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1. Why Not Us?
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Apr 28 2009

   Why Not Us?
   A Midwestern Gamer’s Plea
   
   Let’s all stop and reflect a moment on where games have gone in the past handful of years. I don’t mean where they’ve gone graphically, or in terms of audio or play control or their artistic value. I’m talking the places they’ve been and the things they’ve seen (or rather, shown us) quite literally. They’ve been to the Holy Land in 1191. They’ve been to the Modern-Day Middle East. They’ve been to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and to the American Civil War. They’ve been to World War II, more often than is probably necessary. And of course they’ve been to every fantasy world original and otherwise.
   
   And where are they going? Well, they’re soon to head to Italy in 1491, and to the Russian countryside in the early twentieth century, just to pull a couple of places out of my hat. But with rare exceptions, there seems to be one place video games fear to tread.
   
   That is, of course, the good ol’ Heartland, the American Midwest.
   
   Sure, we’ve got the upcoming Chicago-based I Am Alive. And Raccoon City was somewhere in the middle of the country. But other than that, the list of games that use the Midwest as a setting is unbelievably slim. Even the list of horror games that could make great use of a backwoods locale out in our boonies tend never to specify where they are located, or make use of any identifying features. Sure, there are creepy locales everywhere. But horror, especially, seems suited to the middle places of the country. I’m imagining here something set in the largely unexplored bluffs along the Mississippi. So much mysterious territory would be ripe for a horror game. Or perhaps in or near the badlands.
   
   But I really don’t think horror is the only type of game that could be set here. Right now, while reading this, I’m sure all you Midwesterners are thinking of places you know of personally that would be conducive to a lot of different games. I’ve long talked up a Midwestern branch of Fallout, because if you disagree with the idea that a post-apocalyptic trip down the
   
   Mississippi would be awesome, you are simply very wrong. But what do they do? Vegas. It isn’t that I won’t buy it, it’s just that while I play it I’ll wonder why every action game set in the U.S. has to be within a certain distance of either coast or Florida.
   
   Fellow Midwesterners: what sorts of weather are we used to? That’s a trick question. The answer, of course, is every kind you can think of, every five minutes.
   
   We’ve also got enough different types of natural environments to give us plenty to play through. So here’s a thing: floods. We had a big one in ’93, you might remember it. I say, it happens again, in 2010. I can think of a dozen ways for criminals to take advantage of disasters; any and every one involves your character crossing roofs of flooded houses, extensive underwater gameplay while dealing with debris, snakes and other threats and continuous new threats created by new flood zones. And tornadoes? Giant chunks of buildings being flung down small town streets, fleeing from open fields for cover.
   Go ahead, lie and tell me you wouldn’t play that.
   
   Of course, the coasts aren’t the only places that contain cities. I Am Alive is set in Chicago, and I love a lot of things about Chicago, but let’s face facts: the only reason Chicago isn’t New York is because it’s in Illinois (also it smells slightly better). What about St. Louis? Cleveland? A frozen trek through a frosty mid-winter Minneapolis? Hell, why has no one thought to drop Grand Theft Auto in Detroit?
   
   Naturally, with the recent trend to set video games in the past, no one says it has to be modern day Midwest. A game could be centered around the Cleveland torso murders (look it up), or around a frontier crossing.
   
   Now, it’s only natural that in order to set major games outside of the places generally considered to make exciting games, we’d have to alter somewhat the things we consider exciting games. But the thing is, we’ve been doing that. Companies like Ubi Soft have been leading the way in changing our perception of the action genre in particular. The scope of RPGs is widening at a ridiculous pace. Other genres have been slower to change, but games as a whole are getting there. And hopefully, getting here.
   So, why not us?
   
   *Writer’s note: I was going to have my best ideas for Midwestern-located games, but they’re mine. Now go away.

   
   

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Dead Pixels has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. BEN
   Posted On Apr 28 2009

   Great thought here, especially for those of us that are rocking it here
   
   Thanks for this week's Dead Pixels column and I agree that you could easily develop a game that was set in the Midwest and make it huge!
   
   Maybe a developer could use one of JackDaniel624's horrible game ideas from his recent Chronicle series, lol

2. JackDaniels624
   Posted On Apr 28 2009

   I can personally vouch for Minneapolis, especially mid-winter. It's got the nicer suburban areas, and of course the ghettos. In fact my family moved away from their due to a crappy school system and a murder suicide that took place a few houses down. It's quite an interesting place, and I may live their again someday. May take some time getting used to all the murders (it's nicknamed Murderapolis for a reason) being that in Murder Grove we've just recently had our first homicide...IN 6 YEARS! Not that I like murders, because I most certainly do not...But everything else about Minneapolis just seems so real to me, I guess I just can't get into the boring suburban life. Great idea suggesting the Midwest!
   
   By the by, my dad once referred to us as "The Middle East"