Violence and video games. Not a new pairing. You might call it the peanut butter and chocolate of electronic entertainment. It's understandable really, to some extent I think everyone wants to hurt their fellow man in some way from time to time. Video games provide a safe way to do that.
I've been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops, however, and wondering if we may have reached a point that we need to step back from.
Something about the scripted events in Black Ops started bugging me. Fairly quickly, really. It started when I was thinking about how the main character, Mason, can't seem to go two steps without getting blinded by something or nearly blacking out. Then I started thinking about some of the scripted kills. A couple from early on stick out:
1.) Stealing uniforms from the Russians in the rocket launch site. You pull out a special knife while sneaking up on them, and its usage becomes fairly evident. More or less, you jam it into the base of the skull of your target.
2.) Watching Reznov's buddy be a target of the chemical weapon plot MacGuffin. This one is really creepy if you think about it for a little bit.
3.) Later, in Vietnam, you're fighting a few VCA. At one point you drag one underwater and saw out his trachea with your knife.
I didn't really want to describe in this level of detail, but I figured it would help if I explained what I saw happen, and it would be more inclusive to people who hadn't played the game.
I'm not quite sure why this bothers me. After all, I've played Gears of War and its sequel, and eagerly anticipate the third title. We're talking a game where the mainstay weapon has a chainsaw used to bisect enemies on a regular basis. The second game had the inclusion of more forms of 'executing' a downed opponent.
Part of my thinking is that kills in CoD: BO feel excessive. GoW, kills are quick, or not overtly gory. Curb stomps are over almost immediately, and half of the 'long' execution moves are bloodless (clubbing someone with the Boltok or sniper rifle). Black Ops seems to be saying "Look how far we can push the envelope. Look at what we can do and still get an M rating that'll allow us to be sold nearly everywhere! I am going to rub your nose in how much of a psychopathic badass killer this guy is!"
This is not a cry for censorship. I think the last thing we need is to censor video games. But it's a little disturbing to see people intentionally push things as far as they can when there's no real reason for it.
I guess that's what bothers me the most. Black Ops is a spectacle. It feels like playing a movie, and the frequent interruptions of scripted events (like watching Woods get clubbed by a VCA because the M16 was a jammy POS in Vietnam, wait until you draw your gun, and then have to save his ass before he gets shot or watch it all over again) make sure you follow the movie's script very closely. As far as I can tell, there's no overarching message like "Vietnam was bad" or "the US soldiers were brave and valiant" because the game focuses purely on the action sequences and pretty much says "fuck you!" to standard plot elements like character development (except for Reznov).
So instead of making us think, Black Ops wants to be a pretty rollercoaster ride for a few hours and $60. Do we really need to be quite so extremely graphic with exploded legs and slit throats, then? Don't say you're trying to tell me war is hell when you're advocating running around with dual-wielded guns spamming more ammo than god in the general direction of the enemy while healing bullet wounds in three seconds flat.
Though after the debacle surrounding MW2, I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less. Sure it's Treyarch instead of Infinity Ward, but someone was pushing someone to top that.
I don't know. I haven't finished the game yet, and I'm going to regardless, but it'd be interesting to hear some other thoughts on this. Maybe I just watched a few too many of the wrong videos on the internet. Damn you, fourth channel!
Now maybe I can actually sleep, having put this forth.
I've been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops, however, and wondering if we may have reached a point that we need to step back from.
Something about the scripted events in Black Ops started bugging me. Fairly quickly, really. It started when I was thinking about how the main character, Mason, can't seem to go two steps without getting blinded by something or nearly blacking out. Then I started thinking about some of the scripted kills. A couple from early on stick out:
1.) Stealing uniforms from the Russians in the rocket launch site. You pull out a special knife while sneaking up on them, and its usage becomes fairly evident. More or less, you jam it into the base of the skull of your target.
2.) Watching Reznov's buddy be a target of the chemical weapon plot MacGuffin. This one is really creepy if you think about it for a little bit.
3.) Later, in Vietnam, you're fighting a few VCA. At one point you drag one underwater and saw out his trachea with your knife.
I didn't really want to describe in this level of detail, but I figured it would help if I explained what I saw happen, and it would be more inclusive to people who hadn't played the game.
I'm not quite sure why this bothers me. After all, I've played Gears of War and its sequel, and eagerly anticipate the third title. We're talking a game where the mainstay weapon has a chainsaw used to bisect enemies on a regular basis. The second game had the inclusion of more forms of 'executing' a downed opponent.
Part of my thinking is that kills in CoD: BO feel excessive. GoW, kills are quick, or not overtly gory. Curb stomps are over almost immediately, and half of the 'long' execution moves are bloodless (clubbing someone with the Boltok or sniper rifle). Black Ops seems to be saying "Look how far we can push the envelope. Look at what we can do and still get an M rating that'll allow us to be sold nearly everywhere! I am going to rub your nose in how much of a psychopathic badass killer this guy is!"
This is not a cry for censorship. I think the last thing we need is to censor video games. But it's a little disturbing to see people intentionally push things as far as they can when there's no real reason for it.
I guess that's what bothers me the most. Black Ops is a spectacle. It feels like playing a movie, and the frequent interruptions of scripted events (like watching Woods get clubbed by a VCA because the M16 was a jammy POS in Vietnam, wait until you draw your gun, and then have to save his ass before he gets shot or watch it all over again) make sure you follow the movie's script very closely. As far as I can tell, there's no overarching message like "Vietnam was bad" or "the US soldiers were brave and valiant" because the game focuses purely on the action sequences and pretty much says "fuck you!" to standard plot elements like character development (except for Reznov).
So instead of making us think, Black Ops wants to be a pretty rollercoaster ride for a few hours and $60. Do we really need to be quite so extremely graphic with exploded legs and slit throats, then? Don't say you're trying to tell me war is hell when you're advocating running around with dual-wielded guns spamming more ammo than god in the general direction of the enemy while healing bullet wounds in three seconds flat.
Though after the debacle surrounding MW2, I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less. Sure it's Treyarch instead of Infinity Ward, but someone was pushing someone to top that.
I don't know. I haven't finished the game yet, and I'm going to regardless, but it'd be interesting to hear some other thoughts on this. Maybe I just watched a few too many of the wrong videos on the internet. Damn you, fourth channel!
Now maybe I can actually sleep, having put this forth.
