Manhunt 2 Banned in the UK

[DanJW]

Yeah Wrestle, but on top of last week it can only add to some kind of momentum.

[brkl]

Was this true? Is it still true? There's something to be said about rapid-fire viewing of decontextualized violence shaping someone's perception of the game.

That's not exactly how it works. They want to see the context as well. This interview at The Escapist describes it pretty well: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/8.43166

[Noyb]

That's not exactly how it works. They want to see the context as well. This interview at The Escapist describes it pretty well: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/8.43166

Thanks for the link.

There are so many rumors and myths floating around about the ESRB, it's nice to see some straight answers.

[elmuerte]

I think this sums it up quite well:

My response to all of that is, so what? What does that have to do with adults like you, or me, or the aforementioned magazine editor making our own decisions as whether or not we want to play this game? What does that have to do with the countless number of adults in the U.K. or Ireland for whom the BBFC and the IFCO have decided to play nanny, wag their respective index fingers, and say, "We know better than you, and we in our infinite wisdom have decided that you can't play this game"? Unless they have good reason to believe that this game is an imminent threat to the public order, or that it will in and of itself incite adults to violence, their decision seems to me to be based on taste, and I will never believe in substituting anyone else's tastes for my own.

From: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/25/vs-mode-on-manhunt-2-round-1-fight.aspx

Even though you are an adult and regarded as one, you are still threated like a child when it comes to "entertainment".

You can take a urn full of asbestos dust and scatter it around a crowded place, but you can't play Manhunt 2 (even if you wanted too).

[Wrestlevania]

N'gai Croal kicks ass. He's probably my most favourite "serious" games journalist at the moment.

Going to sit down and read this edition of the Versus series properly sometime this week.

[Nachimir]

There's something to be said about rapid-fire viewing of decontextualized violence shaping someone's perception of the game.

I think this is a good point, and a far deeper issue than most would suspect.

My boss and I were talking about this last week. Playing a game is very, very different to watching it being played. We'd both played a bit of Gears of War the previous weekend, and had similar experiences.

I found out how to use the chainsaw by accident and spent five minutes trying to do it to everything, cheering every time it worked. The guy playing with me was watching it and shooting sidelong glances at me. In my mind it was "Yay! I triggered something novel!". In his mind he saw someone who appeared to be thinking "Yay! Blood! Guts! Chainsawmuthafucka!".

If I saw the same thing in a film (made to look real or as obvious CGI), I'd very likely just go "Eugh!". I'm not a fan of watching violence at all.

Likewise my boss got a "What *are* you playing?" from his wife upon performing a kerb stomp. The context of any action in a game is completely different; To a player it's nothing like seeing it in American History X, but to a spectator it might be.

The question is, does the action in a game affect people more or less than the same thing in a film? Intuition seems to suggest more, but my boss and I actually think it's less because we can see the difference in our reaction to the two. I've always been wary of people who really enjoy watching violence in films, but never had the same qualms over gamers.

[DanJW]

It is an interesting topic, you're right. Some of the fatalities in God of War II are utterly brutal - slamming someone's head in a big iron door, holding somoene elses under shallow water. Not stuf I'd nornally like to watch. But I found myself cheering and laughing at these parts while grimacing at the same time. The utter brazeness of these animations was a thrill - they're like hearing a very sick but also very funny joke. Half the reason you laugh so hard is because of the bad taste element (marmite-like comedian Jummy Carr says these are his favourite types of jokes - the ones that you know you shouldn't laugh at but can't help it).

So I think the reason gamers respond to these things is a combination of the bad-taste thrill and the easter-egg type exploration you describe. Also, gamers are trained problem solvers and system explorers - if we solve a problem or find a new thingy in the system we get a warm glow, no matter what the fictional context is.