In Playing Metal Gear, by Jamil Jan Kochai, “you” are given the opportunity to virtually live out the chance to save “your” father and uncle from death and torture within an eerily realistic video game. As Kochai, or “you”, go through the game, you becomes desensitized to the violence - brutally murdering “soviet soldiers” as you make your way to save your father and uncle. The player seems to revel in the pain he inflicts, going out of his way to leave a bloody trail in his wake as he makes his way towards his family. At first, these descriptions are uncomfortable and unsettling, but as you and the boy in the story fall deeper into the game, the less noticeable the violence becomes. His experience, and thus our experience as readers, within the game, led me to question whether the blame for his insensitive actions were a result of his anger towards the people who harmed his family, or the game itself. Essentially, are video games ways to explore violent urges, or is it that video games cause us to think violently?
In last week's Harkness, someone made a comment about how the nature of video games that leans towards aggression, and how even games like Minecraft can be violent. My first thought was to disagree - what about games like The Sims - an innocent life simulation where you can build relationships and earn money as a successful member of society to design your dream home. Until I remembered you can also exploit businesses, kidnap other sims, and use them to do your bidding. Even when the goal is innocent, like in games like Minecraft and The Sims, players commonly manipulate game mechanics to commit virtual atrocities - meaning it’s not the game, but our own desires that control our actions.
If people are finding ways to make harmless children's games aggressive, what does that say about games like Playing Metal Gear, where the object of the game is violence. For whatever reason, these games seem to bring out the worst in us, and the more we play, the less we even notice it. Though I enjoy playing video games and can appreciate the value they provide, even I can’t look past the fact that when a player is given too much control, the result tends to be a cruel and unfeeling misuse of imaginary power.
One of the most impactful parts of reading is when you stumble across a line that you immediately connect with. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone , by Lori Gottlieb was full of quotes like that but my favorite is this: “If the queen had balls, she’d be the king.” Though the reason this quote stuck out to me is obvious and not very deep, it stuck with me for an entirely different reason. Essentially, Gottlieb was pointing out that often people get too caught up in unimportant details that prevent them from going after what they truly want. Too often we find ourselves justifying things saying, “well if only ____, then I could be happy”, or “we’d still be together”, or “I would’ve passed that test”. I have found myself thinking along these lines far too often. It’s easy to get caught up in things out of our control and use them to make excuses for our own inaction or mistakes. This impossible desire for change is even reflected in the characters we read about. Nea, from S...
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