The Games Parade

It’s fairly painful even thinking about games at present. Due to a fairly restrictive income and a general inability to make any assured decisions with what to do with my free time I feel like my current relationship with games is akin to them being the shiny thing that came to be in my possession inside a locked glass cabinet for which I was not given the key.

I really want the shiny thing. I just don’t trust in it enough to smash open the cabinet. Besides, I might need the cabinet. Cabinets are important when you’re supposed to be an adult, right?

But there it is. What with one thing and another, I have kind of stepped out from the games machine for now and, slightly distressingly, maybe forever.

But games are still very shiny. More than ever, perhaps.

And this weekend has been the annual parade of shiny things, E3. I’ve not often paid much attention to it but I always appreciated the announcements and the inevitable awkward and embarrassing moments from the Big 3 consoles as they make their presentations. But, for those not connected enough to actually be there in person, the real attraction of E3 is the plethora of trailers and game play footage that get brought out for the occasion. Quite frankly, what I have seen from this year’s showcase has been almost incandescent.

If you haven’t seen the trailers, there are plenty of ways to do so, so I won’t give any transcripts or anything. But, as I’m sure you can imagine, they were typically shiny and alluring. However, I couldn’t help but notice that, with my cynical sunglasses shielding my eyes, there was just the slightest hint of forced lighting behind the glow. As is the way of trailers, I guess.

Now, I know trailers are, when all is said and done, the worst indicator of whether anything will be worth your time. They are marketing tools, engineered so as to appeal to as wide a scope of demographic as it can. They can, conveniently, cut out all the bad that might exist within a game and completely camouflage what type of game you’ll end up playing. They are aloof, mysterious creatures, dancing in the light, singing from the rocks and telling us absolutely nothing.  Or telling us too much, at least in terms of story. My biggest issue with the Tomb Raider trailer was how much of the story was just nonchalantly spilled out to us. It’s annoying and something I know has been bugging film viewers for years as well.

Tomb Raider is proving to be a real puzzler for me, personally. The original games I missed out on due to not getting a Playstation until five minutes before the Playstation 2 came out but I’ve witnessed them through friends and the action/puzzles/adventure mix that I saw was enough to pull me in and drag me to buy some of the later games on the later generation consoles. They hold a place in my heart, even if the ridiculousness was gradually escalated with each new instalment. I totally accept the need for change. This new game is looking like a serious change. For once, Lara actually looks like a real woman. This is definitely change.

The quite-astonishingly-large-elephant-in-the-room surrounding the game, though, is that, well, it’s very sinister. Now, alright, running around long-lost tombs shooting tigers and finding world ending artefacts to add to your collection is also very sinister. But the footage released so far is looking for a new scale in terms of sinister. This search is being carried out alongside The Last of Us; a brutal survival-fest through fungus afflicted zombies and roving bandits. Typical game scenario. But, like Tomb Raider, the content so far has been intense, to say the least.

I’m not coming out against the portrayal of such subjects. I view video games as an art form and, as such, should be allowed to present whatever they want if done so in the interests of art. And these games are definitely doing what they are doing for a reason. I can definitely see that. Additionally, this dark ‘realism’ is nothing new. Remember Saw? But I didn’t see those films. Never wanted to. I just didn’t feel that spending my free time watching two hours of hyper-real violence was a good way of stepping out of real life for a bit. I worry that the more I see of these games as more and more trailers and game play footage is released, the more I will worry these games are eschewing art for violence.

Inversely, I also worry that as more footage is released it will ruin the experience of playing the game. Both these games have taken much effort in showing the world and horror that you as the player will be submerged in that they are actually taking away some of the horror. The publishers have certainly succeeded in piquing my interest but I’m definitely a bit sore that I’ll miss out on the suspense and shock from the game play experience. I guess, in that respect, this is a no-lose situation for the publishers.

It is this reason that has kept me from seeing the new footage of Assassin’s Creed 3. In fairness to Ubisoft, they tend to do well at keeping secrets but I just don’t need to take that risk. I definitely want to play their game, they have thoroughly hooked me. I don’t need to see anymore until release day. To the other extreme, I took a look at the trailer for The Unfinished Swan, and learned very little at all. It sounded intriguing but I really will need to see more to know if it’s worth playing. Considering this was E3, you’d feel this was the weekend to have a bit more than an arty teaser for those not able to go there and test it. It doesn’t pay to be uninformed.

Obviously, trailers play a role in marketing and the lustre they generate obviously succeeds. But E3 is fairly unfulfilling in this way. It’s very hard to hear about what the game is. Penny Arcade has made an effort in bringing back information behind the scenes and the returns have been really interesting to me, at least. I can watch trailers whenever. What I want from E3 is more news about the real quality of the game; to hear how it plays, how gripping the story is (without spoilers, obviously), what plans the company has in its further development up to release. I’m tired of just looking of shiny things.