In the era of the Super Nintendo, many games tackled violence in very different ways.
Star Fox (1993) made several interesting choices in its own depiction of violence that are revealing about the nature of human violence, and how humans prefer to perceive it. Through the use of animal characters who employ human-like weapons and omission of a back story, Star Fox makes an interesting commentary on how humans dissociate themselves from their violent nature.
I think it is worth looking into the more violent side of Star Fox. While on the surface, it is a colorful, flashy, action packed game of any player’s sci-fi fantasy, accompanied by a great soundtrack that puts you in the mood to battle. But a more interesting part of Star Fox is the use of animals as its main characters. We see these grand and atmospheric battles being carried out by anthropomorphic animals, so to some extent this covers up the actual acts of violence implied by your actions in the game. Humankind prefers to see itself as a civilized species, often refusing to acknowledge its violent nature, but when a filter of animal characters are applied to the violent acts, the resulting satisfaction seems a little bit more justifiable. Remember that in every ship you shoot down, there was another person (or animal) piloting that piece of machinery. That ship immediately combusts into a fiery ball before fading out of existence, sparing you the sense of suffering. As a fox, it seems pretty cool to take down those ships with ease, but in a way you forget the implications of those actions, and what it would mean had they all been human beings.
By projecting the senseless violence onto the behavior of animals, the game creates an illusion of justification for the actions. Paying closer attention to this game’s plot, you will notice that the reason for fighting is never clearly specified through the missions. All you know is that Andross is trying to take over and he is currently on the planet Venom. Now, I know that is very menacing sounding, but that’s just the classic propaganda of dehumanizing our enemies. For all we know Andross and his people may see their intentions as good. Not only is there this blurred view of evil, but the main character is not even a well defined good guy. Fox and his team are simply mercenaries, which usually implies someone who would take the job of whoever is paying the most. Fox would technically have no loyalty to the people fighting Andross, so what does that mean about his actions? Is he fighting just to fight, or does he genuinely believe that Andross should be stopped. What’s to say a completely different story wouldn’t be told had Andross been the one with the fatter wallet? But with animals, the player does not really think too much about this side of the story.
Furthermore, the animal characters allow the player to pretend that humans do not behave in this manner. Yet, on further observation, the ships and weapons are clearly inspired by human creations. Animals don’t drop bombs on enemies, humans do. Ferocity is usually ascribed to animal behavior, yet in Star Fox this ferocity does not come from their animal nature, but rather the human creations of bombs and guns they use.
Perhaps the creators of the game did not intend for this to be a social commentary, and rather used animals to appeal to parents by omitting concepts of human bloodshed. Nevertheless the game created, perhaps unintentionally, inspires a critical consideration of senseless human violence and the human discomfort with their own ferocity.
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