Today, I killed my best friend. Okay, it wasn’t today. And it wasn’t my best friend. Forgive my inaccuracy for the sake of making these references.

So, for the first time in half a decade, all of my video gaming sessions of late are occupied by a game that doesn’t have Halo in the title. Now, maybe it’s because even the gloriousness of that series is tainted by bittersweet memories, and in the inability to recapture happiness that’s past and gone, it’s time to move on to something darker and more brutal. For the last few weeks, Gears of War has been at the center of my gaming world, and it’s got me thinking about a few things.

I’ve been accused of not being manly enough at times. Okay, many, many times. Now, I don’t say that in an attempt to fish for comments of any specific ilk, but only to say that, in a typical American way, I don’t do things that I think I’m supposed to do as a male. I don’t like to watch sports. In fact, despite my day job, I have a particular disdain for professional sports. Even if I did like watching sports, I wouldn’t want to be drinking beer while I did it. On the occasions when I find myself at a strip club, I don’t like to make a lot of noise. If, hypothetically, I found myself discarded after a decade-long relationship, my first instinct (nor any subsequent instincts, for that matter) wouldn’t be to run out and try to angrily fuck strangers as some kind of twisted perceived vengeance on the gender that has wronged me. Why is it, then, that I am so enamored with such a testosterone-y macho-man-fest like Gears of War?

To be honest, the design aesthetic isn’t really up my alley. I like the heavy, bulky armor in which the Gears boys trudge about, although I don’t really understand the need for the random lighted panels on the chest plates. But I’ve never seen a more craggy bunch of motherfuckers. In multiplayer, which is exceedingly enjoyable, I use the guy with the helmet who reminds me of the soldiers from the Final Fantasy movie, because I can pretend that there are a couple people in that world who can manage the soulless thousand-yard stare and fire a weapon without having to look like Bane wearing Edward James Olmos‘ face. Now, I admire a guy with a thick neck as much as the next person, particularly when it comes to Henry Rollins, but I’m concerned that these guys have incredibly limited range of movement because of their bulk. I’ve been watching too much Anime, to be sure, but I think you could probably manage the array of available weapons in the game even if you had the build of Kusanagi Motoko. Okay, she’s a robot, so that’s a bad example, but I bet a ninja could do it, too, and they’re compact folk.

While we’re on the subject, girls like to play these games, too. In fact, whatever you might think of the corporate-sponsored and assembled, seemingly Spice Girls-esque Frag Dolls, those ladies can play. They practice for the kinds of serious hours that I could only ever allot to crying myself to sleep. They win pro gaming tournaments. And who knows, maybe they like their avatars to be gruff and burly he-men; I’m certainly not going to presume to know their preferences. But maybe there should at least be a choice when it comes to their in-game representation. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to come off all sensitive to the ladies, here. On the contrary, I just want to play as a chick myself. It’s a third-person game, and I have to look at the haggard crevices in the leathery visage of my hideously overgrown pro-wrestler of a character all day and wish war hadn’t ravaged me quite so severely that I made Quasimodo look like a fuzzy puppy by comparison. I’m not asking for Lara Croft here (although I’m also not not asking for Lara), but how about an ass-kicky early James Cameron movie-style heroine? I think there’s a place and a need for such ass-kicky girls to commit heinous and brutal acts of violence. And while we’re at it, Keanu should be in there, too.

So recently, I’ve been defending myself for my appreciation of violence in games, and movies, and comics, and personal emotions. That is, until I find that I have little to no defense for such things. It makes me feel like a calloused, desensitized ugly American, but I pull out the obvious excuses and say that such outlets are necessary and healthy when the distinction between reality and fantasy is respected. But it occurs to me that some people don’t require such outlets because they’re not constantly seething with bloodlust, and to them, it may seem odd that there is any necessity at all to somehow purge so much murderous intent. I have a friend who we’ll call Angus, because his driver’s license would encourage us to do so. At one point in our friendship, he told me he disliked playing multi-player war games with me because he didn’t feel comfortable taking pleasure in inflicting injury, virtual or otherwise, on loved ones. He didn’t like it when, because of his competitive nature, his desire to see my bullet-riddled corpse became palpable. It seemed reasonable and understandable that the game experience was so immersive and engaging that his emotional response negated the separation of the real and constructed worlds, making him uneasy with his own reactions. After all, it was Quake II. Still, I giggled and told him to suck it up or I’d violate his fallen avatar in the most hideous of ways before getting up from the computer and punching him in the throat in real life. There might be something wrong with me. Then again, he’s going goose hunting today, and I’m still just taking lives in the land of make-believe.

At the end of the day, after putting aside personal design preferences and dangerously ignoring potential moral conflicts, watching someone being torn asunder via chainsaw as an immediate result of one’s own actions is a hoot. If I had the income of a contract killer, I’d buy everyone I know an Xbox 360 and a copy of the game so that we could all get online and share the joy.

This entry was posted by eugene on Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 at 5:27 pm and is filed under american, games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.