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Monday 26 October, 2009
When I first started to play Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, I was disturbed at the fact that a video game had been made about the shootings at Columbine High School. It didn't seem right that an act so horrendous in nature should be re-enacted in the virtual world. That being said, after starting the game, right away the anger and frustration of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had with their peers was evident. The conversations the two had before the infamous day gave players an insight to the back story of what was planned for the shooting. It was clear that these two teenagers had been heavily influenced by violent media including music by KMFDM and video games like Doom.
Violent media was not the only factor evident that caused these boys to plan the attack. Several of their peers made fun of them as they were part of the "Trench Coat Mafia", an homage to the movie The Matrix. The game starts off with the events of the day leading up to the attack, where you play as Eric Harris preparing all the weapons with Dylan and bringing them to school. The flashbacks that are shown help give the player an idea of why these two decided to go on a rampage. Much of the gameplay here is scripted, so there is not a lot of freedom to roam around the environment.
During my first experiences with the game, I had many frustrations. The level in which Eric has to plant the bombs in the cafeteria was confusing me because I did not know that the bombs were to be planted on opposing sides. It took me about 15 minutes to figure this out which added to my frustration of constantly being caught by either the cameras or people in the hall. Another irritating thing about the game is the text when a conversation is occurring. The text is very blurry and hard to read so many of the words don't make sense unless you try really hard to read it. Other than that, the game really felt like a game boy game with graphics like the old Pokémon games.
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