Rated "M" for MONOTONY.
Red Dead Redemption is cool, but you know you can play something else..right?
Around late 2018, “Red Dead Redemption” dropped, then the pandemic happened, and we all kinda locked ourselves inside, becoming galloping horsey girls on a nation-expanding quest to become Tahitians with our gang of colorful cowboys and cowgirls, Yee-haw.
Like all great works of art, Red Dead has taken an effect on the culture, specifically finding a warm place in the hearts of the Alpha “I-Don’t-Play-No-Video-Games” Male. You’ll likely encounter one of these individuals by just speaking about games in public. They’ll scan their surroundings, pull you off to the side, get uncomfortably close to your face, before softly whispering to you that they unabashedly love Red Dead Redemption 2 and would DIE for Arthur Morgan.
And that’s cool. No shade, but looking at it now, it’s funny how Red Dead became the game that broke the veil for them. Arthur Morgan is a strong, written character, a tough guy with a soft side. He’d pet your dog, but he’d also rob your dog, and that’s pretty cool. He’s not like the other mascots of Alpha male gaming that came before him, like Master Chief, who fell in love with Microsoft-Copilot, or John Call of Duty. And yet, guys love Arthur and Red Dead because the western genre is in-inherently manly by default and safe to consume. In their minds, women aren’t going to see Red Dead, NBA 2K, NHL, Madden, or Call of Duty on a screen and say… “I’m concerned for my partner’s tastes in media.” So here’s where my suggestion comes in… “It’s time to get a little weird with it, baby boy, and I’ve got your gateway.”
One year before Red Dead clip-clopped into our hearts. My roommate gifted me a copy of “Yakuza 0” with the elevator pitch of “you’ve never played anything this wild.” Coming into my very own “I-Don’t-Play-No-Video-Games,” era I had a copy of 2K and Black OPS 3, which was all I needed, and my library had no space for some damn Japanese anime game. However, out of mutual respect, I loaded the disc in and fell in love.
Everything I knew about my “manly personified” taste in gaming changed as soon as I found myself spending more time playing dress-up mini games and singing in-game karaoke solos out loud, while balancing my time throwing hands with patriarchs of Japanese crime families squabbling for cash. Don’t get me wrong, I still beat they ass every chance I got, but when I needed a break, you could find ya boy racing toy cars for the affection of man-children and politicking with the chicken I won in a bowling match, and then hired to run my real estate empire.
Yakuza was an outrageous display of Glitz. Glam. Gore, and greed! It was everything I wanted in a story and nothing I expected to enjoy. And absolutely NOBODY wanted to hear a damn thing about it. “That shit, weird.” was the period to every conversation with my like-minded “Male” homies. I was on the other side of the coin and couldn’t believe anyone would feel the same way I felt just a few months prior. Now, this isn’t where I tell you I became scorned by my friends. “We all running the same race, just different horsies.” But I know everybody starts surface-level and discovers different ways to explore the art form. My point here is that since Red Dead’s Launch, more and more men have begun to only scratch the surface of the medium, secretly falling in love with the art form but being too afraid to dive deep.
That’s where we come in. The auteurs. The archivists. The curators and the lovers. We have the ability as taste makers and lovers of this medium to influence the fence sitters to hop over. Which is why Yakuza 0 reigns supreme as my go-to recommendation for these guys. A game that is so unassuming on the surface, but digging down entangles you in enough weirdness that breaks expectations and makes you accept this medium for more than a mirror image of real-life sports or safe male genre tropes.
Since 2015, gaming has remained an opportunity to jump super far outside of my comfort zone, which is the only place one can truly grow mentally and physically. We all need art that challenges our preconceived notions. By the same token, we all need a “just right challenge” to help us comfortably navigate the uncomfortable, because without being challenged, you’re putting yourself at risk of denying all the beauty this medium of games has to offer.
Taste in art is something that is developed over time. In elementary school, children are shown something like “Starry Night” and told, “This is art,” but imagine if everybody stopped there, you’d find that damn IKEA print of Starry Night on everybody’s wall because people would be too scared to explore art that really speaks to them. Growth doesn’t happen overnight, and this piece ain’t the green light to knock other people’s taste. Rather, this is a reminder of the opportunity we have to open the door for those who aren’t into video games or feel embarrassed to explore the medium’s variety due to their own hangups.
So, start encouraging people to step out of their comfort zone more and experience all the beauty and weirdness this medium has to offer. Gatekeeping is and always will be for losers, and we gain nothing by keeping others in the dark. Who knows, your recommendation might inspire the annual Madden buyer to end up modding a PSX just to play a Japanese import copy of Tokimeki Memorial, and find themselves falling deeply in love with Shiori Fujisaki….. I mean… maybe…
“Rest in Power D’Angelo, thank you for Red Dead Redemption 2.” - BPM+