Whilst gay, bi, or transexual characters are not uncommon in games from Japan (see the wonderful Valkyria Chronicles for a great example), here in the West, it's still a disappointing rarity-with one exception. Dan Houser and his team at Rockstar Games are one of the very few developers in the West to implement mature depictions of gay characters in their games. Whilst the initial release of GTA IV featured one main gay character, the effete, mincing Bernie, and you could a spot a few Chelsea boys around the docks in Algonquin, it's in the second part of it's DLC Episodes from Liberty City that puts the gays [almost] up front and centre.
My re-entry into gaming came around the release of GTA IV, and it was the first time I experienced the franchise's crack-like ability to consume your life, and the first time I realised that games could be as-if not more-powerful than films. I was also aware that some fans of the previous instalments weren't overly enamoured with this dark, sober, blackly funny take on running people over with Euphoria-powered physics. Anyone pining for parachutes and some of the most glamorous property destruction in videogaming ought to look no further than this, The Ballad of Gay Tony. Whilst the original release was rooted in an immigrant criminal belly of AK47's, chases, derelict warehouses, beat up cars and getting to know your dysfunctional Irish friend whilst staggering back to your car after a heavy night out, and the first DLC instalment put you firmly in the seat of a Harley Davidson and gave you a dysfunctional, crackhead girlfriend who you love anyway, The Ballad of Gay Tony takes to the nightclubs and to the skies of Liberty City with gold-plated attack helicopters, champagne drinking and disco mini games, and enough firepower to make Michael Bay blush with the tap of sqaure... and, more importantly, gives you a dysfunctional gay boss with whom you have an unusually complex relationship.
I won't dwell on the story too much, as, well, there isn't much story-not when compared to the Niko's pathos-laden crime epic. What IS here though is a much stronger focus on mission design, and the tools that Rockstar provide for those missions are, pretty much from the off, spectacular. The aforementioned gold-plated attack helicopter is light, agile and incredibly powerful, firing off rockets and miniguns at an obscene rate, but the game also gives you an explosive shotgun that can punch holes in cars, an MG, sticky bombs, parachutes, an APC (Rockstar nodding their head to Die Hard) and then pits you into missions which will usually combine all of them in outrageous ways. What you lose in depth, you gain in explosive fun. There's also a new mission-rating system, which lends itself to replays, a seagull infestation for the compulsive collectors, base jumps and drugs wars, plus a host of mini games and diversions, all of which expand on what you've experienced and know about Liberty City from the games' s previous chapters.
The game only touches lightly only lightly on the scene itself: you can manage the gay club Hercules which features an assortment of skimpily-clad hipsters, and is clearly drawn from recent observations of the gay scene, and some of the side missions feature gay characters (one of them a closeted rapper, a sly dig at the macho posturing so often seen in the genre). Tony's relationships with his boyfriend is depressingly familiar; and not in the sense that it's seen so often in fiction, but in real life. His boyfriend is a bitchy, superficial character, and is blatantly using Tony for his money and access to a hedonistic lifestyle. The moment Luis gives him a good clock to the jaw feels entirely well-deserved, and yet the game still makes room for the fact Tony cares for him, and it lends Tony the pathos that takes him away from caricature to full-blooded person.
Gay or not, these are characters from the pens of Dan Houser and Robert Humphries: self-involved, dysfunctional, co-dependent, and superficial, as cynically written as any of the characters in GTA IV, yet still embellished with the essential pathos, recognisable human flaws and sympathetic touches that make them so compelling. A once-successful night club owner now falling victim to drugs and bad debts (and with a user boyfriend to boot), Tony himself is a slightly flamboyant-although not effeminate-character, dressed in sharp suits, colourful ties and with the occasional penchant for badly-chosen sports shorts. It's important to note that Tony is well-drawn enough that you can recognise he is a product of his era rather than his sexuality. More striking is Tony's relationship with Luis, the game's protagonist. Underneath the squabbling driven by Tony's drug-taking and bad business decisions, it is made clear that these are two men who are business partners, but who also have a close bond. More than once Luis acknowledges that Tony is like the father he never had, and this dimension to their relationship which is so much more more exciting than emptying a volley of rockets into a luxury yacht. There's no cliched pass from Tony, no unrequited longing, no dodgy older gay man-ethnic minority digs. Best of all, the one moment Tony does admit he loves Luis, it's as "the son he's never had". (The father-son dynamic is gently emphasised throughout the story's events, despite the fact it is Luis who is looking out for Tony most of the time.)Luis is mercilessly ribbed about his relationship with his boss for the game's duration, but Luis's quiet refusal to engage with the controversy-baiting taunts serves to underline the importance of the role Tony has had in his life. As a gaymer of a certain age, the effect is quietly profound. This relationship between two virtual characters, one mature gay man, the other a Latino American, is so validating since it speaks so plainly and directly to the desire for normality that the gay community have stroven towards for so many years. Sure, epithets are thrown around-queer, fag, homo, and Luis frequently (and rightly) berates Tony for a being "a dramatic old queen" -but Houser and Humphries' use of language feels so authentic and well-observed it never feels gratuitous, out of place or homophobic.
With this sadly being the last installment of the DLC, Rockstar has taken us from the criminal depths to the glittering heights of Liberty City. They've created a compelling, immersive world, a world that is a sandbox as much as it is a platform for some of the best stories in contemporary gaming. Liberty City is studded with flawed, flesh-and-blood characters, and astonishing attention to technical detail. It's in the way cars slip and slide on wet streets that reflect the neon lights, to subtly changing the playlists on the radio to embellish the action, to the way a character model raises their eyebrow as another self-deluding character goes on a narcissistic monologue: a huge achievement, regardless of how you may feel about the game itself. They've also refined in other ways: the new episodes have crisper graphics and larger draw distances of those expansive Liberty City skylines on PS3. The multiplayer is also a better structured affair, remembering to reward all kinds of achievements a la COD and keeping players together in tighter areas; pity about those terrible server connections though.
There is also this nagging disconnect between the way the lead characters are written and the actions you are forced to engage in with as you play those characters. Even with Niko, a revenge driven, army-trained sociopath, his troubled conscience and complex personality were at odds with the thousands of deaths at his hand. It's the same here with Luis: a bad hood kid done good, he often protests the actions he is being asked to undertake, yet the player has no option but to empty RPG's into the cops as they try to stop you stealing a train. Sure, the Euphoria engine rewards with gleefully pirouetting bodies and vehicular carnage, but after Heavy Rain and the powerful connections it made between what your thumbs do and what happens onscreen, this paradox feels even more noticeable. But still, those nit-picking niggles aside, as a gamer, as a gay man, I salute you Rockstar.
No comments:
Post a Comment