourth one. It took itself too seriously.
Then it kind of hit me. In order for unadulterated destruction and killing sprees in games to be fun, it has to be funny.
Its context must be so absurd that you can’t possibly take it seriously even if you’re trying. In Vice City, I, advocate of respect for women in games, passionate evangelist for games as more-than-toys, blah blah blah, was “that player” — yes, the one who would beat up a prostitute to get my money back, as the old adage goes. I mean, I literally did that.
Because Vice City was flipping hilarious. It was a perfect illustration of absurdist Miami excess, an excellent satire of what was “cool” in the 1980s, and its humor was, very wisely, an indictment of an entire culture and era.
I mean, do I feel awesome explaining to my non-gamer friends about how I had fun running over everyone whose outfit I thought was too tacky? Is that what I want them to think of when they think of video games? Probably not, because they would then glaze over in the middle of my “satire… indictment… so canny” whatever apologia that I break out whenever I talk about GTA.
And I would be bummed if every game were like that. But Infamous 2 — granted, much less crude and overt in its opportunities for violence than GTA — is reminding me that it’s okay if some games are just there to pretty much let me explode buildings and cars and people and whatever.
Infamous 2 is not a smart game. I have been playing it every free minute I get for the past four days, and I’ve done a ton of missions and I still don’t really know what the plot is. Something something Ray Spheres, powers, this lady, a different lady, science, powers, a guy named Bertrand, powers and powers, that’s about all I got. Cole McGrath is such a douchey cliche that he has to be less annoying as a bad guy than as Mr. Hero Helperton. The voice acting makes me climb the walls (although I do go for that gravelly-type voice Cole has).
The citizens of New Marais dodder around awkwardly like weird little scarecrows, wandering into one another and into firefights; I’m in the center of town throwing vehicles at some giant monster and the cars continue driving around, beeping at me because I’m standing in their way. They say stupid things, or sometimes they just run around in screaming hysterics.
But the game world — you know, the things I need to climb on and jump off of — is beautifully made. The game feels brilliant. All the important stuff is perfect, and everything else should stay just the way it is. Because if it were less funny and more real, maybe I wouldn’t feel so awesome about ripping it all apart.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to massacring as many civilians as possible to evolve my rank from “Outlaw” to “Infamous.” I mean, that’s what the game is called, so it seems like that’s what I ought to do.
