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Videogames are awesome
John Davidson
For my last column
as a Hillsdale College student and editor of the Collegian,
I was going to write a grand farewell and impart a few profound
insights and revelations I've had since coming here three years
ago. I was going to write about the importance of Hillsdale
and its struggle to stay relevant in a post-moral future. I
was going to explain, once and for all, the need for this college
not only to produce educated, astute graduates, but to produce
graduates who will be able to relate to other young people and
communicate conservative ideas in a way others can identify
with. But I'm not going to do that.
Instead, I'm going to write about video games.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a big video game player, I
don't even own a game system, and when I play I usually get
killed right away. I'm certainly not the guy you want to have
with you in a virtual foxhole. But some of my friends are pretty
good, and I have a lot more fun watching them play than getting
outsmarted and sniped by a computer-generated enemy.
As I've been watching over the past few months,
it has occurred to me that video games are totally awesome.
Maybe they have always been awesome, but right now they are
especially awesome, ingenious even. In fact, I would go so far
as to say we are in the midst of a video game revolution. The
X-Box and Playstation2 in particular have taken gaming to the
next level and are now far more important than most people realize.
Games like Rainbow Six 3, Splinter Cell and Medal of Honor lead
the way, with themes and storylines that cut right to the heart
of profound and disturbing realities our generation must now
face.
Let me explain. Rainbow Six 3, one of the
Tom Clancy-derived games for X-Box, is a game of squad-based
counterterrorism in which the player leads a team of elite international
soldiers into various hostile scenarios that usually involve
killing terrorists and saving hostages. Each level begins with
a detailed briefing of the political situation, demands/motives
of the terrorists, practical constraints on the team and a rundown
of available intelligence. The speed and graphics during the
live-action firefights are obviously state-of-the-art, but that
isn't what makes the game important.
The same is true for the newly released Splinter
Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. The graphics and format are awesome,
but the premise of the game is the essential thing. Set in the
year 2006, the United States has installed a temporary military
base on East Timor to train the developing defense force of
the "world's youngest democracy." Resistance to the
U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia is widespread and passionate,
but the threat Indonesian militias pose to Timorese democracy
is deemed sufficient justification for a U.S. military presence.
Anti-U.S. resentment comes to a head under the leadership of
guerrilla militia leaders acting with unofficial support from
corrupt factions of the Indonesian government. This militia
attacks and occupies the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, taking dozens
of civilian and military personnel hostage. The main character,
Sam Fisher, must defend and assist the U.S. military until the
militia leader's terror-driven policies can be subverted and
the guerrilla faction eradicated. The game's advertising catch
phrase: Freedom isn't free.
Sound familiar? It's not an accident. Not
only has this game been brilliantly designed from a technical
standpoint, it has also been designed to appeal to young Americans.
By tapping into the relevant events and tensions of our times
and presenting them in what can only be described as a totally
badass game format with really cool fight scenes and a sick
soundtrack, the designers of this game, whether they meant to
or not, have done an ingenious thing-they've gotten peoples'
attention.
Not only that, they haven't been afraid to
incorporate the fundamental moral aspects of the terror war
into the game: U.S. Special Forces good, anti-U.S. terrorist
militia bad. People who otherwise may never think about the
problem of international terrorism or U.S. foreign policy or
violent anti-U.S. sentiment in other countries will confront
these things as they play the game. If nothing else, it will
get them thinking, which is a start.
Perhaps this is a small thing and not nearly
as profound as I think it is. But here's the important lesson
for Hillsdale College: These games reach people, they are relevant,
and they are essentially conservative but also really cool at
the same time.
We live in a country of affluence and ignorance.
When you, the Hillsdale College graduate, leave this little
town, most people will not care or understand what you studied
here. It is up to you to translate the importance of all those
dead white man ideas into a language that an MTV-bred, morally
bankrupt and drugged youth culture can understand and identify
with.
Our generation is ultimately conservative;
we have a knee-jerk disdain for our parents' utopian ideals
and revolutions. But our generation is also woefully undereducated,
distracted and confused.
Many young people today are conservative in
their sentiments, but they don't even realize it. It is up to
us, the young people who know, to tell them, and to figure out
how to tell them. We could take some hints from those video
games.
That's all I'm saying.
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