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Soldier Of Fortune: Must Be 18 To Play
Here's the line that grabbed my attention:
Soldier of Fortune allows users to assume the identity of John Mullins, an anti-terrorist mercenary, who kills and maims animals and humans during a series of armed missions.
"Depending on which weapon is used, the participant can enact gory violence that results in the horror of evisceration, decapitation, dismemberment and victims burning to death," said a report from Mary-Louise McCausland, B.C.'s director of film classification.
Here's how I feel about people who complain that animals get killed and maimed in video games.
For relaxation and burning off some stress, I enjoy fighting some bots in QuakeIII or some human beings in MythII. I've never played "Soldier of Fortune," but the screenshots are roughly as bloody as Q3A's giblets of flesh when a rocket hits a dead body. Or Myth's (smaller, but painfully realistic) arcs of bleeding limbs that bounce around after an explosion, leaking red into the ground.
Myth's "WW2" plugin is quite good. It's fun to throw a grenade into a knot of unsuspecting enemy soldiers. That pretty much covers "evisceration," "decapitation," and "dismemberment" (distinctions without a difference, since the bloody body parts all start to look the same after a while). As far as "victims burning to death," the new plugin allows four or more flamethrower units on some maps.
I also work with a local animal rescue organization. Every week at shelters across the country, dogs, cats, rabbits, and other nonhuman animals are being put to death because nobody will take them. We try to take in a few animals, those we can find room for, to give them a chance at life that lasts longer than seven days. And we help educate adopters, to give the animals their best chance in their new home.
Also, I'm a vegetarian (vegan, actually). Why? Because in comparison to the quick, clean death of the shelter, most animals' encounter with humans is bloody and violent.
Every day, we slaughter and eat tens of thousands of cows, gentle animals. Every day, a million pounds of veal - or, let's call it what it is, baby cow. Sixteen billion pounds of pig every year (divide, please, by the edible meat per pig).
I'm sure I don't need to describe the conditions under which these animals live and die. Everyone knows about factory farms already. Most of us simply try not to think about it. When I hear about someone abusing a dog, or a horse, or some other "popular" animal, I can't help but think about the pig, or the cow, that at that exact second has finally given up its life, and whose muscles will be on a plate later this week.
And when I hear about lawmakers wanting to stop digital violence, I think about the one in my area who called about an accidental litter of babies from their unspayed and unneutered pets. In poor health, they didn't live long; but even if they had, unwanted animals rarely get much of a life. Every new litter either ends up in the shelter, or crowds some other animals in to be killed.
Is violence against animals more acceptable because it's done at arm's length, in gas chambers - or perhaps because they starve to death before their eyes open? Is that same legislator going to vote, in his career, to stamp out cartoon violence, or computer violence, or some other kind of unreal images?
The "animals" that you can "kill and maim" in Soldier of Fortune are dogs and cows. One area that the player fights in is a meat-packing plant, and there are a few cows in a pasture nearby that can be shot (or not).
How horrible that 17-year-olds might be able to pretend to kill cows in a virtual slaughterhouse. Of course, the real slaughterhouses in British Columbia pump well over $100 million annually into the economy, 15% of which comes from resources owned by the government.
Want to kill real cows? The government will be glad to subsidize your job. Want to kill virtual cows? Sorry, son, you're too young; we can't have you exposed to such violence.
So to the Attorney General and to the so-called "film classification" office of British Columbia, who are so concerned about violence, take a look in the mirror. What have you done for animals lately, besides double the rate at which you slaughter them?
Groups like this always claim that they are concerned about children being desensitized to violence. I only wish they had a chance to get sensitized in the first place. As if it isn't enough of a mixed message - the stuff that we force kids to eat while telling them that hurting animals is wrong. Now 17-year-olds can't play a video game because it's called violent - and real violence is still called dinner.
One must remember as an American that the values of different cultures are not our own. In many countries, for instance, sexual acts and nudity on television and in media are much more acceptable than violence. We have discussed this before in the discussions of internet censorship. Having not spent any amount of time in Britain, and only knowing a few people from there myself, I cannot say how exactly they feel about violence, but probably more strongly than the American people do, who are somewhat self-righteous about sex.
Eh...
So I'll post about the actual game, SoF. I have played it. I have also played many other recent PC games that are somewhat violent in nature. I don't think that banning minors from buying SoF is such a bad idea. SoF is not a good game, but it does do one thing well. It depicts violence pretty graphically. Commendable. You can shoot people in the stomach and watch they intestines fall out. You can shoot them in the knee and watch them hop around in pain. You can even blow half their head off and eye the gorey remains of half a human head. WOO! Is it any substitute for good gameplay? NO WAY! I am starting to believe that SoF was made just to show how realistic PC game violence can be, and see how hot it sells a mediocre game.
Is banning the game the best long term solution to keep small children from turning into killers? No. This is a fix to a symptom. Instead of parents caring what their kids play, the government is having to step in and force the parents to buy the game for them, or turn the kids towards pirating the game. Once again, our complex society has done and end-run on some people who thought they were making a good decision. Those who do not comprehend their own lack of control over a complex system, are doomed to be at its mercy.
P.S.: Anyone who thinks that a video game(console, PC, or arcade) is a training simulator has either never played one, or never been on an actual killing spree.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
This is the government enabling me to raise my children. Now the choice to rent these games is back in the hands of the parents.
This was just step 1. Step 2 will be the government passing a law that says permitting a child to play a restricted game is prima facie evidence of child abuse. Child Protective Services will kick in your door, take your child, and raise it for you. (Ok, somewhat exaggerated. Maybe. But the ever-vigilant Nanny State does indeed think it knows better than you, so watch out.)
I think he did get distracted, seeing his pet peeve instead of other issues, but it still addressed the article, and the hypocrisy of banning a game which has a possibility of incidental death of cows when it's "good" and "right" for cows to be killed. To me, this is a small piece of the issue, but it's still valid.
To me, Soldier of Fortune is a perfectly valid game, you're shooting terrorist, people who resigned from societies protection when they picked up guns and started shooting innocents. Whatever happens to a terrorist is fair game.
To say that shooting a terrorist is sickening is to say that our police are sickening. They shoot at terrorists. Should we condemn them?
As long as we're willing to let the actions of others protect us, we're obligated to not frown on those actions. I don't particularly like military service, but I'll never slam our military until all the petty dictators of the world retire and we start giving flowers to each other.
Similarly, I would have a hard time being a SWAT member, shooting terrorists, but as long as there are terrorists, I'll congragulate those strong enough to go out there and shoot them.
To say that this behaviour is disgusting is somewhat accurate, but it's something more people need to be exposed to, not less. Until we all understand the actions taken, on our behalf, to keep the world safe, we don't really deserve the protection of those actions.
I'd say everyone should spend a day, either watching a SWAT team take down terrorists, or as a hostage. Either way, you'll understand what's being done and why it has to be done.
To ban a game just because it has sensitive topics is to send a message to SWAT team members that what they do is so horrible they should never talk about it, that we barely tolerate them, despite the fact they risk their lives to save us.
Should people think that killing a terrorist is a nice clean job, where you just push a button and the guy falls down, saving the hostages? Hell no. They should understand the blood and gore, and the risk of death. Then they'll properly appreciate it.
I'd rather show _Saving Private Ryan_ or _Thin Red Line_ to every hotheaded young kid who thinks war is cool than have a bunch of clueless people running around talking about how we need to go passify some country.
Soldiering is gruesome bloody work, necessary work, but gruesome and bloody. We can't properly respect the job that soldier do until we understand this. The same goes from counter-terrorism. To demand that games get dumbed down does nothing for us except to really shock us when something bad happens. Hopefully by then we haven't gotten rid of our 'disgusting' protectors.
This isn't enough. Just the other day I was gruesomly by a mallet wielding child.
I was watching with the 4 year old child what I assumed to be a a family show about a talking duck and a talking rabbit. Soon the show turned violent when the rabbit hit the duck with a very large mallet. (Later, this same rabbit was seen wearing a dress and makeup. An obvious homosexual propaganda attempt to steal our children's prescious innocence and make them turn to the homosexual lifestyle.) Not five minutes later, the child left the room, got my large mallet from the garage, snuck back into the room, climbed onto the back of the couch and walloped me on the head 4 or 5 times.
I thought the child was going to kill me. Luckily the child's mother came home and found me in laying in a pool of my own blood with her child standing overme with the blood stained weapon.
Why did the child do this? "I wanted to play with the birdies."
Write your congressman and senator now!!! Hearings need to take place before another child blungons someone!!!!
Eating animals involves killing animals. Now you can either say that killing animals is ok, or that it is not. The problem is that our society tries to pretend it doesn't happen. To show a cow getting slaughtered on TV would cause switchboards to be flooded with complaints. Whether you're a vegetarian or not, it should be pretty obvious that this is hypocritical behavior.
Yes, eating animals is violence against animals. To say it is not involves serious denial. Now, many say that violence against animals is ok. Personally, I have no problem with it. But to pretend we live in a nice, sanitary world, where cows just sort of magically turn into hamburger is to be in serious denial.
It's a bloody world out there in nature. In order for a lion to live, an antelope must die in pain. In order for you to eat a hamburger, a cow must die in pain. That's fact. It is not deniable. It is logical to say "that's the order of things" and go ahead an eat meat. It is not logical to pretend it isn't true, that we're not really hurting anything. That the kindly old cow doesn't really feel a thing. What utter bullshit.
People had a much better understanding of things when eating meat meant personally killing animals. When eating a chicken meant going and getting a live one, and wringing its neck on your own. But now we're so removed from that, we want to pretend that the meat just magically appears, in a factory some where.
Personally, I think that every child ought to be required to behead a chicken with his own hands to graduate high school. The fact that many nonvegetarians would find such a suggestion abhorrant says a lot about how screwed up and in denial this society is.
It is just like all the nonvegetarians who call hunting "barbaric" (something very fashionable these days). I mean, it is one thing to say that people shouldn't eat meat, and therefore shouldn't kill a deer. It is quite another to say that to kill a deer with a rifle is bad, but to slit a cow's throat in a slaughterhouse is perfectly ok. Can anyone not see how utterly hypocritical and illogical that is?
</rant>
The cake is a pie
that depict the horrors of falling into deep crevices, having anvils fall on animal heads and crushing them into the ground, as well as exploding ACME devices which leave the user in smoldering ruins when they backfire.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Yes, you're a vegan. Good for you. Your leadin sure made it sound like you were going to be discussing game violence, when in reality it was a rant against the meat industry. Shame on you.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
I choose to be an omnivore because evolution (or God, whichever makes you happy) made me that way. I also happen to think that animals are quite tasty, so I generally tend to eat bits of one every day.
Seriously, I don't think that this piece of editorial tripe belongs in this story. Sure, animal suffering is a bad thing, but if you want to highlight the plight of animals, don't be sneaky about it...stand up and write an editorial and give it its own title!
=h=
Disclaimer: I living in BC, Quake with the best of 'em, and have no kids (yet).
Every thing I have read dances around the real issue: <b>Do pixels have a different meaning than video?</b>
If as much blood and guts and animal cruelty was portrayed in a fictional film it would probably get a similar rating. Even Rambo and Saving Private Ryan didn't have as much gore.
So why are pixels so precious? The game is fictional, just like film, yet we cry fowl when ratings are imposed on games and don't make a peep for movies.
It can't be that we control the game but videos are passive. If anything it makes it worse. Think like Beavis and Butthead ("heh heh, he's grabbin' his groin! heh Stab him again! heh heh ).
I personally think a "R" rating may be more appropriate as an advisory for parents, but that doesn't change the fact are hypocrites when we treat pixels different than video.
I've already heard (radio talk show) a bunch of folks saying what a great idea this is. I predict the movement to classify and restrict video games is about to emerge in the U.S. Nothing like demonizing something and launching a crusade to make yourself look good for the voters. Dylan and Klebold (the killers at Columbine High School) will be resurrected as examples of how evil video games can warp the tender psyches of the young.
You have to be 18 to RENT, not to PLAY. This isn't the "government trying to raise my children". This is the government enabling me to raise my children. Now the choice to rent these games is back in the hands of the parents.
So then you can argue "but kids can get around the rules with older siblings/friends or less restrictive parents". Yes, but which rule is a child more likely to follow "Don't play video games with excessive violence" or "Don't play video games that are rated R"? Since they can rationalize the first one away, the second one is a better rule.
--
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"I've never played 'Soldier of Fortune,' but the screenshots are roughly as bloody as Q3A's giblets of flesh when a rocket hits a dead body"
For those of you who haven't seen the game in action... SOF is probably the most violent game I've ever played, because they went to great lengths to simulate the effects of weapons on various areas of the body. In Quake, a bullet hit is a bullet hit. In SOF, the enemy will react according to the part of his body you shot... grabbing his throat, losing an arm, grabbing his crotch and moaning in pain, etc.
There's probably more blood in other games, but trust me- SOF has brought a wince to the face of many a jaded gamer who wouldn't bat an eye at a Quake3 gibfest as they see an SOF enemy have both his arms blown off with a shotgun and then sink to the ground with a knife in his groin.
Still though, it's not much more BLOODY than other games, it's just a little more realistic-feeling...
Also, I really liked Jaime's point about the animal violence... if they're REALLY concerned about the animals, why do they kill so darn many of them up there? :)
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
The author should be eviscerated, decapitated, dismembered and burnt to death...
...and then eaten.
FWIW, I had to ask the guy behind the counter at Toys R Us for a copy of "Perfect Dark" because it's rated M. I'm sure that's We Be Toys' corporate policy.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
First of all don't flail me to death, because I didn't read many of the replys to the article. In fact, I just searched for "Germany" and "Bloodpatch". This post isn't going to be read by anyone anyway, because it's already "old" and I am poster number 50034567.
Here in Germany ultra violent movies and computer games are put on an so called "index" when they become too violent. Just like pornography you have to be 18 or older to buy that stuff.
No commercials and no ads allowed. But it is not as bad as being x-rated is for an American movie. Fight Club was 18 or older in Germany and many people saw it. Quake sells well. And anybody of legal age can get the stuff, even in "normal" shops, no guilty feeling of visiting a seedy sex shop is involved ;-).
(The violence is gauged on the psychological impact it causes. This is very subjective, but helps you to distinguish between Tomm and Jerry and some kind of Blood and Gore Flick which glorifies violence. America has that, too. South Park the movie, would have been x-rated if it weren't a cartoon.)
On the negative side, some vendors "censor" their games for release in Germany. Blood is green. Soldiers in Half-Life are robots, body's can't be mutilated, etc. But than there are so called "Bloodpatches" available on the internet that turn everything gory again.I can live with that. It's just restrictions and not censorship. You do not have to buy the tamed German version of a Game, you can get an import. I think Quake is on the "index", no cutie German Version, and everybody plays it. A well known computer magazine uses it as a kind of standard for real world graphics perfomance for video cards.
Restricting pornography and violence, so that kids don't get too disturbed (parents are not always a big help) seems quite OK to me. Americans might Ask themselves why is pornography restricted while violence is not ? That' strange, too. Or swear words and blasphemy, there seems to be a taboo on those while in most European countries nobody gets exited.
Or take something like the American Nazi Party. Something like this (left or right) is forbidden in Germany, because it "acts against the basic concepts of our democratic society"(TM). We had our experience with a totalitarian organization that ursurped a democracy and we do not want it to happen again. Too much government, you might reply and you might be right. But isn't it a basic principle that government and society should reflect each other, be two sides of a medal ? Maybe that truism is why we accept that kind of rules, even though it comes close to censorship.
So on the one hand we trust our government more than Americans do and on the other hand we keep a close look at it so it doesn't get out of hand. (One example of that "closer look" is the number of people participating in elections. Not a 100 percent are voting, but it is a lot more than in the US).
Aaaaaah, that rant felt good. And maybe I clarified one or two things that make America and Europe (Germany) so very different even though we share so many similarities in our belives and goals.
Marcus (mmkhd are all of my initials, I laugh at a single middle initial :-)
A friend gave me SOF to try a while back, and I must say, it is the worst game I have ever played interms of blood and guts. I am a avid QuakeIII, Quake II, and Unreal player, but they just cannot hold a Candle to SOF. If you shoot someone in the head with certain weapons, you will only blow away half of the head, leaving realistic lookin skull fragments and brain, etc. Like wise, shooting in the gut will lead to realistic intesines spewing out of their stomach. One of the areas of the meat packing plant is the sewer, where you slog through disembodied cow parts, a river of blood, and various red objects falling from grates and tunnels. Let me say this again: The bloodiest game I have ever witnessed.
Now, while I do not condone censorship of any type, I must say that this is not something I would let my children (if I had any) play. I don't think government should be playing the parents role in situations such as this. But on the other hand, I can see why this game was given this rating.
Eric
Make it idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot.
When I visited Vancouver about 10 years ago (at the tender age of approximately 12) there were lots of video arcades but we weren't allowed into until age 18. I think they also had porno of some kind there, but I can't really remember. I think it's interesting that the orientation of the video game market is so different there than in America. (However, it was possible to play Street Fighter, etc. at local convenience stores, so I don't think it is/was strictly an age-restriction issue.)
Personally I like the Amsterdam model: lots of sex and drugs and almost no violence. (And now that I think of it, few or no video arcades, either!)
Ben Chadwick - Editor, Zero Future/Post-Collegiate Malaise
You've turned this into an animal rights thing... when it's not.
They law of B.C. apparently prohibits minors from seeing that type of carnage... so be it.
If you want minors to be able to see that kind of carnage, well protest. However, you shouldn't use it as an excuse to push your ideals about animal rights - that's not what this is about.
I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with your stand-point, or even the POV of the submitter or even the B.C. Government... I'm just saying that this is not the appropriate place (or topic) to discuss animal rights.
BlackNova Traders
I am omnivorous. I choose to be that way because meat is good for me (in limited quantities) and I like the taste. That's all there is to it.
I'm not an inherently cruel person. I don't torture animals for fun. However, I would like to make it very clear that animals have no inherent rights. A "right" is a human construct: in the wild, "rights" simply do not exist. Therefore to talk about "Animal Rights" is to ascribe rights to animals that society has not yet given them.
I do not torture kittens because society has decided to give those particular animals the right of humane treatment. If we, as a society, come to believe at some point that killing animals for food is wrong, then we will have given them the right to life. Until then, they are ours to do with as we please, simply because we are the most powerful creature on the food chain.
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Sci-fi showed an episode this morning about the future of dictatorships in civilization. The executed an obsolete librarian. After all, libraries were no longer needed because books were done away with because they presented ideas to people that would threaten the well being of the state. The bible was apparantly the first to be eradicated from the earth. :) :)
Anyway, that's how everything will keep going as long as people who are not directly parenting their children decide what should and shouldn't be censored
The coolest thing about that episode is that "The state has PROVEN that God does NOT exist." Sounds like something the liberal end of the US government would do to any non-christian deity one of these days