War Games

“War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.”

–Erasmus

I have to admit. Erasmus has me there. Ever since Star Wars, I’ve been drawn to anything about war. As a child, I hoarded GI Joe action figures and adored the ½ hour commercial that was the animated series. I watched the A-Team every chance I got. I dreamed of flying fighter jets into battle. I paid rapt attention in every history lesson that featured armed conflict. I could probably tell you a lot more about the Pilgrims or the women’s suffrage movement had they involved automatic rifles.

But sometime around my 18^th birthday, my idea of war changed. I got a glimpse of what happens in real war–the physical and psychological scars it can leave across entire generations. I realized that, in spite of what happened on the A-Team or the GI Joe cartoon, bullets actually can hurt people, even the people you’re aiming at. What changed my mind? It was Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. While Apocalypse Now strove more for surrealism than realism, the movie taught the price of killing. One scene in particular ran a chill down my spine. It was the scene in which a young soldier panics and guns down a boatload of villagers, only to discover they were harboring nothing more deadly than a fuzzy puppy. The scene was so compelling since Coppola spliced in frames shot in a first-person perspective. Suddenly, you were the one pulling the trigger. You were the one who spilled innocent blood. Those few seconds of film undid a lifetime of propaganda.

Coppola is hardly the only director to recognize the power of the first-person perspective; it’s one of the best ways to immerse viewers into the medium and increase empathy with the characters. But, for every Apocalypse Now, there are 17 Rambos that use the first-person POV as a way to make you the hero. With first-person POV, you go from watching Dirk Slamfist to being Dirk Slamfist as he machine-guns his way past drug dealers to rescue his girlfriend. It’s what Tom Wolfe called “pornoviolence”–providing the viewer a kind of arousal when the protagonist deals the hurt. Let’s just say that first person POV can be entertaining, as well as meaningful.

So here we are: at the intersection of entertainment and meaning–the difference between a “movie” and a “film”. Now that we’re almost a century beyond the development of moving pictures, we, the audience, are lucky to have both. Stroll down the Drama aisle in Blockbuster for when violence is your enemy; wander down the action aisle for when violence is the friend and savior. Both have their share of critical and commercial success, and neither is going anywhere anytime soon.

But what about video games–or “interactive media” as the cognescenti like to say? This youthful medium has not only the first person POV, but also engages the viewer in a way no movie can touch. You aren’t just watching through a character’s eyes, you control him. You pull the trigger. You swing the fist. You wield the blade. There is seemingly no limit to the level of empathy this could produce in the hands of the skilled artist. Video games should be the best place for immersive and effective art.

But it’s not. Your average video game played in the first person (commonly known as a first person shooter) is pretty standard action fare: you’re an invincible war hero turning the tide against the Nazis; an armored alien-killing machine; or even a space marine killing demons. In other words, more Chuck Norris than Marlon Brando.

It’s not like the opportunity hasn’t presented itself. First person shooters have an entire sub-genre devoted to games set in World War II. In fact, we’ve been fighting Nazis longer in the digital world longer than we have in the real one. Many of these games took cues from Saving Private Ryan, a film that used violence to dismantle the “glory of battle” (and reportedly sent combat veterans into shellshock). After the release of Saving Private Ryan, every WWII video game featured the same intense Normandy invasion scene. They captured the intensity, sure, but missed the message. And, perhaps the most egregious omission on the part of these games: these games never mention Hitler and they never mention concentration camps. The price of hate could never be more plain, nor made more evocative. But it’s swept under the rug.

To be fair, there are reasons why we haven’t seen compelling drama in a video game. To begin with, the conventions of the game rob any digital situation of effective drama. Imagine that scene from Apocalypse Now in a video game. Our protagonist runs into a boatload of villagers. The situation is tense. These guys could be “Charlie”. You see a flinch. A villager runs toward a basket. What’s in it!? Guns!? Look out! You, the player, pull the trigger and lay waste to the entire boatload. Cut to puppy reveal. Curse under breath. At this point, you can reload the game and watch the scene play out the “right” way. Hold your fire. Save the people. Feed the puppy. And maybe, if you follow the correct conversation, get a date with the comely young village girl. Long story short: no consequence, no drama, no empathy.

Another challenge the media faces is sheer saturation. The shooter genre has been around for nearly a decade. By design they are full of targets; players pull the virtual trigger millions of times just in one game. LIfetime players, such as myself, have become completely desensitized to digital violence, meaningful or otherwise. And, as realistic as games have become, they cannot fully emulate human life. Part of you just knows it’s not the real thing (though that’s debatable).

I think the biggest reason we have yet to see a useful depiction of war in a video game is this: cold, hard cash. Game publishers know what sells and who their audience is: 18 – 34 year-olds who aren’t looking for art, they’re looking for entertainment. These buyers don’t want a preachy sermon (they’d be reading this blog otherwise), they want hours of fragging fun. They want a game. Until the game portion of the video game equation is removed we’ll never get beyond the conventions of the genre into something meatier and possibly meaningful.

In all honesty, it’s not that I don’t want the games. My game collection is full of digital action movies. But I know there can be more. Video games are teetering on the brink of art–they’ve dabbled in artfulness and artistry, but there has yet to be art. Wall Street Journalist games blogger Junot Diaz said it best:

“Successful art tears away the veil and allows you to see the world with lapidary clarity; successful art pulls you apart and puts you back together again, often against your will, and in the process reminds you in a visceral way of your limitations, your vulnerabilities, makes you in effect more human.”

The FPS has a long way to go before we get that, but I think it’s possible. And I think the day may come when Erasmus, were he to play an FPS, would sing the praises of video games as the device that conveys the horrors of war without the bloodshed–the device that robbed war of the delight for those who have not experienced it. Then he would frag you.

Tags: apocalypse now, chuck norris, first person shooter, FPS, video games, War games