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Feature: Where’s the “Citizen Kane of video games”?

It seems like a concept that’s thrown around a lot these days is the parallel between video games and cinema, and the taunting question of when’s our Citizen Kane going to come around? But I wonder if all the people pondering this aloud truly understand what they’re looking for. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the vast majority of gamers haven’t actually seen Orson Welles’ 1941 classic. I have. And while I certainly believe it to be a great film and can recognize its significance in the history of motion pictures, it’d be a stretch to call it the greatest movie of all time.

It’s generally revered for its technical prowess–the cutting edge direction and cinematography that came together in a way cinema had never seen before. And GoldenEye changed First Person Shooters on consoles forever, but that doesn’t make it a better game than Perfect Dark. See, what I think people are really looking for in games is a trail-blazer–a game that utterly changes how we perceive video games and what they can do. But when you really think about it, our medium has already seen this “Citizen Kane” come and go. For old-school gamers who’d only known 2D side-scrolling their entire lives, Super Mario 64 shattered their expectations like nothing before. I’d argue that the transition from 2D to 3D was more jarring than anything Citizen Kane introduced to film.

That’s the fascinating thing about our medium of choice. We’re constantly changing, upgrading, rethinking the way we play. The most drastic changes in the history of movies were probably the transition from the silent era to sound, and from black and white to color. Everything else has really just been minor tweaks and explorations of an established craft. And that’s in over a century of moving pictures. Video games on the other hand, have had as many drastic changes in the past 15 years. 3D and motion controls were game changers. Hell, you could even throw in online play and Sandbox games. So really, I think we’re just so used to change in our industry that we didn’t even notice our Citizen Kane.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say Citizen Kane is regarded as the greatest film of all time for reasons besides its innovative technical feats. Besides its deep focus photography and fresh new camera angles, Welles’ masterpiece is also remembered for the way he weaved the story together in a series of flashbacks that threw chronology out the window. This sort of story telling that we take for granted because of modern classics like Pulp Fiction and Memento had never been seen before Citizen Kane. It was a brand new way to experience a story. This sort of story presentation has even had an impact on video games, with games like Chrono Trigger and Braid toying around with time.

But as for games that have most impacted the way we experience a story, Doom has to take the crown. With few exceptions, video games were almost entirely third person affairs before the father of the FPS. But Doom changed the face of video games forever. And hearing industry vets recall their first experience in the First Person Perspective just makes me long for that kind of expectation-shattering experience. I can’t really think of a change in story-telling bigger than going from playing a character’s story to playing your own story.

But perhaps the film critics are all wrong. Maybe it isn’t any technical aspect of Citizen Kane that makes it so worshiped, but rather its subject matter and the circumstances surrounding it. See, this movie infamously depicts the life of media mogul William Randolph Hearst behind the guise of Charles Foster Kane’s fictional story. Hearst was outraged at Welles’ portrayal and put all his power to use in trying to destroy the young film maker’s story before it could see the light of day, but ultimately could not prevent its release. His efforts weren’t fruitless however, as the smear campaign he ran largely contributed to Citizen Kane winning only one of the nine Academy Awards it was nominated for. But even without the controversy surrounding its release, the movie would have been remembered as one of the few serious and socially relevant stories of a time dominated by the likes of The Wizard of Oz.

This is where things get interesting on our side. Sure, we’ve got games that have faced heavy scrutiny on their way to release–Mortal Kombat comes to mind–and we’ve got games that deal with serious issues–behind all the nano-machines Metal Gear Solid 4 actually deals with some pretty serious stuff–but we’ve never really had a socially relevant game met with a storm of controversy. I suppose someone could make an argument for Grand Theft Auto, but the controversy was never over what the games were saying, but rather the violence within them. I’d love to use Six Days in Fallujah as my prime example here, but unfortunately Konami saw fit to give into the demands of all the William Hearsts out there. The video game industry just seems content to stick with the escapist stories of Summer Blockbusters instead of the dark and less-than-inspirational realities dealt with in many classics.

So what is our Citizen Kane? If you’re in the camp still waiting for it to come, you likely won’t find it until our medium starts dealing with some more serious subject matter. We’ve got the technical and conceptual parts down. We have for years, and we’ll continue to reinvent them for years. Ironically, our constant leaps of improvement in those departments may also prevent us from refining the more subtle aspects of presentation that separate the good film makers from the great ones, but that’s a conversation for another day. But if you’re still waiting for our Citizen Kane, it’ll probably take something as revolutionary as Super Mario 64 but dealing with less princesses and more capitalist extremism…damn it BioShock! Why couldn’t you have had some more innovative gameplay mechanics to go with that narrative? I think most gamers would settle for the Star Wars of gaming though.

Author: Cody

Tags: citizen kane, doom, feature, grand theft auto, orson welles, super mario 64, william randolph hearst