Arkham Earth

I'll confess, I have a cupboard in my room just for masks. Even I'm impressed by how many I've collected - each one an art form in itself, with its own history and make. I'm never in need. I have them all. I have one I take to the gym, to work, church. I keep one for my family - for every friend. I'm somewhat of an actor.

I recently finished my second playthrough of Batman: Arkham City; a universe of colourful criminals and flawed heroes. A circus of miscreant performers.

Don't know if I'm finally losing it or I'm just getting soft, but I started seeing a real side to the game's characters. All their hurts and sufferings. The unfortunate reasons they're iconic in the first place. Each has their own visage where they (and we) find their identity; a former district attorney obsessed with duality who copes with the cruel misfortunes of life by tossing a coin; a narcissistic riddler who leaves clues of his deadly deeds because he wants attention; a homicidal jester who chose a life of madness and anarchy after enduring one unbearable day, and a playboy billionaire who adopted a dark persona to deal with his sadness and rage at the loss of his parents.        

Perhaps I'm getting too soppy over fictional characters - but I see the same thing in our world. We disguise ourselves and make rash decisions that stem from things we've experienced. We live like thespians, carrying our wardrobes full of masks and expect people to understand where we're coming from - when they're just trying get by themselves.

I'll admit I'm a fairly apathetic man, but occasionally I have my moments of caring. It originates from past hurts and burns. Arguably I use to care too much, but more often that not it felt one-sided, so when I found an excuse not to care I rolled with it. It was refreshing to let people go and relax as I watched the world unwind, not bothering to attend to every immediate need. Stay somewhere too long though and you tire of it. I wanted to care again, to feel love and give love. That's where I find myself now.

I remember one day I was with a group of friends swimming. When I got out one of my mates gave me his hand to help me out. I didn't take it. I wasn't trying to be rude - I wanted to be independent. That came at a price. As I looked up, I could see the rejection in his face. Seems like such a trivial thing. I didn't even need his help, I was just getting out of a pool, but that wasn't the point. It mattered a lot to him, and it matters to me now - if only it did then. 'If only I saw it his way,' I say to myself. Nowadays when someone offers me help, I take it.

Is he?

People often tell me stories of others who've wronged them. I try and imagine what the person on the other side is really saying amidst the jumble of emotions. In all my time (a very long time) I've found most people are just trying to do right. They're not inherently bad - just scarred. Such a call to love and see past peoples' personal attacks and meltdowns is...unrealistic at best. No doubt I'll get frustrated with someone tonight and completely forget what I've written and what situation they're in. But I'm a dreamer, so that's what I'll do.

I suppose in the end, we're trying to tell people we want to be appreciated and accepted. I mean why did I bother to write this article? Was it to genuinely explore the issue or to seek acknowledgment and praise? Probably the latter. What strange ways we have...

Crossing The Line

Video games are means to many ends. Some play them to escape mundanity, others for the high-flying camaraderie experienced with friends - and some cuss into the microphone as their way of reaching out. I consider games to be something more however; art. Their ability to portray complex messages and themes makes them such a unique and exciting medium. As I've often said, the best stories I've heard haven't been from movies or books, but games. Narratives that make you think beyond the obvious and touch on something deeper.

(Warning: chronic spoilers ensue)


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6021-Spec-Ops-The-Line

(For anyone who wants a slightly funnier and less spoiler-filled take on it)

Spec Ops: The Line looks painfully ordinary. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't even give it a second glance. Start playing the game and I doubt you'll change your mind. Your character, Captain Walker, and two colleagues arrive in Dubai to find Colonel Konrad (to be the antagonist) and locate survivors after a giant sandstorm destroyed the city. Get in, get out; that's the mission. In the first few minutes you're shooting bad guys to the beat of machine guns, rock music and American jingoism.

Abnormal things start happening however, and what started as a patriotic party spirals into 'the valley of the shadow of death.'

Spec Ops increasingly gets more mature and starts exploring issues you didn't expect. Especially when you realise you're fighting other Americans. The biggest smack to the face comes when you ambush a large enemy force using a mortar with white phosphorus. You do this from the ethereal and comforting position of an overhead-drone - akin to the AC-130 Gunship section in Call of Duty 4. But where COD lets you go free after your presentation of masculine firepower, Spec Ops shows you the limbless remnants of your deed.

The game trudges you through the scorched expanse of land as you watch the remaining survivors die of heinous burns and blood loss. One of them even mustering the strength to say, 'Why? We were helping.' A few steps further and you discover what you thought were a large group of soldiers on the drone's infrared monitor, but in actuality were civilians huddled together trying to avoid the blasts. Where games like Call of Duty say 'fantasy', Spec Ops says 'reality'.

It's now you discover this isn't a war game; it's satire. The people who made this game are making a show of FPS culture. Keep playing and Captain Walker's actions don't get any less bearable, but he's convinced he's doing the right thing and so marches on (as do you). The moral line becomes blurred, and you're no longer sure if playing the game is an ethical misstep in itself. Everything comes to a head at the end, when you meet Konrad, who in a condescending tone says 'the truth is, you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not...a hero." He's saying that to you by the way.

I've never felt so pathetic for playing a game before. The fact I had fun playing it at times makes me feel even guiltier. That's the sign of a well-thought-out experience. You have to keep moving forward because you got the game, it should be played and finished, but at the same time I'm being challenged as to my reasons for that. We game out of desire for satisfaction - to be commended for our skill and be in command of someone stands as a shining example of human courage. Spec Ops shows how ludicrous that illusion is. Obviously it is, 'cause we need to keep playing games just to feel likes heroes. The soldiers in World War One were excited about  the conflict - they thought it'd be an adventure. But you could see it in the photos, the trepidation they carried in their faces - it was pandemonium.

No doubt I'll go back to playing shooting games and try to leave this behind. What else can we do? Stop playing? I don't think that's the answer. Rather, go on as we did - respecting the subject matter with a mindfulness that it's just slapstick of the real thing.