Perhaps videogames have hit a brick wall. Perhaps they are in their decadent period, desperately drawing attention to themselves by superficial tricks but ultimately secretly convinced of the impoverishment and exhaustion of their traditional forms. The decadent period among artists and writers of the late 19th century gave birth to a new aesthetic flowering in modernism. Can we hope that the same will be true of videogames?

I am playing TOCA Race Driver. Now on the one hand it is true for driving games that an increase in visual quality - all other things being equal - means an increase in the pleasure to be had from the game, since the exhilaration of speeding through well-modelled and detailed environments is central to the genre. So I am not unduly worried that, essentially, this is TOCA 2 prettied up. I am happy to believe that there is more hardcore physical modelling going on under the hood; and the sheer brutal refinement of the game’s racing philosophy, its all-encompassing noise, the way you can almost smell the petrol: all this is just fine. What does worry me is the feeling of desperation about the narrative that has been bolted on. It’s as if to say: well, hell, where else can the driving game go? Search us. How about we pretend you’re a bestubbled, lantern-jawed young punk who wants to avenge his father?

Well, why not? I’ve been a bestubbled, lantern-jawed young punk in more games than I care to remember. Why start whining now? One reason might be that the disjunction between what you do in the game - stare through a windscreen and try to hold the racing line - and what “you” do in the cutscenes is simply too wide. The ways in which we can play with character in videogames are limited enough in most RPG or exploration games; but in a driving game they are close to nonexistent. Another reason - and this is what gave me that whiff of decadence - is the hard limitation of the game’s ability to comment on how you drive. During one early race I said hello to a gravel trap on the last lap and watched the other cars speed by me. Rather than hobble in last, I decided to play around with the damage-simulation system, driving back and forth around the last segment of track and crashing into walls as often as I could. Soon the racetrack was littered with body panels, sprockets, broken glass and burned rubber. Satisfied, I finally drove over the finish line. Did my kindly Cockney manager say a single word about my utterly bizarre and irresponsible behaviour? No, of course he didn’t. So why should I suspend my disbelief in the game’s strenuous attempts at narrative for a moment longer?

This is not a new problem, and as I have written before, it seems to be a fundamental bust to the dream of videogames providing “interactive stories”, at least until some major revolution in artificial intelligence happens. But every year that goes by when that revolution doesn’t happen, while so many other things are getting better - visual quality, technical skill - is another year down the decadent slope. Games are fiddling while Rome burns.

More decadent yet is the GameCube remake of Resident Evil. Now it can hardly be denied that in terms of its visual aesthetics, this is a game of astounding gothic beauty. The lightning flashes through the leaded windows; the pervasive sense of decay and dread in the plush and - yes - decadent architecture of the mansion; the almost melancholic character of the zombies’ expressive shuffle; the exquisite sound design and beautiful musical score; all these things are worthy of the highest praise. But the game still plays like it did the first time round on PlayStation. Oh, so I have the fancy new 180-degree turn now? Thanks. That will take my mind off the fact that the game is still a notorious tissue of incoherencies: one-use objects to solve brain-dead “puzzles”; the hysterically dumb inventory-management system of “item boxes”; the retrograde control system (it’s like Devil May Cry never happened).

Maybe there is an argument to the effect that Resident Evil’s idiosyncratic combination of controls and camera angles works to create a kind of Brechtian alienation in the player. The fact that I view my avatar from the other end of a long corridor and so can’t see the slavering undead beast I am trying to shoot makes me ponder constructively the very artificiality of the videogame form and my dual role as ludological player and cinematic viewer. Maybe. But it’s also very annoying. Even if you like Resident Evil (perhaps you have a door fetish, or something), it must still be admitted that a remake of a six-year-old game that offers a few nice new areas and rejigged puzzles but utterly fails to update the central play mechanics is a game that is turning its back on the future and wallowing decadently in past glories.

Other decadent games? Look around. Wave Race: Blue Storm: a calculated, lurid assault on the memory of the original’s elegance; a loud ultra-Americanisation of a classic game. Agent Under Fire: a riot of colourful, prescripted incident with no real action. Dead or Alive 3: a cynical attempt to attract little boys to demo pods in Dixons. Decadence in videogames means avoiding the obvious problems: not fixing the engine but respraying the body. We’ll still have to pull levers and find keys, but, so the decadent videogame imagines, we’ll be happy if we have bigger guns, better lights and more leaves on the trees. Or, like, a really good story. Decadent videogames are by no means necessarily bad games, per se; but they lack artistic honesty. It is possible, indeed, that things will have to get worse before they get better, that decadence will have to reach a brilliant, self-destructive peak. In that respect, maybe the scorched-earth policy of a Kojima, a genius close to self-immolation in his apocalyptic personal cinema, is a sign of light at the end of the tunnel.

So here I sit in my velvet smoking jacket, leafing languidly through a volume of Oscar Wilde’s witticisms, and wondering when this decadent period - of superficial invention and a desire to dazzle, to distract or to shock above all else - will eventually pass. Soldier of Fortune 2? How perfectly outrageous, darling. Doom 3? Looks very nice, doesn’t it? In the heat and humidity of a late summer, I try to stifle a yawn.

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