Resonance is really good so far, which isn’t far at all. I have played as a single dude who lives in a shitty apartment and is a scientist of some kind, and a streetwise cop who walks into dark alleys because he plays by his own rules. This screenshot is the beginning of a third character’s introduction. It’s the best thing I’ve experienced in a video game in a long time.

I’ve played several other games lately, more so than films or books. In particular: Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3. That is also a ranking of the most to least interesting of that trio. Lara Croft’s trek was an interesting build-up, but Booker Dewitt and the Far Cry 3 guy (I call him “bro”) are not as interesting. All three characters are placed in certain peril and yet only Lara’s story really stuck with me. It’s as if her own term as innate badass has been washed away, replaced by a vulnerability that makes her more relatable in spite of all the extreme survivalist shit she pulls off. Her deaths are also cruelly graphic, which ups the peril factor. Bro is certainly a vulnerable character in the opening scenes, but they ramp him up almost immediately. You’re hunting boars and taking down army Jeeps full of natives in the first half hour. And Dewitt, hell. He comes in as a down-on-his-luck private detective who’s out to snag a bounty in exchange for a pardon of some kind of debt. Guys like that are hurricanes. There’s no doubt in his portrayal.

I’ve yet to finish the latter two, so perhaps I’ll change my opinion. My gut just kicks in early on with such things.

There’s a big loud voice out there that says video games have to appeal to certain aspects of the psyche. Kind of like what they say about comic books. People—mostly guys—want a power fantasy. Big muscles, hot and nearly-naked girls. Always the hero or the anti-hero. Never the (serious, not comical) villain, or the weak, or the NPC who appears as a background automaton. I don’t agree with people who believe such characters are just not interesting. Who wants to play as a powerless nobody?

I’m left to wonder why scenes like this one from Resonance or Lara’s struggles across the island make me feel more immersed and interested in these games than in others. I really have no answer. What I understand at this point is that vulnerability can make me feel powerless, and so I do not admit vulnerability. I do not feel powerless. Perhaps this whole thing—these kinds of video games, all those years of stories, and the kind of intimate fiction I admire—it’s an attempt at something. Trying to connect to a node which remains nameless to me. Just trying to feel, maybe.

That’s what art is good for anyway.