I’ve never been fond of television, but I recently started watching The Wire, which is a US drama concerning the battle between the police and drug dealers in Baltimore and how it affects different aspects of the city’s population. Critically acclaimed it’s one of the finest pieces of story telling I’ve ever had the privilege of watching, exquisitely written with some incredible acting. Given its theme I compared it to the supposed Godfather moment gaming experienced last year when Grand Theft Auto 4 finally hit households and Grand Theft Auto came up embarrassingly short in comparison in terms of quality of narrative despite being an utter joy to play. It made me wonder why is gaming still lagging behind TV, literature, stage and cinema in terms of simply telling a story when you consider the financial gains, technological advances and mainstream acceptance of gaming made in the past decade?
For me the inherent problem gaming has is that I’m never challenged by the narrative and Grand Theft Auto is a prime example of this problem. The promise made by Rockstar going in was that it’d be a different type of game to its predecessors which often reeked of a simplistic rags to riches plot augmented by pop culture
references and somewhat crude humour. To begin with the promise seemed to be delivered with a character driven look into the lives and problems of the immigrant in America enhanced by delicious writing and the best voice acting heard in gaming. Yet after five to ten hours it fell away, the character of Niko changed from being a man having a crisis of morality in the crime world to a murdering psychopath doing anything for money and the plot fastened to the rails of the previous Grand Theft Auto games as you, as usual, began working for the Mafia. The world even began to lose consistency as the more serious plot clashed with the traditional Grand Theft Auto crude humour found on the TV and radio. How can I consider the conversation I’m having with Roman about war atrocities serious if an advert for America’s Next Top Hooker is on in the background. Of course familiarity is comfortable and it didn’t force me to loathe the game in the same way a shockingly new plot point would have but it’s apparent fear to challenge was intensely disappointing. For five to ten hours I was indulging in not just an interactive movie but one that was damned enjoyable and held intellectual worth, it fell down when Grand Theft Auto 4 started being a game and stopped being a story. After all, Niko approaching and turning down jobs for moral grounds isn’t as fun as coldly blowing away dozens of cops even if it makes for a more complex character and people bought the game to have fun. As long as games though are viewed as just for fun we’ll never approach the moment when they are no longer just games.
But then perhaps I’m looking at this at the wrong angle. After all in cinema we don’t look to Hollywood for a deep moving experience, Hollywood is the domain of the mindless summer blockbuster and it’s the lower budget indy films that invariably provide the quality these days. Last year saw Braid light up the gaming landscape with what could be argued as the perfect artistic gaming mix of music, plot, sound and gameplay. This is a game that had the legendarily harsh wilderness that is the internet gaming community performing textual analysis and formerly smutty podcasts having group discussions on symbolism in the game. Unlike Grand Theft Auto 4 this was a story first and foremost with a message and real artistic worth. Unlike Grand Theft Auto 4 this was made by one man and will cost you just 1200 Microsoft Points. Crucially though it shows where the line between high quality cinema and games is blurring, namely XBLA and PSN. They may be providing simple puzzle games and retro remakes but with titles like Braid could that be where we find our future Cannes Film Festival highlights?
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