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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...
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!!!!
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.
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.
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.
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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