System Requirements: The ability to relativate and a bit of humor.
With recent titles like Doom and especially Mortal Kombat, the vast amount of violence in (computer) games, is back a hot topic. If one should believe everything the moral knights claim to be true, we're only a fraction away from the situation where blood actually streams out of your monitor. I'm in no way claiming they're totally wrong, but please don't over react !
I know there are a lot of things that can be said about this delicate topic, but I'll leave that up to others. There's something else I want to point out. Something that seems to be overlooked everytime people start debating about this important matter. In the heat of discussion, one tends to focus only on the action type of games, as if there aren't any other games. And before you say that these don't contain as much pixelated violence, I urge you to read on. Maybe you should adjust your opinion a little. Therefore, let's take a brief look at those so-called innocent games.
I'm fully aware that my 'critisism' will sound very weak here, but I just wanted to cover all types of games. So here's the only example I could think of: Lemmings. Blowing up a poor lemming isn't a nice thing to do and letting them drown, dash to pieces or fall of cliffs is quite cruel. Would you throw your puppy of the 21th floor ? I guess not.
Now what could possibly go 'wrong' here ? There's no such thing as cyber hooligan (yet?), so fair-play should be the keyword here. I agree for the most. Playing a frame of snooker or making a couple of holes on the golf court are of the most peacefull occupations I can think of. Furthermore, physical contacts are stricly regulated in sports like basketball, but the rules tend to be more tolerable (and violated) with sports like icehockey, soccer and American football. I don't know, but 'Unnessecary Roughness' sounds just as bad as 'Mortal Kombat' to me. Finally, is there anybody out there that hasn't tried to push his IndyCar opponent of the track or hasn't deliberatly driving into the opposite direction ?
Most of these games are pretty innocent and mainly consist of the 'use object X on object Y' type of puzzles. But sometimes - and much to our rejoice - the evil mind of the programmers takes the upper hand. Here are a couple of examples: poisoning dogs (Monkey Island), defrosting hamsters in microwave ovens (Day of the Tentacle) and sinking ships in mid ocean (Leisure Suit Larry 3). And what Max is doing on the occompanying screenshot is peremptory socially unacceptable !
'Conquer and Rule'. That's about the shortest description for this type of game I can think of. Replay famous battles or try to rule an entire galaxy when earth is not big enough. As long as you're in high command everything is just fine. To get there and moreover to stay there, every dirty trick in the book is allowed. If it bothers you, eliminate it !
With the FS4/5 exception - which of course confirms the general rule - , these games have only single goal: waste the enemy, destroy this and that. The game settings changes from both WW's, over the present, to a far space future. All in all the only difference is whether the kill is right in front of your eyes or 20km further. But don't let them fool you. There's no such thing as a clean kill nor war.
Actually, these games are just as bad as any hardcore action game. Although you're supposedly the good guy on an almost impossible, laudable quest to save the world, your main occupation is - next to retrieving (stealing?) certain objects - the good old hack 'n slashing business. No sophisticated weapons this time. You'll have to settle for that rusty sword, blunt battle axe or obligatory fire ball spell.
So we finally made it to the group that caused all the fuss. It's action that we want here and there's plenty to get. Shooting, kicking, hitting, fighting, bombing or in one word... surviving. As with any other game, we want to be fully drawn into the game/action. This implies highly detailed graphics and super realistic sound effects. Knowing we're very hard to satisfy, the game developpers pull out all stops. But when they do their homework too well, we seem to have a problem on our hands...
Summarized, the few critized games form just the tip of the iceberg. But they went one step too far too fast. This will of course change. It's only a matter of time. Just think of them as the dirty Harry-s of the gaming world: unacceptable at one time, nothing special or shocking today when compared to the Rambo's and Terminators...
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author They do no necessary reflect those of GameBytes. And of course I (intentionally) made some generalisation errors. In case you'd care, my favourite type of games are driving sims and puzzle games. This article is Copyright (C) 1994 by Stefan Maes for GameBytes Magazine. All rights reserved.