Most people regard games as nothing but a recreational way of having fun, or a competitive way of proving your skills on a battleground whether a warfare like competition like Battlefield , Call of Duty or Halo or a sports like competition like Street Fighter , Tekken or FIFA. Even though I adore competitve gaming because of the constant striving to be better and this of course comes as a result of learning from your mistakes. Eventually you perfect your style to own the competition.However when it comes to me, the definition of a game changes entirely. I don't really perceive games as a mere form of entertainment that I resort to so I can pass the time, they have a deeper and more profound meaning to their storyline that somehow plays a huge role in shaping my way of thinking or seeing things in general. They actually have morals for humanity.
SPOILER ALERT for ( Silent Hill Saga, MGS Saga , Red Dead Redemption )
These 3 games are nothing more but an example to which I want to illustrate certain points to. Even though I would be leaving out a lot of other great games like L.A. Noire , Heavy Rain and several more.
I regard gaming as a form of knowledge base , entertainment and art as powerful if not way more powerful than movies and books. How? you ask. Well a book gives you a huge knowledge base to learn from whether its a person's imagination, theories , studies or history of humanity or anything else in life. But a book leaves you to imagine these things with the power of your concious brain. A movie gives you a lesser amount of knowledge with video and audio not requiring your imagination to kick in as everything is shown to you the way they want you to see it. Games give you all of this but with the power to control the outcome and the feeling of being involved in whatever is happening.
Lets kick start this with Read Dead Redemption. A game about John Marston a former outlaw trying to redeem himself of his sins. You live the life of John after his wife and son are kidnapped, where he tries to become a normal person and leave the criminal life he once endured. From there on, you make good choices you do the right thing as they say, trying the very best to become a good person in order to complete the process of "redemption" and return to who you once were. Eventually, you save your family spend some time with your son as a true father , then your house gets surrounded by the members of FBI and US Army who kidnapped your family, who you have spent countless days doing dirty work for in order to free your family who promised to leave you alone and they eventually kill you after a epic one man stand in your barn.
What if the game was made into a movie , It wouldn't have 1% of the effect it had on me it would have been nothing but a boring cowboy movie. Why ? you ask. Well the countless hours you spent trying to redeem yourself, helping the poor fighting your past gang members. This emerges you into the story , into the ideology of the idea itself , helping you understand the meaning behind it. For example at the very last missions in the game after you save your family , you spend time with your son as a real father doing normal things , like riding horses , teaching him how to hunt and so on. They were pretty weird and boring but I actually got attached to the child feeling bad for him as he never had a father , his father was always caught up doing criminal work , killing people and robbing banks and never had any time for him or his mother. So when Jhon dies. It tears something deep inside of you. All this hard work trying to redeem myself for what? Why did he even bother. The moral behind it , the feeling you get is nothing compared to reading a book or watching a movie because you were never that involved in what was happening. Every good action of trying to become a better person and forgetting about John's dark past , these actions were carried out by me , I was holding that controller every step of the way. Some game developers deserve a huge deal of respect for making such great masterpieces such as Rockstar games. I want to thank them for giving the world Read Dead Redemption , La Noire And the Grand Theft Auto Series.
In my opinion these kind of games ( I can't event call them games I'd rather call them experiences ) are way better than reading a book or watching a movie. Im sure millions of people would disagree to the Games are better than books part. Maybe they never experienced a good game such as Red Dead or they think a good story in gaming is Halo for example. One way or another thats my opinion and people can disagree as much as they want.
Ill be taking about Silent Hill and MGS and how they are a true form of art later on ....Stay Tuned for more :)
