I have played many games that have great openings. Final Fantasy VII puts you in the middle of a raid. Mass Effect 2 introduces you to a world, then immediately destroys it. Sonic the Hedgehog bombards you with impossibly fast objects hurtling through a world of colourful danger.
I have never played a game in my life that starts by telling you not to be a Nazi. But that’s what greeted me when I played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Before a single artefact was raided, before a whip was cracked, before you even see lead actor Troy Baker doing his best Harrison Ford impression in next generation graphics (amazing!), comes this warning:
The story and contents of this game are not intended to and should not be construed in any way to condone, glorify or endorse the beliefs, ideologies, events, actions, persons or behaviour of the Nazi and fascist regimes …
It’s difficult to see how anyone could possibly construe the fascists in this game as something worthy of imitation. Quite apart from their moral repugnancy, they are super dumb. Whether in Vatican City or in Thailand, they are terrible fighters, and so deaf you can crawl right past them. They make very bad decisions in what is, according to some well written dialogue, clearly a toxic workplace environment where their young male insecurity is weaponised by a few charismatic older leaders who don’t care about them. Who would want to join that system?
But then, in the middle of playing this, the Trump cult retook the US. A load of real Nazis were immediately released from jail, because they were fashing for Donald. And the world’s richest man apparently sieg-heiled live on stage in front of a televised audience of millions, and is actively promoting far right parties in Germany and the UK. This was on day one! Across the globe, dumb young men suckled on Joe Rogan’s raw milk lapped it up.
I was so happy escaping into the virtual world of Indiana Jones. It’s crazy that a game featuring Hitler and Mussolini on their rise to power feels comforting, but here at least it is entirely permitted – indeed encouraged – to punch the Nazis. The more I played the game, the more it became about getting one over them, as I lured them one by one into a corner and punched the hell out of them. The joy of creeping through an encampment of fash and nicking stuff from their safes right under their noses was only matched by the euphoria I felt shoving one of them off the edge of a battleship stuck at the top of a Himalayan mountain.
Actually, I had so much fun knocking Nazis out with candlesticks that the rest of the game became a bit of a drag. Maybe I’ve played too much Uncharted and Tomb Raider, but I no longer find it exciting to wander around caves looking for ropes to swing off while solving puzzles. That’s the boring side of archaeology. That is why nobody wanted to be one, before Indiana Jones added Nazi-punching to the job description. The archaeological sections feel as if they take for ever (though I am sure Elon Musk completes them in minutes, having paid someone else to do it for him).
I also keep getting stuck halfway through opening doors, thanks to the clunky controls. I am at an age where I get bored by any kind of mundane activity in games. Turning keys in locks, searching for objects, eating food … I’d do away with all of it. I want locked doors to fly open and every object within to magically fly into my infinite-sized backpack and stomach. I have spent nearly 30 years as a dad searching rooms for things that are lost. I want a break from that.
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Thankfully there’s a LOT of action. One part where you go from sliding down a mountain in the Himalayas to running around Shanghai under bomber attack before flying your own plane out of there is the most fun section of a game I can remember. It was so immersive that the day after I completed it, I felt the same sadness I feel when I finish binge-watching a brilliant TV series.
There are still people out there who think video games have nothing to do with real life. Well, I have just spent three weeks surrounded by fascists hellbent on world domination. The only thing that told me I was in a game rather than real life was that I was personally able to stop them. With my fists.
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