Lose Your Illusion

Paradigm shifts. They’ve been at the core of every new Final Fantasy release from the late Eighties onwards. With each iteration comes a new game world, a fresh cast of characters, a revamped battle system and a bewildering array of new concepts, factions and jargon to grapple with. There’s a sense of incremental improvement – if only on a technical level – as each new title pushes its host platform to the limit and redefines accepted benchmarks for graphics and sound. As with any other Final Fantasy, paradigm shifts lie at the core of the thirteenth incarnation, not only as the lynch-pin on which the game’s new combat system hangs, but as a byword for the drastic overhaul brought on by another generational leap.

Final Fantasy XIII has not quite received the unanimous critical praise lavished upon many of its predecessors. That’s hardly surprising;  in the era of Fallout 3, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, the stubborn linearity of Square Enix’s latest effort seems almost anachronistic. Even set against its recent JRPG peers – Lost Odyssey, Persona 4 and Eternal Sonata – there’s something painfully austere about FFXIII’s approach to player-pathing.

Not that this is a break with series convention. With the exception of the open-word aspirations of 2006′s FFXII, each major Final Fantasy release since the iconic seventh installment has interspersed blatantly linear gameplay with sections of apocryphal non-linearity.  Even within the comparative freedom of the overworld, players are usually confronted with the illusion of choice rather than true agency. While five destinations may be available to visit at a given time, only one will actually advance the story. Now, in Final Fantasy XIII, even that thin façade of non-linearity has been torn away in favour of a streamlined, stripped-down experience. But to what end?

Eye-Candy

Lightning and Sahz take in the sights

To showcase the jaw-dropping visual feast, for one. Final Fantasy XIII sets a new high water mark for console graphics, particularly the PS3 version. The game’s conservative approach is likely as much a product of the astronomical production costs of the HD Era as it is of any design decision. With current hardware limitations, it’s difficult to imagine FFXIII’s visual fidelity and artistic achievement recreated in a true open-world environment. Whether this amounts to a trade-off of gameplay for graphics is largely irrelevant; the proof of Final Fantasy’s gaming pudding has always been in the meat of the battle system and story rather than wandering aimlessly between towns.

Which is just as well really, since towns too have been entirely excised from the early part of the game. Though urban environments abound, they appear mainly in cutscenes or as combat zones in their own right. It’s part of a wider philosophical shift in which NPC conversations too are largely conspicuous by their absence. Much of the story is conveyed through the cut-scenes, while shopping and upgrades are handled entirely through menus available at every save point. But similar to Square dropping the pretence of non-linearity elsewhere, not as much has actually changed as first impressions would suggest. With very rare exceptions, dialogue in Final Fantasy games has been strictly limited and more often than not simply a matter of jabbing the X button enough times to persuade an NPC to divulge plot details. Once again, FFXIII simply strips away the thin veneer of free choice.

Combative

Final Fantasy XIII's battle system in full swing

Whether narration through cut-scenes is ideal in the first place is a separate debate but it’s certainly in-keeping with Square Enix’s reductionist vision for FFXIII. Indeed, reducing the game’s core elements to first principles is a design choice carried over to the battle system. For the first two and a half hours of Final Fantasy XIII, many of the more complex combat mechanics are hidden from the player, only to be slowly introduced one by one over the next 7-8 hours of gameplay. While this hand-holding can feel obnoxious at times, the slow start is somewhat excused, if not entirely forgiven, once the full flower of the battle system begins to bloom.

Once again, there’s another jarring change to the status quo. Unlike previous titles where all members of the party could be given hands-on direction, in Final Fantasy XIII only one character is directly under the player’s control. The reasons behind this decision become more clear in light of the frantic pace of combat and once more complex battle concepts are rolled out but having two out of three party members controlled by the AI at any given time is certainly disconcerting.

Final Fantasy XIII’s combat mechanics hang on the notion of Paradigms – Jobs or Classes in other FF titles – and Paradigm Shifts. At the core of this system is the ability to change between different class assignments for all party members on the fly – the aforementioned Paradigm Shift. Once Paradigm Shifts are introduced about three hours in, the true tactical depth of the revamped battle system begins to emerge.

Alongside Paradigm Shifts are the related concepts of Chains and Stagger. Chains – simply a  series of attacks – fill a Chain Gauge which, when topped up, forces enemies into Stagger mode, allowing party members to inflict obscene amounts of damage in a short space of time. Chains decay quickly and must be topped up lest the Chain Gauge empty completely. However, certain Paradigms – most noticeably the Commando, decrease the rate of decay, allowing characters with pure damage-dealing roles – Ravagers – to quickly drive enemies into Stagger.

Paradigmatic

It’s difficult to convey the full potential of this system in play but the following is a fairly common example. The party engages a tough enemy and Paradigms Shits to a Commando, Synergist  (buff class) and Medic (healer) combination. Once the Synergist has applied protective shields to the party and the Medic has topped up everyone’s health bar, we switch to a Commando, Ravager, Ravager setup to quickly fill the Chain Gauge and Stagger the foe. While in Stagger, we change again to Ravager/Ravager/Ravager for maximum damage-dealing potential. As Stagger ends, the enemy swipes out at all party members, dealing serious damage and casting a damage-absorbing shield on itself. We switch to Medic/Medic/Saboteur (debuff class) to quickly heal up the damage and strip away the shield and then return to Commando/Ravager/Ravager to begin the cycle again.

Between the six available Paradigms (there’s also a tank-like Sentinel), the combat system actually gravitates more towards the feel of World of Warcraft party combat than preceding Final Fantasy titles, with the presence of a given Paradigm at the right moment being crucial to success. Learning to identify what Paradigm combinations – and the correct sequence of Paradigm Shifts – is best-suited to a given enemy is one of the game’s many tactical pleasures.

(Un)Conventional

The enigmatic Fal'Cie

For all that though, it’s hard to deny that Final Fantasy XIII’s stripped-down design aesthetic is jarring. It’s not helped by the excruciatingly slow pace of the game’s opening and haphazard storytelling. Early on, key concepts – Fal’Cie, L’Cie, Focus, Pulse – are bandied about with reckless abandon but remain as little more than obscure jargon until the game finally deigns to explain what they are and, crucially, why the player should care. It’s a good eight and a half hours before a character that might be considered a main villain is introduced. Even compared to recent slow-burners like Assassin’s Creed 2 and Dragon Age, the pacing of Final Fantasy XIII’s opening hours is rarely any faster than glacial.

It takes a while but these early misgivings do gradually begin to subside once the game opens up and starts to let players actually play it. For many, this will come around the three hour mark, when character levelling and the Paradigm Shift concept are introduced and the setting mercifully changes from the endless walkways of FFXIII’s opening sections. Others will have to wait a little longer, until the story begins to get its hooks in and starts to reveal more about the game world and character backgrounds in an intelligible fashion.

Though it sticks closely to many long-established conventions, Final Fantasy XIII is a paradigm shift in a very real sense, especially with FFXII suggesting a more progressive future for the series back when it was released in 2006. Four years on and Square Enix have abandoned any pretence of non-linearity, adapting a strictly reductionist approach which strips the latest title to the twin cores of the Final Fantasy experience – story and combat. It’s a brave move and one that won’t be received well by all of the fanbase but whatever else it might be, it certainly makes for a spectacular experience.

But wait! What if there was something you could do to replicate the stupefied awe of the average GDC attendee? What if you too could be elevated to the higher existential plane on which a PS3 waggle device with a collection of stock Wii motion control games actually made sense? Imagine being able to take keynote announcement speak at face value, leaving your bullshit filter on the floor with your jaw?

There is a way.

Without further ado, I present:

The (Un)Official Games Development Conference 2010 Drinking Game

The true face of evil?

You will require

• A selection of alcoholic drinks. Spirits are preferable, though beer will help to recreate the distinctive smell of a genuine games industry event, given enough time.
• An internet connection and access to the videogames website of your choice. Eurogamer, Joystiq and Kotaku are all recommended.
• A friend or relative ready to dial 911/999/112 once the keynotes are under way.

The Rules

Take a drink every time:

• A games company executive uses any of the following words in an interview or speech  – “franchise”, “experience”, “product”.
• Peter Molyneux makes a preposterous announcement about Fable III.
• Someone mentions the “casual vs. hardcore” debate or refers to “core games” with a straight face.
• A new MMO, clearly destined to be trampled by WoW, is announced.
• Farmville is held up as a model for the future of social gaming.
• Sony and Microsoft bicker over their distant second place.
• Motion control is mentioned as a Good Thing.
• The Guardian mentions Modern Warfare 2 in its games coverage during the event.

Take two drinks every time:

• Cliff Bleszinski (that’s CliffyB to you) swears in an interview or speech.
• Peter Molyneux speaks enthusiastically about grooming a ten year old boy in Milo and Kate.
• A new Rock Band/Guitar Hero/DJ Hero game is announced.
• Games are compared to art.
• Somebody argues that gaming is bigger than film as an industry.

Take three drinks every time:

• Peter Molyneux refers to Fable III as “the best thing ever” or something in a similar vein.
• Someone discusses the potential of motion controllers without pointing to evidence that their idea is actually in development.
• Home 3D is lauded as “the next big thing”

Optional Rules!

Warning! These are for the strictly hardcore only. Using these rules in your (Un)Official GDC Drinking Game experience may result in blindness, irreversible liver damage and/or death.

• Consume a raw egg marinated in vodka if Peter Molyneux mentions the Fable Dog.
• Snort rum and lime whenever the phrase “holiday season” is used to refer to a release date.
• Gargle with creme de menthe in the event that an ambitious, big budget PC-exclusive title is announced.

And finally:

• Mainline absinthe if an Xbox 360 demo pod develops the Red Ring of Death.

Thank you for playing the (Un)Official Game Developers Conference 2010 Drinking Game. But remember, the fun doesn’t have to stop when GDC finally closes its doors! The Game can be played wherever an industry event takes place! E3, Tokyo Game Show, Eurogamer Expo – all can be enhanced with a robust liver and a well-stocked liquor cabinet!

5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360)

I really wanted to dislike Arkham Asylum. My view was coloured partly by conspiracy theories circulating before release that suggested that Eidos were trying to buy high review scores from magazines and partly by the fact that the last non-Lego Batman release, Batman Begins, was utterly, utterly dreadful. I even held off playing the game for four months because I was so convinced I would hate it. I was wrong. Very wrong, in fact. Pass the ketchup, I have a hat to eat.

Drawing its inspiration mainly from the 1990s Animated Series and the gritty Christopher Nolan films of recent years, Arkham Asylum is a much darker and adult game than previous attempts at making a compelling Batman title. It drips atmosphere and the Unreal Engine adds a real sense of weight and presence to the game world, not least the lead character. Developers Rocksteady have taken a first principles approach to the combat mechanics, stripping back the control system and allowing the player to worry more about timing and spectacle than mastering multi-button move sets. It’s an elegant solution that lets the action flow unhindered and makes brawling a pleasure rather than a chore.  Stealth sections are handled with the same amount of care, turning rooms of heavily armed guards into satisfying puzzles as Batman attempts to silently take down enemies without being seen.

Unfortunately, boss battles are something of a disappointment. The 2D Scarecrow sections quickly lose their novelty and occur just a little too frequently. The Poison Ivy encounter is a wretched piece of game design, a poorly-checkpointed exercise in pure frustration. Killer Croc is a damp squib, after a lengthy build-up, and like Poison Ivy, relies too much on trial and error and learning attack patterns and directions by rote. The problem here is that the boss encounters rely on gimmicks rather than the Arkham Asylum’s bread-and-butter combat and climbing abilities and are, in some cases, disproportionately difficult compared to the rest of the game. There’s nothing that will really hold anyone up for any great length of time but there’s an overwhelming feeling that boss fights are to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Thankfully, there’s more than enough here to make up for these deplorable sections. Arkham Asylum’s detective mode borrows heavily from Metroid Prime but without the tedious backtracking and re-spawning enemies that made that game drag severely in places. Again, it’s a minimalist approach to exploration and the environment that allows the player to get on with enjoying the game world without becoming bogged down in mundane and unnecessary tasks. A special mention must go to the game’s superb voice acting, particularly Mark Hamill, reprising his role as Joker from the animated series. Batman: Arkham Asylum is perhaps 2009′s most unlikely success story, with an unknown developer taking a high-profile movie license and producing a game which has redefined what we expect from future licensed titles.

4. Assassin’s Creed 2 (360)

Let’s set the record straight here. The first Assassin’s Creed was by no means a bad game. There’s no disputing that it failed to fully live up to the levels of expectation generated by the industry hype machine but it still managed to pull off slick, polished and entertaining with aplomb. Had Assassin’s Creed 2 been released in its place in 2007, it would likely have been declared one of the greatest games of all time. But as it is, things have moved on in the last couple of years and ideas that once seemed fresh and exciting have long since been absorbed into gaming convention. Instead Assassin’s Creed 2 is merely one of 2009′s finest games.

Ubisoft have atoned for the sins of the father by removing the fat that made Assassin’s Creed 1 corpulent and unfocused in places. In the first game there was always plenty to do but thanks to repetition of missions types and no overarching goals to work towards, there was little incentive to actually do it. Assassin’s Creed 2 brims over with content and constantly dangles tantalising carrots in front of the player in the form of achievements, new weapons and armour, extra health perks and hidden videos. The new currency system helps of course, with the game able to hand out monetary rewards for completing optional goals to go towards buying new shinies. Elsewhere, combat has been overhauled and is fun and stylish, a ballet of parries, counters and disarms with lead character Ezio facing anything up to a dozen opponents at once. And of course, Renaissance Italy is as gorgeous a place as any to set a game and one that makes the very best of the AC2′s wonderful graphics engine.

Not that Assassin’s Creed 2 is without its faults, of course. The Animus story conceit is as unnecessary as it was in the original game and only succeeds in shattering the player’s sense of immersion at regular intervals. Climbing controls are occasionally ropey and take quite some time to get to grips with (geddit?). For the first few hours, accidentally leaping into thin air while scaling a hundred metre tall church spire occurs with irritating regularity. Then there’s those opening hours themselves, where the game really takes its time getting up to speed and giving the player something approaching a full set of moves and the freedom to explore the beautiful surroundings. It feels restrictive and patronising and is a stark contrast to the free-roaming delights of mid-game and onwards.

Still, these shortcomings are relatively minor and with the exception of all the rubbish Animus stuff, mostly disappear after a few hours. They certainly don’t stop Assassin’s Creed 2 being deep, stylish and, most importantly, a great deal of fun. The original game has been scrubbed and polished to within an inch of its life and Ubisoft’s care and attention to detail has produced a sequel that stands head and shoulders above most other games released in 2009.

3. Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

Reports of PC gaming’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Dragon Age: Origins shows that the platform can still hold its own against and even surpass upstart console titles. Indeed, the PC version of Dragon Age is very much the definitive version of the game and harks back to the golden age of Infinity Engine-powered top-down games while preserving the closer third-person perspective of the 360 and PS3 conversions. It’s a huge game with an inordinate amount of replay value and one of the finest RPGs released in the last decade.

For a while though, it all looked as if Bioware might have dropped the ball. The marketing campaign leading up to Dragon Age’s release was crass and sold the game as a “mature” title, featuring blood, boobs and a silly Marilyn Manson soundtrack, shoehorned in without any trace of irony. Thankfully the final game proved to be an altogether more refined affair, even if gratuitous violence and cringe-inducing sex scenes did rear their ugly heads from time to time. In many ways, Dragon Age is the true successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, with a depth and complexity many modern RPGs lack. Combat is tactical and challenging and the game’s morality system thankfully abandons the binary good/evil approach in favour of building relationships with individual characters based on a combination of deeds and conversations. Decision-making becomes a genuine dilemma as the player attempts to weigh multiple potential outcomes, aware that their choices may alienate at least one of the supporting characters.

Blood and boobs aside, Dragon Age is let down somewhat by the fact that is, above all, a Bioware game. It follows a basic structure that has remained virtually unchanged since Neverwinter Nights and Knights of Old Republic and relies on similar narrative conceits. There’s a real sense that we have seen many of the NPCs before and despite the fact that it has been seven years since the company released a true fantasy RPG, the game just doesn’t feel new or fresh. There’s also the question of difficulty level, with Easy a pushover for most players and Normal an often gruelling and punishing affair with relatively straightforward encounters proving disproportionately frustrating.

Regardless, Dragon Age: Origins marks one of the first major shifts in PC RPGs for several years and is a real breath of fresh air after a long succession of MMORPGs and rough and ready German and Eastern European efforts. It’s a high budget, Western title with a developer determined to return to the roots of the modern genre it helped codify. More importantly, it demonstrates that there remains a niche for PC gaming – those playing Dragon Age: Origins on a console really are missing out on the full experience.

2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

You’ll probably already know Uncharted 2 as The Official Game of the Year, as voted for by Eurogamer and any number of other sites. I have no qualms with that but I can’t quite claim that it’s my personal Game of the Year. What I can say is that it’s about as good a game as you could possibly hope to play in any given year. It’s perhaps the most polished game yet released, both in terms of its jaw-dropping good looks and gripping gameplay.

Like Assassin’s Creed 2, the sequel to Uncharted has advanced leaps and bounds over the original game. While the first Uncharted was poorly paced, endless waves of enemies occasionally interspersed with some platforming, Among Thieves nails the mix of combat and exploration and makes the former much more engaging and entertaining. Drake’s Fortune was no slouch in the looks department but the sequel is genuinely gorgeous, with particularly impressive urban environments. The is also full of memorable set-pieces, from the game’s opening in a train carragie overhanging an icy abyss to the encounter with a helicopter on the rooftops of a Nepalese city and a head-on fight with a tank in a Himalayan village.

Great though Uncharted 2 is, it’s not perfect. Its early chapters are schizophrenic and suffer from inconsistent pacing and the player is forced to suffer through the ignominy of a forced stealth section in the second level. As the game reaches its climax, firefights become increasingly predictable and usually degenerate into weeding snipers and grenadiers before mopping up the rest of the human detritus. Technically though, it’s virtually flawless, with only a few minor bugs and glitches popping up in a playthrough. whether the multiplayer mode really adds much is debatable but it seems to have attracted a reasonably devout following on PSN either way.

Those are very small potatoes, however. In all ways that matter, Uncharted 2 is the new peak of the action-adventure genre, the Resident Evil 4 of its generation. It would take a very special game to beat it to my Game of the Year and, as it happens…

1. Demon’s Souls (PS3)

They’re not supposed to make games like this any more. Stoic, uncompromising, difficult. Compelling, rewarding, unique. If there’s one thing you can say about Demon’s Souls it’s that it is quite unlike any other game released in 2009. But it’s so much more than that. Demon’s Souls mixes old school values with genuine innovation, grafting an ingenious online infrastructure onto its action RPG framework. It strips the sub-genre to its core elements, ditching everything from strictly defined character classes to conventional currency. And it must be emphasised that it’s tough. Really tough. But behind its unforgiving façade is a game that rewards every second you invest in it tenfold. It’s definitely not for everyone but those who persist in spite of the difficulty will be hard-pressed not to fall under Demon’s Souls captivating spell.

On paper at least, Demon’s Souls does everything that modern games design seems to expressly forbid. With players losing all collected souls – the game’s single currency exchanged for everything from levelling up to repairing armour and upgrading weapons – on death, it punishes failure. Players are expected to learn from mistakes and are never held by the hand. The game’s tutorial is minimal and new characters face the task of clearing the lengthy first level and killing the final boss before being allowed to level up. But though it’s harsh, Demon’s Souls is never unfair. Players die because they have screwed up – misjudging an enemy’s swing, running out of stamina because they have been flailing their sword wildly rather than hiding behind their shields and making calculating swipes at the right moment – rather than at the hands of some arbitrary machination by the game. And with the stakes so high, every enemy defeated feels like a true triumph, every downed boss a cause for genuine celebration.

If there are any criticisms to be levelled at Demon’s Souls it’s the game’s menu and inventory systems. This aspect of the interface is gaudy and poorly designed and selecting a particular item often involves navigating several screens of ugly menus. There are also slight framerate issues when things get a bit busy on screen but it’s never enough to seriously affect the business of killing. There are, of course, those who will find the game too difficult and the only answer to this is that it’s a very niche title and those who are adverse to a stern challenge should stay firmly away.

What’s most amazing about Demon’s Souls is that for a resolutely old school game, it’s actually the most refreshing thing I’ve played all year. It’s certainly stern and forbidding but underneath the surface is a game that rewards the player like no other recent title. In many ways, playing Demon’s Souls is like being involved in a torrid love affair. It’s difficult and often frustrating but the highs are so ecstatic that it doesn’t matter. It abuses you and yet you keep coming back for more, convinced that you’ve deserved your punishment. Demon’s Souls: it only hits you because it loves you. And that’s why it’s my Game of the Year for 2009.

Honourable Mentions

Torchlight (PC): RPG that’s like Diablo with a sugar rush.

Left 4 Dead 2 (PC): More zombies. Can’t really be a bad thing, can it?

Flower (PS3): Immensely pretty and relaxing PSN title.

Braid (PS3): Technically a 2008 release but a recent release on PSN secures the time-based platform puzzler a place in this year’s Honourable Mentions.

Street Fighter IV (360/PS3): The epitome of the modern beat ‘em up.

Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe, which aired on BBC3 earlier this year, addressed many of these long-held grievances and, despite its multitude of flaws, was considered about as good as games-based programming was likely to get. That’s why it’s such a pleasant and unexpected surprise that another BBC4 documentary has gone further still only a few months later and put a genuinely intelligent and though-provoking examination of the medium, from the early seventies onwards, on our screens.

Joystick Generation, the third episode of Games Britannia, a series exploring the history of games and play from the Middle Ages onwards, is a very British look at the development of the industry. Rather than concentrating on the accepted ‘canon’ history of videogames, from Pong to Space Invaders to Mario, it charts the progression from D&D to MUDs, from Manic Miner to Populous, all the way to Tomb Raider, Wipeout, GTA and LittleBigPlanet. This is the story of gaming as experienced in Britain rather than Japan or the USA and is firmly grounded in the social and cultural realities of Britain over the last four decades.

Naturally, there’s only so much any documentary can do in an hour and Joystick Generation races through the early years of the British games industry to plunge headlong into more modern fare. But it would be churlish to pull the program up for only focusing on a few key early titles when it features historian Benjamin Woolley playing Elite under the tutelage of David Braben and Black and White with Peter Molyneaux close to hand. The depth and complexity of these crucia games are explored in depth and the extent of the creative visions behind them lavishly praised.

Joystick Generation also features an extended look at the Grand Theft Auto phenomenon and while acknowledging the series more notorious aspects, digs deeper to explore issues of morality, free choice and the learning experience within the virtual confines of the GTA universe. LittleBigPlanet is also discussed at length, with particular focus on the game’s creative and social aspects and provides a very refreshing alternative to the usual sensationalist coverage of games in the mainstream media.

Joystick Generation’s greatest triumph, however, is that its creators have created a documentary which genuinely appeals to both gamers and non-gamers alike. As well as providing a whistle-stop tour of the history of the industry in Britain, there’s a serious attempt to do justice to more complex issues surrounding storytelling, game design and theory. Though for the most part lacking the celebrity pulling power of Charlie Brooker (who does appear briefly in several talking head segments and to provide analysis for GTA)  and the *wipe brand, Joystick Generation is perhaps the first games-based television show to actually provide an accurate representation of what gaming means today.

It will be on iPlayer for another week and for anyone with even a passing interest in games should be counted as essential viewing. Even better, it doesn’t mention Modern Warfare 2 even once. Go watch.

The last few months have seen politicians and press in the UK get themselves all in a tizzy once more with the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and its now infamous ‘No Russian’ level. Elsewhere, censors in Australia have forced Valve to release an edited version of Left 4 Dead 2, after the game was refused classification in its uncut form, and have banned Rebellion’s forthcoming Alien Versus Predator game outright. But amidst all the controversy, the cut and thrust of the debate has remained constant: ill-informed criticism from mainstream commentators and knee-jerk, reactionary defence from both gamers and the majority of specialist writers.

Rational Adults

Most rational people will agree that censorship is ultimately undesirable. It curtails personal freedoms and limits artistic expression. Informed adults should be free to decide for themselves whether content – be it music, film, art, literature or videogames – falls within their own threshold of acceptability, without the intervention of regulatory bodies or the state. This approach has worked well in the UK in recent years with the relatively progressive attitude of the BBFC and government backing for the PEGI system of classification. With a small number of exceptions, most titles featuring ‘mature’ content now make it to shop shelves in the UK in their original form, unscathed by censorship.

However, most mainstream criticism of gratuitous violence in videogames sidesteps this well-reasoned argument by claiming that games like Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 pose a real danger to impressionable children. That mature titles are unsuitable for children and young teenagers is hardly open to debate; minors should not be exposed to exceptionally violent content without a framework of knowledge and maturity allowing them to place it in the correct cultural and social context. Indeed, the UK’s current rating system prevents under 18s from purchasing titles like Modern Warfare 2 while allowing adults unrestricted access to the game in its original form. All too frequently, those wishing to restrict the availability of violent games fail to realise that a system is already in place to do just that.

(Im)Mature?

Shadow of the Colossus

Unfortunately, rebuttal from the specialist press and from gamers themselves tends to be equally myopic. While a few veteran games journalists have offered alternative viewpoints on why content like Modern Warfare 2′s ‘No Russian’ level is deplorable without resorting to the tired “virtual violence is bad/our right as informed adults” dichotomy, the majority of articles and comments threads on the subject simply repeat variations on well-worn counter-arguments. The censors are out of touch. The detractors don’t understand the medium. No link between videogame gore and violent real-world behaviour has been definitively established. Violence in games actually helps to relieve stress rather than cause anti-social impulses. While many of these points are certainly valid, rarely do commentators take an introspective look at the games industry and the established conventions of ‘mature’ gaming.

It’s important to note that ‘mature’ content in videogames is rarely analogous to the same concept in film or literature. In games, the term is synonymous with violence, gore and, increasingly, nudity. It’s ironic that titles which feature blood and boobs amongst their main selling points are considered mature while ‘torture porn’ movies like Saw and Hostel are considered crass, unsophisticated and, frankly, infantile. Films have proved that stories for adult audiences can be recounted without resorting to gratuitous sex and violence and be all the better for it thanks to the power of suggestion. But too many games revel in tawdry bloodshed and the empty titillation of pixelated breasts. Certainly games are capable of transcending these stereotypes: Half-Life, Shadow of the Colossus, Deus Ex, Bioshock and Portal have all offered mature, well-rounded experiences without bathing the player in blood. At the same time one must concede that undoubtedly there are games, just as there are films, in which violence and horror actually enhance the experience by provoking shock or an extra level of visceral feedback. There is a place for violence in games but please, let’s use it with discretion as a veteran film director would, not gratuitously. Is a little self-censorship too much to ask of the games industry?

Less is More?

Fallout 3

In all probability, yes. Unlike film, gaming is still a relatively young medium and the language and conventions of games development are not yet firmly established. However, many gamers in their late teens and early twenties have come to understand the concept of ‘mature’ gaming as being synonymous with gratuitous violence and many companies are happy to tailor content to the perceived expectations of this core demographic. Bioware’s dreadful promotional videos for Dragon Age: Origins and the game’s frankly ridiculous ‘Persistent Gore’ graphic option is one of the worst examples of a developer attempting to tap this “blood and boobs” zeitgeist for sales. It’s crass and tasteless and adds nothing to an otherwise exceptional game.

And yet a few companies have taken novel approaches to dealing with in-game violence. Fallout 3, an unrepentantly bloody title, theoretically allows the player to kill any character in the game world, with the exception of children. However, choosing to do so will prevent the main character from completing quests, accessing city areas and buying ammunition and medical supplies crucial to survival. Alexander Gambotto-Burke’s brilliant Natural Born Killer article describes the author’s attempt to play through Fallout 3 by killing everything in sight. After the initial thrill of total freedom wares off, he soon finds the game an empty, bleak and meaningless experience when approached this way. Other recent titles have given the player opt-outs from some of the worst moments – Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend asks the player to choose whether they would prefer swearing and gore to be enabled at the beginning of the game and allows them to be toggled on or off from the Options menu at any time. Even Modern Warfare 2 allows squeamish players to skip ‘No Russian’ if they so wish.

It’s unlikely that videogames in general will become less violent any time soon. A slew of upcoming titles – Sega’s Bayonetta, with it’s over-sexed heroine, Sony’s God of War III and Capcom’s Dead Rising 2 – seem to confirm this prediction. But as the industry evolves, it would be nice to see an increasing number of developers  and publishers adapt a third way and use violence selectively rather than ubiquitously. Just as in film, there will always be niche titles in which extreme gore is the main attraction but as audiences become older and more sophisticated, companies would do well to reassess just what ‘mature’ means in the context of interactive entertainment.

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