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arrr_matey

Taking on the guv'ment

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In light of a couple of other threads, I'm trying to come up with a list of games where the government is portrayed as the enemy and you actually get to kill government agents.

Grand THeft Auto would qualify since you get to kill police officers, but they're not really presented as "bad guys" so much. I'm thinking more along the lines of Half-Life where you get to kill US Marines not just for fun (though it is fun) but because they're the "bad guys" (i.e., they're killing innocent scientists).

Red Dead Revolver is another--the US troops are the villains. Beyond Good and Evil is kind of one--the government cannot be trusted. Resident Evil maybe is one--with a corporation and the government in evil cahoots. Is this a video game trend or am I connecting random dots?

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Definitely a trend, or at least a common story element. Conspiracies make for easy plots, and who better to orchestrate a conspiracy than the government?

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Grim Fandango deals with governmental-agency corruption. Metal Gear Solid, Mario.....every game has that theme so compiling a list is pointless.

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Metal Gear Solid, Mario.....

Hang on... Mario? Please explain...

And yeah, I realise that the list may be a bit obvious, but there's lots of games that don't have this theme--Silent Hill, Syberia, Doom, Police Quest, etc. I'm talking games where you actually are supposed to kill members of the American military.

I'm interested because it seems like video games are the only mainstream entertainment where normal US soldiers can be portrayed as the villains. I don't see that in many Jerry Bruckheimer movies or Tom Clancy novels. Not that I'd watch or read either if I could avoid it.

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I'm interested because it seems like video games are the only mainstream entertainment where normal US soldiers can be portrayed as the villains. I don't see that in many Jerry Bruckheimer movies or Tom Clancy novels. Not that I'd watch or read either if I could avoid it.

Well, I don't know about that. I'd say the theme is very common in popular music (Rage Against the Machine, tons of punk music, etc.), and extraordinarily common in popular music of the 60s and 70s. Also a lot of the non-superhero genre comics (and some of the superhero ones too) deal with that theme. There are tons of fiction written in that spirit as well. I haven't watched TV in several years but as far as I remember it also tends to be more common in TV drama than in Hollywood.

However, I do think it tends to be at least a bit more common in video games than in most other mediums, and I think one reason for this is that video games are the form of entertainment least dependant on story (with the obvious exception of music, but it's really not a valid comparison), and so video game designers/writers don't really have to deal with the "consequences" about making such controversial material in the same way that, for example, Hollywood producers would. In the video game industry, accountability tends to be more about violence in general than about violence targeted towards the government--I mean, we hear more from the media about prostitutes getting killed in GTA than about police officers getting killed. My point about low dependency on story is that government conspiracies in games don't really have to be justified or explained in any sort of meaningful social context; they can sort of just be laid down as a backdrop for the game. Now, sometimes they are meaningful and valid, but the accountability that would be held to a screenwriter or director or an author of fiction is not the same as what is held to a video game designer. This is, I think, one of the possible reasons the government conspiracy scenario is so common: it's easy to do, it's very compelling (governments certainly have the capacity in real life and in the public consciousness to be shadowy and manipulative), and in the long run in terms of a game's success, it doesn't really matter. If a game has a fairly shallow but serviceable plot and the gameplay is rock-solid, it's still a good game. This is not a criterion that can be applied to other mediums. The closest comparison is music, which (not coincidentally, I think), probably features the second-highest amount of anti-government sentiment. If music is well-constructed and well-written, it's pretty much good regardless of what the message is. The message can broaden the fanbase or increase the music's relevance, but it doesn't really determine the quality. The same is true for games.

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cheguevara640x480.jpg

Che Lives!

In other news, the pumps don't work cause the vandals took the handles.

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Mixface is probably right with his essay above, but I think another important factor is that everyone secretly wants to be a hero, especially in an interactive medium like games. While it's still at least possible to be heroic when you're just a 'cog in the machine' like a soldier in Call of Duty or something, it's even easier to give you that impression if you're one man fighting against seemingly insurmountable odds, and what bigger and stronger target to fight against than "the government"? I mean, who wouldn't secretly want to be a big revolutionary type like Salvador from Grim Fandango, or Luke Skywalker, except without the danger of getting killed horribly? You can possibly apply this to music too, in that you can feel like you're sticking it to the man (or something) by listening to that sort of thing. Simple as that, I reckon.

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Well, I don't know about that. I'd say the theme is very common in popular music (Rage Against the Machine, tons of punk music, etc.), and extraordinarily common in popular music of the 60s and 70s. Also a lot of the non-superhero genre comics (and some of the superhero ones too) deal with that theme. There are tons of fiction written in that spirit as well. I haven't watched TV in several years but as far as I remember it also tends to be more common in TV drama than in Hollywood.

I think it probably has a lot to do with the age demographics too.

But there's not that many songs about killing US Marines. Even the 60s protesters didn't sing about that.

Your point about plot in video games being pretty unimportant and how that's similar to the lyrics in music being ignorable is really interesting.

It amazes me, though, that there's no outrage in the States over games where the government is the enemy, given the freakish political climate over there. I think it's because games largely slip under the radar of the usual pro-government freak-out types, which possibly makes it a really subversive art form.

I mean, in Half-Life you spend a large amount of time slaughtering US Marines who are working on behalf of their government. Could you imagine the uproar if a James Bond movie (which, arguably, has as little interest in a good plot as a video game) featured the US military as the bad guy. And not a corrupt branch of the military, as is usual in movies (like X-Men, say), but the entire military acting on behalf of its government. I just don't think that movie would ever get made, but video games like that do all the time and are best-sellers (Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid 2).

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I think it probably has a lot to do with the age demographics too.

But there's not that many songs about killing US Marines. Even the 60s protesters didn't sing about that.

Your point about plot in video games being pretty unimportant and how that's similar to the lyrics in music being ignorable is really interesting.

It amazes me, though, that there's no outrage in the States over games where the government is the enemy, given the freakish political climate over there. I think it's because games largely slip under the radar of the usual pro-government freak-out types, which possibly makes it a really subversive art form.

I mean, in Half-Life you spend a large amount of time slaughtering US Marines who are working on behalf of their government. Could you imagine the uproar if a James Bond movie (which, arguably, has as little interest in a good plot as a video game) featured the US military as the bad guy. And not a corrupt branch of the military, as is usual in movies (like X-Men, say), but the entire military acting on behalf of its government. I just don't think that movie would ever get made, but video games like that do all the time and are best-sellers (Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid 2).

Exactly. That was my point about accountability. Games just don't really have to worry about the backlash.

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