The video games that we recommend to Marco D'Amore where 'one kills, guts and rapes' - editorial

The video games that we recommend to Marco D'Amore where 'one kills

"It would be enough to know the video games that kids spend their time with: video games that tell only about dystopian futures in which they have to kill, gut and rape, and get excited about this".

This is the affirmation with which Marco D'Amore, actor, director and screenwriter known to most for his interpretation of the beloved Ciro Di Marzio of the Gomorrah series, answered a pungent question about the "beatification "Of the criminal figure that a segment of criticism attributes to Sky's crime drama.

It is undoubtedly a thorny question, at least in relation to the fascination exercised by negative figures, which in the specific case of the main actor ' hero of Gomorrah led him to stumble, to divert what was ultimately a legitimate and rather complex question towards the track of a different medium, little known to the mass and easily attacked in the pages of a newspaper.

It's annoying. It is even more annoying that the perception of the aforementioned mass audience is that of witnessing the search for five minutes of notoriety by a sector that (perhaps in our country) finds itself chasing other media, in order to exploit justicialism to attack an involuntary slip and grab a few more clicks or shares. But, spoiler alert, this is not the case, and we are the first to distance ourselves from any censorship.

This is the extract from the interview edited by Beatrice Bertuccioli for the National Daily. The current of negative reactions to the statements of the actor behind Ciro the Immortal - misrepresented according to D'Amore - arises because the dozens of very light feathers sown by scholars and representatives of the video game sector, during the constant pursuit of recognition of the artistic dignity of the medium , risk being wiped out like nothing when such a hundred kilos load is dropped dead weight on the printed paper. Which had already happened last April, when D'Amore himself had stated with a certain lightness that "whoever says that with Gomorrah you risk emulation has never seen the violent games of the PlayStation".

Then it happens to want to reply to the attacks with an accusatory editorial, or with an apology for video games, tools that on balance are useless, because it is now clear and limpid the total ignorance of the matter that politicians, opinion leaders and many other personalities public companies have proudly flaunted over the years, throwing real hand grenades between social statements and columns in the margins of the newspapers, as well as influencing - voluntarily or not - even the intervention of the state towards companies in this sector.

And this is how today, instead of letting ourselves go to the anger towards yet another attack on the fragile house of cards that we try to build day after day, we decided to real to create a selection of some "dystopian worlds in which one must kill, gut and rape" among those staged by video games, that is, all according to the Immortal, telling the gruesome universes that explode deadly in the moral formation of our 'young'.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Sharing

Among the video games set in dystopian worlds that most attack the moral alignment of an infinity of girls and boys around the world, it stands out without a shadow of a doubt the Animal Crossing series. The latest chapter of the Nintendo saga, or New Horizons, debuted in the middle of the first lockdown period, on March 20, 2020, gathering millions of fans in the happy islands that dot the immense ocean.

A series, that of Animal Crossing, which allows the creation of a utopian village in which to give full rein to creativity, putting the imagination at the service of sharing. The impact of the title was very high precisely because of the anti-Covid measures, because the virtual universe of Animal Crossing has turned into a real digital meeting point, transcending the traditional boundary of the medium through a box suitable for all. the ages. During 2020, the Animal Crossing Islands became the site of protests by Hong Kong anti-government protesters, while the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is just one of the institutions that have "moved" their collection to the other side of the country. screen.

To The Moon - Love

Video games, as we know, lead to the emulation of violent behavior and an inevitable desensitization, probably rooted in the lack of positive values ​​that distinguish them. In fact To The Moon is a narrative work developed by Freebird Games and published in 2011 that tells the life of Johnny Wyles, an elderly man close to death who, behind the inexplicable desire to go to the Moon, hides a colorful story of love, of pain. and of great simplicity.

Thus, the operators of the Sigmund Agency of Life Generation begin a journey through the patient's memories and emotions in pure "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" style, in order to understand the reasons behind the unusual attraction exercised on man by our satellite to artificially implant the memory of a moon landing in the mind of old Wyles. It is then that To The Moon reveals itself as an extraordinary dive into the human psyche that probes hundreds of facets of emotion to create a very rare connection with the gamer, making him the protagonist of a life he has never lived. Tears, of course, are included in the ticket price.

That Dragon, Cancer - Suffering

The dystopian universe staged by video games is so far from reality that it has allowed Amy and Ryan Green to transform the experience they lived in the company of their son Joel, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at only twelve months of age that, according to doctors, would not have left him into an autobiographical interactive work. more than four months of life.

The couple of developers have translated the vortex of emotions that overwhelmed them from the moment of diagnosis until Joel's death into a work rooted in exploration which, through a communication founded on a series of cartoons of life, it has managed to give dust to the concept of interactive art. After all, one of the reasons why today we find ourselves involved in the drafting of this analysis lies in the term "video game" itself, which is the bearer of an inevitably negative semantic value when it comes to 'serious matters'.

Celeste - Battaglia

Sometimes the violence that characterizes the video game medium finds strange expedients to get to the screen, such as the metaphorical story of the very hard battle against anxiety and depression that the small studio Matt Makes Games has staged in his Celeste, a video-game in the strictest sense, a challenging and stimulating interactive production supported by an enveloping vintage atmosphere.

Celeste is a difficult video game, steep as the ascent that must be climbed daily by anyone who finds himself living with anxiety, depression, with the difficulty of accepting himself for who he is. Themes that do not emerge overwhelmingly through explicit narrative, preferring sensations and moods triggered by playful mechanics created with absolute mastery and consistency. In short, an interactive work that in no way betrays "the videogame" defended by the sword drawn by the purists, on the contrary, it elevates it without renouncing the pursuit of a superior message. And knowing what would have been the future story of the creator of the work, everything immediately makes more sense.

The Last of Us Part 2 - Violence

But how? even ironic and apparently embroidered around the communication of wholesome experiences only, does it end with one of the most violent video games among those made in recent times? Yes.

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Yes, because the very violent and heartbreaking video game packaged by Naughty Dog is an almost perfect manifesto of how darkness should be told while avoiding the risk of emulation, to prevent even the most foolish gesture, such as the simple desire to go to the hairdresser and ask for the same haircut sported by the baby boss O'Track on the streets of Secondigliano , perhaps wearing the clothes of the rampant Blue Blood.

Things that absolutely did not happen in the orbit of The Last of Us Part 2, a video game so powerful and ambitious in its terribly raw narrative that it became the object of hatred on the part of fans; a video game hated also and above all because it treats its protagonists as irredeemable, anti-empathic and suffering figures, without beatifying or saving them.

An incomprehensible position for the large slice of the public forged by a part of film production contemporary, specifically from the modern trend of crime, which took off with Breaking Bad and currently led by Gomorrah.

A trend that, beware, we feel we can defend on the front line from any attack, without however throwing in the mud of the disinformation the first medium that comes within range.