Sunday 22 February, 2009

The overall gameplay of SCMRPG! is an odd mix of 16-bit graphics and the use of digital photographs for the characters and actual pictures of the school for backdrops during the battle sequences (where you fight Jocks, Janitors, all the stereotypical social castes of students). Most of the people at school don't put up much of a fight because Eric and Dylan are armed with guns, but there are a variety of hand to hand weapons available to use as well. Apparently their armament selection is heavily based on what the shooters actually used in the killing spree, however unlike the actual shooting, the player doesn't have to stop at 13 if they feel like power leveling in the next, far more surreal section of the game. After the double suicide the player is treated a montage of clips featuring their corpses, students comforting each other and then a few childhood photos of the school shooters which leaves the player to ponder "what the hell went so wrong?" if the flashbacks weren't enough to answer the question.

Post-death takes place in a fantasy world where Eric and Dylan get to live out an RPG rendition of their favorite game: Doom. One could infer that this fixation on a fantasy world could have lead to such a corruption of their minds that killing is the answer to all life's problems, but I'm not Jack Thompson so I won't automatically peg that as the sole reason. The Isle of Lost Souls is rife with symbolism, fictional characters (like Pikachu) and real life personalities such as Malcolm X and John Lennon. The last collection quest of the game is to deliver a copy of "Ecce Homo" to Friedrich Nietzsche just before fighting Satan. This is especially significant since that book was Nietzsche's egotistical critique of his works and why he wrote what he did, reflecting Eric and Dylan's idea that this shooting was the greatest event of their lives. It should also be noted that "Ecce Homo" was Nietzsche's last work before his descent into madness.

After defeating Satan, he congratulates the pair on their evil deeds, giving an oddly happy ending for the two. Although they show scenes from the Columbine Press Conference afterwords I was hoping the developer would take time to show the afterlife plight of the victims, possibly even switching perspectives from Eric and Dylan to the slain students and maybe even a final RPG battle to the tune of FFVI's "Dancing Mad" where you select a party of four students to fight Eric, Dylan and Satan.

You could also argue that, in their twisted minds, going to hell was a good thing when from most other perspectives (whether or not you believe in hell), it's something bad. So, in a sense, Dylan and Eric got what they deserved...