A curious thing happened to me the other day while I was playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which, if you're not familiar with such things, is a video game in which you participate in a bloody big war. It's a very popular franchise; devoted fans camp out on pavements for a launch copy, which makes it the royal wedding of violent video games.
Anyway, I'd got about a quarter of the way into it and was "doing" a level based in Sierra Leone that required a bit of stealth and sneaking around. You spend most of the game accompanied by various computer-controlled characters, and I was walking behind one of these, a crotchety moustachioed soldier who's supposed to be my friend, when he suddenly goes "shhhh" because he's heard a guard coming.
So we both stop in our tracks, and moustache man snatches the guard, pins him against the wall, and stabs him right through the throat with a hunting knife, killing him instantly. Then the body hits the floor, moustache man says "OK, come on", and we continue sneaking into the compound. Or rather, we were supposed to. But I stopped after a few steps and walked back to where he'd killed the guard. I just stared at the blood on the wall. And I thought, "I don't want to be friends with the man who did that."
Obviously there was no means of expressing a thought like that within the game engine, so I had to keep it to myself. Moments later, moustache man orders me to climb a watchtower and dispatch a guard myself. I climb the ladder to find a man asleep in a chair. Just dozing with his back to me. And as I walk near him it says "Press X to take out the guard", so I press X, and rather than bonking him on the head, or maybe just persuading him to leave, my character also grabs the guard and stabs him right in the throat. And I thought, "I'm no better than moustache man: that was an appalling thing I just did."
Again, there was no way to explore these feelings in the game, so I forgot about it in favour of taking out mercenaries with my massive sniper rifle while moustache man and his pal shouted "slot the bastards" and similarly inelegant encouragements.
I don't particularly mind the level of violence in computer games, partly because it's absurd, and partly because I'm hopelessly desensitised. What I do object to is the dick-swinging machismo that infests games like this. If I had a penny for every time I've spent the opening moments of a game sitting in the back of a transport vehicle listening to a soldier called Vasquez repeatedly use the word "motherfucker", I'd have enough money to buy the Sesame Street game instead. And even that probably starts with Sergeant Grover warning Private Elmo that "Shit is about to get real".
Every soldier in every game I've ever played is a dick. A dick that sounds like a 14-year-old boy reading dialogue discarded from an old-school Schwarzenegger action movie for displaying too much swagger. They seem like a bunch of try-hard bell-ends, desperate to highlight their gruff masculinity. What, exactly, are they overcompensating for?
Well, for one thing, games are inherently wussy. The stereotype of the bespectacled dweeby gamer is an inaccurate cliche, but there's no denying games are far from a beefy pursuit. Which is why shooty-fighty games go out of their way to disguise that. Every pixel of Modern Warfare 3 oozes machismo. It's all chunky gunmetal, booming explosions and stubbly men blasting each other's legs off. Yet consider what genteel skills the game itself requires. To succeed, you need to be adept at aiming a notional cursor and timing a series of button-pushes. It's about precision and nimble fingers. Just like darning a sock in a hurry. Or creating tapestry against the clock.
In other words, Modern Warfare 3 would be nothing but a gigantic needlework simulation were it not for the storyline, which is the most homoerotic tale ever created in any medium, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos. Behind the military manoeuvrings, the human story revolves around people backstabbing, bitching, making catty asides, breaking off friendships and betraying one another. Ignore the gunfire and it's like a soap opera set in a ballet school.
Many of the missions require you to adopt the guise of Yuri, an impressionable young Russian lad hanging around with a pair of impossibly butch men, one of whom, Captain Price, is the aforementioned guy with a moustache – not just any moustache, mind, but a full-blown leatherman's handlebar number. I think Captain Price's "look" was designed by Tom of Finland. Your other companion is a Scottish lad called Soap. I'm not sure why he's called Soap, although I think it's because Captain Price once picked him up in a bathhouse.
Price is definitely the "top" in the relationship, and before long both you and Soap appear to be vying for his affections. Often when you look at Price, the word "Follow" literally appears over his head – a sincere instruction presumably beamed directly from your heart – as you walk behind him, tracing his footsteps while gazing forlornly at his back like a pining lover. When Price commands you to "get down", you literally crawl behind him on your hands and knees. Sometimes you'll be crawling so close, your viewpoint goes right up between Price's legs until his crawling, pumping backside takes up the entire screen, which is precisely the sort of cinematography that failed to occur in Delta Force starring Chuck Norris.
Perhaps that's why Modern Warfare 3 will make more money than Delta Force did. Because presumably they've done market research and discovered that that's what their consumers want. I just wish they'd be honest about it and let the lead characters kiss. And press X to use tongues.
|