In the game hero's world, ethics may exist, but only in the most dubious of ways. Perhaps there's an alignment system cribbed from D&D, but a geek-wide embrace of black trenchcoats and Darth Vader means the Dark Side is usually fun, and sometimes the better way to go. Even if it's a wholesale copying of the Lawful Good-Chaotic Evil system, the truest of the Lawful Good paladins are prone to careening around killing random monsters in the same manner as, and sometimes right beside, the most Chaotic of evil rogues.
Ethical character decisions are made mainly on the basis of what powers you get by picking good versus evil, rather than anything that speaks to the spirit. Can we wallow in the abyss for many years and really say it hasn't affected us with a straight face? Yes, games allow us to vent our spleen as vilely as we might choose, but an essential part of catharsis is the renewal of the appreciation for life, which most games lack. They encourage the wallowing, but the ending's more likely to be a setup for a sequel than anything emotionally affecting or enlightening.
Even the heroes themselves are seldom likable. Either they're pneumatic, buffed and pumped, and brainless connoisseurs of mindless explosions or they're regular-Joe types designed to appeal to people beyond the buff-guy-with-guns crowd. As a quick exercise, name the last five videogame protagonists you'd want to hang out with. Personally, I came up with three.
They're usually cardboard cutouts, designed to let you project your own desires and personality onto them (though the more cynical among us may say it's because nobody wants to pay writers), rather than having a life and personality of their own. Likable protagonists are out there, but there have been hundreds more faceless protagonists fresh out of Cookie Cutter Hero School, mowing down enemies because designers needed a stand-in for the player. Antiheroes have their place, but we barely have the well-developed good guys against whom to cast them. Noir means nothing when everything is noir. Sin City is tame and boring fare when everything is gritty tales of antiheroes struggling against a dark world.
This lament is as old as the industry itself, but the time has come for the industry to grow up. Hewing to an adolescent ethos of "me against the world" is damaging to the industry as a whole, and it restricts the possibilities inherent in the sheer power of modern gaming. Technicolor is out there, but we like the black and white of our storytelling, and besides, the man's keeping me down. It's why outsiders seldom take it seriously from a storytelling, artistic and philosophical perspective, for the same reason that no one takes 14-year-old "f - - the world" door-slam theatrics seriously. If we can make world-class boob jiggle physics, someone out there can write a compelling, interesting good guy who's as interesting as the bad guys we know and love.
Millionaire playboy Shannon Drake lives a life on the run surrounded by Japanese schoolgirls and videogames. He also writes about anime and games for WarCry.
