At My Limit: Being Inhuman

Did you ever notice how most good developers don't really develop anything below an M rating? Did you ever notice how most popular video game characters these days could be described by the term "bad-ass" (pardon my french, but this term may be used in the future)? Why is this? Why does the majority of our culture think that gritty, dark and mysterious gun toting, sword wielding, scowl wearing, super soldiers are what defines cool?

Master Chief, Kratos, Marcus Fenix, Cloud Strife, Ezio Auditore, Issac Clarke, Chris Redfield, Dante, Soap MacTavish. What to these names have in common? Poorly developed characters, with plot devices for personalities. Their games rely on creating a testosterone fueled soap opera of action, violence, drama, and awesome stunts. I mean, most of the plot twists involved with those games can be seen in various daytime soap operas. My wife and children died. I'm related to an evil entity. Someone I trusted deeply betrayed me. Everyone thought I was dead but I'm really not! Really guys, we buy into poorly developed characters just because they look and sound awesome.

Don't get me wrong, there are characters that are well developed and do awesome things. Earlier this week I reviewed Far Cry 3, and both Jason Brody, and Vaas are very well developed and definitely fit the profile of a "bad ass". But these are few and far between. Most video game characters are so cool, that they're as inhuman as the characters we consider "unrealistic".

(Note: I do not mention any female characters, not because I don't think that some are applicable here, or that some are cool and well developed, but because I want to save that topic for a later time.)

There are other places where under developed characters made of pure awesome are acceptable. Take satire for example. In games like Duke Nukem (save for his most recent appearance, obviously) he doesn't need to be a well developed character because he is supposed to be making fun of the poorly developed characters out there. You experience the same type of satire when you read a Judge Dredd comic, or look into the lore of Warhammer 40k.

Complete and Total Bad Asses

Do you remember where video games started? Were those characters awesome looking? A yellow hockey puck with a mouth. A fat Italian plumber. A blue hedgehog with spaghetti for arms. A young robot in light blue tights and blue armor. These are games that we consider classics, yet their sales didn't decrease because they don't feature main characters that have so much testosterone they grow a beard when they sneeze.





I've been very long winded about this, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't enjoy games like the ones I've been putting down. Getting back to my original point, these are pretty much all that's out there. Nintendo is the only game designer that has been consistently producing action hero games that are suitable for all ages, and don't rely on a character who's primary feature is their testosterone level. There have been some games here and there, but not many.

I'm tired of seeing dark, drab, gritty environments in every game that I look at on the shelves of Game Stop. This is why I'm really looking forward to an upcoming game, Ni No Kuni: the Wrath of the White Witch. I'm looking forward to this game because not only does it challenge the norm, but it has great potential. Studio Ghibli, the animation studio that does the animation for Hayao Miyazaki's movies, such as Princess Mononoke, made the storyboard and animation for this game. You can definitely expect a review of this from me in the future.

If we really think about it, Master Chief has just as insignificant a personality as Mario. Let's stop kidding ourselves. Lets enjoy both styles of games without trying to tell ourselves that one is "too kiddy" for us. We're playing with toys. Pretty advanced toys, but they're still toys. Let's diversify our gaming experience, and not just write something off because the game's animations actually feature colors besides black, brown and grey.