Things I’ve Learned From Video Games Part II

You all knew that this day would come. Perhaps, however, it's a little detrimental to my cause to note that the prequel to this blog was posted over six months ago.

But that doesn't mean that there are not a lot of things to learn in video games. It's kind of like any other form of art, most things that you experience in a video game can't really be shared by explaining what happened, but by going through the experience yourself. I've kinda stopped telling the genereal public (although I'm admitting it here) that I cried when Aeris died in FF7. Because although we can all understand someone getting a little teary eyed after reading a book like "Where the Red Fern Grows", or a person who cried in the final minutes of Titanic, nobody can seem to understand the concept of becoming just as emotionaly involved with a video game.

But I digress...

The point is, it's not hard to find artistic beauty in video games, or any other medium I should mention. The challenge is finding snidbits of video games that can be recognized as contributions to the human race without having to go through the whole experience.

So I think one of the most influential video games for me may be the Metal Gear Solid series. Metal Gear Solid is described on the cover as "Tactical Espionage Action" and involves sneaking around. The storyline is mindblowing, and spans from the 1960's to 2014, and involves giant robots that can shoot nuclear missles, clones, possesions through arm transplants, and secret societies that run at least three of the major world governments. Believe me, it sounds silly, but really, amazing game.

So how could something that sounds so... incredible?... be of any significant value to our society? Well, I think one of the most important aspects is that it has a sort of respect for life. In most of Snake and Raiden's Missions they are usually encouraged to sneak past the enemy in order to avoid being discovered, rather than shooting everybody in the head. Your inventory does not only include AKs and C4, but you usually have the option of using a traquilizer gun, or a stun grenade, rather than a video game's usual tools of distruction. But a tranquilizer is so much slower and harder to use, why would anybody want to use that?

I think for me, the answer to that was demonstrated in Metal Gear Solid 3: SnakeEater.

One of my favorite things to do in SnakeEater when I first started playing it was to sneak up behing an enemy, grab him and slit his throat... yeah... again sounds detrimental to my cause right? Just wait a moment. Anyway, I would go out of my way to do this move, even though it's harder to do than to shoot an enemy, or even just to break his neck. So needless to say, I had done this to a lot of poor unsuspecting Russian gaurds.

Near the end of the game, you run into a guy named The Sorrow. He's already dead, but when he was alive he acted as a medium between the world of the living and the world of the dead. As you are forced to walk slowly towards him down a river, every single enemy that you have killed in the game walks down the river towards you, screaming about the pain, head rolling on their shoulder if their neck was broken, hanging by the skin if their throat was slit. I suddenly realized that by killing so many people, I had made it harder for myself here at this point of the game. Then as the scientists began walking down the river towards me I realized that most of these people I didn't even need to kill. Almost amusingly, and perhaps because I'm a "sensitive guy" I began to think to myself that in real life, when wars are fought, the "bad guys" that we fight against are only fighting for their country. They may not even be fighting for the same cause as their leaders, but only becasue they believed in their homelands, just as we do. Back home, they have friends, family, religions, goals, dreams. Those are the kind of people fighting on the battle field, on both sides. When they die, somebody back home is sad.

I'm not sure if that is what Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear series really had in mind when he wrote that aspect of the game, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. To me, he's like the Steven Speilburg of video games, because not only does he intend to enterertain, but he intends to make us think. Becauae of Kojima, evertime I raise a gun in a video game I instinctively think about that soldier's family. I suddenly think of it as a person, and I try to come up with other ways to get past the situation... even if it means losing a little bit of health. (that sounds ridiculous... what a sacrifice, huh? lol)( come to think of it, however, I don't play very many game in which the enemies are human beings)(Metal gear Solid may be the only game I own in which the enemies are human... and as I'm explaining, there are plenty of ways to get out of killing).

But then again... what do I know. Jack Thompson will tell you all I'm doing is "training" by playing my "Murder Simulators." Be careful, I may be the next one to break, as scary as I am.

But this is what I am trying to get to. This is why I want to make video games, becasue games are another medium in which feelings, emotions, and beliefs can be expressed. In my literature class in high school, my teacher distilled upon me the idea of immortality in a way I had never thought of it before. Everybody wants to be immortal, but we all die. All that we can hope for is to be remembered. William Shakespeare is immortal in the sense that everybody knows who he is, and what he did, although perhaps only a few of us have enjoyed his work as we should. Perhaps the rising generation of gamers will not play Final Fantasy 7 becuase the 1997 state of the art graphics are now considered obsolete, and perhaps the next generation of gamers will never play Metal Gear Solid for the same reason. Or perhaps there are people who have played these games and only enjoyed them for their gameplay. But somewhere, when Kojima, of Sakaguchi and many others die, hopefully they will live on through their contributions. That's why I want to be a game designer. Silly as it sounds, I hope to someday touch someone for the better, the way that some of these games have had a small positive impact on myself.

In closing, I want to leave with you the quote that inspired this blog. It's a monologue given by Snake at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons of Liberty. A major theme of the game was the passing on of information, and how do we know what should or shouldn't be passed on. Snake talks about the importance of "Passing on the Torch" or in my own words, passing on our immortality.

"Life isn't just about passing on your genes. We can leave behind much more than just DNA. Through speech, music, literature and movies... what we've seen, heard, felt ...anger, joy and sorrow... these are the things I will pass on. That's what I live for.

We need to pass the torch, and let our children read our messy and sad history by its light. We have all the magic of the digital age to do that with. The human race will probably come to an end some time, and new species may rule over this planet. Earth may not be forever, but we still have the responsibility to leave
what traces of life we can. Building the future and keeping the past alive are one and the same thing." Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty