Jesus and Video Games, Part 2

I gave BioWare another shot at wooing me when I picked up Dragon Age II last month. Not having played the first game in the series (I've just fallen into this ridiculous habit of playing the second game first), I wasn't sure what to expect. After the first half hour of play, it was pretty clear that DA II was pretty much Mass Effect 2, only not in space. And with dragons. The game does, however, put greater emphasis on your character's interactions with other characters than Mass Effect 2 did. I've never been an RPG "purist" (those people that like to moan about Final Fantasy being too constrictive), but I did enjoy the relative freedom to control different aspects of the game. Yet, some of the most important aspects lay outside the player's control. I'll return to that more in a moment.

As I was nearing the end of the game - which is quite long, by the way - I began to feel a sort of tugging in the back of my mind. I tried to ignore it, but it was very persistent. It became worse as I continued to play. Now that I look back, it was pretty clear that my conscience - fueled by God, I believe - was trying desperately to get me to to take another look at the game I was playing. I refused. After I beat it, I did not feel triumphant. I felt guilty. While I was playing, I knew that certain elements of the game should have driven me away. To be honest, the game wasn't even a terrible amount of fun. But I finished it anyway.

So, then, what was it that sent up the initial warning signals? I'll be vague so as not to spoil anything too badly, but a whole mess of things put me on my guard. The first was the extreme violence. Remember the first Mortal Kombat? Remember punching a character and watching gallons of pixelated blood gush out of him or her? Back then, it was humorous (although not necessarily godly) because video games were not even close to looking realistic. These days, it's a lot different. Anyone who's played Uncharted 3 knows just how incredible game graphics can be. Though Dragon Age II does not compare in terms of graphics quality, it certainly isn't unrealistic. Thus, with blood gushing every which way (and even covering the characters' faces after battle, if you don't change the default settings), things can begin to get a little uncomfortable. Oftentimes, as BioWare is famous for forcing its gamers to make difficult decisions, a scene would end up unexpectedly violent. I found myself saying, "I didn't mean for this to happen," over and over.

Alright, so there's violence in a video game. People have been screaming about that for years. But that wasn't the end of my discomfort. BioWare stuck with the "romance" system of the Mass Effect series, allowing your character to sleep with all sorts of people, including prostitutes, and forcing you to choose for your character to have sex to achieve the status of "relationship" in the game. I was with some friends this past week, and we were talking about Dragon Age. One person talked about the character that he was "romancing" in the game, and his roommate shot back, "Why do they call it 'romancing'? All it means is that you're trying to f--- them." While he put it rather crudely, he was right. I felt somewhat saner after hearing that someone else shares my opinion.

Among other things, the game involves a serial killer in the main plot and does not give you the option to change the outcome of his story to something less gruesome. In fact, for all of the "freedom" that BioWare gives its gamers, the end of the game made me feel stuck. Basically, it comes down to this: you may slaughter group A, or you may slaughter group B. You can't say you won't do either (although I really believe several other options could have been presented without changing the major themes of the game). Slaughter some people, and you win! But wait, there's more! No matter whom you choose to slaughter and whom you choose to save, the same people will perish in the end. At your hand, no less.

Perhaps the part that bothered me the most was the game's major theme of demonic possession. It's not that fighting demons is a bad thing. It certainly isn't. Rather, it is the fantastic (as in, "fantasy") and unrealistic light in which demons are portrayed. Dragon Age II is a fantasy game. There are elves, dwarves, an imaginary world, and, of course, dragons. Demons co-existing in such a realm is somewhat disturbing. While the game portrays them as extremely dangerous (perhaps the most dangerous of all things), it still puts them in a fantasy world where on can assume that they, like most of the rest of the beings in the game, are make-believe. If you're a Christian, this is, of course, wishful thinking. Perhaps the most dangerous way to approach the issue of demons is assuming their non-existence because of all the lore that surrounds them. As Verbal Kint so eloquently put it, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."