Non-Violent Does Not Mean Non-Good

For those of you who don't know, which I'm sure is not many of you, the Supreme Court -- like really, the Supreme Court -- has been hearing arguments on violent video games.  Strangely, this case started in California, one of the most liberal, free-thinking states out there.  Think about it.  Where do you go if you want to escape being persecuted for your crazy-ass lifestyle?  California.  More specifically, maybe San Francisco.  That's the reputation we have at least.  Anyway, I am more than confident this case will come out with gaming on top.  The courts have always sided with free speech, so if they started censorship with videogames, it wouldn't make much (any) sense.  With that being said, I am not here to talk about violence in videogames.  That's been done.  I am here to talk about games that don't have violence at all.  Games that have a protagonist, in some form to be sure since someone must be controlling something, but do not seem to have any antagonist.

Now, truthfully, an argument can be made for a protagonist and antagonist in every game.  Tetris: the player vs. whoever sends you down blocks; Flower: nature vs. pollution/industrialization; Sim City: the city vs. the world.  There are games that are more directly concerned with the hero defeating the villain, but, as you can see, there are also games that feature conceptual enemies.  Games where you may even hesitate to call them enemies.  Would it be a bad idea to have more games like these?  These games are more than one person defeating several armies worth of minions; they force you to attempt to understand something more complex than "bullet goes into head, I win."  Ok, maybe not Tetris.  That one is in a whole other genre with games that are more puzzles than anything else, like Peggle or Monopoly.  I would venture to say that these are all great games.  You may balk at Monopoly, but how many times have you played it?  How many years has it been around?  The answer to both of those question is "a sh*tload."

This is so exciting! I LOVE games without any action!

I would like to see more of these games.  Games like World of Goo, Braid, or flOw should fill the stores, both real and online.  I've gotten tired of games where I can mindlessly defeat mindless hordes of poor-operating AI.  Sure they can still be fun, but less often intriguing and rarely original.  Maybe that's because I am not an FPS gamer.  I prefer games like Mario or Zelda to Halo or Call of Duty.  "Adventure" just has a much nicer ring to it than "First Person Shooter."  I own a Wii, but I do not own The Conduit and I will not own Conduit 2.  There is no appeal for me in these games.  Surely, those shooters are the only kinds of games that would be under scrutiny if videogames lose the aforementioned case.  I guess my gaming tastes would still be satisfied if this happens, despite my moral outrage.  Good-ish news for me then.

Everyone else who has different views than me, however, will still be at a loss, right?  Not necessarily.  Perhaps this would give them the perfect chance to broaden their gaming experiences.  I know two people who live together and both have Xbox360s; between them, there is not one non-FPS title.  This disgusts me.  I cannot go to their house and watch them play anything because it's all the same, whether they're shooting aliens or terrorists.  If you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that these games are too similar, think about the controller set-up.  Is the right trigger always shoot?  Is A always action and B always melee attack?  It's the standard control scheme now in place for most shooters.  One could seamlessly switch between several games and not lose a step.  But to go from Flower to Sim City or from Peggle to Minecraft?  Who will see any connection between those games?  As a side note, Minecraft can be switched to "peaceful" if you just want to build without any annoying enemies sneaking up on you in the dark.  Maybe it's not possible anymore to have such variation in FPS games.

Oh Man! This game is WAY better than that other, generic shooter we just beat!

The point here, if you haven't picked up on it already, is that you don't need violence to make a game good.  You don't even need to have a strong antagonist.  If the title has innovative gameplay, addicting mechanics, and/or a fascinating experience, that's more than enough to make an enjoyable game.  People who can't get enough of gunning down endless enemies should be aware that there are other games, most of which are rare gems in the gaming universe.  It's not often one will find something like Flower or Minecraft, but it seems games like Halo have become a dime a dozen.  Whether that's something that needs to change in game developers or something in the gaming community, I cannot say.