Death in video games has developed greatly over the years. Graphics have improved, leading to new and horrifying ways to die. I would place examples but quite frankly, there are just too many. Yet, how do these deaths compare to death in real life? Do they hold the weight of reality with them? Do these deaths make people feel the way they should, as if they had just witnessed them? The sad answer to these questions is no. The reason being is the elimination of death. Yes, the main character may suffer a horrible riddling of bullets but in the end they are only “dead” until the player pushes the continue button, then voila! The character comes back to life as if nothing had ever happened. If only life were that simple. If that was truly death then that character would be gone. The game would be over. The bad guys would win. That is not the case though. It is merely a means of punishment. It is a slap on the wrist and does not truly hold the gravity of death.

It is obvious that nobody in modern day gaming is going to buy a game where you have to restart every time you die. Instead, game developers try to insert death elsewhere. Some games succeed, while others fail horribly. I will give an example of both. The good example being the ever lasting memory of Aeris from Final Fantasy VII. I along with many other gaming writers have beaten this example to death, and for good reason. It is the first true example of a powerful death in a video game. Hours into the game you view a cut scene where Aeris is praying at a temple. Just as the hero of the story arrives to save her, the villain plunges from the ceiling driving his sword through her heart. The following sequence of dialogue brings a tear to the eye as the player witnesses her last words. This is an amazing example of just how much power video games can actually hold. As game developers continue with bigger and better stories, we should expect to see more tear jerking moments just as we are seeing further involvement in plot and story.

The bad example, and I hate to say it, but Halo Reach’s Noble Squad. Everyone who knew the Halo series, knew the planet of Reach and its fate. After a full scale planetary invasion, the planet is glassed from orbit by the alien race of The Covenant. The burning question was how each of the noble team members were going to meet their fate. High above the planet your character, Noble 6, along with the spartan demolitions expert Jorge sat with a bomb ready to take out one the enemy Covenant’s space ship. The catch came when the bomb was damaged and had to be manually detonated. Jorge was the only one who could do this. So he gave Noble 6 his dog tag and threw him out of the ship. As Noble 6 plummeted to earth you watch as the ship exploded taking Jorge and the Covenant Capital ship alike. This moment was meant to be Jorge’s symbolic moment of ultimate sacrifice. He gave his life for his planet yet there was no true emotion in this scene. This emptiness in Jorge’s death was also present in the passing of each of the members of the Noble squad. If Bungie, the creators of Halo, wanted the player to feel something, than they failed at portraying death as an event filled with loss and pain. It was the mentality that they were soldiers. Oh well, is what was felt at their passing.

What is perhaps the biggest disconnect comes with the most played aspect of video games, multiplayer. Players have spent countless hours slaying their friends and foes alike. It has literally made killing a game. The goal is to see how many kills someone can rack up. I remember my senior year English teacher over hearing my conversation about playing Modern Warfare 2. She heard my comment on my kill to death ratio and said, “You should feel something when you take another’s life.” and quite frankly, she’s right. However, video games are a way to have fun without being tied down to reality. So this escape into arena styled game play is a means of competition pure and simple. Multiplayer cannot be viewed as critically as a story component. The “people” giving their lives in the game do not exist or feel. They are merely computer animations created for the purpose of simulation.

Now before this becomes a hate speech against the thing I have to come to make my hobby, I would like to offer a perspective. Death in video games has become common place but we as gamers have to separate the game from reality and realize the actions we are performing. Death is nothing to be taken lightly. Here is the main distinction though, video games are games. They are simulations meant to pull us out of our daily lives and put us behind the guise of someone else. So it is okay to play these titles with the focus of putting a long day in the dust.

Before I leave you to your contemplation, I would like to present you with a statistic to think about. It is a very large number that holds a lot more meaning than the gaming community has taken it for. If you were to look at this number from the eyes of a non-gaming person it might bring a certain level of disgust. To the people who play this game is viewed as a mile-stone. This number only proves our blindness as a video game community. As I present this, I hope you will take this to heart. Do not put down your controller and quit gaming altogether. You should instead go back and play the campaign and take notice of what this game presents death as, a moment of truth that we all must face. It is horrifying but at the same times gives us a reason to live our lives. That number is the current number of times that the Call of Duty: Black Ops community has killed the entire world population: 6.7 times. This number climbs everyday and it is only one number, for one game, in the incalculable number of video game simulated deaths.

After all these years my mother was right in a way. Death is a powerful thing, never to be pushed aside. Films and literature use death as a device for emotion. When someone important dies the viewer is disheartened at their passing. It is meant for us to cry, think, and reflect. Sadly games are drifting away from this and we cannot let that happen. Consider the people who you have lost in your life. Think of what their death meant to you and hopefully the next time you play a game where the main character experiences loss, you can shed a tear or have a heavy heart towards their pain. Video games are an escape from real life. That does not mean we should be devoid of the emotions we have. Instead, we should experience video games just as we cry from watching characters in a movie pass or read about the death of our favorite protagonist in a book.

The latest debate on video games is whether or not it could be art. That in itself is a rather grand statement as a new form of art is always contended at first. For example, take the Impressionist movement in late 19th century. At the time, paintings were to be made in a completely photo-realistic manner. However, artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir broke that mold and created paintings based on expression and feelings rather than just real life representations. It took a long period of time before their style was accepted as art. Just as right now, the critics of our generation fail to see the potentiality of interactive entertainment. Video games consist of three parts, all of which are their own art style by themselves. There is the creation of a storyline which parallels to theatre and literature. Musical scores also accompany many video games. The graphics are last, which is another method of visual art. Each part makes up a whole, which is the experience of the game. Although all three of these Medias are forms of art, the main argument is this: Where do you draw the line at game versus art? To understand this you need to first understand what constitutes both art and games.

What defines art is an extremely debated topic. Lacking a clear and concise definition, it is difficult to truly explain what art is with precision. Out of many of the different definitions derived from various sources all over the internet and dictionaries of our time, the only common theme is that art draws an undeniable emotion, or level of intellectual thought within the viewer. Think of the classes of art taken as a college student or in grade school. All that time spent analyzing different paintings and pictures of sculptures were in order to better understand something about that subject. Those objects were all created for that reason alone: for people to gaze upon them and wonder.

There are two ways in which to view art, that is in a realist or objectivist way. Realism is the manner in which all undeniable art is viewed. Objectivism is the process where a person views the art is completely up to opinion. So what one person sees as trash, another sees as treasure. This is where the age old saying of “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” comes to mind. Although some art is undeniable, other forms may be greatly contended as to whether or not they deserve merit or recognition as art at all. This is where the dilemma lies with video games becoming art.

A game is defined by a definitive end and an objective. When someone plays a game there is a goal in mind at the end. When you play a board game such as Life the end goal is to finish with as much money as possible. Another thing about Life is that it ends. When all players reach the finish line they count up their money and determine a winner. This is a defining moment that denotes Life, as a game. Games are a manner of entertainment. They are not meant to make a person better at something other than the end goal of the game itself. Games are designed for enjoyment and nothing more.

The line of game versus art becomes more and more obscure as time goes on. In more recent times, gamers many needs have increased to bigger and better forms of stimulation. Now it is up to game designers to make fully fleshed out worlds with grand visuals, expansive stories, and musical scores to go with it. Each one of these factors parallels to another form of expressive art. Animation or film comes in the form of cut scenes and in game visuals. Music is present with complete musical scores. Theater comes with voice acting, and literature in the form of story arcs. All of these traits are artistic yes, but that does not mean that a video game maybe art as a whole. There is still that final distinction to be made.

Playing through a multiplayer game of Halo is hardly art at all. It’s a competition at best. Yet, watching a story line unfold before your eyes may be the next great form of visual art. Still, the biggest thing standing between art and video games is just that, they are games. Since their inception, video games were always about the end and not the journey. A player could fail indefinitely and it became all about a person’s skill rather than what they were taking part in viewing. The levels were less about the story and more about how much more difficult each level became. Modern day gaming has taken strides in all of those areas. The task of playing through a game has become more about what the player experiences. Whether it be in the trenches of war, a far away land of fantasy, or becoming a flower pedal dancing in the wind, games have strayed away from the objective and more towards the way a person feels during each and every new event. Another step that game designers have taken is the complete elimination of failing within game. This was originally to make games more accessible but now, failure in a game means nothing while some games have all but done away with it. Now a days there are games such as Braid and Flower where the player can literally not lose the game. This all but eliminates the need for competition or improvement. There is also the aspect of what games draw out of the player.

Many story arcs of modern day games are filled with incredible plots, believable worlds, and fully developed characters. Players become much more involved in their character’s thoughts, actions, relationships and growth. Take for example the latest installment of the Fable series, Fable III. Now in Fable III there is a central path that moves the plot forward and there are also numerous side quests to give more depth. Throughout the whole course of the story you watch as your choices affect everything you do. Every reaction that comes from your actions unfolds before your eyes, meanwhile you watch as your character develops from a rebellious prince to the malevolent or benevolent king you decide him to be. It can be compared to a choose your own adventure book. There is also the elimination of failure within the game itself as your character cannot die but merely be knocked down just see he can get back up. But where does the emotion come in? Where are the thought provoking elements that are demanded of becoming art?

Throughout the game there are many instances of emotional conflict between the choices you must make. Yet, Fable III proves itself to be quite formidable within minutes. At the beginning of the game a gaggle of protesters gathers to protest your evil brother’s tyrannical ruling. As you and your love interest stand up for the plight of these common folk your brother gives you a choice that is all too difficult to make; who to execute, your love or the group of protesters. This gut wrenching decision near breaks your heart within the first twenty minutes of the game. Having to make such a heavy decision weighs down upon the psyche like being under the ocean itself. This goes to prove that video games have more to offer than just eye candy for hyperactive children.

Video games have come a long way from what they once were. Just imagine the possibilities presented by this form of art. Many avenues could open up with this new aspect of media. New ways to experience stories, see new worlds, an all-new way to stimulate the sense and bring us further towards a great form of emotional conveyance. Imagine what it would be like to enter into Van Gogh’s Starry Night and scale the spire to look at the view. Perhaps one could take a walk in one of Salvador Dali’s many warped landscapes. It would be an unimaginable experience in being able to get inside the depictions of these artists. Viewing these paintings is one thing but living them is another. That is what video games are all about not just seeing but experiencing it as well.

If you think you’ve got the intestinal fortitude, check out our Apply to the Ironworks section and enlist today. See you on the battlefield, soldier.