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Should video games always be "fun"?
5 years ago
General
In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So death created time to grow the things that it would kill and you are reborn but into the same life that you've always been born into.
Just a quick warning, this journal is going to discuss spoilers to some games including Spec Ops: the Line and Modern Warfare 2, but probably some others too so just be aware of that going forward.
This is something I've thought about off and on. Several years ago, Roger Ebert made the infamous comment that he didn't believe that video games were art. Of course to say most people who played video games disagreed with him would be an understatement. As I recall, he even went back, apologized, and changed his stance on the matter. One of the things that I thought about when I read about him saying that is that there are a variety of all types of movies, some only meant to entertain, some to make you feel, and others made for very specific purposes and not all movies you watch could be considered "fun" to watch, even disregarding documentaries. Keeping that in mind, I can understand how someone may think that video games ONLY serve the purpose of entertainment, but is that really the only reason we like them?
A lot of noise was raised when CoD: Modern Warfare 2 was released and there was a segment where players took control of an undercover CIA officer who shot up a civilian airport. The game allowed for an option to bypass that part entirely, while some versions left it in but made it so the player couldn't actually shoot anyone until the police responded. Some people praised the choice to have a chapter like that, others condemned it. I think they were going for shock value, which is fine but hollow.
Another game I played that comes to mind much better though is Spec Ops: The Line. It was, by most accounts, a run-of-the-mill shooter as far as game play goes. At least for a while. The game play elements are pretty much reskinned Gears of War as far as the mechanics go. But the thing is, that kind of game play was suitable and good enough for the elements the developers did want to focus on. That particular game was an adaptation of sorts of John Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which "Apocalypse Now" was also an adaptation of. I also read, interesting enough, someone refer to Spec Ops as "PTSD: the video game", which I don't disagree with.
That game has you play an officer in command of a small squad of Delta Force operators on a recon mission of Dubai, following a series of intense sandstorms that have cut the entire city off from the outside world. U.S. forces had also been sent in to assist in humanitarian aid and evacuations, but one of the units under the command of a general known by the player character personally stayed behind with his unit after the command was given to pull out. The entire reason the team is sent in is because of a distress message sent by General Conrad himself. The U.S. government fears things have gone bad, but the reality is it's a total clusterfuck.
The player character, Captain Walker, takes it upon himself and his team to exceed the parameters of their recon mission and try to contact Conrad. The problem is Conrad's men have gone rogue, seemingly under the General's own orders. Armed locals and CIA paramilitary officers' involvement only makes things more complicated. The "line" that the title refers to comes at about the halfway point, when the only way to their objective is obstructed by an entire company of armored troops. Believing they have no other options, Walker sets up a mortar and launches a strike on the rogue soldiers with White Phosphorus rounds (the player has complete control during this point). It works and all resistance is eliminated. However as the characters make their way through the carnage, they discover the company was holding civilians, including children and the mortar attack killed all of them as well.
From that point in the game forward, Walker begins to suffer both audio and visual hallucinations. At points during the game play, the player is treated to truly hellish visuals where Walker is attacked by the victims of the mortar strike. Immediately after the revelation that he personally murdered a large number of civilians, Walker also comes into direct radio contact with Conrad, who attempts to guide Walker to him to learn what exactly happened. Walker's focus is squarely on finding and confronting Conrad, to the detriment of his and his team's safety and sanity and leads him to causing further destabilization along with the CIA Paramilitary officers. Ultimately, both of his team members are killed. One is ambushed and hung by a mob of enraged civilians, and the other dies making a final stand against a large force or rogue soldiers. When Walker finally makes his way to confront Conrad, he's shocked to discover the General ate his own gun...some time prior to the events of the game.
This leads to the reveal that Walker realization of what he'd done with the mortar strike cause him to snap completely and even disassociate. Something I really like about the game is there are several endings the player can choose. Walker can commit suicide or allow "Conrad" to kill him for the crimes he committed, or he can kill Conrad (so to speak). It still doesn't quite end there, should the player choose to have Walker survive that encounter. An Army SAR team arrive the next day and the player can choose to have Walker surrender peacefully and go with the soldiers, with Conrad telling him "No matter what happens next, don't be too hard on yourself. Even now, after everything you've done, you can still go home. Lucky you."
The second option is for Walker to engage in a shootout with the soldiers and be killed, leaving him as just one more casualty among possibly thousands. The third option allows for Walker to kill the SAR team before getting on the radio and repeating Conrad's words to him earlier "Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai." And with that it ends with Walker becoming the veteran who's been overcome with madness in a place where civilization has completely broken down and has become almost completely inaccessible. I think that's probably the most interesting ending, as it allows for the twist of the protagonist becoming the infamous Kurtz character from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now.
Is that game fun? Honestly, the game play itself is repetitive until it reaches that part. I thought it was a chore, and I think that may have been intentional. The reason I played it was because of a review of it by Zero Punctuation (he even referenced the game again favorably in his review of The Last of Us 2) where he made the complaints about the game play but said it was worth playing because of that twist at the midpoint and how it drastically changes the rest of the game. It even changes the game play on replays, really. So, again, do I think it's a fun game to play? Yes, I do.
But I really don't know if a game can be made to not be "fun" in some way, even with a heavy message, and also accessible to people. However, I also really know to what extent movies with heavy subject matter are not "fun" to people either. Clearly not in the same way that your regular blockbusters are, but they are usually enjoyable.
Hope you enjoyed the rambling! I was bored and wanted to ramble so...take that for what it's worth XD
This is something I've thought about off and on. Several years ago, Roger Ebert made the infamous comment that he didn't believe that video games were art. Of course to say most people who played video games disagreed with him would be an understatement. As I recall, he even went back, apologized, and changed his stance on the matter. One of the things that I thought about when I read about him saying that is that there are a variety of all types of movies, some only meant to entertain, some to make you feel, and others made for very specific purposes and not all movies you watch could be considered "fun" to watch, even disregarding documentaries. Keeping that in mind, I can understand how someone may think that video games ONLY serve the purpose of entertainment, but is that really the only reason we like them?
A lot of noise was raised when CoD: Modern Warfare 2 was released and there was a segment where players took control of an undercover CIA officer who shot up a civilian airport. The game allowed for an option to bypass that part entirely, while some versions left it in but made it so the player couldn't actually shoot anyone until the police responded. Some people praised the choice to have a chapter like that, others condemned it. I think they were going for shock value, which is fine but hollow.
Another game I played that comes to mind much better though is Spec Ops: The Line. It was, by most accounts, a run-of-the-mill shooter as far as game play goes. At least for a while. The game play elements are pretty much reskinned Gears of War as far as the mechanics go. But the thing is, that kind of game play was suitable and good enough for the elements the developers did want to focus on. That particular game was an adaptation of sorts of John Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which "Apocalypse Now" was also an adaptation of. I also read, interesting enough, someone refer to Spec Ops as "PTSD: the video game", which I don't disagree with.
That game has you play an officer in command of a small squad of Delta Force operators on a recon mission of Dubai, following a series of intense sandstorms that have cut the entire city off from the outside world. U.S. forces had also been sent in to assist in humanitarian aid and evacuations, but one of the units under the command of a general known by the player character personally stayed behind with his unit after the command was given to pull out. The entire reason the team is sent in is because of a distress message sent by General Conrad himself. The U.S. government fears things have gone bad, but the reality is it's a total clusterfuck.
The player character, Captain Walker, takes it upon himself and his team to exceed the parameters of their recon mission and try to contact Conrad. The problem is Conrad's men have gone rogue, seemingly under the General's own orders. Armed locals and CIA paramilitary officers' involvement only makes things more complicated. The "line" that the title refers to comes at about the halfway point, when the only way to their objective is obstructed by an entire company of armored troops. Believing they have no other options, Walker sets up a mortar and launches a strike on the rogue soldiers with White Phosphorus rounds (the player has complete control during this point). It works and all resistance is eliminated. However as the characters make their way through the carnage, they discover the company was holding civilians, including children and the mortar attack killed all of them as well.
From that point in the game forward, Walker begins to suffer both audio and visual hallucinations. At points during the game play, the player is treated to truly hellish visuals where Walker is attacked by the victims of the mortar strike. Immediately after the revelation that he personally murdered a large number of civilians, Walker also comes into direct radio contact with Conrad, who attempts to guide Walker to him to learn what exactly happened. Walker's focus is squarely on finding and confronting Conrad, to the detriment of his and his team's safety and sanity and leads him to causing further destabilization along with the CIA Paramilitary officers. Ultimately, both of his team members are killed. One is ambushed and hung by a mob of enraged civilians, and the other dies making a final stand against a large force or rogue soldiers. When Walker finally makes his way to confront Conrad, he's shocked to discover the General ate his own gun...some time prior to the events of the game.
This leads to the reveal that Walker realization of what he'd done with the mortar strike cause him to snap completely and even disassociate. Something I really like about the game is there are several endings the player can choose. Walker can commit suicide or allow "Conrad" to kill him for the crimes he committed, or he can kill Conrad (so to speak). It still doesn't quite end there, should the player choose to have Walker survive that encounter. An Army SAR team arrive the next day and the player can choose to have Walker surrender peacefully and go with the soldiers, with Conrad telling him "No matter what happens next, don't be too hard on yourself. Even now, after everything you've done, you can still go home. Lucky you."
The second option is for Walker to engage in a shootout with the soldiers and be killed, leaving him as just one more casualty among possibly thousands. The third option allows for Walker to kill the SAR team before getting on the radio and repeating Conrad's words to him earlier "Gentlemen, welcome to Dubai." And with that it ends with Walker becoming the veteran who's been overcome with madness in a place where civilization has completely broken down and has become almost completely inaccessible. I think that's probably the most interesting ending, as it allows for the twist of the protagonist becoming the infamous Kurtz character from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now.
Is that game fun? Honestly, the game play itself is repetitive until it reaches that part. I thought it was a chore, and I think that may have been intentional. The reason I played it was because of a review of it by Zero Punctuation (he even referenced the game again favorably in his review of The Last of Us 2) where he made the complaints about the game play but said it was worth playing because of that twist at the midpoint and how it drastically changes the rest of the game. It even changes the game play on replays, really. So, again, do I think it's a fun game to play? Yes, I do.
But I really don't know if a game can be made to not be "fun" in some way, even with a heavy message, and also accessible to people. However, I also really know to what extent movies with heavy subject matter are not "fun" to people either. Clearly not in the same way that your regular blockbusters are, but they are usually enjoyable.
Hope you enjoyed the rambling! I was bored and wanted to ramble so...take that for what it's worth XD
But I definitely know what you mean. When something leaves you feeling drained, even if you enjoy it, you really have to be in a specific mood for it. That's something that can change by the hour, even.