Pushed to the Edge #9: Is There An Ecko In Here?

So as ridiculous as Ecko's comments are, they're a breath of fresh air. Until you actually stop to think about what he's saying, that is. I'd like to address his comments in the interview step by step. Take a deep breath. According to Marc Ecko, critics and the masses don't like his game (which is actually really, really great) because:

We're racist.

You got me. I hated College Hoops 2K6 as well, because it has a black guy on the cover and wasn't anything like GTA. When you boil Ecko's comments down to the word "racism" it sounds way over the top. But how else am I meant to interpret his claim that putting a black man on the cover automatically pre-disposed me to expect a different game? I can't even believe I've given such a desperate attention ploy its own paragraph. I will say that I proudly discriminate against one thing: lousy games. Make one that isn't, and we'll encourage everyone to buy it.

And for the record, loads of gamers don't like "urban," because it typically means cheap marketing cash-in. Ever play SRS? "Urban" usually means cliche storylines and characters*. Evidently, the caution of most buyers is serving them well.

* Not that those problems are by any means the sole providence of urban games.

College Hoops 2K6

Consoles aren't powerful enough for Getting Up's vision.

There is a simple three step method for understanding how wrong that is:

A: Play Getting Up.
B: Play Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. (A three-year old game.)
C: Keep playing Prince of Persia.

Clear enough? We understand the limitations very well: with the right approach you can make it seem like there aren't any.

We're too bogged down in mechanics.

Might as well say that moviegoers are too distracted by sound editing. That ignores the obvious: when it's good, you'll never notice. But when it's bad, it makes the movie look cheap and amateurish. Same with gameplay mechanics.

The movie/sound analogy doesn't even go far enough. To be more precise: games ARE mechanics. It's impossible to separate the two. The experience of a game's narrative is directly transmitted through mechanics. If they're as lousy as the fighting system in Getting Up, or as superficial as the painting, the story suffers. That's precisely what makes games such a unique and challenging storytelling medium. Calling reviewers out for attending to that fact shows either a deep misunderstanding or a total disregard for the workings of games as a medium.

We don't understand graffiti.

Graf Writing Wild Style

This is the one arguable point, since a lot of people probably don't, at least in the way Ecko means. (Even after playing the game.) To a lot of us, graffiti is a nuisance (even a crime) that occasionally allows a singular artist to do something new. It may be the voice of urban America, but to most people it's speaking in a totally different language. If it's rebellion, most of it is the rebellion of a 16-year old against his parents, not a downtrodden people against an oppressive regime.

And no matter how cool the classic stuff is, most is just noise. Give me a warehouse full of work by the best people out there and I'll show up. There's a reason museums aren't full of sketches and roughs by artists -- they're crap. That's what most of us see when we see graffiti: hackwork, doodles, and practice pieces by people who, if we're lucky, will one day have something valuable to present. Until they do, I'd be happier if they kept their ugly sketchbooks at home. Does that mean I don't understand graffiti? I'm willing to live with that.

Gamers all got wedgies in high school.

Guilty, but I'd totally forgotten about it until he brought it up. I swear.

Pushed to the Edge is a regular commentary covering elements of the video game industry that cause elation, dismay, outrage, or some combination of the above.

• Pushed to the Edge #8: Indie To Go
• Pushed to the Edge #7: A Tale of Two Launches
• Pushed to the Edge #6: Games 2; Movies 0
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