The Omen wrote:
"Yeah, the good old days before that blasted rock and roll littered our kids brains, and then that damn women's movement really set us back. Lets nor forget about the metal music causing kids to kill themselves...oh yeah, Doom made us into killing machines too!
Give me a break. You know what has caused the corruption of society? Lack of responsibility. Plain and simple. Why is it that some countries are affected by this "violent media", but others are left wholly indifferent? Where's your study into that aspect? There isn't one because it's common sense. We live in a country where family is a thing of the past. Kids grow up too quickly now because parents are at work, or out of their lives all together, and they want to lash out."
My reply:
I don´t know what you mean, when you write that some countries are left unaffected and others not. To me, this violence in the media is a scourge which saturates society affecting every person in the world who play games, or watch really violent movies. Sometimes I feel that the reason why there has been a surge in police brutality, militarization of the Police is because they deal with ever increasing brutality from people in society, and so have to take their precautions, and be ready to strike when the unavoidable happens. When people boil over in their brains.
I love Nintendo´s own games because they are fun, exciting and beautifull to look at. However I also loved playing Halo 1 and 2 and will certainly love to get to play (droooooool...) Halo 3! I feel uplifted when I play those games - the exact opposite when I get anywhere near Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, Godfather. Being a soldier with a justified mission to save other people from the enemy is making sense. Manhunt isn´t. While I do understand some peoples desire to experience, and live out the role of a killer without doing it for real (and perhaps in that process alltogether eliminating any pre-existing, and for whatever the past reason subdued, subconscious-) tendencies or cravings in the direction of killing, maiming, beating to a pulp other people - I still feel that the gaming industry has an equal responsibility for rearing the players, and not just throw anything at them to make a buck.
The way I experience it on a personal level, is that if I play something as violent as Manhunt, I get to feel like I step down to a lower, cruder level of existence, and I suddenly feel I am nolonger myself. I feel like I become less caring about violence, hurting somebody and I DON´T like that feeling. So I stay away from playing such games. You mentioned Doom, and that it did not make us killing machines. No, it didn´t, because according to the way I see it AGAIN there is a perceived justification for wiping out the monsters in that game - your own survival! You have to save that Martian base at Olduvai from destruction, and so it makes perfect sense to go and kill the monsters. Nomatter how much blood and gore is involved! You just have to clean up. Manhunt is a completely different quest. While I didn´t play it S-U-P-E-R, since I felt sick over it, I have heard what it is about from reviewers, and they say it is about being rewarded for killing people in the most violent ways. I have seen the screenshots from the sequel, where one sees some inmates beating another inmate to what looks like death. Fun, huh?
A guy working for EB games told me he had tried the first game for a short while, and had dropped it since he felt it wasn´t entertaining. I understand him well: The more violent, the more points! Where is the justification in that? Wanting to "lash out"? Is that the reason? Hey, I can see other more healthy ways of lashing out than killing people in the most violent ways! While I don´t want to preach, I do want to state that the integrity of a nation requires a healthy amount of cohesion, power of cohesion in that society in order for it to function properly. If it becomes a major trend to find it entertaining to kill people brutally for fun in games (and I DON`T refer to House of the Dead, Time Crisis or other Arcade shooters which are quite innocent by comparison as they still have a justification for killing), where is the next step? And where do you think that is going to take us? I think that if we just stand idle and do nothing but follow the lead, then things will one day get out of hand and destroy society alltogether.
People make up society, families make society as they are the building blocks of same. I wouldn´t want to be in a society where everything suddenly gets "out of hand". And I think that we have already started to see the consequence of lowering our tolerance of violence in the media everywhere in the form of the many highschool shootings! Have you ever thought of whether the people who make psychological surveys to establish the effects on people of various outside sources in daily life are perhaps right when they conclude that violent media (and especially violent games since the player here is the one making the conscious choice to perfrom the act of maiming, beating) makes people more violent? That it is not just about not playing a game like that, but about me being concerned for where it takes people on the mental developement level? Manhunt is a MURDER simulator - period. What is the next thing they come up with a Rockstar? A Cannibalism simulator? Yeah...let´s have some of that. I always loved that woman walking by me, and wanted to eat her...muhahaha! Let´s eat her heart out. I really looove you now, don´t I woman? Or that annoying, stressed out idiot who always annoys me as he walks by in the street now and then. Let´s help him sit down more often, by feasting on his...legs!
No, joke aside: We should all watch out for what happens to us on a deeper mental level when we engage in the virtual doings in games. Really!
Topic: Manhunt 2 from Rockstar? Whoa... (Read 77751 times)
