Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

Grand Theft Auto IV is both a waste of time and "the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years," according to this scintillating meditation on the promise and discontents of video games. Journalist Bissell (Chasing the Sea) should know; the ultraviolent car-chase-and-hookers game was his constant pastime during a months-long intercontinental cocaine binge. He's ashamed of his video habit, but also ashamed of being ashamed of the "dominant art form of our time"; by turning the eye of a literary critic on the gory, seemingly puerile genre of ultraviolent, open-ended "shooter" games, he finds unexpected riches. Bissell bemoans the "uncompromising stupidity" of their story lines, wafer-thin characters, and the moronic dialogue, but celebrates the button-pushing, mesmeric qualities and the subtle, profound depths these conceal "the catharses of teamwork and heroism in the zombie-fest Left for Dead, the squirmy moral dilemmas of Mass Effect, the "mood of wistful savagery" suffusing the rifles-and-chainsaws-bedecked denizens of Gears of War. Bissell excels both at intellectual commentary and evocative reportage on the experience of playing games, while serving up engrossing mise-en-scene narratives of the mayhem. If anyone can bridge the aesthetic chasm between readers and gamers, he can. (June 8)