FAGS

A while ago I made a conscious choice not to address games that have yet to be released, though I never formally codified such a rule. That lacking of a formal code is what brings me here today after Infinity Ward's latest video for Modern Warfare 2 (about which I was slightly interested after leaked footage of the terrorist mission). After a night of sleeping on the matter and reading other persons' opinions, I wanted to record my own for both my own sake and an explanation why such a seemingly innocuous video makes me hurl angry expletives at my monitor. Mostly, I realize this is preaching to the choir, but I've really had enough of such a flippant attitude from the gaming community in which I've been involved since I was four years old.

I do not absolve Infinity Ward or Activision of any culpability in this. Whether or not the developers or marketing team, or a combination of the two, is fully part of this is not the point to me. The point to me is FAGS. If that word were a certain word starting with N (used against African Americans), another starting with S (people of Latin American descent), or perhaps C (generally used against Asians, specifically the Chinese), we'd be having a different discussion (and the use of the words pussies made me realize that I was going to possibly use a C word used against females, that is, unfortunately, likely considering their use of the word pussies). The use of FAGS is rather popular on Xbox Live, however. We come to accept it as just something that boys do while mocking them.

FAG is a word I've had to live with since middle school, when I did not display the proper masculine characteristics that were expected of me in the middle of Tennessee. Hurled at my back, it made me stay in the closet three years longer than I would have otherwise.

FAG is a term that was screamed at my back angrily as I walked down the halls of a high school in Tennessee or down the streets in any city I have lived thereafter, deciding that yes, I was genderqueer, and I was going to dress the way I felt.

FAG was written in permanent marker on my dorm room door at Wabash College when I went to visit a friend at Oberlin one weekend.

FAG came through my dorm room telephone around 2 AM nightly for a whole week and intermittently through the next four years at Wabash. This would be accompanied with harassment about seeing me at a gay club in Indianapolis, then insinuating sex acts and being very crude with me.

FAG is the sound of three men yelling from a car and deciding to jump out, punch me to the sidewalk, and kick me, leaving scars on my knee that still persist, and that comes up every time I wear something that shows them to the general public.

The point? The point is that the word incites equal parts anger and pain in me. The word used casually when not referring to a bundle of sticks (or a cigarette on certain islands) is not excusable in any form, by whoever might wish to use it, less so a rather large videogame company.

There is no attitude today different than any other that regards an insensitive demeanor in males. It has always been the excuse of persons that others, the victims of such language or their friends, are taking things too seriously. That the company using it is not the problem, the problem lies in general society; I have friends who are 'insert word' and they are not offended by it; 'insert word' is used by the community itself, so I should be able to use it!

The problem, of course, is based in a general cultural milieu, but that does not mean we can and should not call out a large company when it uses such language. It sets an example and a precedent to continue such usage.

Edit: The video has been pulled, and I have had a pleasant exchanging of words and an apology from Robert Bowling.

Raydians: Persons of Color

de Blob is deceptively simple. The goals of the game are to combat the evil INKT corporation, who have sapped all the color from Chroma City, and made corporate drones of its citizens, the Raydians. Blob is on a mission with his crew to restore color and hope to the city.

Simple, right?

There are layers to this puzzle, and it goes beyond just mixing your primary and secondary colors to coat the buildings and trees in coat after coat of your choosing.

The story of a rebellion and leading that rebellion as its most able 'fighter' is by no means new; but de Blob parallels some rather poignant cultural signifiers. Not only are you coloring the city, but bringing function back to important landmarks; among these landmarks you will find jazz radio stations, sports centers, churches, and all with a slight graffiti drawl across the buildings you liberate. You are bringing an urban feel back to a metropolis that has become completely corporate.

The game has a rather funky soundtrack, with such titles as righteous, smooth, and funky. Its urban locations recall slums, factories, and a teeming city with discrete neighborhoods. The colors are bright, vibrant, and scream against the brownish gray overlay often seen in current-gen games. You are meant to bring back life to the game.

Now, pair this with the fact that the INKT Corporation very clearly draws on Nazi imagery with their marching, 'Comrade' Black (while socialism is not communism, the two often are conflated and considered in the same political direction in today's political climes), and ridiculously tall headgear. They have rushed in to a city, demolished its morale, and consigned its citizens to work for and obey them, essentially making slaves of them. At one point you learn their bodies' liquids, or the suits that encompass their bodies, are used to create the very ink that coats their city and robs it of life. They have stamped out all individuality, and suppressed the color of its citizens.

Instead of allowing them their culture, they have imposed what they believe right. They have white-washed the city, literally. Sure, it is a critique of the rise of corporations and what they mean for individuality and persons in the real world, but that coincides directly with how those effects are quite often felt even more by persons of color in this world, who are still vastly ignored, unless pandered to specifically with a token character or photoshoot here and there.

At this point it is very difficult not to draw parallels to race relations; and particularly those of African Americans in the U.S. and Jews in Europe, and how they were viewed by Hitler and his ilk. For myself, fighting this liberation struggle, freeing these poor Raydians from their tenements that had lost their color (by giving them back their culture through color), and breaking them out of the prisons that held them struck a chord in me that kept me playing through an infuriatingly designed game that assigned its jump function to waggling the Wii remote.

Again, it's hardly new to be faced with the tale of a liberation in videogames, but to have one that is such a parable to the plight of non-white persons in general, and what I saw as African Americans and Jews in particular, intrigued me. In many ways, it is the easy way out. Much like with Abu'l Nuqoud in Assassin's Creed, this is a story that can easily be glossed over, overlooked, and just be ignored by a player not really looking at it in the same angle as I was. There is also the fact that the game treats all this in a fairly light-hearted manner. The design itself is supposed to be whimsical.

This seems to have largely been designed with a childlike (not to be confused with childish) appeal to it. Given such a game, it would likely not directly address race relations, or the horrors various white cultures have inflicted on those deemed different. Then again, I have no idea if the designers themselves intended that to be the message, and my sneaking suspicion is that the foremost thought was to paint as evil corporations, and imply that the organic lifestyle of individuals and our cultural weight was what mattered.

However, when this is paired with distinct cultural landmarks that speak of a culture reminiscent of New York's Harlem or draw allusions to the Third Reich, it can take a meaning on its own. Considering how personality-devoid the protagonist, Blob, actually is (he, in fact, is a colorless blob until he picks up color), it became very easy to see myself performing these acts, not Blob. Other than the cool-guy bravado, Blob himself brings nothing to the table, meaning for the story elements of why I was doing this, my own reading became much more important to me.

I am not Jokanaan

When I learned that Tale of Tales was working on a game inspired by Oscar Wilde's play Salomé, I grew excited. There are many reasons I love the play, and among them is that when I read it and start staging it in my head (the curse and joy of being involved in theater and reading plays), I can see what themes are important to me. What themes strike me in this play? Looking and sexuality.

My GayGamer.net look over the game Fatale covers this, but I had more thoughts on the matter I felt better for this space.

The game has an assertive Salome who wants to kiss Jokanaan, and will do it with or without his body attached. While the Young Syrian describes the beauty of her body, she describes the body of Jokanaan. She uses her body to get what she wants from Herod, whose motives are lascivious in their own way.

Everyone who is warned against looking comes to a painful loss. The young Syrian jumps on to a sword to end his life, because she loves Jokanaan. Salome is ordered to be put to death by King Herod. Herod loses both.

Looking. I embody Jokanaan, but at no time does the game explicitly tell me I am Jokanaan. Without any prior context of either the Biblical story of John the Baptist or Salomé (to be honest, I know next to nothing about the former outside of how it is represented in the latter), it would be difficult to say who you are in this game. The view is first person, and that decision feels to have been made to put me in this body.

Words linger over me while I am in my cell, and they speak in strange half-truths and realities. I am a prophet, so this makes sense. I am being given words, as prophets are said to be given the speech of gods. At the same time, while I am embodying this 'game' body, I am very clearly not meant to be Jokanaan. There exists a grain over everything, excusing the typical fallacies of first-person games and their unrealistic expectations of how I see.

There even include controls, as illustrated in the accompanying text file to the game, to increase of decrease the level of this grainy filter. Jumping is a futile effort, given to me, but accomplishing nothing (have you seen most people actually jump?). There are boxes in this space, but there is nothing to do with them. There is only the grate through which I can watch glimpses of Salome dance, and the door which holds the portent of death by way of a neutral-looking skull ringed in red.

When I am attacked by the executioner, I do not process that he cuts off my head--there is no cutscene to inform me of this fact. The next thing I know when I have control again is that I am floating, being able to move in a full 360 degrees.

The focus is to extinguish the lights; both signifying what I myself have lost, the flame of life, and to allow me to explore this space that was taunting me before. While there was a door, I could not understand what lay behind that door, the grate allowed me a glimpse into a world I was forbidden to explore. Now I play.

There is the ring that stands as literary irony, though still holds the same symbol of the skull that I found on my door. The two are linked, but unless I know the story, it likely could just be the kingdom's standard (it is not). The little matchbox with Salome's number? It is outside my cell, with plenty of blood; an allusion to the young Syrian, and to Salome's interest in me, the person in that cell.

When I do focus on a light, the colors skew, the shadows climb in, and numbers and letters (whose import I have not established) ring around, until with an obscuring black smoke I smother them. Even the light of the iPod, even the candle in front of the instruments, such as an acoustic guitar with amplifier, that beat the rhythm of the angel of death whose flapping wings were accompanying Salome's dance. These two items, again, draw me out of the game experience.

This is not about the game. This is about what I see, what I notice, at what I am looking--again with how my eye is drawn. For you see, this is about my present day response to what is presented in front of me right here, right now. That includes feminist responses and considerations, looking at the history of art criticism and how interactivity means this is more than just a painting on a wall, a play on a stage, a song being played to me.

What Tale of Tales has done is put me in the game space, deliberately putting me in the first person perspective. Am I Jokanaan? Yes, and no. Yes, I am Jokanaan, it is I who was beheaded, whose spirit bedevils the lights, and who watches Salome dance.

No, I am not Jokanaan. I am Denis Farr, who understands what an iPod is, what a guitar and amplifier are, and understands that electricity did not exist in this Biblical time, so we are not in this Biblical time. The game wants me to remember that I am Denis, the game does not want me to lose sight of that fact.

Yet, the game wants to direct my attention, my vision, through the eyes of a beheaded prophet. It wants to tell his story, the story of a man who starts in the play as a disembodied voice calling out from his cistern. The voice of someone who refuses sight to one who would love him. The voice of a man whose knowledge of the proceedings above him exhibit exactly what the game itself tells me. Yet, I am none of these things, bringing my own context.

This game begs for reader-response, but in the way Brecht envisioned. I am to divorce myself from immersion, because it is an opiate that accomplishes nothing but an escapism and allows me to not think. It allows me to adopt someone else's thoughts, but never to think for myself. Show me the inconsistencies, remind me it is a game, put me in a body that is not my own, give me only my eyes with which to create a sense of self. Give me the glimpse, but make sure I know I don't really inhabit this space, and that I need to think to piece together the clues.

As Nels Anderson has stated games should be, this is not fun; it definitely is engaging.

If this is an experience that at all interests you, be engaged.

Charted! Mapped!

Spoilers for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune lie ahead.

Theater in Medieval times is not often brought up for lengthy discussions; there wasn't much. This was the era of mystical, mystery, and morality plays. Setting their themes to those of the Bible, they were performed with the acceptance of the church, and not really pushing much in the way of innovation (though it did see the first recorded female playwright, Hrosvitha). It was during this period of theater history that we see the emergence of the play Everyman, however.

In very plain symbolism, Everyman encounters God, Death, Good Deeds, Goods, et cetera. Its function was to provide the watcher with a means for self-reflection. Were you living your life in a way that eschewed earthly temptations and instead paying attention to Good Deeds, or were you letting her languish and grow weak due to neglect? Pretty basic stuff. Symbolism 101.

According to Naughty Dog, Nathan Drake of Uncharted is an everyman. He is not a space marine, gruff soldier, experienced veteran, or belonging to any such profession; if anything, he seems a slight bit like a scholar and educated man (though no professor). His charm is that of the every day schmuck who gets caught in situations that are beyond what he knows. Nolan North does a rather excellent job of conveying through voice Drake as someone who is constantly fatigued and somewhat daunted by what has become expected of him in this hero's role.

Videogames, in many ways, are about empowerment. They are about fantasy. Providing us a canvass of situations with which we normally have no first-hand experience, they allow us to play the game of What if...?, meanwhile purposely putting constraints in who we are, of what we are capable, and how we interact. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is about an everyman only in so far as Drake is not distinctive. As Shoinan of You Have Lost! explicates, Drake actually fails to have anything distinctive enough about him to become an icon in anything but the videogame-playing world. Cultural cachet? He lacks even the slightest manifestation of a physical quirk or costume.

It has also been hinted at that Uncharted: Among Thieves will let us see a darker side of Drake, a trend Michael Abbott rightly displays as old hat by now. At the same time, this seems to be following not just a formula that videogames have now displayed, but that of the old morality play. Everyman cannot be redeemed, and cannot show us he is worthy of being redeemed, until we see how he has led his life. We see those bits of his life that make us cringe, make us recoil a bit, and, ultimately, should cause us to reflect on what we ourselves do in our lives that is worthy of being elevated.

Drake has foibles and flaws, lots of them. They are almost a joke to him, and like with Indiana Jones and many, many heroes through the ages, they are endearing as they show the classically flawed hero. A hero who stands too tall, too stoic, and too amazing ultimately pulls us back into reality--this is not real. We may be awed, but we cannot relate as readily. We cheer with the foregone conclusion of a win; not so with the everyman. We know ourselves, we know of what failures we are capable.

Which is also why near the end of the game, it managed to become of the survival horror genre for myself. I found myself engrossed in playing this game because it was generally well-paced, the voice acting wasn't nearly as bad as I expect, and the story was familiar. Therefore, when the gameplay deviated as the story predictably did so, I was thrown into a panic.

No longer were the tactics of run behind cover and take careful aim of use. From a gameplay perspective, this is horrid. As Manveer Heir states, when introducing a new form of enemy (in this game, Nazis and Spaniards transformed into pasty white monsters), the strategies one must use to fight them should be skills upon which we built from previous game sessions. Uncharted fails at this. Due to my lacking the time to properly aim, I was often blindly firing, hoping to hit the creatures.

This proved to me two things: I wanted to use the shotgun at point-blank range as often as possible, and I was thrown out of my security blanket. Mixed with the proper lighting and sound effects, I became terrified in a way that only games that do not set out to be survival horror have managed in me (Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Half-Life 2 have also done this). The creatures themselves were not frightening to me, their history was not anything at which I even blinked (perhaps in that lazy, sardonic manner), but the inelegant way in which I was handling them shook the hand on the controller.

I was barely in control.

Part of me now wonders about the old debate of the original titles like Resident Evil, where inelegant controls heightened the factors of tension and anxiety. This certainly holds true for Uncharted, and before this, while certainly adrenaline-pumping in action, I did not feel odd in the slightest shooting at fellow humans (desensitization). Were I to face an inhuman being in real life? My reaction would likely be different, would likely imitate how I reacted in this game.

Faced with the consequences of dealing with said situation, it is little wonder the first game resolves as it does. In many ways, Nate has already plumbed and excised the avarice and pride many of us would face in such a situation. It is a formula that works, and one can only wonder how the sequel will alter it; and if it can be as successful.

Ch-ch-changes

I am now an official writer over at GayGamer.net. Appropriately, I am known as VorpalBunny over there. The plan is to write a post to be published at 14.00 EST every weekday.

Here's my first article, thanks to Simon Ferrari. The things I left out were due to trying to be more professional, but someone at Kotaku should be slapped for daring to use the pronoun its in conjunction with a person of ambiguous sex (virtual or not).

What does this mean for Vorpal Bunny Ranch? Better things. The problem with my life has largely been trying to figure out what I want to do with it. Those decisions have been made: games, whether that be acting, writing, designing, et cetera. I'm still working on my prototype of Love Life, and will beta test and publish the results and design documents and scribblings here when done.

Now that my ennui is over, and I find myself looking at many projects while keeping busy, I am spending more time focused. The plan is to be a weekly blog; publish one article a week. This includes the LGBT Spotlight, Gayble, game criticism (not reviews, however), and general thoughts on gaming (and, of course, Corvus Elrod's Blogs of the Round Table).

Not to mislead, my stint at GayGamer will not be as in depth as I frequently strive to achieve here. If I write reviews, they will be proper reviews. There will be news stories covered. Opinion articles are accepted, but I don't wish to be that guy. This will still largely be my space to critically engage games themselves.

There are also a few ideas I have for Critical-Distance, including a possible critical compilation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, which I just finished last night. So, you know, if any particular posts on that game caught your fancy (or you're proud of your own), please let me know in the comments.

Thank you for all of your support over this past year plus. When I started, I would never have guessed at making so many informative and delightful friends, or to learn nearly as much as I have. Here's to another year of much learning and reading from you all.

P.S. Thanks to SnakeLinkSonic, this site will have a new banner coming as soon as I finish making the font to accompany his lovely artwork seen above.