When I was but 8 years old, I played a game that changed the way I looked at not just gaming, but the entire world. That game was E.V.O. Search for Eden. In this game, you play an animal that goes through five stages of Earth's natural history: The early middle Paleozoic Era, the late Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, the Cenozoic Ice Age, and the post Ice Age. I loved it back then, still do now. But I'm not going to gush about the game, or make a serious analysis of it (that's for another time). Today, I want to talk to you about an event in this game that's rather sad.
They say never judge a book by it's cover. Sometimes though, the cover tells you all you need to know.
In the middle of the game, during the third chapter specifically, you get to play the Age of the Dinosaurs, arguably the best chapter of the game, and inarguably when you have the highest arsenal variety. In this age you can change your shape to whatever you please. You can give yourself the jaws of a T Rex, an apatosaurus, a triceratops, whatever. You can remain four legged or become a two legged monster. And it is awesome. When I was a kid, I would stay in this chapter for as long as I could, because I just loved fighting these dinosaurs, turning myself into whatever I desired.
The world map of the Age of Dinosaurs. Red dots mean the stage has been beaten. Green dots mean the stage is not yet beaten. The green bird is the player character, who has been turned into a bird.
Let's not beat around the bush. This is the Dinosaur age, and everyone that's older than four years old knows what the hell happened to the dinosaurs: Giant meteors from outer space killed them. And yeah, when I played the game, I knew it would happen. I had no reason to think it wouldn't happen. And when it happened, I started laughing because, come on, it was cool.
But then the laughter stopped. Suddenly something that was supposed to be funny became sad. Why? I wasn't attached to these dinosaurs at all, I was killing them not five minutes before!
Well, maybe it was because, when it came down to it, I was seeing with my own eyes the death of not just these magnificent beasts, but also the end of an era. There was no sense to it. A bunch of meteors fall from the sky and kill everything? The hell is this? What is this?
This is not a screenshot from the game, but it is an artist's depiction of the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) Extinction event, so it applies.
I had previously read about the extinction in books. I was obsessed with dinos, loved them. So I knew what was coming. I thought I was ready for it, and I wasn't. I think it's because there is a huge difference between reading about something and actually seeing it for yourself. But also I think it's because, in a way, I had become immersed in that world of dinosaurs. While I was playing EVO, I really felt like I was in the world of dinosaurs, walking with those brilliant beasts. And then, just as I was fighting off the kings of these beasts, the Tyranosaurus Rex, it happens. Rocks fall down from the sky, I get away, and everything else just dies. There is no warning that it's going to happen until, literally, the last second.
The dialogue that came before reads "This event will be known as the extinction of the" and then continues with the part you see above.
What makes this moment sad is how you the carnage and death is not sugar coated in any way. You see these beasts die right in front of you, pelted and buried by the falling rocks. By God, you even see baby dinosaurs! They weren't spared at all. You see some of these babies laying alone in the field, dead. You also see a baby Styracosaurus cuddling with its mother, both dead. The game didn't hold back at all.
Another thing that made the game so good is the music. Here it is:
In the end, there's a few things that makes this moment as powerful as it is. There's the visual. Seeing all these dinosaurs dying, it leaves a mark. There's the music, hauntingly beautiful but melancholy. But I think the most powerful element is the realization that this actually happened. This isn't some metaphor for genocide, not some fantasy, it really happened. And we know it happened, because we have the evidence for it. We have seen the dinosaur fossils, we have the amber, we have the fossilized plants. Dinosaurs existed, and we can prove it. We read about them in books, we read all about the extinction. But we do so in cold, matter of fact terms. Science is for facts; cold, hard facts. It is impossible to empathize with these animals by reading about their extinction in terms like "and then in around 65 million years ago, an impact with an asteroid brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs". Only art can make you feel.
Science is for facts, but art is for emotions. This is not a scribe against science, as science is important. Science is what allows me to write this blog, after all. Art, on the other hand, is for making you feel. And you know what? Video games are art. Art that uses science. Art that can be inspired from science! Isn't that amazing?
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