Matt Meyer
Mr. Sunshine

It’s nearly impossible to tell that “Mass Effect 2,” recently released by EA/Bioware, spawned from Pong. Video games have catapulted into mainstream entertainment in recent years, with that has seen its share of ups and downs. There are all kinds of garbage that make their way over from Japan, and just as much garbage is pushed out by American producers. But video games have seen breakthroughs in recent years that have pushed video games more into the forefront of entertainment and closer to toppling movies as the entertainment king.
Photo-realistic graphics have made games more immersive than ever. “Madden 10” and “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” have landed in nearly every guys’ dorm room, and even some girls. Tournaments are popular, and sponsored on-campus.
“Call Of Duty” (COD) is part of a group of games that assaults the player with an immersive story. The player actually feels a connection to his or her character and is shocked, in “COD’s” case, when the main character is shot and killed mid-game. Games like “Mass Effect 2” are incredibly cinematic, and the player’s decisions affect the game world. In “Mass Effect 1,” my squad became separated, and I found myself agonizing over the decision of which of my squad mates to save and which I would have to leave to die. In “Mass Effect 2”, there are still repercussions for which character I saved and which I let die. Agonizing over a video game character, who would have thought that possible?
That reaction is incredibly similar to a horror movie when you can’t help but yell, “Look out,” as the completely unaware cliché character has his head lopped off from behind. Or on a deeper level, in a drama or an action movie, the viewer feels a connection between himself and the main character on screen and draws an emotional connection to the movie. All the best movies do this.
This emotional connection between the player and what happens on screen has also been criticized by conservative politicians and psychologists. A large number of popular games are censored or eveProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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banned altogether in Australia. Popular titles like “Left 4 Dead 2” (I aProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ays wanted my zombie kills to explode in a shower of glitter and flowers), “Silent Hill: Homecoming,” and “50 Cent: Bulletproof” have been watered down to the point where the core game-play mechanics are destroyed. Games like “Blitz: The League and Dark Sector” were banned entirely.
Fox News had a fiasco following the release of “Mass Effect 1.” It alleged that the game had “full pornographic nudity.” When asked by Spike TV video game expert Geoff Keighley, if psychologist Cooper Lawrence, who was leveling these claims against the game, had actually played the game, Lawrence said%Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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“No.”
Lawrence later apologized stating:
“I recognize that I mis-spoke. I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke. Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit.” (1up.com)
Video games are now on par with movies and music as legitimate forms of entertainment, and the more they extend past old mediums, the more unfair and unsubstantiated backlash video games will receive. Video games that draw these connections go a step further than movies because they are more interactive. Clint Eastwood or Kristen Stewart aren’t the main characters, you are. The experience is so much more immersive when the player is the protagonist, or if he or she so chooses, the antagonist. This dynamic will lead to video games surpassing movies and music, both passive entertainment, whether politicians like it or not.

jameyer@mesastate.edu