Is it because I suck? Probably. But the frame of reference for sucking has been shifted dramatically. I am of course talking about Call of Duty's highly refined multiplayer platform.
The more time I spend with Call of Duty, however, the more problems I begin to have with it. This isn't a new development really, just a conscious convergence into an unconscious repugnance.
There was of course a few nights when I was unfortunate enough to play it stoned and I immediately grasped what was wrong with the game, and for that matter, the culture behind the game. These things tend to happen when you're stoned. I don't know about you, but I have a profound intolerance to violence when I am in such a state. Even pretend violence. It just bothers me. It begins to reflect that horrific, meat-soaked image onto my own character and I begin to feel nauseous. Such is the nature of the psychedelic experience, however mild the state is. Reducible instances multiply into infinity and take on that eternal quality.
So what is wrong? As a culture we've become highly desensitized to violence. Games and movies become more and more graphic, realistic, and depraved. We should be getting used to this kind of thing by now. I myself seem to be sliding backwards. I've become squeamish.
There are sequences in the game when you actually slit someone's throat, or jam a knife into the throat of a sleeping Viet Kong. I've always been bothered by the image. To die choking on your own blood seems to be a horrible fate to me. The terror of asphyxiation and the violence of laceration is combined and you have to watch all of this and know that you won't make it.
You inflict this fate by your own hand in the game. This extends the image to a new, disturbing dimension involving your own agency. You are partially responsible for the deed.
In another instance of the game, you shove some glass into a man's mouth and then punch his jaw full of shards. You have to do this. It's not optional. The game begins with a prompt asking whether you want to skip the graphic violence. I of course said hell no. I wasn't quite aware of what was in store for me, and at the same time I really didn't want to miss any of the experience. Many people are going to feel this same sentiment. 8 year olds are going to play these passages of the game. I shudder to think.
These passages are growing more disturbing with every installment of the game. And they're only going to try to outdo what they did before. In the second Modern Warfare, you buzzsaw your way through a crowded airport with a light machine gun. Many people are reported to have actually refrained from shooting these people. I of course fired away (I thought it was required!), but it made me very, very uncomfortable. Later on you stab someone from behind and watch his eyes go dead. These subtleties capture a side of fictional murder that I never really wanted to experience.
No one stops to ask what's going on. Because this threshold of violence slowly expands, as a culture we are widely comfortable with this bloodlust creep. Like the Romans before us. Does the fact that it's fake absolve it? Or does it cast that same murky reflection that the gladiator games did for them?
I haven't even gotten to the multiplayer yet. There is a strange social environment that is being shaped and refined with every development of the concept. It is one of an odd blend of sadomasochistic savagery.
Bah but it's just multiplayer right? It's just a game? Maybe, but I'm not so sure.
It is a game of maniacal junkies running loose every which way. When you die, it is extremely frustrating and jarring. You begin to hate the people that take you down. An hour into gameplay an uncharacteristic flair of anger bursts from within me and sustains itself for the duration and even into the night.
The entire online community is becoming rapidly more and more skilled. Within seconds of spotting somebody, you are dead before you raise your gun. You repeat this pattern of punishment until you finally get a kill and boom, that rush of endorphins and you are back for more. I can't deny it is a wonderful feeling. And that is key.
They have all sort of points and incentives that further that elation. You feel like you are accomplishing something. So everyone does this over and over and gets better and better. Every time you sign into the game, the pace is faster, more frenetic, more violent.
Several hours later I sign off and I realize, what happened? What have I done for myself? And I hear about children that get home from school and don't stop playing this game until bedtime, and maybe even after. And they become so insane and their reflexes so fast.
I must admit that it is an excellent game. It is an excellent construction following its own logic, but taken to its logical conclusion, it is a system of savagery and addiction. Stuck in between the madness are surprisingly human moments when a player does something to make you laugh. But then it is over and the storm resumes full force.
Maybe I am being too sensitive. Maybe it is all harmless. Nevertheless, what I have experienced is unsettling.
An unpopular opinion, to be sure, seeing as how this game is one of the highest selling pieces of digital media of all time.
