Terminator Salvation

Is It Too Late to Become a Gamer Nerd?

A few weeks ago I was watching the Patriots fish-gut some patsies when the broadcast cut away to a thrilling promo. Fast-rising star Sam Worthington ("Avatar," "The Debt," "Terminator Salvation") and lovable butterball Jonah Hill ("Superbad," "Moneyball") were hurtling through the streets of some ravaged metropolis, laying waste to the forces of evil. Guns were blazing, buildings were imploding, henchmen were dying.

This looked a lot more exciting than any movie I'd seen recently, including "Terminator Salvation," "The Debt" and "Moneyball." The payoff was when roly-poly Mr. Hill tells abs-of-steel Mr. Worthington to chill while he goes solo on the bad guys. That settled it: The very day this film got released, I'd be first in line to see it.

But the ad was promoting not a movie but a stupendously popular videogame called "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3." The spot was called "The Vet and the nOOb," a title I did not fully understand. But the game sure looked like fun.

Videogames came along too late to figure into my life. The one time my son, now 25, tried to teach me how to play "Madden NFL," he beat me, like, 55-0. He was probably 9 at the time.

I never thought I was missing out on anything here. It did pique my interest that teenage boys could play "World of Warcraft" eight years straight without getting bored or hungry, but until I saw that ad for "Modern Warfare," I never seriously considered taking up videogames as a pastime. But now I have.

The reason is: Movies are dreck. That 60-second "Modern Warfare" promo was way more exciting than anything I'd seen in "The Green Hornet," "Thor," "Sucker Punch," "Colombiana," "Captain America" or any of the other stupid action movies I've seen in the past few years. In fact, a key selling point of games like "Assassin's Creed" is that heroes look really heroic and villains look really evil. Nobody looks like Sylvester Stallone or Seth Rogen.

I discussed all this with my son at Thanksgiving, and he said that one major drawback of the movie industry is that the director can't always get the actor he wants, whereas with computer graphics, he can. In videogames, you don't have to settle for Nicolas Cage or Jake Gyllenhaal when you really want someone who looks like Gerard Butler or Russell Crowe. Movies constantly feature over-the-hill actors or miscast heartthrobs like Ryan Reynolds. They never look right for the part. The macabre creatures in "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" do. Especially the guy with the lion face.

I spent hours over Thanksgiving watching my son play a game called "Dark Souls." He seemed to be having loads of fun, until one night he threw the controller across the room. He then cautioned me that videogames are not passive entertainment, that one reason he still goes to the movies is to relax. Videogames are really hard, he warned me. They're infuriating, humiliating. If you get killed, you have to go all the way back to the beginning.

But paying 12 bucks to see Harrison Ford in a movie about cowboys and aliens is also humiliating. Imagine having to go all the way back to the beginning of that one and starting all over. No thanks.

I did notice that in "Dark Souls," as in many other games, the action was not continuous, that the protagonist spent a lot of time jogging between homicidal assignations. Or loping. But then I thought back to "The Green Hornet," "Thor" and "The A-Team." Those films had repetitive loping, too. The difference was that in "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim," Lion-Face's mug hadn't been frozen in place by Botox.

I'm not saying that I would ever completely abandon movies in favor of videogames. Once or twice a year I might want to see a thought-provoking movie like "Incendies." Actually, once would be fine. But for cheap thrills, videogames are the way to go. The 60 seconds I watched Mr. Worthington blasting scumbags to smithereens were a real treat. I just hope that when I buy the game, he's actually in it. Otherwise, I'm sticking to the one with Lion-Face.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Terminator Salvation Is It Too Late to Become a Gamer Nerd?