seydaman said:
Therumancer said:
As cute as that is, isn't Half-Life 2 an "M" rated game? (I'd have to double check). At the very least I think it's "T". The bottom line is that with the current issues going up before the goverment (Arnie Vs. Free Speech, and ACTA) I don't think it's a wise idea for Peter Molyneux of all people to have their kid pretty much asking for a game rated higher than his age, along with the implication that he played other ones in the series.
Now, normally I wouldn't care, and react like most people... but this seems unusually stupid and irresponsible. All we need now is for Peter to say his son plays Fable 2 to make this an even more ginormous train wreck.
While there are constituonal aspects to this entire thing (ie the goverment regulating is bad under any circumstances, and letting kids have M rated games is the lesser evil to goverment control, ratings are a voluntary service... etc...) the gaming industry and game developers are also trying to show a degree of responsibility, a case for the people not paying attention to the ratings being more a matter of bad parenting, than any attitude or irrespobsility on their part.
It may be a little bad news (By that I mean FOX might do some stupid segment were they act like retards, OH WAIT.) but, what is this kid? 11? That's old enough, I mean sure it depends on the child himself but Half-Life2 or any of the episodes aren't particularly child corrupting, if anything it's a rolemodel. I mean an educated scientists saves the world from an oppressing force, can anyone really argue that our children shouldn't want to be super educated people who save the world?
However, Half-Life is also a very violent game, has sexual/romance related elements (Alyx) and some rather interesting social commentary about goverments, corperations, scientific development, and of course on top of all of this we have G-man.
Sitting here and going "oh he's 11 years old, but I think he should play this" is exactly the kind of thing that is fueling this contreversy. Now granted, what your describing is bad parenting, but the bottom line is that the game industry itself defined this game as unsuitable for children. If the game still makes it's way into children's hands, through any means (including parental approval) that reinforces part of the case being made by the censorship brigade.... even if that case (no matter how accurate) doesn't change the basic free speech issue and that the goverment is supposed to have no part of regulating speech this way.
Understand also that Half-Life is one of the first games to really embrace what Something Awful dubbed "Asshole Physics" (a term which caught on). The engine, while aging, was designed to encourage people to mess around with it. This is a game where you can for example sit around and bounce trash off of a homeless person's head, vandalize property maliciously, and all kinds of things despite the plot. If you think kids aren't going to exploit the abillity to be a complete dick in games like this your extremely naive. It's not like parents are going to babysit their kid's every playing moment to reinforce that they shouldn't be terrorizing homeless people or whatever.
Half Life involves fairly graphic violence, adult relationships, dark political and/or horrific themes, etc...
To put things into perspective, an 11 year old should not be totally cloistered from violence, but that is the age where "Action" should be taking place in the way of things like cartoons. You know He-Man, GI Joe, Thundercats, etc... to list what there was for my generation. I guess for this generation it's shows like "Avatar". Half-Life goes well beyond that, and is definatly something for an older audience. I suppose my attitude is also somewhat contreversial because I would say the game is fine for teens (despite it's rating) but the bottom line is that the kid there is too young, and when you consider he's already played the other games and "been waiting a while" who knows what age Petey decided to start handing him the graphic violence (and graphic violence does not mean that it has to involve horror movie type gore either, things can be graphic without hitting the high end of the spectrum).
Do not misunderstand my rant here though. While we disagree on this, no matter what position you take this was a bad move at this paticular time. Like it or not a battle is about to be fought and Petey just potentially provided some substantial ammo based on who he is, and the age of his son.
Also, Fox News isn't any worse than say CNN, it's simply slanted in the opposite direction (right wing as opposed to left) who the big idiots are depends on your personal political leanings. Like it or not the country is polarized, and being the only game in town for right wing slant on that level they wind up getting to a lot of people (I think we need more networks like Fox because competition within that catagory would lead to higher standards as they fight for an audience though).
This issue isn't one where Fox is a group you have to worry about though, it's actually the left wing driving this one due to their current policies. They pretty much ended the right to dissent within the party in order to win the last election, and everyone is closing ranks behind people like Hillary Clinton (who was insturmental in the whole "Hot Coffee" thing). The issue goes cross party as it's a popualar scapegoat. Right now something as insane as the current free speedch attacks are viable because you pretty much have all the democrats supporting this (and those going against it are under a lot of pressure from their own party), backed by the Republicans who supported this kind of thing to begin with, with the major voices of dissent being Republicans (since polarization was not forced within their party) who were against this to begin with.
In short, the mainstream media being tied to politics is idiotic here in pretty much it's entirety. Honestly it seems to be cooperating more by not covering this issue too much, or addressing the overall free speech concerns, rather than the typical kind of grand standing. Where you have to worry about why Mr. Molyneux just did with his kid is in the hearings themselves. When the case goes to the supreme court, a clip like that is something they can show to try and prove that the industry doesn't even take it's own ratings seriously, which is why we should give up the sacred protection of free speech so the goverment can get directly involved.
