Apparently Katie Couric doesn’t like Manhunt 2. She was obviously displeased with the idea that the murder was realistically portrayed with knives, glass shards, and other realistic killing devices (as opposed to sci-fi shooters, I guess?) And she particularly didn’t like the idea of combining this with the Wii’s control method. She warns it could not only be dangerous to your kids, but to others as well, indicating it could make the more easily-impressionable kids run out and kill people. Though she read the piece as a toothless parental suggestion with no bile, she came across as having the same level of disgust as she did on her opinion piece of General Mukasey’s possible OK-ing, despite his refusing to rule out torture (waterboarding.) Hey, at least she mentions you have to be seventeen to buy it, even if she does point out ‘some retailers sell it to kids anyway’.
My problem is that she targets the game, and the method of input. I disagree with the priorities of people that consider particular games like Manhunt 2, or movies like Saw, to be problems, but not aspects of the culture in general. My problem isn’t the existence of games where you can kill others (in this case, it’s even self-defense!) Hell, I don’t even care if someone does make Murder Simulator 2020. My complaint is the culture of gaming (game developers and gamers themselves,) that is so dependent on violence as content that it’s largely retarded growth into other areas that games could gain from. And of course this is because after graphics, physics are the next easiest part of programming to improve on. Games are just advancing along the path of least resistance.
Y’know, I just hope that in the end, games can drive people to kill, to love, to loathe, to orgasm, and to regret. Not due of repetition and warping of the player’s sense of ‘normalcy’, but because of passion and persuasiveness. Because after playing the game, the player actually cares enough to act, in some way. Of course, I’d rather players try to save the world…
