So I have been looking for the pattern and reason

Viking: Battle for Asgard- You play a bloodthirsty viking warrior brought back from the dead by the goddess Freyja. You brutally wage war across Midgard, chopping the monsters of Hel’s Legion into little bits along the way. You slay champions and giants. Ancient dragons are your allies. You find and use Mjolinir, Thor’s Hammer. The game was spectacularly beautiful and really fun. The killing, the constant killing, affected me, though. It got repetitive. It hardened me into a cold viking killing machine.

Frontlines: Fuel of War: The year is 2024, and you are a soldier with the Western Coalition after all of the fuel has all but run out. You pilot massive tanks and helicopters to fight for what little resources are left. The gameplay is awesome, and death has little consequence. When you die, you just redeploy, as a fresh new soldier. This is a convention I saw in the Battlefront games. Interestingly enough, that kind of total lack of fear from death is useful. I have found myself really looking at the life or death consequences of my own life and my own choices. The possible future presented in Frontlines has also had me really look at my contribution to this kind of post peak oil scenario. I am excited to see how this game will play out.

 

Burnout Paradise: The Burnout series is well known for crashing. It is a game of road rage, pure and simple. In this version, though, EA Games has made a massive multi player world for people to dwell inside of. You start off with a junker, and you drive around Paradise City, recklessly, collecting prize money for running other cars off the road and causing multiple collisions. Of all violent games, this is by far the most dangerous. The car crashes that I cause and am a part of would kill hundreds of people. And yet, like sweet sweet candy, I just want more. Just one more race. I can catch that dude who cut me off. I can launch my car off the freeway construction and hit that billboard! I guess the upside is that I drive much more sensibly in real life when I am immersing myself in Burnout. This game really is vast and gorgeous. I really enjoy it.

The Club>- The shaky premise of this Sega title is simple. There is an ultra secret organization called the Club that organizes underground blood-sports through dangerous areas filled with gunmen. You play as one of eight outsiders dropped into a deadly game. Think Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, only everyone wields guns. This game’s violence, too, is without consequence. Where do all these thugs armed with uzis and minguns come from? As I played through the game once on Casual (an interesting descriptor, for sure) I must have brutally murdered a few hundred guys. You are scored on how stylishly you kill these people, so explosions and head shots are preferred. I just kept thinking about these guys’ worlds and what on earth would make this kind of game worth it for them, you know? It is a crazy game.

What is the lesson in this one? I don’t know. The medium and harder settings are really challenging. But there is an unlocked setting called “Real” perhaps in that setting, one bullet can kill or maim you, the rivals are fighting for their own lives and you cry when you kill.

Assassin’s Creed- I played through this game a couple of months ago. There was a writers strike on, which meant no work and no good TV, so…

I really wasn’t all that excited about this game when I first started hearing about it. I guess I really didn’t know all that much about it when I was compelled, yes compelled to pick it up a few weeks back. I had a gift card from Best Buy. I picked up AC and the messenger pad for the Xbox 360 controller (a fine bit of equipment, but that is another story).

You play Altair, a journeyman assassin in the order of assassins. The story is spectacular and really well done. Again, it is a vast world for you to explore. An Assassin (a variation of the word Hashasin, meaning a user of hash) in a historic middle east kills for political reasons. It is said that one death of a leader could save thousands. The Old Man of the Mountain had infiltrators in every kingdom and they could get beyond all bodyguards and soldiers. All of that is pretty close to the history I have read of this time. In the game, you play one of these acrobatic physical adepts as you leap from rooftop to rooftop, seeking your assassination prey, helping the innocent of the city, and shadowing corrupt officials seeking to lay siege to the cities. You play a good guy! This game reminded me so much of all the reading I did on the Templars and the old Christian world. It took me back. There is also a B story of his descendant in the modern age, accessing genetic memories of being an assassin. Brilliant game design. I am looking forward to the sequel.

So what is my lesson from these games? I think I am still learning. What Lessons does GTA IV hold? Oh dear gods…