Archive - Uncharted 2

Uncharted 2: violence, context and responsibility in video-games.

The following piece was originally published on www.edge-online.com as part of this feature.

It would seem that the way in which people look at video-games generally is changing. Over the past twelve months a more critical discussion of games has been coming not from afar, but from within the gaming community itself. Resident Evil 5’s racially sensitive imagery springs to mind, as does the Six Days in Fallujah real-world war setting debacle.  Less well know here in the west were concerns voiced over the depiction of the Japanese Imperial Army in EA’s Red Alert 3 and Activision’s World at War.  Even grumblings about the disconnect between the intelligent characterisation in fan-favourite Uncharted 2 and its violent game-play imply that people now expect something more from their games.  

It may be that the industry is maturing at its own pace, it may be that graphical improvements force even enthusiasts to view games in a light previously reserved for conservative politicians and concerned parents, or it may simply be our an overly P.C. society exerting unnecessary scrutiny on this fast growing pastime.

Early images of Resident Evil 5 raised eyebrows.

Video-games differ somewhat from other popular media for two key reasons. Firstly, what sets triple-A titles apart from less successful games are often their advertising budgets rather than the depth of their content. Secondly, and this is in many ways both gaming’s strength and its weakness, games are a thoroughly international medium.  Worldwide distribution is common, more-so than in many other forms of media. Games can be marketed and sold to consumers who know little or nothing about the authors.

While creators working within a society will usually be self-censoring to an extent, no such mechanism exists for game developers working towards a worldwide audience.  Looking to Resident Evil 5, as Edge Magazine columnist  N’Gai Croal pointed out in his carefully worded articles, the game’s choice of imagery was culturally insensitive and it appeared that little thought had gone into creating a context for the action. By any other name, as a minor release in its home territory, the game might have been quickly forgotten but presented as one of the major international releases of 2009 it may have done gaming a disservice.  The implications of the current levels of graphical fidelity on how non-gamers relate to the medium going forward can not be understated; it was very easy to take the game’s visuals out of context.

But what’s to be done?  If games of all genres and from all regions were to be focus tested to ensure minimal offence, we would risk homogenising both game-play and in-game story telling to the point of mediocrity.  The fact that concern is being voiced from within the industry itself shows gaming may be on the verge of some sort of intelligent self-regulation.  As big budget games inevitably move away from the easily marketed sci-fi/war scenarios that currently dominate, a greater emphasis will need to be placed on character motivation and storytelling.

There's so much more to Uncharted than the violence.

 And that brings me back to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The developers need to be applauded for creating a free-flowing story which draws the player through from beginning to end, replete with changes of pace, mood and location. Similarly the inclusion of strong willed and interesting female characters is commendable but how does one go from one to one identification with the game’s roguish lead character to wilfully killing some 800 hired goons on a quest for treasure.  In the 2007 original Drake was caught between a rock and a hard place on a personal quest for the truth about his family but here (regardless of his honour and likability) his underlying motivations are greed and revenge. For all our talk about gaming’s strengths lying in interactivity and presenting choice to the player, real freedom remains a rarity. A comment about Drake’s violent proclivities towards the end of the game lacks  impact somewhat due to the fact that the player hasn’t been given a choice and therefore doesn’t feel responsible for Drake's actions.

Eventually we may see developers put as much effort into context and story as graphics.  Hopefully we will see game-play morph to allow the more complex freedoms required to make games truly interactive.  Hopefully we will eventually see game genres defined not in terms of the perspective from which you shoot things but in terms of the theme or setting of the game as a whole.  If video-games are indeed capable of more, it is as yet difficult to see exactly how and from where the change is likely to emerge.