have finally come to realize that I will never enjoy as many games as I once did. I’ve had a general awareness of this reality for a while now, but it was brought into focus after playing through the demos for Darksiders and God of War III. Unlike the majority of critics, I did not enjoy either game (Darksiders has an admirable score of 83 on Metacritic, God of War III rates a very high 93). I disliked both games for the same reasons: their mechanics were derivative, their environments were emotionally hollow, and they both portrayed an aggressive and primal masculinity that served no purpose that I could find other than to celebrate violence.
And yet, they are both games I would have thoroughly enjoyed when I was thirteen years old. I would have marveled at the smooth and flashy kill animations and taken the time to solve every puzzle. Rather than groan, I would have applauded that, three minutes into God of War III, I was swinging and stabbing through the air from harpy to harpy (or giant flying bats in the case of Darksiders). The brooding soundtracks and macho grunts and roars would have made me feel intense, not incensed. Most importantly, and ironically, the games would have made me feel more adult. Like most young teens, I wanted to grow up more quickly than our society allows, and so society provides the “Young Adult” genre: a type of media that attempts to imitate maturity for the immature. The bigger-than-life and the more-manly-than-me aspects of these games would have appealed to my desire to become a man and to do big things and be respected for them (and have fun while doing them). Darksiders: A Zelda for grown-ups? Hell Yeah!, I would have shouted.
Now that I am a grown adult and have a much better understanding about how the world works, I seem to be unable to connect with Darksiders, God of War and others. Leigh Alexander recently wrote about a similar personal experience with Final Fantasy XIII and concluded:
Am I too old for this kind of enthusiasm now? Is the willingness to be creative, to invest the images onscreen with richness, life and fascination, a trait unique to youth? Does the “save the world” mandate lose its breathless luster once we’ve learned to see our world more pragmatically? Or have we, as gamers, just had to save it too many times for it to keep mattering? Have games changed, or have I? Probably both.
She goes on to discuss the idea that perhaps the visual clarity and the complexity of today’s games no longer allow us to project our own imagination upon them, thereby leaving us with fewer ways to become emotionally tied to them. While that is likely accurate in some respects, especially in story-telling RPGs like Final Fantasy, the more simple truth is that these games are not made for us adults – they are made for young adults. It’s difficult to blame publishers for this: while the average age of video game players is now 30 years, 83% of children 8-18 years old live in a household with a video game console [PDF]. The market is large for a game that appeals to both young teens and a fair share of twenty-somethings.
I should point out that teens were not the ones who gave God of War III an average rating of 93, but adults whose job it is to have an expansive knowledge of and refined opinion about video games. While I’m sure factors like hype play a role in inflating that score, it’s likely that these critics legitimately enjoyed playing God of War III. It’s not that the game doesn’t succeed in its intentions – it certainly does – I am just not personally enthused by those intentions.
Because these games are ultimately not made for someone like me to enjoy, I have decided not to care if I find myself disinterested in a critically-acclaimed game like God of War III. Up to this point, I’d make excuses like, “I just need to change my gaming habits, find more time” or “I just need to wait until I’m in the right mood to enjoy this.” And the right time would never come (I remembering thinking such thoughts for the first God of War). I will never be able to sit through these games like my thirteen year old self might have, and I’m okay with that now.
So what games do us mature adults play? These days, for me, it’s LittleBigPlanet and Cave Story. These unassuming games don’t bear down on me with their self-seriousness; they’re not trying to act like Big and Important Adult games. That sensibility makes my Sackperson far more mature than the comically masculine Kratos.
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