| Trivial. Vicious. Dumb. Childish. Reprehensible. Time-wasting. Dangerous.
As a video game columnist, I’ve gotten inured to disparaging remarks about video games. Sure, there are studies that have shown video games boost visual acuity, hand-eye co-ordination and problem-solving skills, but you could reason that playing Jenga has similar effects.
Understandably, critics of electronic entertainment have a skewed view of the state of video games. For every pacifist title like Bejeweled or The Sims, there are a dozen virtual bloodbaths released. Long-time gamers, though, know there’s more to video games than this year’s bestseller lists let on.
How about, for instance, games that ask you to be compassionate? Open-minded? Philosophical? These games exist, rewarding players not with abstract points, but actual knowledge or even wisdom. You’d have to travel back in time almost 20 years to find their origin.
Back in 1985, video games were lucky if their characters looked vaguely human, but for young programming guru Richard Garriot, graphics were not the conundrum to solve. Famous for his Dungeons & Dragons-influenced Ultima series of computer games, he set out to design a game that didn’t focus on quests for magic rings or ridding the land of evil.
Instead, you would play the prophet of a new religion.
Appropriately titled Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, it involved the player learning and following a set of eight virtues: honesty, compassion, valour, justice, sacrifice, honour, spirituality and humility. Along the way, there were mystic weapons and monsters to slay, of course, but finishing the game was tantamount to being beatified. The packaging even included an ankh pendant you could wear. Part Buddhist philosophy, part Lord of the Rings, Ultima IV was not only a huge bestseller – for more than a few teenagers, it made a lasting impact much, much as Carlos Castaneda’s novels did years before.
Perhaps because of its complexity, Ultima IV didn’t much influence video games outside of the series. Not until The Sims came out in 2000 did we again get a game that brought to mind societal issues. A sort of animated dollhouse, The Sims lets players design a group of digital human beings and their houses, then watch as their lives unfold. These "Sims" search for careers, learn how to cook, fall in love and have children. They’re almost like us. But not quite.
At their core, they’re closer to being drama queens. Sims have frequent fits of jealous rage, weep when lonely and drink away their ennui. They long for gargantuan TVs, pool tables and funky barka loungers to keep them happy. And they’re morally ambiguous – while cooking, one character set himself on fire and burned to death as his girlfriend watched in horror, yet she made no move to help him. The Sims is an entertaining game, but its ethics are closer to MTV’s The Real World than our own (at least until The Sims 2 is released later this year).
For a more accurate portrayal of us, you’d have to play the just-released Real Lives 2004 (www.EducationalSimulations.com).
Designed by Bob Runyan, a high school mathematics and social science teacher, Real Lives is his epic version of The Game of Life, that old board game. It simulates a complete lifespan from birth. The catch is, you might be born anywhere on Earth.
Playing the game for a few hours, I went through several of the apparently billions of lives possible: a Guatemalan soldier who died an old, wealthy land-owner blinded by cataracts. A brilliant Japanese girl whose family decided to send her brothers to university, but not her. A charitable Albertan farmer suffering from asthma due to smoking during his formative years. A pretty Egyptian woman who was raped when she was 16, became a political activist, and was executed at age 44.
As you can tell, Real Lives is atypical. It can be a grim, but elegiac reminder of life beyond our borders. Yet, as the latest in the batch of new "serious games" (games for purposes beyond entertainment), it’s hypnotically involving and informative.
What’s horrifyingly realistic about Real Lives is how little control it hands over to the player. Video gamers are accustomed to having absolute command over their digital personas and environment, but the interaction here focuses on life-altering choices, practical and often ethical. One of my characters — an American woman living in poverty in Atlanta, Georgia – was hit by her husband and was offered the choice to leave him, tell the authorities, hit back or do nothing.
You can decide how to invest your money (if you have any), how you spend your free time, whether to abort a child or put it up for adoption, and hundreds of other choices. But it’s when Real Lives takes away your control that it hits an emotional peak unheard of in video games. One particularly moving instance happened when my character’s father died of a heart attack, forcing my 65-year-old mother to barter junk picked up off the roads in order to support her family.
Illnesses and atrocities occur with a frequency related to the country you were born in and your own genetics. Backed by a data engine which culls statistics from over a hundred sources (including Amnesty International, the World Health Organization and the CIA World Fact Book), Real Lives justifies its elements of tragedy and includes web links for almost every facet of your country.
It’s hard to believe this is a video game. Is it dangerous? Perhaps in a good way. Is it enlightening? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. |
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