Manhunt-Related Killing?
- Thread starter racketboy
- Start date
That's why I added an "if" to my statement about parents. When I was younger, my parents wouldn't let me play or watch stuff that was really violent. It also comes down to the parents knowing how mature/sane their kids are. It's not JUST about the ratings... a 17 year old can be less mature than someone younger than them, for example. In addition, if parents aren't around their kids enough, how would they know if they have a screw loose? So I agree that the parents have the biggest responsibility, but that doesn't mean that all parents are failing in that responsibility.
lordofduct
Established Member
yeah... and remanded in custody is redundant.
remanded - to send back to custody (guardian, state, institutional....)
"was (sent back to custody) in custody." hrmmmmm.
was remanded by the state. That works.
remanded - to send back to custody (guardian, state, institutional....)
"was (sent back to custody) in custody." hrmmmmm.
was remanded by the state. That works.
I just can't stand the journalistic media and the way they chew, dumbify and vomit information directly into the people's throats: every action always is said to have a single, clear and objective cause (absolutely nothing in news broadcast is the result of an ongoing proccess, multiple factors, or anything long-term), someone/something always take the complete blame, and everything and everyone are labelled in the simpliest form possible.
God, the labels part is what pisses me the most. They always seems to pick a subject's detail that is more prone to cause polemics and attract attention, and turn it into a label.
I'm not defending the game. Personally I dislike Manhunt with passion, and have no desire to play it. Same goes for GTA and games with similar focus. And the problem lies there... I know lots of people who do the same, most of them are 20+. But I know lots of youngsters who love the game.
IMO, GTA, and Manhunt (to some extent), are not adult games. I know few adults who are keen on games with pointless gore, violence and misbehavior. Such kind of material, on contrary, have more appeal on hormone-blotched teenagers and pre-teens eager to look "cooler" among their friends (usaully to cover up self-confidence problems caused by insufficient parental relationship). And that's the problem.
I don't want waves of bans caused by appelative games to affect games with acceptable violent content. A big majority of games are based around a form of violence (defeating enemies, often killing them), but in many of them such act is presented in a healthy way, where the context, graphic representations and other features clearly draws the line between reality and fantasy, no matter how good looking the game is.
As example, I think Doom3 would do far less harm to my little sisters than GTA. With Doom3 they would get scared by the monsters and probably not sleep for a few nights, and maybe even some nightmares. With GTA they would have fun doing things like stealing cars, beating the ass out from random people at the street and killing cops.
I'm against bans, but I doubt ignorant politicians would come up with a scheme to give games a deeper analysis and label them as "ADULTS ONLY - NOT FOR MINORS! NO! NO! I SAID NO DAMMIT!", and force store clerks and educate parents to obey it. Mostly in countries where games are considered toys.
God, the labels part is what pisses me the most. They always seems to pick a subject's detail that is more prone to cause polemics and attract attention, and turn it into a label.
I'm not defending the game. Personally I dislike Manhunt with passion, and have no desire to play it. Same goes for GTA and games with similar focus. And the problem lies there... I know lots of people who do the same, most of them are 20+. But I know lots of youngsters who love the game.
IMO, GTA, and Manhunt (to some extent), are not adult games. I know few adults who are keen on games with pointless gore, violence and misbehavior. Such kind of material, on contrary, have more appeal on hormone-blotched teenagers and pre-teens eager to look "cooler" among their friends (usaully to cover up self-confidence problems caused by insufficient parental relationship). And that's the problem.
I don't want waves of bans caused by appelative games to affect games with acceptable violent content. A big majority of games are based around a form of violence (defeating enemies, often killing them), but in many of them such act is presented in a healthy way, where the context, graphic representations and other features clearly draws the line between reality and fantasy, no matter how good looking the game is.
As example, I think Doom3 would do far less harm to my little sisters than GTA. With Doom3 they would get scared by the monsters and probably not sleep for a few nights, and maybe even some nightmares. With GTA they would have fun doing things like stealing cars, beating the ass out from random people at the street and killing cops.
I'm against bans, but I doubt ignorant politicians would come up with a scheme to give games a deeper analysis and label them as "ADULTS ONLY - NOT FOR MINORS! NO! NO! I SAID NO DAMMIT!", and force store clerks and educate parents to obey it. Mostly in countries where games are considered toys.
What pisses me off is how they just plain lie about the actual nature of the game, the article says something to the effect of "rewarding more points for more grisly kills" When Manhunt doesn't even have a points system. Something similar was said about GTA: Vice City too when it came out. Where are these Satan-Points that Rockstar alledgedly has in all of their games?
antime
Extra Hard Mid Boss
You can unlock bonus stuff by getting good star ratings. Your rating is based upon speed, difficulty setting and the number and level of kills. Anyway, the incident has now become a £50-million lawsuit.
I just got the game, and it's actually a decent stealth-action game. It does give you a higher rating if you get a grislier kill. (not as blatant as a points system, but I suppose the concept is the same) If you hold down the action button the cursor changes color. For example with the bat: when the cursor is green you whack the guys a couple times. When it turns red you strangle him with the bat then you prop him up like you're playing t-ball, and splatter his skull all over the room.
If you need a stealth action fix, or you're a sadistic sumbitch like me, I suggest you give Manhunt a try. 3 out of 5 stars. :thumbs-up:
EDIT: Also I think it's funny how whenever something like this happens it does nothing but increase the game's popularity. It was back on GameSpot's top ten the other day, and I never would have remembered to give it a try had this incident never occured.
If you need a stealth action fix, or you're a sadistic sumbitch like me, I suggest you give Manhunt a try. 3 out of 5 stars. :thumbs-up:
EDIT: Also I think it's funny how whenever something like this happens it does nothing but increase the game's popularity. It was back on GameSpot's top ten the other day, and I never would have remembered to give it a try had this incident never occured.
Yes, not all parents fail. Hell, most parents must do right, or we'd be seeing far more stories like this. And granted, this story is of a 17 year old killing a kid, in the US he would have been legaly able to obtain the M rated game. But still, it would've taken years and years of exposure to extreme violence to make someone like that. He was likely already messed up in the head before ever playing any violent games or seeing any violent movies. Where the parental responsibility comes in is, why didn't they see the early effects that violent entertainment had on their son? You know, when he was 12 or so? It comes down to that people want to believe everything is allright nomatter what, and when suddenly, their 17 year old son smashes in a 14 year old's skull with a claw hammer, "Our son is a good boy, we could never see him doing something like this..." They don't remember the strange thrill he got when he saw the grisly murder scenes in some movie like Se7en, or even something like him mistreating the family dog.
And of course, it gets worse. Even if a kid's parents notice the strange behavior early on, they don't get the right treatment. "Oh, lets try Ritalin, that'll do the trick." Nobody realizes that all that'll do is numb his mind for a few years, and then have the same negative development happen when he's older. Hopefuly, being older, he'll be able to control his violent desires, but it doesn't take much to push someone to let them loose.
I dunno. I think I may be rambling now.
All I do know is, you get the "gross generalization" of "parents need to do this" because the problem has developed in our society largely as a whole. The TV is not a babysitter, and neither is the PS2, computer, or internet. Most parents do their "best" and try to know what their kids are into, but too many fail or just don't care. If, as a whole, parents started taking more interest in what their kids were into, if those parents who don't care took just a little interest while those that do care took even greater interest, part of the problem would be solved.
But lets get real about one thing, you could give every 10 year old out there a copy of Manhunt and that wouldn't be the problem. It isn't the exposure to violent entertainment that causes the problem, it is that the kids have been made succeptable to it.
When I was 6 years old, my favorite thing in the world was Transformers. I could name every Autobot in the exact order that they would "ROLL OUT!" of the Ark. Starscream was my hero, because not only was he bad, but by plotting Megatron's demise he was the baddest of the bad. My parents encouraged my TF fandom, bought me the toys and comics, etc. Now, TF was on at 5:30 on the channel I watched it on. Right before that, they showed GI Joe. I was not allowed watching GI Joe. My mom simply said "No, you're not to watch that," and as a kid, I didn't raise too much fuss, there were other shows on at the same time (like Welcome to Pooh Corner on Disney Channel) that I could watch. What I later learned was, my mom made that judgement call because while Transformers was about giant robots fighting, GI Joe was humans fighting other humans. Apparently robotic violence was okay, but she didn't want me seeing people shooting at one another. When I later got into Thundercats and Silverhawks, they were okay because they were humans (or human-like characters) fighting monsters. Even Centurions were okay, because the bad guys were part machine. But GI Joe was too realistic for her.
Now, I really don't think me watching GI Joe as a 6 year old (instead of now, getting to see the DVD's 20 years later) would have caused me to become a warped, violent teenager. But that isn't the point. What if, instead of GI Joe, the issue had been about watching movies like Se7en (I was older when this came out), Silence of the Lambs (which I was also not allowed to watch for several years), Fight Club, or even The Matrix? Give a young kid unfiltered access to this type of entertainment, and then don't spend time with them to teach them right from wrong and you have created the monster.
Now compare me to my 12 year old sister. She's had unfiltered access to movies like those. Hell, she's seen far, far worse. With my mom gone (and stuck in bed for several years before that) and my dad working long hours, it has fallen on me and my 18 year old little sister (the 21 year old little sister lives on campus most of the time, but her too when she's home) to moniter what she watches. And while we have set some limits (albeit rather high limits, she's not allowed to watch anything I own X- or un-rated, like Terror Firmer or Vulgar, but we rarely stop her from watching R rated stuff, I think Kill Bill might've been one of the only ones we've stopped her from watching, for now), we're not really worried about her watching stuff like that. Why? Because she has been raised in an environment where she has learned what is right and wrong early on.
The biggest key to the problem isn't the violent entertainment itself, it is the lack of a family structure where the kids learn early on what is right and wrong. We have created a culture where both parents must work, if both parents are even there, and the kids pretty much raise themselves. It isn't "the parents' fault" but it is the fault of a lack of parental involvement. And then you get right down to it, and it is the fault of the culture we have created.
As much as I hate to say it, we need to get back into a culture where "mom stays home, dad works." Or at least get it where "mom gets off work the same time school lets out."
When my dad's paycheck was becoming not enough for six to live on, and my mom decided to start working, she got a job as a teacher's aid in the special ed class at my littlest sister's school. Before she had me, she'd been a nurse. Before her cancer came back, she'd renewed her nursing license and was going to take a couple of refresher courses at the nearby community college. She was thinking about getting a job as a school nurse. A job that would let her go home about the same time her youngest kid was getting out of school. She believed she needed to be home for my youngest sister.
All too often, kids in kindergarden or first grade are already what we used to call "latch-key kids."
Okay, I'll stop rambling now.
antime
Extra Hard Mid Boss
It gets better and better! It wasn't the killer who owned the game, but the fourteen-year old victim.
Good, that was irresponsible journalism. Even if the killer did own the game, the motive was still quite obviously murder.
I'm still playing the game (Manhunt), I would've finished last night if the power didn't go out.
But the way it worked out, I'm still only on stage 07. Anyway I have to say the game is extremely clever, and it's more than just violence and gore. (not a lot more) There is subtle dark humor throughout the game, that had me laughing out loud. The "director" guides you through the entire game, and there are arrows and directions written on the walls of "the set". When you start out, at the first bad guy you find, on the wall it says, "KILL THIS STUPID FUCK". Also the game is very difficult, so that it will get you PISSED. When you finally do kill the last white-supremesist with the farging magnet crane and refridgerator, before you realize it, you're picking up and dropping the refridgerator on him repeatedly and smashing his skull into the ground out of anger. I can see why this game would appeal to a murderer like that. It's also a good stress-reliever to boot.
Originally posted by Zziggy00@Aug 6, 2004 @ 02:03 AM
I hate this bullshit...if someone is crazy or unbalanced there's nothing changing that, they need to stop looking to video games as the scapegoat...if they weed out all the games and movies aside from Disney's creations then what will they focus all their attention to?!?
Comics, of course. Then, after they ban comics, they'll go after action figures (but they'd hardly exist without supporting TV shows, movies and comics anyway), toys, then books, and then move onto more abstract concepts that might be damaging the child's minds, like color and shape patterns in product design and architecture.
Cultural and social issues will always me overlooked because they are "too hard" to deal with.
