ctrl+alt+defeatKratosBatman

Lara CroftThe Mistress of Pain

Nathan DrakeSam & Max

Solid SnakeSly Cooper

Cate ArcherThe Nameless One

Erana

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In this issue we will look closer into heroes and hero-ism as a concept in video games. We attempt to answer two questions: Are there any true heroes in games? and What kinds of heroes are there?

To the ancient Greeks, who invented the word, a hero, or heroine, was typically a demigod or the prog-eny of a deity. Heroes often had suffered a personal loss or tragedy, but were able to stand up to all chal-lenges and show courage from a position of weak-ness. A true hero was not perfect, according to Greek mythology. Overcoming one’s own flaws, fighting for the greater good and being ready to sacrifice oneself for the sake of others were the qualities of a hero.

Initially, most heroes were linked to gods and were mainly characterised by martial courage or excel-lence, but later on most of them were humans who were not only strong and willful but also moral.

Stories of great heroes have been known and told for ages. People admire them, praise them, speak of them, remember them, need them. Heroes, ancient or modern, are everywhere in our lives -- in muse-ums and galleries, but also on TV, online or depicted on a wall somewhere, and they can be anyone: war-riors, politicians, scientists, artists or musicians.

Although the views on what defines a hero might have changed somewhat over the years, there are still more similarities than differences, but what is left of that ancient ideal in the heroes of today? Can we say the hero of a modern story could be a worthy op-ponent of an ancient Greek or Roman hero? Dare we compare Batman’s gadgets to Achilles’s sword?

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ctrl+alt+defeatIssue 2 (Sep-Oct 2011) Heroes

EditorDilyan Damyanov

Design & LayoutDilyan DamyanovVanya Damyanova

TextDilyan DamyanovVanya Damyanova

CosplayersCalipsoJennLena-LaraMeagan Marie

Pale CardinalRachel ChurchTanya Sochivets

Artwork index1 Athena from the Greek Masterpieces by hslo on Flickr2-3 Poseidon’s Fury by bredgur on Flickr5 Link by ~palecardinal on deviantART10 Tomb Raider Alternate: Descend by ~XtremeJenn on deviantART11 Lara Croft: Tomb Raider by ~Lena-Lara on deviantART12 Lara Croft wetsuit - Passion by *misslarisacroft on deviantART13 Stranded by ~Athora-x on deviantART14-15 My favourite Game Characters by *Hoggy-Hogben on deviantART16-17 Nathan Drake Jump by ~SakaeofShiva on deviantART18-19 Sam and Max Freelance Police by *bosstones22 on deviantART20-21 Serene by ~Gavade on deviantART22-23 Sly Cooper - Master Thief by ~L-Ritchie on deviantART24-25 Indy by xlibber on Flickr26-27 Cate Archer by ~Gizmoatwork on deviantART28 Planescape Torment by ~Diamond4444 on deviantART31 Erana by Tatiana Kiselyova on Equinox Horse32 Batman charcoal render 2 by ~chrisgoddard85 on deviantART34-35 I was waiting for you... by =daguerroty-pe on deviantART36a Breathe... by =daguerroty-pe on deviantART36b Follow me to the entrance by =daguerroty-pe on deviantART37a Too late to escape... by =daguerroty-pe on deviantART37b Smelling and smiling... by =daguerroty-pe on deviantART38 Princess of Persia Preview 2 by ~VirtualGirl6654 on deviantART40 Kratos by ~Cubee-acres on deviantART

Contactdilyan@ctrlaltdefeat.mevanya@ctrlaltdefeat.mehttp://ctrlaltdefeat.me/

DisclaimerEvery effort has been made to ensure that all artwork and texts used in this issue are either licenced under a Creative Commons license or permission has been obtained from the copyright holder. We’re sorry for any mistakes we might have made.Unless it is somebody else’s artwork or text, all content in this issue is licenced under a Creative Commons-Attribution-Non-commercial license.

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Photo/ArtAlexander NoskovAlex BeyketBrian GurrolaBrian HessChris GoddardChristoph GerlachDarren RowleyDavid TerhuneGavin HargestGizmoatwork

hsloLeonard LeeL-RitchieMatthew HogbenMichele AlbrigoNicolas WoehrlingStephen GalinskyTatiana Kiselyovaxlibber

ContentsRaging BullIs Kratos from the God of War series a hero or a villain?pp. 6-9

The Croft IdentityLara Croft has many guises and people have many opinions about her.pp. 10-13

Heroic ModeCritics, journalists and developers tells us about their favourite heroes.pp. 14-31

The Bat in MeWhat’s it like being Batman?pp. 32-33

The Mistress of PainIs this one of Diablo III’s bosses? Hell, we’re excited!pp. 34-37

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llA lithe, athletic figure with hair the colour of fire zooms ahead and is

followed by a brutish, muscular warrior, blades chained to his wrists. As

they race across the crumbling city, the fugitive taunts the pursuer with

sarcastic remarks about his lack of speed, intelligence and chances of success.

They reach a town square. A fire that was chasing both of them has wrought

destruction to the right and back; to the left there is a wall and up ahead -- a

tall grated gate. The agile one jumps over the grating and pauses, mocking.

In the square there are people who are being attacked by an army of monstrous

warriors. The men and women cry for help, their hopes picking up as the blade

wielder approaches. He unleashes his blades, swirls them over his head and

starts slaughtering indiscriminately, killing everything that moves. In a matter of

minutes, nay, seconds, the square is all quite and lifeless. The man who caused

this takes to systematically opening chests and breaking pottery lined along

the wall. In one corner, a woman is cowering. She has somehow survived the

massacre and dares not look up to see what’s going on. The murderer opens a

chest, then turns back and hurls a blade through hers. Then he’s off, back on the

trail of his foe. You know this brutal Spartan. He is Kratos and he is chasing Hermes, the

messenger of the gods. The scene, from God of War III, is one of many across all

games in the franchise that pose an interesting question: is Kratos a hero... or a

villain? His journey certainly suggest heroic stuff is afoot. In 1949 Joseph Campbell,

a scholar of mythology and religion, published the book The Hero with a Thou-

sand Faces, in which he argued that across ages and cultures heroes’ journeys

followed a similar pattern. He called this pattern the monomyth and described

the 17 stages that he thought comprised it.

The purists may flinch, but there is definitely something Campbellian about

Kratos’s Odyssey. In every game of the series there is the call to adventure that

takes the hero out of his mundane environment and sets him on the path to

mystery and danger. Of course, in Kratos’s case, mundane means killing the shit

out of everyone and everything; but his brutality is at its peak when he is off on

a quest to places no mortal has ever tread before.

In the original God of War Kratos’s adventure begins when he learns about

Pandora’s Box, which contains the power to kill a god. In God of War II his quest

truly begins when he reaches the island of the Sisters of Fate, who can send him

back in time to the moment he was betrayed so he can have revenge. Chains of

Olympus sees him in the beginning of his murderous journey when an unprec-

edented event, the capturing of the Sun by the titan Atlas, plunges the world

into darkness and Kratos into a search for redemption. By God of War III he has

reached a point where his normal day-to-day job is to kill deities and creatures

of folklore and business is brisk. Yet there are still things that can surprise him,

like the discovery that the power of Pandora’s Box is not yet entirely spent and

that it can give him a weapon to make sweet vengeance so much more achiev-

able. In Ghost of Sparta, someone who claims to be his mother lets him know a

long-lost brother still lives, sending him on a journey to the realm of death. >>>

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>>>This call to adventure is the first stage of the Campbellian monomyth. The theory further teaches that sometimes a hero may refuse the call. The reasons can be manifold: from the captivating power of an established routine to fear and insecurity to duty and obligation. At one point in God of War II Kratos unwittingly kills his last remaining fellow Spartan, who -- like him -- has gone on a quest to find the Fates and change the destiny of their beloved city. Disheartened by this mistake, Kratos despairs and is on the verge of giving up, but he is saved by the titan Gaia who appears to him in the form of his wife and encourages him to go on. In Chains of Olympus Kratos makes his way to Elysium. To enter there, he must surrender all his weapons and power and become a normal man again. In the afterlife, he is reunited with his daughter and hesitates to continue. Foolish-ly, the queen of Hades Persephone taunts him back into his wrath and he is able to pursue and defeat her. In God of War III Kratos gets Pandora, who is meant to be the key that opens Pandora’s Box, to the box, but in the final mo-ment decides against sacrificing her to open the sacred ark. As he starts on his adventures, Kratos is aided by a host of gods and titans who give him all kinds of weapons and magic to help him along his journey. Moreover, with the excep-tion of Ghost of Sparta, there is constantly a supernatural helper who guides him through peril, tells him what to do next and inspires him when he seems to have given up. In two of the games -- God of War II and III -- this guid-ance comes from Gaia, the very Mother Nature whom Campbell talks about when he writes about supernatural aid. The point at which the hero actually crosses into adventure, leaving back his ordinary life, is known as the first threshold. In the overarch-ing story of Kratos, this role is played by the Barbarian king against whom the Spartan seeks help from Ares. The payment of his debt to the god of war is what takes a regular Spartan soldier on a journey to unknown limits. One of the recurring motifs of the God of War series is Kratos’s escape from Hades, the realm of the dead. He ends up there in every one of the games (apart from Ghost of Sparta, which sees him seeking, and gaining, entrance to the realm of Death himself) and has to make his way out in order to continue his quest. Campbell calls this stage the belly of the whale and argues it is an allegory for the metamor-

phosis of re-birth. Instead of going beyond the confines of the known world, the hero steps inward and back, to a womb from which he will be born again. For Campbell this journey was the same as going into a temple: a humbling act that reminds the hero he is mortal. And though Kratos can never be accused of being humble, not even in the clutches of Death, he invariably appears from Hades the stronger and the more determined to avenge his enemies. Another stage in Campbell’s monomyth is called the road of trials. Its name not only gives away its meaning, but also fits the structure of almost every videogame out there. A staple of world mythology, this trials phase has produced some of the greatest, most epic heroic ordeals. Kratos’s journeys take him to the next stage of Campbellian myth, the meeting with the goddess, though mostly nominally. Campbell describes this meeting as an encounter with an all-conquering, unconditional love. The god-dess in his book is the hero’s soulmate and his ultimate quest and reward. In Kratos’s version of the monomyth, there is always a goddess in a significant role. However, it is highly doubt-ful if a creature such as Kratos is capable of love at all. Ostensibly, he suffers for the loss of his wife, daughter and brother, but such is his brutality at all times that the rare moments of him expressing feelings other than anger are so grotesque they only serve to provide contrast and highlight his rage. An important character in Campbell’s pattern is the temptress who seeks to tempt the hero away from his quest. The temptress doesn’t have to be a woman; she is just a metaphor for the temptations of non-heroic, ordinary life. Invariably in the God of War games though, temptation comes in the form of scantily clad women, usually two, sometimes eight. The sex minigames for which the series is notorious are repeatable and players are constantly tempted to return to bed instead of going forward. As any Campbellian hero, Kratos is on a quest to capture some great boon. Twice -- in God of War and God of War III -- it is Pandora’s Box and the power to kill a god. In God of War II it can be the thread of fate and the ability to turn back time or the Blade of Olympus that Kratos uses in the final battle against Zeus. In Chains of Olympus it is the Sun itself, which Kratos releases by freeing the captured Helios. Ghost of Sparta is the only game in the series in which there is no clearly identifiable object as a

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reward for completing the quest. Ultimate boon in hand, a hero may have to fight his way back. The return can be equally as adventurous and perilous as the quest itself. In the first game of the series, for instance, Kratos has to escape from Hades before he can use Pandora’s Box and defeat Ares. For the ancient Greeks a hero (ήρως) was not an ordinary mortal. He started out as one, but, in appreciation of his heroic nature, he eventually became a semi-god and ascended to Olympus. In Campbell’s jargon such a hero is called a master of two worlds. The most popular examples of such transcendence include Jesus and the Buddha. Kratos is always straddling the line between the material and spiritual worlds and -- at least for a period -- is actually made god of war: not a lower deity, but an equal of all other Olympians. Very few myths go through all of Camp-bell’s steps. In fact, many only contain a few of the stages, or focus on just one. The story of Kratos passes through 11 of the 17 stages, sup-porting the claim that it is indeed the story of a hero. But his actions speak otherwise. Kratos is a deeply flawed, cynical char-acter who often acts contrary to what a hero is supposed to be like. He is arrogant to the point where he puts his own desires and will above everything else and acts offended at the slightest of possibilities that his plans may not go down as he intends. He is driven by conflict-ing emotions stemming from his troubled past. He rejects the normal social institutions and rules, and even gods do not rank high enough for him to command some respect. He seeks to dominate his environment, including his sexual relations, which are always framed as an en-counter between a sexually irresistible master and his female slaves, even when he is fucking a goddess. He has a powerful, and possibly con-scious, urge for self-destruction and often goes for reckless, potentially life-threatening jumps and attacks. For all these sins he is treated as an outcast by mortal men and gods alike. Such traits paint the picture of a typical Byronic antihero: he may be in the role of the protago-nist, but he is definitely mad, bad and dangerous to know. It is by no means surprising that the main character of a modern tale is not the arche-typal hero of ancient Greece. As literature has evolved, so have heroes; and many antiheroic traits have come to be associated with true heroism. But Kratos is an even more contro-

versial figure, as many of his characteristics are not simply antiheroic, but outright villainous. If you compare him to some of the best known supervillains out there, you will find striking similarities. Your typical comic-book villain, for instance, has suffered some grave trauma in the past and is acting out with vengeance on their mind. As I have suffered, so should everybody else, seems to be the mantra. Kratos is equally vengeful. His revenge is the only thing that mat-ters to him, even if sometimes it is disguised as a desire to be reunited with a lost family member. Because they have usually been betrayed in the past, villains are paranoid and mistrust-ful. So is Kratos, whose instinctive response to anything he does not understand is: What treachery is this? This suspicious nature makes him unwilling to listen to the advice of people and deities who obviously seek to help him. Like other villains, Kratos has sidekicks who aid him, but none of them matter to him enough so that he can take their opinion without reserva-tions. Ultimately, he destroys almost everybody who has ever assisted him, perceiving some sort of betrayal behind their outwardly helpful appearance. Last, but not least, Kratos is responsible for the death of many innocent people and even the destruction of at least one legendary city. Sometimes those people die so that Kratos may live on or continue his quest, other times they are simply in the way, in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there are plenty of other occasions when there is no reason for them to die, and yet he murders them. And even if you accept that some deaths are necessary so that a greater goal can be achieved, there is really no other explanation for the gruesomeness of those events but bloodlust. The conflict between Kratos’s two sides -- the heroic and the villainous -- can be a source of great frustration. As a gamer, you are supposed to root for him, so you can beat the game. At the same time, no sane person will gladly identify with, and relate to, Kratos. On one hand, he is one of the most unlikeable characters not only in videogames but in nar-ratives of any sort. On the other, his path often leads him to stand up to some other evil power. In the end, his actions are often beneficial for humanity as a whole, although through his entire life he has had nothing but disrespect for ordinary people’s petty lives. Ironic. DD

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Name: Lara CroftProfession: Tomb raiderLocation: Around the worldBorn: 14 February 1968Relationship status: It’s complicatedInterested in: Ancient artifactsLikes: Pistols, Motor bikes

The Croft Identity

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Lara Croft is the first woman to step outside the realm of videogame geekdom and into mainstream culture.

She’s been hugely influential and is often credited with advancing the case for more female leads in gaming. But her appearance is shrouded in controversy. >>>

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>>> Critics charge that she is need-lessly sexualised and objectified, in a bid to pander to the male gaze. (Presumably, the consumers of the Tomb Raider games are predominantly male.) Fans, however, respond that her good looks are as much part of what makes her a role model, as are her toughness, intelligence and inde-pendence.

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An upcoming reboot, aptly named Tomb Raider, will focus on her life before she be-came a world renowned grave robber. It is only fitting that such a superheroine should finally have a proper origin story. The game is not out before 2012 but has already inspired the usual cult following. VD/DD

Heroic

Everybody has a favourite

hero: someone they can

identify with, or simply

admire. We asked a host

of videogame critics,

journalists and develop-

ers who theirs were.

Here’s what they said.

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Beneath his witty exterior, Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series is fragile -- like a real human being. I like him because of the personal-ity he lends to the games.

Ian Miles Cheong

News editor

Gameranx.com

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There have been a lot of great heroes in games I’ve played. I love female Shepard in Mass Effect and Auron in Final Fantasy X. However, I have to give it to Sam and Max, as those are the only games I play specifically because they are the heroes. They are awesome. In the second season of the new Sam & Max games, they save all of humanity from the evil machinations of Satan himself. If that doesn’t make you a hero, I don’t know what does. Also, Max was the presi-dent for a while; and they have big guns.

Spiderweb Software

Jeff Vogel

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Leigh Alexander

Gamasutra, NYLON Guys, etc

Solid Snake. He’s resilient and brooding.

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It’s hard to choose just one hero from a life-time of games, but one of my favorites has got to be Sly Cooper.I think what initially drew me to him was his unshakable confidence no matter the situa-tion. Whether fighting off voodoo alligators, pandas loaded with lethal fireworks or massive, mechanical owls screeching for blood, he never gets flustered or loses his cool. He might be overpowered or get stuck in the tightest of tight spots, but that glint in his eye says he’s going to handle it. However, in Sly’s case, that sangfroid isn’t born of arrogance or machis-mo… it’s thanks to his support system.Spin around blindfolded in a game shop and you’re likely to land on a title starring a lone hero facing off against insurmountable odds. The solo act? That’s easy. It’s cliché. Heroes who bond with others, who draw strength from, and need, others are much fewer and further between. That recognition and acceptance sets Sly apart, and shows that not every hero needs to be the hard-charging go-it-alone archetype that’s so far removed from reality. Although Sly is the hero I chose, it wouldn’t be right to celebrate him without giving proper due to his lifelong friends, Bentley and Murray.The world’s supreme thief of thieves? He’s got backup.

Brad Gallaway

GameCritics.com & PNWJournos.com

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My favourite game hero is... me. Starting a game with a character creator is a pretty brutal introduction to a game, but I love being able to have a hero who -- in whatever awkward way -- looks and acts the way I would, or would like to, in a game that makes that possible in more than just binary good/bad choices.Of course, it’s a rare occurrence.I like the chance to play myself in fantastical sit-uations, because I like the idea of games placing me in positions where I have to consider who I am and what I would do if I were really there. Hopefully, I can also learn from that experience. Or, it might simply be that games do a terrible job of making me empathise with the charac-ters they feature. Games, by and large, haven’t become sophisticated enough narratively that they can manage to reach me when they try in a straightforward manner! So, so far, it’s easier for me to do that when I take up the effort to say “this is me, this is my (fantasy) life, these are my decisions.”But I’ll admit: the most powerful games are those that have placed me in the position where they aren’t my decisions, where narrative inevitability takes over. The characters that have touched me deepest have only come in the last couple of years: Deadly Premonition’s Agent York and Sword and Sworcery’s The Scythian.

Mathew KumarPublisherexp. Magazine (expdot.com)

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One of my favorite videogame heroes is Cate Archer from No One Lives Forever. She’s funny, capable and cool, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. She felt like a breath of fresh air when the game came out, and she still does. Consider me a founding member of the NOLF 3 please! committee.

Kirk Hamilton

San Francisco features editor

Kotaku

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While I can think of more entertaining, and more likeable, heroes -- Manny from Grim Fandango, Alyx from Half-Life 2 -- the Nameless One is pretty brilliant as a player character. He is a sort of accidental immortal who can die again and again, each time waking up with am-nesia and a new personality. Under the player’s control, the Nameless One can be anybody -- an anarchist, a savage, a lawful goody-two-shoes -- but throughout the story he keeps meeting old friends, lovers, and enemies who remind him of the men he used to be. This device gives me everything I want from a protagonist in a game: the freedom to make my own choices and set my own course, all wrapped in a rich, strange story that never stops surprising me.

Many games have attempted the amnesiac protagonist trope, but the Nameless One from Planescape: Torment not only makes this convention work: he makes it brilliant. Sitting somewhere between Memento and The Bourne Identity, the Nameless One’s search for his identity through his past is one of the best mys-teries in gaming, period. Unlike so many RPGs where the bulk of gameplay consists of the “hero” providing courier services and manual labour, Planescape: Torment makes everything you do extremely relevant to your search for who you are. Unraveling your identity and discover-ing just how deep that search goes could not be more satisfying. Chris Avellone and the rest of the Black Isle team managed to achieve the seemingly impossible by creating a blank slate character that still has a rich, fascinating history. Their accomplishment proves that compelling, deep characters don’t require a mountain of exposition and backstory to become relevant.

Chris Dahlen

Editor-in-chief

Kill Screen Magazine

Nels Anderson

Game designer

Klei Entertainment

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The world into which you are thrown in Quest for Glory can be a bit harsh. At first you are some weakling who just graduated from a school on being a hero and adventuring. You can’t easily defeat the Saurus that wants to bite a hefty chunk out of you. The goblins wear down your stamina if you fight too many of them. The world is hostile.Yet you have to manage it somehow. And in the midst of the maze of a forest which has no easy markers, and which you have to memorise by exploring, you can find Erana’s Garden.Beyond just giving you a place to rest and eat in Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero, Erana follows you in each game, though you never meet her until Quest for Glory 4 and 5. Wherev-er you go, she’s gone before you, and created a safe space for you. Whatever troubles you face, she has given you serenity and a chance to rest without the risk of interruption. Whatever you do, she is an example of the power of a hero: to provide for those who need help.So you want to be a hero? Learn from Erana.

Denis Farr

Editor

GayGamer

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THE BAT IN ME

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Have you ever wanted to be a superhero? And have you ever felt like a superhero? I mean, really felt the omnipotence running through your veins?

Many of us would probably say they dreamt of having superpowers when they were kids, when it was so easy to feel almighty with just a stick in your hand and a cape made from your mom’s apron. Sometimes the best thing is to be a kid, because then you have the perfect excuse to spread your hands and pretend to fly in the middle of the street. I had forgotten how liberating it could be to just pretend and dream for a day, but I was reminded of that when I played Batman: Arkham Asylum. Don’t get me wrong, being Commander Shepard, Lara Croft, Nathan Drake or Dante son of Sparda was also great fun. Compared to being Bat-man in Arkham Asylum, however, it was… adult. Let me try this with more than one word. I cannot exactly pinpoint the name of the feeling, there may be none, but it reminded me of childhood, because it was like playing spacecraft with my friends again. The spacecraft was a cement block that had been left laying around after some road con-struction works. We had painted colorful buttons on it and used them to steer the spacecraft whilst sitting on the block. We must have looked pretty silly, but I still remember the images I was seeing then -- the blackness outside the imaginary windows, the stars and planets. Batman got under my skin because he could fly and did not kill anyone. Moreover, he always had the right thing to say when The Joker or some other bad guy showed up. In terms of gameplay, Arkham Asylum has several great tricks up its sleeve, especially for gamers of the explorer type -- with treasures, riddles and audio tapes hidden across the map you can spend hours just extending your trophy collection. The tapes with interviews in particular were a very good addition to the game and a fun way to learn more about the different characters. What made it so special to me, however, was that I got to be the super-hero who saved the day. The experience was very real and so strong I will remember it forever as one of the best games I have ever played. During the few days I was playing Arkham Asylum I felt like what Bill Denbrough from Stephen King’s It must have felt when he jumped on his bike, scream-ing Hi-yo Silver! Away! I was surprised how wonderfully excited I felt every time my character was on the edge of the rocks near the island preparing to fly to the cave on the opposite side. I felt invincible and happy, I could conquer the world and correct all wrongs, I was a superhero. I treasure that experience, because it reminded me of how I used to see the world around me when I was itty-bitty. I think the most valuable thing in games is that they allow you to be somebody else, be part of a different world. And if they are good games, they can make that world real for you.What was so appealing about being Batman? I had gadgets, I had wings and did not kill anyone. In most games the good, perfect heroes you are playing are also casual serial killers. There is no difference between the body count of a bloodthirsty and inhumane character like Kratos and that of sweet and likeable Nathan Drake. Batman, on the other hand, is cool and fearsome, but merciful. That was the reason I liked him more than the others and it was easier for me to get into a character I thought behaved more like I would. This is also why I think I could feel that childish, pure excitement of playing a superhero -- smooth moves and awesome gadgets, but no murder. I love the idea of a superhero who is in control of his actions and uses whatever superpow-ers he has for good, who can say I am letting you go to a person he knows he can easily overpower and kill. I think the super in superhero stands not only for having superpowers, but also for being capable of using them when there is a supergood reason to do so.

Take the flying part for example: Batman has the ability to fly and has the advantage of seeing his enemies from above. He can hide on a high ledge or a rooftop and take them by surprise jumping on their heads. However, he does not use that to split someone’s head open or cut it off, even though he could. But an action like that would make him more of a supervillain than a superhero, don’t you think? I do not believe in the excuse that the bad guys are always superbad and deserve to die every time. Especially the thugs in Arkham Asylum, which were more dumb than anything else. It was fun chasing them around the map, playing invisible, hiding in the shadows and suddenly dropping behind them when they least expected it. I felt powerful without being violent and feeling ambiguous about my actions in the game. In Arkham Asylum, beating your enemies was more like a game of wits (I had to be clever where to land and how to move when I faced my enemies) rather than a blood bath. Another aspect of the game I liked very much was the chance to get to know my enemies. Every one of them had their sad or crazy story and learning about their lives, the things they desired or feared made them easier to understand and maybe even empathise with. Who says a hero should only hate his enemies? What kind of hero would he be if he were driven only by hate? I also like the idea that Gotham City will always be in need of a super-hero. Batman’s existence is an eternal fact as is the existence of evil in his world. His world (not so different from ours) has accepted the fact that evil is always present and cannot disappear just because there is a superhero in town, but people can wish and believe in good and its prevalence over evil. What that superhero represents is exactly that belief and people’s hope that at the end all will be well. Whether he comes on a white horse, in a red cape or on black wings, he will come to fight whatever is lurking in the shadows and scares them. Slipping on Batman’s suit filled me with exuberance every time, because I got to be the chosen one of Gotham City’s people and got to be the sym-bol of good in their world. I knew I was just pretending, but I was pretend-ing really well -- just like when I was a kid I could feel the wings on my back every time I glided gracefully from cave to cave. Playing, I once again was able to really believe everything was possible and I could do anything. Sometimes adults forget how important it is to feel like the superhero of their own story -- life is a mess; and worrying can sometimes be useful, even rational, just as long worry does not become our second nature. Who says there is an age for jumping on the bed, playing and wearing pigtails? If that makes us happy we should do it at 10 and at 50. When you get older, however, you start forgetting the simple pleasure of believing in your own fantasies and dreams. You have other things to do: work, earn, buy, worry, be angry with the government, criticise your neighbours for installing that nasty new sound system. When do you get to lie down, look at the ceiling and dream? When do you get to sit down and write down all the things you want to do in your life? I will tell you now what real superheroes are like: they know how to enjoy their life whatever it might look like. We all have worries, we all have lost, or will lose, people and we all are here -- coping and fighting every day, we do not stop -- isn’t that heroic. I lost my mother eight years ago. I remember that at the time I had another year to graduate university, had no money and everybody was worrying that at 23 I will just collapse. But I didn’t. I am still here, pretending to be a superhero and ain’t that nice? It is. Because everything that is out there is a world to be taken and to be enjoyed. I am actually very glad I haven’t lost the child in me and can still remember how to feel almighty even though I’m just a journalist who likes playing video games and reading Stephen King novels. VD

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Mistress of Pain

What’s a hero without a proper villain to match all their strength? How do we know someone is act-

ing heroically if they are not pitted against an overwhelming malicious power? To paraphrase gamer favourite Roger Ebert, a story is only as good as its villain. Only a great villain can trans-form a good try into a triumph.Last we heard, the Mistress of Pain had not yet been confirmed as a boss in the upcoming Diab-lo III. But she’s been heavily hinted at and we will be surprised if she doesn’t turn up in some role in the game. Will she be one of those villains who allow the hero to truly shine or will she be a forgettable monster? Only time will tell.

Photo: Michele Albrigo, daguerroty.peModel/Costume: Calipso, www.calipsocosplay.com

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