As you know, there is no “I” in team. Nevertheless, the fact that videogames are a wholesomely collaborative experience from time to time takes a step back in order to enable a single player’s task: A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, and sometimes, that just might be following the trail of the lone ranger, righteously rightening the wrongdoings of countless scoundrels – by shooting everyone in your trail/path/way, because, and that is the real beauty of games like John Woo’s Stranglehold, literally everyone you encounter in the course of the game is a bad guy. You can’t do wrong giving bad guys what they asked for.
So, once the morals are thus clearly and constantly out of the way, JWS expertly demonstrates how to make the death of bad guys solely a question of stylistics. In the realm of JWS, the gamer’s efforts in staging his vendetta in an aesthetically pleasurable way are constitutive for further progress, as they will be rewarded in the form of enhancement of the avatar’s abilities. So, as there is no “y” in death, the question can only relate to the “how” of it all. Thus the “h” in “death”…. obviously!
Tags: Death, John Woo, Morals, Stranglehold, Style
May 15, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Found a pirate or two…shot ‘em in the morning. That is my life. That is gangster. HOLD ON!!! I am not. I am Chow Yun-Fat. And I am talking about “ph” fat. Of course. You ask me about my mission? You must die. That is easy. You know why? Because there is only YOU and ME! Since I am Chow Yun-Fat you – the reader – must be a bad motherfucker. A gangster. Free for all. In a certain way I am a bad motherfucker, too. The difference is: I got the BADGE. Now, “who the man?” Ka-Ching!