Don’t Tase Me, Bro!

There are a few items inspiring today’s blog post, the first was reading the news that God of War is getting its own novel treatment here. My big concern is that the game doesn’t have a great deal to offer me without having the brutal, sadistic rage of Kratos at the control of my fingertips; in God of War 3 you take control of Kratos as he systematically brings the world to its knees to serve his self-indulgent revenge, pulling on eyeballs, kicking dogs through portals and leaving women to prop up levers, and it’s bloody good fun.

Personally I’ve always viewed the story in God of War as a bi-product of Kratos and his complete lack of compassion. The game tells me, “Here is an angry man, press these buttons and everyone around you will die”, and I derive joy from being the instigator of pain. I don’t want to read about his violent path from A to B, I want to carve it myself, I want to slam witch’s faces repeatedly into the floor, I want to slice people’s legs off so I can steal their shoes, and so on.

The second inspiration comes from Skate 3.

If like me, you have a very simple sense of humour, and someone falling over is literally the most hilarious thing you’ve ever seen, you will love Skate. If anything, the fact that my perception of skating culture remains a trendy alternative sport full of trendy people wearing trendy brand names and referring to good things as “sick”, “tight”, and “fresh”, then seeing a skater, the embodiment of cool, leap for a railing and miss, falling short and clipping their legs, causing them to fold and dive head first for the steps before gracelessly rolling down each one – is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

I usually had mild stomach ache watching one of my housemates play Skate 2 because I couldn’t control my hysterics, and when Skate 3 was on the horizon I knew I had to go for it. I’ve invested a lot of time in the game since it reached my PS3, but only a tiny fraction of that time has been spent doing tricks or indeed being attached to my skateboard.

Indeed, once I’d done the obligatory tutorials and was released onto the streets, I got off my board, held it in my hand, and ran around batting every pedestrian in sight with it until I got tased or punched, and if I dropped my skateboard, I’d bodyslam passers-by with some great results.

Simple two-minute tasks in Skate, typically “grind that small rail and pose for a photo” are massively challenging, because I’m completely incompetent at doing anything in it that involves skill. I’ve finished all the Hall of Meat challenges available to me, and now my progression in the game has halted.

Finally though, we come to the point of all this.

Video games have so, so many aspects to them. As Skate 3 has proven to me, it doesn’t need to fill every area I want in a game to still be immense fun, but without the freedoms available to muck around, I wouldn’t go near it. By the same merit, God of War doesn’t appeal to me unless it’s interactive, Borderlands becomes hugely unattractive without the numbers attached in levelling up, and I care not for Final Fantasy when the story and characters fail to engage me.

Truly great games harmoniously bring together all the aspects they’ve got covered, and Shadow of the Colossus is the best example, it’s arguably the most breathtaking videogame merger between audio and visuals.  Traversing by horseback across a vast landscape dominated by the most gorgeously animated hulking creatures is made all the more poignant and wonderful by a soundtrack of proportions equally as epic as the Colossi themselves.

Without a doubt though, the best ‘aspect’ of games is interactivity. (That might explain why tripe like the Super Mario Bros film exists, because the most fundamental aspect contributing towards any sense of quality has been removed.)

Skate 3 is a good game, and if the aspect of assaulting pedestrians and getting tasered appeals to you, then go for it. I’m not sure about the actual skating, though.