Midway's Controversial NARC Update Ups Drug Intake

Thanks to IGN PS2 for its hands-on preview of Midway's PS2/Xbox action title NARC, an update of the classic '80s anti-drug arcade title of the same name. This game, which Game Informer notes has been "built on VIS Entertainment's State of Emergency engine", takes the "good cop/bad cop" gameplay concept to an extreme, as GameSpot explains: "You'll actually be able to use the illegal drugs you confiscate throughout the game. In fact, they'll actually give you short-term benefits." The drugs include "pot, speed, LSD, crack, and the newly invented Liquid Soul", and effects vary - for example, IGN notes: "Smoking marijuana in NARC slows time down and makes the screen blur, but also gives incredible focus", and GameSpot mentions: "Dropping acid fills the screen with crazy colors, but it also gives innocent citizens large jester heads while giving criminals large devil heads, for easy identification." But GI also cautions: "By taking one of the addictive drugs... the controller vibrations will get longer and longer until the player will literally have to fight to keep the shakes at bay."

Comments

Rated 'M' for 'Mature'

[Decaffeinated Jedi]

Gee...a game like this will produce just the kind of press that the gaming industry needs post-GTA3.

Re:Rated 'M' for 'Mature'

[Natestradamus]

Press is press. They'll need a lot of it to get people into side-scrollers again. I can't even remember the last successful side-scroller.

Re:Rated 'M' for 'Mature'

[Corpsesarecute]

For a game like this, the esrb could finally stop pussy-footing around and finally make use of their Adults Only game designation. Hell, if it gets blamed for something kids did, then finally the industry can point to the rating and not be as responsible in the eyes of the public and the public will come to realize it is their own actions, not theactions of developers that lead to bad, stupid things happening. Then again, I may give people too much credit.

Stop for 1 moment

[quantax]

While I agree that this may be a tad over the top, and will serve as ammunition by family-groups and so on, we should stop for one moment and consider intellectually how retarded this actually is: We are actually more concerned with the player taking behavior modifying (and potentially addicting) substances than with a major part of the game's premesis, which is for the player to kill or harm other humans in the game. Somehow killing people isnt as bad as taking drugs...

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[Anonymous Coward]

This, in my opinion, is why I think pretty much anything should go in video games..
After all, we've been committing genocide from day one anyway.

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[Anonymous Coward]

This, in my opinion, is why I think pretty much anything should go in video games..
After all, we've been committing genocide from day one anyway.

I don't recall there being much genocide in Pong...

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[Xzzy]

Not to mention the fact that games have basically revolved around "taking drugs" to give temporary power boosts for nearly as long as video games have existed.

Would pac-man suddenly be taboo if instead they said you ate some steroids so you could beat up the ghosts? Or magic mushrooms in super mario bros.. oh wait they actually did that. ;)

Re:Stop for 1 moment

[patternjuggler]

Somehow killing people isnt as bad as taking drugs...

The contention is that killing people is obviously wrong (you wouldn't want someone to kill you) and non-trivial besides (not counting jackasses who have kids and guns that aren't locked up or otherwise kid-proofed). Drugs are much more accessible and frequently have ill-effects or other repercussions that aren't immediately obvious.

Frequently this same sort argument is applied to sexual imagery or harsh language. Sex is a natural thing that is required for the propagation of the species as well as being more-or-less acceptable in non-repoductive contexts by society if it's between consenting adults. So fundamentally there's nothing wrong with sex, but there's a perceived cost to having young people develop unhealthy attitudes towards it, economic and educational costs to teen pregnancies etc., so we tend to repress sex in culture (not to say repression works, but there it is).

Language is another thing entirely. There's no physical difference between a someone saying 'shit' in a film and someone uttering it aloud- it's all sound waves. Everything else I'm talking about here has a obvious separation between a actors acting or computer generated simulations and the real thing. So not only is it easy to repeat some given sequence of words, society also perceives a cost to the usage of harsh language- in some situations it can make people angry and otherwise some people would just rather not hear it.

There's a sort of equation to this- the likelihood of something happening multiplied by the cost of that thing happening is the cost you weigh against other undesirable things.

-Murder is pretty bad, but the likelihood is extremely low.
-Illegal drugs are minor to really bad, and the likelihood is moderate.
-Harsh Language is minor, but the likelihood is extremely high.
-Sex is sometimes acceptable and sometimes bad, and the likelihood moderate to high (should we make that a 'low' for the slashdot crowd?)

So there's a snapshot of the complicated moral landscape we have here. The judgements society makes aren't perfect, but they aren't inexplicable by any means. So for god's sake enough with these overly simplistic and tired 'x is worse than y but society represses y more than x' arguments.

Interesting Timing?

[ezraekman]

And people "wonder why games have to be subject to crime, no matter how virtual"?

And then, of course, Slashdot's footer quote today was "If God had intended Men to Smoke, He would have put Chimneys in their Heads."

And it's still a month until April...

My take...

[josh glaser]

I'm sure that the game will probably get some media attention for this, ahem, "feature." Personally, I don't think it's that big of a deal...lot's of games involve shooting people (which is worse) and I'm not going to go and shoot people, or do drugs, just because I see someone do it in a videogame. I'm not stupid, I know that games are pretend, and one of the main reasons I play games is to escape and do things I can't do in real life...I think lots of the media's fascination with the evils of videogames stems from the fact that it's new to them, and they "don't get it." I mean, at least they should treat R-rated movies the same way...

Re:Sidescroller?

[paradesign]

Follow-ups to old 2D games rarely stay 2D, even when it suits the genre better. The new NARC is a 3rd person 3D game.

And that is exactly why most followups suck!

Thank you Midway...

[DragonPup]

...for proving once again that creating controversy is easier than creating a good game. Say hi to Acclaim there. :-|

-Henry

It's all about audience...

[toiletsalmon]

It's all well and good that parent and child protection groups are watchful for titles like this, but I'm still having trouble understanding what the big to do is all about.

I can pretty much guarantee that this game will be rated "M - For Mature" and many retailers have resorted to id checks at the register already. What else can we do? If YOU don't think your kid should be exposed to this kind of stuff, then don't expose them. That's YOUR responsibility as a parent.

"But aren't you worried about the kids?"

Well you know what? I DO worry about the kids. My kids. All freaking day. Contrary to popular appearances, it's a full-time job. And once the little people go to sleep at night, it's time for me to relax and do something "adult" for a change. No more Elmo, or Teletubbies, or those ever present "kids songs" collections.

My daughters must think it's really odd that I always pause my videogames or turn them off completely when they're around. But I don't rely on Joe Politician or Jane Activist to protect my kids, I do it my damn self, because that's what I'M SUPPOSED TO DO as a parent.

If everyone spent more time filtering what their kids see, hear, and do, this wouldn't even be an issue. I'm not talking about locking them up in a room, but if they happen upon something "objectionable", you just have to explain it to them. "This is not real..." or "This is not right..." goes a long way. Is it really that difficult or unusual?

Kids are smart and explaining the context of a given situation is the key.