How many of us who have played video games have pondered whether they are, or ever will be, art? Compared to the level of immersal you feel when you play a video game, how highly would you rate the importance of clever, non-repetitive dialogue, or a storyline that evokes any further emotion than glee at having racked up a superhuman amount of violent and bloody kills? And, when it comes down to quibbling over semantics, do you prefer console games to be called “video games,” as I have been doing, or “videogames,” or is either/neither version okay/not okay with you?
No, I’m not thinking up questions for going door-to-door and asking ten thousand gamers their feelings about the state of the gaming industry in general and their thoughts about specific games in particular, or questions for an online quiz. I’m only mentioning some of the questions that author and gaming fanatic Tom Bissell has pondered during his years of playing games like Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Metal Gear Solid, and Grand Theft Auto IV. These experiences and questions are some of what he has written about in his very entertaining memoir, Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter.
The gaming industry has spent countless millions of dollars developing and creating games that are designed to lure us in and make us want to spend hours at a time enraptured by the characters and worlds they create. Why is it that we care so much about certain games, or despise others? What is it about some games that make us want to replay them over and over, to find all of the hidden items, or experience all of the side quests we skipped over on our first go-around?
In a series of nine chapters, which are really more or less individual essays or extended observations, Tom Bissell attempts to answer these questions and more. The chapters are listed before each chapter, like a drop-down menu, with the title of the chapter you’re about to read in bold print within a rectangular box, as if you’ve made a selection in a game and clicked on it. I found that to be unique–one of several cool aspects to the book. The chapter titles, also, are creative and appealing. Some examples include Chapter One, “Fallout,” Chapter Two, “Headshots,” and Chapter Three, “The Unbearable Lightness of Games.” Chapters Seven through Nine are “Mass Effects,” “Far Cries,” and “Grand Thefts.” The other chapters have equally compelling titles, and each one has observations about video games and the video gaming industry that will leave you with deeper insights, balance your Yin with your Yang, and make you want to rush out and buy Alan Wake or whatever other awesome, new, and hypnotic video game is on your current Must Have list.
The first chapter, “Fallout,” is mostly about the author’s critique of the game Fallout 3. It’s also about differences in the conventions of storytelling between films, novels, and video games. As Bissell notes, “Film, novels, and video games are separate economies in which storytelling is the currency. The problem is that video-game storytelling, across a wide spectrum of games, too often feels counterfeit, and it is easy to tire of laundering the bills.” The author clearly loved playing Fallout 3, but feels it and other games fail in certain ways, like in expressing human emotions.
I’m not going to mention what each and every chapter is about, but I really liked Chapter Two’s (“Headshots”) observations on the zombies of Resident Evil, and reading in Chapter Three, “The Unbearable Lightness of Gaming,” the author’s thoughts on Left 4 Dead and its “Special infected” zombies, like the Smoker, the Witch, the boomer, and the Tank. Bissell’s encounter with Cliff Bleszinski, Epic Games’ design director, in “The Grammar of Fun,” was very interesting reading, especially the part where Bissell got to try out playing an unfinished, early version of Gears of War 2. Then, I couldn’t help but like the chapter titled “Grand Thefts,” as I’m a fan of the entire Grand Theft Auto franchise.
Another part of Extra Lives that I really got into reading happened to be, of all things, the Appendix. This is because it’s an interview the author had with Sir Peter Molyneux, the designer of games like Fable II. Molyneux’s comments on the give-and-take he had with the rest of his design team were fascinating. He and the author discuss, for instance, the decision to have a bunch of crates in a room in the game, which–you find after busting them all open–are empty. Then, a load screen comes up and says, “Breaking crates is good fun, but you don’t think someone would actually hide anything in one, do you?” Expected conventions are turned on their heads in the game, and it’s one of the few out there that attempts to depict emotions, as well.
If you’re into gaming, and reading reviews and critiques of video games, you should check out Extra Lives by Tom Bissell. It, and books like Cory Doctorow’s amazing novel on Third World gamers and their struggles to form an international union of gamers, For the Win, are proof that sometimes books about gaming can be as fun and interesting as playing the video games they talk about.
