Friday, July 01, 2005

violence in games

Violence in games.

I had this conversation many a time with friends and even concerned parents, about games being suitable for there children to play and younger friends asking older people to buy the violent 18 rated games. You can shoot a person in a game and they die, it's turning mindless violence into entertainment, in the real world the people suffering violence, victims of shootings and bombings have people close to them. In game there's no back ground and little consequence to murdering some one. There are games out there that have been banned for the violent contents. They tried to ban Grand theft auto and nearly succeeded, now it's one of the most popular games on the playstation, with the content of drug dealing, killing people, robbing cars and pimping prostitutes. These games are getting more details and more realistic. They might be getting worse but society is excepting these games with out any effort to ban them, especially where business is concerned The main focus on my report is the relation between the games madrid and september 12th and the terrorist events they refer to.

Playing the game Madrid, The aim of madrid is to light the candles and make them shine as bright as you can. To get the light bar at the bottom of the screen to fill you have to be really fast clicking on the candles to make them all shine really bright. I think this is also I sign that we (madrid) are in depression but we are still strong. Before researching into the terrorist attack in spain I saw the game as a spiritual thing, collecting as much light as you can to respect the fallen innocent people. All the people on the screen are wearing these I love Madrid t-shirts, which made me think it's the people of the world aware of the terrorist attack all uniting and praying for the civilians. The candles represent the grief people went though the days after the terrorist attacks. I noticed the people holding candles was wearing I love Madrid T-shirts, which I think represents the protests held I spain which was filmed for 50 hours, people of spain were able to publically express their grief and anger to the press. The people holding candles are representing the support from other countries around the world.

Playing the game September 12th - It clearly states at the beginning of the game it's not a game you can play right or wrong, with which I started with good intentions I was dropping missiles as careful as I could on the areas where the marked terrorists could be seen. At the beginning of the game you are given a little key indicating which the innocent people are and what the terrorists look like, I though this will be easy to define one from the other and easy to shoot them. Instead of a gun you are given a missile launcher and there is a screen full of people walking round buildings, you can tell the difference between the terrorists the locals, the terrorists carry guns. I found they are very hard to bomb terrorists with out sacrificing the odd civilians. Eventually I'd flattened a few building as well, and so decided to bomb everything just to see what the buildings looked like on the inside, I was killing civilians and everything it was then I noticed when the civilians die other locals run over and cry around them. This made me think back to the aim of the game, there is no right or wrong way of playing it but because the game continued the way it did for me I saw the difficult ways in which to terminate all the terrorists without damaging to much the town, I was thinking carefully about the timing of bombs and searching for the terrorists and making hard decisions. As soon as some other people died and i'd flattened some building I completely forgot who was good and who was bad in the game, I was fascinated with blowing things up, I became like the terrorists killing innocents and bombing buildings. It was when I then noticed the locals crying over dead friends, so I killed more to see it happen again then sat back and watched. There is no timer to the game and I ended up looking at what I had destroyed and watching the waves of people still walk around, the only thing that changed from when I started was the flattened buildings which I flattened. I think the overall relation with the september the 12th incident and game september the 12th is the sacrifices made when making the decision to strike on terrorists. The only thing that happens when dropping the missiles on the terrorists is the slow destruction of the town and the killing of innocent civilians. This is similar to the extreme events that happened on 9/11, hundreds died that were just killed near the target, the day after the British sent in extensive military resources at the disposal of the U.S.A, backing America's attack on terrorists. The game is a simulation of a similar scenario, to you sit back and watch the terrorists walk freely through the innocent people, or do you risk attack on the terrorists destroying towns and killing hundreds of people. I understood the related events to the september 12th game more than the Madrid one, i am still unsure exactly what the Madrid game is about, once you have filled a bar of light in the bottom corner by clicking on the candles, you complete the game and statistics (a kind of death toll) appears so, I think it' has relevance to the amount of people weeping and protesting for the people injured and killed by the Madrid terrorists. It seems more a support aid. Going back to the start of what I was saying about violence in games, talking about Grand Theft Auto, and how this game is seen as mindless violence and in many parents opinions band. What about the not so popular war simulations like medal of honer and rainbow six. There are many games based on war and terrorism, but looking and analyzing Madrid and september 12th I don't think these big war game titles on Playstation have relevance to the events they are based on, making them more like the mindless violence of Grand Theft Auto. The games madrid and september 12th make you think more about the events, which is violent but not with out relevance to the real events.