Posts Tagged ‘violence’
How Mature
Recently in the UK news there was an article stating that a head teacher would report parents to the local authorities if they discovered any of the children in the school were playing mature rated games, citing that the parents would be accused of “neglect.” While I feel accusing parents of being neglectful is not entirely fair it does pose the question: just how mature are games these days? This article is going to cover my own experiences of mature rated games as I grew up and how I feel about the subject now. [Editor’s Note: Fred wrote an article in the past dissecting mature rated games in the US, that perspective is here.]
Grand Theft Auto Vice City Turns 10 (PS2/Xbox/PC)
Console: Playstation 2, Xbox, PC
Released: 10/29/2002 (US, PS2)
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar
Difficulty: Moderate
Value: $0.88 (used) $8.25 (new) (pricecharting.com) – Prices for PS2 Version
Price: $5.00-$10.00 (used) $10-$20 (new) on eBay
Digital Release? Not Yet – ESRB suggests a PS3 and possibly Xbox 360 release and iOS/Android app should be out any day
When Grand Theft Auto III hit the Playstation 2, Rockstar North single-handedly proved that it could make a clearly defined, open world that players could explore in a fully rendered 3D city. It wasn’t until the follow-up, Grand Theft Auto Vice City, that the studio gave this concept personality. Some think of it as a sequel, but in retrospect Vice City was merely an update to the engine that allowed to tell a side tale, which would be made available nowadays as a large DLC add-on. It basically retells the story of Scarface within the GTA III engine, but adds enough detail and flair to the mix to place it among one of the top rated games of last generation – and even garnered it a sequel that started life on PSP and moved to the more prevalent PS2. Personally, this is my favorite game in the series because it’s clever storytelling promotes completion of the campaign while the familiar 80s soundtrack brings me back to the early days of my youth.
Guilty Pleasure: Night Trap (Sega CD/32X CD/3DO/PC)
Console: Sega-CD/Mega-CD, 32X CD, 3DO, PC
Released: 1992
Developer: Digital Pictures
Publisher: Sega (Sega/Mega-CD, 32X CD), Virgin (3DO), Digital Pictures (PC)
Instruction Manual: Not necessary – Link
Difficulty: Easy
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $25.00-$50.00 (used) $50.00 (new) (pricecharting.com) – Prices for various platforms
Price: $25-$50 (used) N/A (new) on eBay
Digital Release? No
Oh Night Trap, your reputation precedes you. In actuality this game has received far too much press than it’s probably worth and constitutes an odd sense of rarity about the title. It’s too bad because had this title fallen into the $5-$10 category that its brethren Sewer Shark, Corpse Killer, and Double Switch dwell, more people would probably appreciate the title. Unfortunately due to some senate hearings and the fact that this game was alongside Mortal Kombat and Lethal Enforcers for why the ESRB ratings needed to exist in the first place, people think they are going to see some explicit content. That, friends, is simply not true. Putting all that publicity aside, there is a meaty cult-style game here that perhaps suffers less than other full motion video (FMV) games. It’s not great, but it sure is fun to watch at least once.
Now & Then: Mortal Kombat II (Midway)
Midway must have known it had a hit on its hands with the original Mortal Kombat because no time was wasted creating the sequel. While most of us anticipated the home release of the first title, Mortal Kombat II (MKII) snuck into arcades and blew our minds. This game literally had it all – more characters, more fatalities/finishing moves, and more violence. For most MK series fans, myself included, this is considered to be the best and it’s one of the highest grossing video games of all time.
MK Meets its Match
The original Mortal Kombat was an impressive fighter, especially for one that was developed with digitized actors in only 10 months, but creator Ed Boon wanted to do more. “[MKII] had everything we wanted to put in the original MK but didn’t have time for,” he said in an interview with EGM2 (issue 5, Nov. 1994). It does seem like there’s some truth to his claim, especially with the introduction of more stage fatalities, a second fatality for each character, and even joke finishers “friendships” and “babalities”. I’m not so sure the roster was an initial idea, nor was the background concepts of Outworld, but I can definitely see the Midway team wanting to break away from the perceived reality of the original. Not only was MKII the definitive version of the original concept, but it continues to be the template for which all other titles in the series are based on.
Dropping the Ban Hammer
Have you ever eagerly anticipated the release of a game only to find out it isn’t coming to the United States? Imagine if the reasoning wasn’t due to licensing issues or internal policies by the ESRB and console developers. Aside from Rapelay, a game I can barely give credit as a video game and was never intended to see a release anyway, I’ve never heard of a game that isn’t welcome in the US. It’s one of those great freedoms that we take completely for granted in this country – we don’t have our media banned or censored federally. This isn’t to say content isn’t stripped down, many of us remember Manhunt 2 getting an AO rating that rendered it unable to release on its intended platforms (PS2 and Wii). As a result, developer Rockstar released a “toned down” version that was approved with an M rating and saw retail release. The difference between this situation and the situation in other countries is that the industry self polices and decides what is allowed and what is not. Currently the major console manufacturers refuse to release AO titles, but that doesn’t restrict a developer from releasing on PC or an available platform. In some other countries, you’re given a stringent refusal to release your product after you’ve created it.
Video Game Violence Heats Up
I remember going to the roller skating rink on Thursday nights and even though I was an avid gamer, puberty had started to kick in and girls were much more interesting to me. That is, until Mortal Kombat. I had already seen and gotten my butt kicked by most of the Street Fighter II players, but that game was too cartoon-like and I didn’t much care for it. Mortal Kombat was different. It had digitized actors playing as each of the fighters, heavy blows to the face would result in large globs of blood spraying across the floor, and I’ll never forget the first time someone won a round with Johnny Cage and the words “Finish Him!” flashed on-screen. The player walked up to his opponent and did what looked like a complex combination of buttons, the screen darkened, and Johnny Cage straight up punched the guys head off. Blood erupted from the severed stump while the head bounced on the floor while Johnny Cage put his sunglasses on and struck a pose. That was my first experience with a “fatality,” which would go on to be one of the most controversial subjects in gaming history.
Senator Joseph Lieberman
In the arcades it was all good and well but once this content hit home consoles in 1992 suddenly governmental groups took notice, namely senators Joe Lieberman (Connecticut) and Herb Kohl (Wisconsin). They decided that video game companies were pandering violence to children, using these “toys” (game consoles) as the vehicle, and in December 1993 decided to take it to congress. At that time both Nintendo and Sega had versions of Mortal Kombat on the market, but each had its own way of handling the questionable content. Nintendo thought it was taking the moral high ground by converting the blood to gray sweat – hardcore SNES players of the time used Game Genie to turn it back to red – and changed the fatalities to bloodless “finishing moves.” Sega, being the more salacious of the bunch, kept all the violence and fatalities intact on its consoles and instead opted for a code to unlock it – every Sega player remembers “ABACABB” and “DULLARD” for the Genesis as well as “212DU” for Game Gear. Sega had decided to self-police its titles and implemented a rating system on its games, mostly taking queues from the motion picture industry. There were 3 ratings: GA (general audiences), MA-13 (parental advisory under 13), and MA-17 (parental advisory under 17). For one reason or another Mortal Kombat received an MA-13 from Sega. Not that any of this mattered.
Senator Kohl
To the senators, changing fatalities were finishing moves didn’t change the fact that Scorpion would still char the opponent to bones. As for the rating system, especially one that was self-established, it may as well have been a promotional logo. To further explain their opinions, the senators screened what they claimed was the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat. Since anyone who played that version knows how rough and fake it looks, they opted to show off the much more crisp and clear arcade version. Semantics, sure, but still valid. It’s important to note that Mortal Kombat was not alone in these hearings. Night Trap, Lethal Enforcers, and Doom shared the spotlight.
Gaming History 101 