I think my sick video game fantasy negates the environmental damage. There is something both attractive and perhaps naive about imagining that we can actually undo the damage of large-scale ecological disasters. And even though the current outlook in real life may be bleak, I have games like Remake of Final Fantasy 7 and PowerWash Simulator to help me imagine other worlds.
While both games don’t seem to share much else from their publisher, each is about improving the world and environment around you in some way. In PowerWash Simulator clean the lawn with a pressurized water jet. And to Remake of Final Fantasy 7 you team up with a group of friends to oppose an evil energy company and its ongoing mission to exploit the earth for its resources. Fortunately for me — a Final Fantasy VII and PowerWash Sim freak – PowerWash Simulator takes a special Remake of Final Fantasy 7 DLC that will allow you to clear various set-pieces from the game.
Collaboration is likely to help promote PowerWash Simulator to his audience Remake of Final Fantasy 7, and vice versa. But the DLC is also oddly fitting, given how the two games play off each other.
Remake of Final Fantasy 7 is located in Midgar, a city run by an energy company called the Shinra Electric Power Company that exploits the environment for its resources. This extraction hurts some Midgarians more than others. As video essayist Jacob Geller so eloquently argues in “The Politics of Final Fantasy 7’s Architecture,” the class dynamics in the city are underscored by its physical architecture. The wealthiest working class literally lives on a giant metal slab hanging over the slums, leaving the slums to bear the brunt of the environmental consequences of the massive energy industry.
Playing through the PowerWash Simulator DLC will allow us to mitigate some of these damages. The DLC will allow players to take on jobs from Shinra as well as members of the Cloud Strife rebel group that is part of Avalanche. As they clean up, players will have to clean special dirt like “bio-debris” from the machinery, which I can only imagine is the result of the power company’s misdeeds.
The DLC is very spontaneous, but I don’t know, it’s all pretty much true right now. As I write this, an ongoing environmental disaster is unfolding in Ohio, where a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed. The prospect of scavenging and using sick magical powers and summons to fight corporate entities sounds like something fantastic.