Friday 7 August 2009

Permanent Death, Interstitial: Suicide

I have a confession to make. I’m considering suicide.

No, not in real life, don’t be ridiculous, I have everything to live for. But I must admit that after however many times through Far Cry 2 that it’s been I’m struggling to come up with the will to keep playing, much less to feverishly muster the kind of creative energy necessary to whip an oddly paced and narratively boring experience into something worthy of your attention. (Because you’re worth it)

It’s weird, though, to think about killing oneself. How does one go about doing so? I’ll admit that my mind on occasion wandered, somewhat morbidly, to considering what would happen if I jumped in front of that rapidly approaching train. Or if I climbed over that railing and began the lengthy plunge to the ground from a great height. Or if I just let my car drift across the lane and into the path of that oncoming truck.

It’s a kind of morbid fascination that I think we all share – and one that sees its most common outworking in the rubbernecking we do when we drive past that fatal accident on the highway. We drive slow and stare because we are imagining that it is out body lying twisted and crushed in the metal, bleeding to death. We wonder what that would feel like. What it will look like when it’s all over – does it really go dark and quiet like Hollywood would have us believe?

In Far Cry 2, I know exactly how it will look – The Face of Death is a menu screen. I have the benefit of knowing what it look’s like in advance, and that it is a real let down. I sincerely hope with all my might that the real thing is much more eventful.

One way in which Far Cry 2 actually is like real life is that I have no idea how it will happen, however in contemplating my virtual ‘suicide’ it has made me realise that it is entirely within my power to avoid the same fate as Nels. By deliberately choosing to make it an awesomely spectacular moment of singular glory and brio I could avoid the ignoble end of death-via-automobile. I’m not sure I could bear that ending after investing as much of my time as I have in this strange exercise. But unless I want to off myself I guess I’m stuck leaving myself open to the possibility.

Okay, you can relax now. I’m not going to kill off Qurbani Singh without reason. Even if that would suit the story better.

2 comments:

SnakeLinkSonic said...

You know the final scenes in the two Men in Black films make me think in this tone? To grasp life in the sense that you want to slam its futility against the universe or something. That make any sense---at all?

~sLs~

qrter said...

I think it would be sort of sad to see your experiment end in such a way.

For me, the fun of my FC2 playthroughs was that death could strike at any moment and that chances were it would in some terribly mundane (and it always was). To me that is sort of part of what Far Cry 2 does, how it portrays death.

Go on, switch to hard difficulty (the jump between normal and hard is really quite significant) and see what the game throws at you..