When Games Became Films

Note: Seeing as the news on Capital Hill has died down for the weekend and I've become a little bored with always tirading on about the same political drama that I consistently obsess over on 24-hour news sites, this post, and others, will be on a subject that I feel I have slightly more authority on than politics: video games.

I remember the first time I ever saw Heavy Rain. Or, more accurately, the tech demonstration for the game that they unveiled at E3 2006. It was so strikingly realistic. As I watched the demonstration unfold, I could not believe that this French studio had so well re-created the human form and, being familiar with their previous work, Indigo Prophecy, I became overwhelmingly excited for the possibilities of their next title.

I waited nearly four years for this game. As Heavy Rain actually became Heavy Rain and not just some tech demo and as more and more information was released to the game news industry, I became more and more insanely ready for this game to arrive. On February 23, 2010, I got my wish. And... well, it truly is impossible to live up to four years of over-zealous hype.

Let me just say, I love Heavy Rain. The story and screenplay are incredibly well written, the graphics are absolutely mind-shattering, and it offers something truly unique. But all those descriptions are missing a key qualifier at the end of each one of them: the term "for a video game". But this piece is the most important step that the video game medium has made toward becoming a legitimate art form.

I will not dog the graphics, they're the most realistic that the world has ever seen in a video game, despite how some complain about some robotic animations and off-looking textures. Yeah, I noticed them too, but there's got to be a point where you look past those couple of missing pieces and accept that this was the most visually stunning video game of all time.

And it truly does offer something unique, at least at this time. Heavy Rain is an adventure game in an industry that has not embraced adventure games since the mid-1990's and a predominant amount of gameplay is spent on character interaction and plot development instead of action scenes. It seems like everything about the game, from the presentation style to the control scheme to the central themes of the narrative is so out of norm with the rest of the industry that it's hard to define it as a game.

But, whoops, there I went and mentioned the plot. Well damn. There is one major problem that I have with Heavy Rain and that is the narrative that ties the beautiful visuals, script, music, and outlandishness together. If there is one part of the game that truly disappointed me, it was the lack of risk-taking that David Cage took when writing this story.

The story is formulaic, blunt, holey, convenient, and, above all, safe for the video game audience. Why did David Cage push this game so far away from the stereotypical video game in every other aspect he could, but ran back so willing when it came to the story? '

Why does the story of the main character have to be so explicitly broken down into five challenges? Does David Cage realize how many games are broken down by fives? It's a very convenient number: introduction, trial, "sudden" surprising midpoint, right hand man, big bad guy. Why does one of the challenges have to focus on driving on the wrong side of the road? I usually drive on the wrong side of the road in any game with driving! Then a maze for the second challenge? Wow David, you've stolen such an original idea that repeatedly appears in Pokemon games and it breaks the pace just as bad in both places. After that, we get into some interesting territory making decisions to kill people, to cut off limbs, to poison, but there's one main problem with this that I promise I'm getting to.

And David, why does this narrative have to be so damn convenient? Why does Nathaniel pull out a cross during the stand-off? It would have reflected the importance of the choice of the player if he pulled out a gun and shot Blake instead of just trying to get a last attempt at exorcising him. Why does Scott Shelby show up right after the suicidal mother cut herself? If he had showed up too late to save the mother, then the baby would have been parentless, and players would have felt some actual remorse for Shelby's homicidal tendencies when they find out the truth about him. And, most importantly, why isn't the poison in the last challenge actually poison? It's so obvious, so expected, it killed me that Ethan didn't fall over dead once he had saved his son. Imagine the impact that would have had for the player, to see a father actually sacrifice himself to save his son. The predictability and convenience of the plot ruin any chance at real themes being expressed.

And finally and most damning of all, the characters have no character! The "characters" that are set up are merely the circumstances that surround the character in the story, none of them really have characteristics of their own. Because the player has so much influence over the decisions made in the game, the characters themselves are really only shells for the player to inhabit. And that is where Heavy Rain's story truly fails on a thematic and/or artistic level. There's no internal conflict, no progression for the characters so the narrative and the themes of the narrative have no weight. The whims of the player, not the will of the characters, decide the fate of the game, the story, the narrative. And since the themes have no weight, the game is completely incapable of enticing players through ideas and can only entertain them through events and that's the same thing that every video game story to this day has done already.

That really made it sound like I hated this game or the story. On the contrary, I found both to be very enjoyable. But I did not find it enjoyable for the reason that David Cage wanted me to enjoy it; I did noy find the human emotion that drives the plots of films like The Hurt Locker, Crazy Horse, and Precious. I found it enjoyable because it was thrilling and had a few surprises along the way, like an Indiana Jones or Star Wars film. The problem is that that has already been achieved many times over in the video game industry and David Cage wanted something trailblazing.

What could I tell him to do? Well, I'm no game designer or screenwriter yet, but I would say take the control away from the player. Don't let the player decide the course of the character's progression, just focus on developing interesting characters and stories for them to live through. And while we're talking about stories and characters, simplify it. You do not need multiple characters or branching paths, take it down a notch, and when you simplify it down to one set character and one set path, then it's easier to create a compelling narrative. And most importantly, David, please, take risks. Give the industry and the players something they really have not ever, ever seen before and take us to plateaus of thought we've never entertained while playing our video games. Just try new things.

That said, Heavy Rain is incredibly enjoyable, it has multiple endings, multiple paths through the main narrative, and interesting plot developments; it's a really enjoyable, pretty, intriguing choose-your-own-adventure novel. But that's all that it is. Unfortunately, though, that's the best we can do for now.

Moving Forward on the Progressive Path

That's it! We won! It's finished!

Last night, the House voted to pass the Senate's version of the Health Care Reform Bill. With the passage of the reconciliation package in the Senate in the next week and President Obama's signature, Americans will finally get health care reform that has been sought by several presidents for nearly 110 years. The battle against hate, fear, and corporate greed was won by compassion, hope, and the will of the American people.

But where will the Progressive movement go from here?

Well, obviously some sort of job legislation. Rah, rah, rah, I know, I know, what a cop out, predicting some sort of economy focused legislation during a time of incredible recession. But it's obviously true, I'm absolutely certain that our Congress' big focus, probably through the 2010 election at least, will be about waking up our economy, probably through some sort of incentivizing manufacturing in the United States through tax breaks or something, hopefully (!) through the development of our 30 year old mass-transit infrastructure. Wouldn't it be great if we developed a high-speed train system, like one every other developed country in the world has? Or just fixing our highways and roads so they don't have giant potholes and gaps in them? And imagine all the jobs we'd make, not just in the short term, but all of the long term jobs at train stations and highway maintenance patrols! I'm just saying, developing the infrastructure would be an excellent job source, boost our economy, and make our country more technologically competitive with other developed nations. And to make it more progressive, maybe a certain percentage of the jobs would need to be completed by organized labor unions? I can't think of a better way to increase the power of labor unions and ensure the quality of the construction of these projects.

But you can't just expect Congress to work on job legislation, that would be too boring. If I could wish upon a star, I would want to see some education and financial reforms! Our education system is one of the poorest in the country, and a lot of it has to do with our set standards and the ways our schools are funded as set by President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. The act actually determines federal funding for schools based on their performance on standardized testing, even though logically the schools that would need the funding the most most likely have the lowest standardized test scores. And even before NCLB, local funding was determined by local property taxes; the schools that need the funding the most, that have the lowest graduation rates and testing scores, are located in poorer urban neighborhoods. The new plan should push an emphasis for magnet schooling, support strong science and liberal arts programs in high schools, reform funding so federal funding is based on population and need and local funding is equally provided and distributed by the state, place restrictions on college business techniques so that overhead administrative costs and tuition rates are lowered and college life is geared more toward academia than partying, and provide more financial aid and scholarships for higher education. To be honest though, I don't expect this reform bill to even touch the American secondary education system. But even if it's just centered on the public K-12 education sector, if it only does one thing, for the love of God, get rid of summer vacation! The United States is no longer an agrarian society, it hasn't been for a while, and this three-month break in school is undermining the very nature of education by allowing students' minds to go unstimulated for months on end. GET RID OF IT!

Financial reform. That's different... If there is one thing I truly do not understand, it is our national financial system. I have no idea how corporations can buy or sell debt or build seperate companies to house crap properties so the parent company looks stronger. It's all so ridiculous to me! Our rampant deregulation of our banking system has led to widespread global economic collapse, with our banks being involved in the hiding of national debt in Europe and causing financial crises to shoot up all over the world. It needs to stop! Put the leash on these dogs! Fold them accountable for what they've done. We need to go back to a time of strict financial reform, where government influence set up by the Roosevelt Administration prevented banking-based recessions from occurring for nearly seventy years. Doesn't anyone notice that the state with lowest unemployment rate at 4.2% and one of the few with a budget surplus, North Dakota, is financed by a state-owned bank? The Congress has made smart first steps with its credit card regulations that were implemented last year. But they can't stop there! Put Wall Street in its place and get our nation's debt crisis under control!

Unfortunately, my wish is only half right... Instead of education reform, we'll be getting immigration reform... Hopefully the legislation will focus on a path to citizenship and amnesty for illegal Hispanic immigrants and developing immigration and visitor worker programs that are easy to understand and take part in. But if the Republican voices are anything like they were for health care reform, they're going to want to build a wall and start an advanced drone bomber operation to "secure our borders". Either way, I can't say this legislation seems very interesting. I just hope it's effective.

It's going to be weird, not really talking about health care reform that much any more. I know, Rep. Alan Grayson has offered a Medicare Buy-In Option so that all citizens of the United States can buy into Medicare, but I don't think I'll have much to say unless something really goes wrong or, more surprisingly, it actually passes. But, you know, as much as I miss health care, I really look forward to talking about these other reforms in the future. It should be fun.

The Face of Hate

We stand on the precipice of the passage of one of the most influential pieces of social legislation passed in the United States since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society or even Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. President Barrack Obama's health care reform package is set to be voted on in the House of Representatives as soon as tomorrow and, through the legislative technique of deem and pass, will be on his desk to be signed in the next calendar week. President Obama even addressed the House Democratic Caucus today in a speech that quoted Abraham Lincoln and has been described as his "most emotional" to date. Progress, finally some progress, is within reach.

And there stand the Tea Party.

A mass protest outside the Capitol building brought out hundreds of Tea Party activists to demonstrate while the Democratic caucus arrived for the speech. But, behold, their cries and slogans of "Hands off my health care" were not ringing in the air today. They roared, an angry, unintelligible mass and from the crowd some new catchphrases sprang into the air. Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights hero most well known for his prominence in the Selma to Montgomery marches and his address at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was called a nigger by several members of the crowd. (I unapologetically refuse to censor that word. Blocking out, hiding away from the two g's in the middle of it is just spineless and gives this term of hate more power.) And Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a staunch supporter of civil rights, though specifically lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual rights, and the second openly gay member of the House, was called a faggot by members of the crowd.

I actually cried when I read this story the first time. It reviled me so much to know that there were people so ignorant out there that they dismiss elected leaders on the basis of their race or sexuality that it was almost paralyzing. I just, the shock! knowing that hate was out there, so unashamed, so vulgar and unquestionably present. I don't know, for some reason, it didn't really, sink in? I suppose? I have no idea. It was just overwhelming. My disgust. My pity. My I don't even know what. I simply couldn't believe it.

And the Republican Party and conservative bodies like Fox News had glorified this movement as a body concerned with the representation of conservative political thought, of representing "common sense" fiscal responsibility and theology-based ethics and social standards! But today's event, it showed their true colors. When push came to shove, when the time for the Tea Party to dig in and hold back those last few representatives from passing the legislation came, it became evident that the Tea Party's position was not about health care at all, or at least for quite a few of its members. Instead of speaking out against government influence in private business, these "activists", if that's what you can call them, they chose to share some very select hate slurs.

When it was time to show what they represented, the Tea Party let the American body politic, and the American people, know that it wasn't the bill or any of the Democratic policies that they were so vehemently against, it was the niggers and faggots behind them.

I just hope they were listening.

A Lack of Will

Friday night, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee reported on MSNBC that the Bennet public option letter and individual statements released by individual senators, in the past and more recently, had achieved a following of 51 senators in the United States Senate that would vote in favor of a reconciliation bill that included a public option if the House passed it first.

http://whipcongress.com/

Dick Durbin, the Majority Whip and a senator from Illinois, who seemed dead set against the idea of a public option being passed through reconciliation just a few days earlier this week, released a statement that spun his initial statement into support for a House passed public option including reconciliation bill, and that he would aggressively whip for passage of such a bill. Finally, after such an excruciating year-long war of attrition, the progressive spirit had finally broken through! We were going to get our public option and, maybe in my lifetime, a single payer health care system!

Except.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/12/pelosi-public-option_n_496559.html

Nancy Pelosi, what the fuck?

There is absolutely nothing else I could force out of my mouth with the exception of my shock induced vomit and the few microcosms of hopes and dreams that still clung to my soul. Nancy Pelosi, one of the most liberal congressional members in the United States with seemingly undying support for a single payer health care system and the most control over the activities of the House of Representatives, is giving up on the public option because she thinks the political reality is against it? She's going to let some scraggily old foggies defeat the best chance our country has had at real health reform in a century, without even giving it an up or down vote? The most powerful woman and figure in the legislative branch of our government is going to just let this opportunity pass by? It's so difficult to put my absolute rage into words; I just want to scream!

Do you know why Speaker Pelosi won't move forward with the public option? Because she lacks the will. She does not have the will to fight for the people of the United States. And it's disturbing. There's such a lack of will to do anything of value in today's Congress that when somebody stands by their core values and doesn't let corporate interests and cash push them in their favor, they're labeled as mavericks and extremists, like Barney Frank (D-MA) and Alan Grayson (D-FL). It's because they don't feel up to it, they don't want to because it would be too difficult. The truth is that these men and women are public servants, and every American should expect them to have the will to work for them or, if they don't, vote them out. And with Speaker Pelosi's dramatic turnaround and departure, I have come to understand that we will not see real health reform until a Congress of men and women who all have the will are elected to power with a strong Speaker to lead them. Unfortunately, until then, we'll have to deal with band-aid solutions like national marketplaces and insurance mandates. And when it becomes apparent again one day that the private health insurance industry is taking the American people for a ride at the expense of their well-being and happiness, then I hope the people will make the right choice.

Back to you Madam Speaker.

Nancy Pelosi, I trusted you. The Democratic Party and the Progressive Movement trusted you. The American people trusted you, to always push for the interests and values of the people of this country. You've broken that trust and this is one of the single issues that it cannot be forgiven or forgotten. You have let down the American people at a time when they needed you to stand by your convictions the most. I hope you're satisfied with your safe win.