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Friday 19 February, 2010
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is, at the least, a rather interesting take on Columbine by the developer, Danny Ledonne. Based on the real life events of the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre, the game puts you in the shoes of Eric Harris, one of the killers, as he partners up with his friend Dylan Klebold to wreak havoc upon Columbine High School. Their motivation is revenge, as the two seniors feel that they are waging a war against those who have wronged and bullied them. The game begins as the "protagonist," Eric, wakes up on Tuesday April 20th to prepare for the forthcoming massacre. The beginning gameplay of Super Columbine Massacre RPG! mostly involves text based cutscenes as the player is introduced to how these two seniors arrived at this point in their life.
A topic I would like to discuss is the games representation of war. Throughout the intro there is this underlying theme of war, rebellion, and revolution. The seniors, Eric and Dylan, continually refer to "waging a two-man war against everyone else." In the basement there is even a TV the player can "watch," and on it is a "excerpt" from Apocalypse Now. This excerpt contains the famous scene where Col. Kurtz iterates to Cpt. Willard, at this point Kurtz's prisoner, his views and opinions on war, humanity, and "the horror." As stated by Col. Kurtz, "It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror." This segment of the game seems to symbolically refer to the horror Eric and Dylan faced in their troubled, everyday lives through their various mental disorders as well as victimization to constant bullying. This "horror" also seems to be the boy's main motivation towards their soon to be rampage, or "war on humanity." The boys also make such statements as "War is War. And this is War," and "You all need to die. We need to die too," and "First of all, there is nothing that anyone could have done to prevent this." These statements were really sobering and gave the player a little insight into the teen's motivations and, possibly, a sense of sympathy. Still, it does not deter the player from questioning, was this "war" the boys raged really unavoidable? Did everyone need to die? And, most importantly, was it morally justified?
One thing I found quite fascinating with the game was the gameplay itself, more specifically the inclusion of the game's introduction. Rather than dropping the player off at the school grounds and just set off guns blazing on the school children, the game designer felt the need to provide a bit of background onto why the boys did what they did. The designer accomplished this through a scripting of the boys final video, a flashback when pressing enter on the Blackjack pizza box, etc. These cutscenes seem to express to the player that these seniors were not just homicidal maniacs, but deeply troubled teenage boys looking for an escapism for their anger and hatred towards the oppressive society around them. Of course the gameplay doesn't flat out promote the seniors actions, but it does make the player ponder about such things as, if Eric and Dylan hadn't committed suicide , what should be their punishment? Due to their clear psychological disorders should the boys be granted leeway? Or, akin to the "eye for an eye" belief, should the boys be given capital punishment? Obviously society wouldn't want to establish a Kantian "universal rule" of vengeance, in which it would be okay to go on a rampage towards those who wronged you, but the boys didn't exactly seem to be cold hearted killers either, as Eric states "That's all. Sorry. Goodbye." Clearly there was some remorse in their actions. It is rather troubling over whether these boys should be treated as victims of circumstance, or rather as cold blooded killers
Another topic I would like to discuss is the role of the media presented in this game. When rummaging through Eric's room the player finds a copy of Doom, in which the text box states "You scored 'Doom' for the PC. Let the desensitization to violence BEGIN!" When exploring the basement I also found a copy of a Marilyn Manson CD, where the text box also iterated "the lyrics are sure to inspire impulsive aggression and rage." The game clearly satirizes the media's dramatization of the influence the game Doom and the artist Marilyn Manson had on the two boys, but the player is left to question, what kind of role did this media have upon Eric and Dylan, if any? It was well known that the seniors were avid Doom players, were they really desensitized towards violence when playing the violent game? Never having played Doom, but experiencing multiple First Person Shooters (FPS) myself and never having gone on a rampage, I'm not a hundred percent sold on Dooms influence upon the duo. On the other hand , Ben DeVane and Kurt D. Squire's "The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" brings up an interesting point, which is "locally situated play practices were highly dependent on the social circumstances in which the play (and interview ) occurred." This excerpt refers to Honovi , a child who, when playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with a friend, would iterate about the more violent aspects of the gameplay, such as gunning down innocent civilians, drive byes, etc. However, interestingly, when playing alone, his game play would focus more about the fine tuning of cars and how it relates to his interests in real life. The cultural and social context which Honovi played GTA influenced his interpretation of the game. Thus we can question, how did Eric's and Dylan's cultural and social context affect their interpretation of Doom and Marilyn Manson? Due to their extreme psychological imbalance, were Doom and Marilyn Manson fuel to the fire of which led to the Columbine massacre? After all, the boys weren't in their right minds when they felt a sense of giddiness when carrying out their mission. In Doom it's okay to kill everything in sight, so maybe this mentality did permeate into the boys thought process of how to handle their current, miserable, situations in life. Whether the media truly did influence the boys decision to go on a rampage is uncertain, but it is at least something that shouldn't be overlooked.
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