5 Votes
Content Evolution in Video Games
Video games have come a long way since the blocky characters of the Intellivision graced my TV growing up as a kid. As a computer science guy, I’m pretty amazed at the realism in modern sports games and the physics engines that power simulations and FPS games. With the incredible realism available today comes the urge for some development shops to implement ugly realities like hooking up with prostitutes and killing police officers as found in Grand Theft Auto. The latest arcade simulation to stir the controversy pot is the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 that had a trailer leak out depicting realistic gameplay for players to kill civilians as a terrorist. Is there a hidden line somewhere that has either been crossed or nearing crossing? Or does it really matter since those opposed aren’t likely to play it anyway? I don’t suppose anybody today would find the controversies over ’90s era Leisure Suit Larry games to be all that big of a deal. Perhaps the same will be said of these games in another decade.
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Games, Simulators and modern Amateur Radio by Occams
This is an interesting subject.
It would be nice to know if there was any evidence for sick video games making some people more psychotic than they already are. Intuitively it seems true and I guess that will be enough for the nanny statists to try to ban them.
I will accept that it is just possible that video games provide a better outlet for violence and agression than taking it out on real people.
I am amazed by the realism of today’s flight simulators, and I keep coming back to them evey year or so to check out how they have improved. The only video game I play regularly is Empire Earth which I think is brilliant because it lets you develop strategies and tactics to win against the AI, and then shows that they are essentially the ones commonly used in real life anyway.
My hobby is amateur radio. This had been turning into a past time for elderly curators as the hardware became too sophisticated to build or even modify. The response has been software defined radio SDR, which in a sense is a simulator of a real radio, but is actually an evolution of radio technology that will probably replace the real thing because it does all the things a real radio does only better.
Now Amateur radio is becoming more like its origns in the 1920s in that amateurs are able to experiment in developing state of the art devices that push the boundaries of what is possible. The big difference is that now they are doing it through open source software tather than hardware development.
Long Live Leisure Suit Larry.. by gnifyus
I loved that game. Unfortunately, I had to play it at work on an amber screen; so I never enjoyed the full fledged blocky reality a color screen would have given me. The funniest part of the game was the “Boss Key” which was a key you hit making a fake spreadsheet looking-thing pop up instantly (in case the boss walked by.. like he-would-be-fooled-because-he played-it-in-his office-too..)
Anyway:
I don’t suppose anybody today would find the controversies over ’90s era Leisure Suit Larry games to be all that big of a deal. Perhaps the same will be said of these games in another decade.
I really don’t think so. I think there’s a limit to palatable “terrible-ness”. I mean — was trolling for women for gratuitous sex the worst thing that anyone could think of in the early nineties? -No! Terrorists shooting innocent people would have been right up there then just like it is today. In the nineties we made games that might raise the hackles on The Church Lady, but nobody was making mainstream games that would disgust and bother just about anybody with a healthy mind. I think the limit is finite; there’s a little bit of a slippery slope, but it hits a stone wall pretty fast at a certain point. There are some (fewer and fewer hopefully) who break through that wall, and these are the people these game companies pander to.
I completely agree with the marine quoted in the article; “In my opinion it dumbs down the absolute horror and viciousness of these tactics, and glorifies the acts.”
In the end it’s the fact that someone (a whole company) deliberately spent the hours and hours it took to program that event into the game, knowing there would be more than a few who would be attracted to it. The limit is reached when civilization suddenly notices and says, “No!”
Perhaps the same will be said of these games in another decade.
What further reach of violence can possibly be thunk up after a certain point to make this seem tame?
No Context For the Scene by LordDilly
Before weighing in, I would like to know what context the scene is in. For those who have not played the first Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game, the opening sequence is a first person perspective cut scene, from the POV of a deposed president of an un-named Middle Eastern country. The player can move the camera and see what the character sees just before he is summarily executed. So my question is: is this what the COD: MW2 sequence is? A first person POV of the killing of civilians, from the eyes of a terrorist that the player doesn’t control? Or is it actual gameplay, where the player has infiltrated the terrorist group? If the player can kill civilians at will, will there be consequences later on in the game? Having played the other Infinity Ward versions of Call of Duty (2 and 4) I have faith that they know what they are doing in terms of both gameplay and narrative, and that whatever this scene turns out to be will not be gratuitous.