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I found COD4 to be rather...disturbing. I just played it to the first Iraq level, but that was already kinda weird to play. I prefer my videogames enemies to be over-the-top villian henchemn or zombies or something like that.

Anung Un Rama wrote:I found COD4 to be rather...disturbing. I just played it to the first Iraq level, but that was already kinda weird to play. I prefer my videogames enemies to be over-the-top villian henchemn or zombies or something like that.

Keep playing. The US and Britain aren't held up as Paladins or super justice givers by any stretch in the long run, as well as a few spoilers I can't begin to share.

I was talking about it with a friend though and it would be nice to see CoD5 have you play as Russian and Chinese soldiers dealing with a crisis on their border or something like that. There is probably a marketing issue and fear of people not being able to connect. I don't know if that is true or not, but I would still play it.Of course Infinity Ward is having Treyarch (did CoD3) make the next CoD game be back in, sigh, WWII.

TommyStriker wrote:Isn't it scary when people start playing games because they can kill Americans/Germans/Cops/Middle-Easterners?

lemme flip your medal around, here's what the backside reads:
Targetting one 'side' of a conflict as a result of ideals & beliefs you have is a lot worse than simply enjoying indiscriminate killing for the sheer joy of plopping corpses to the floor and not caring about the side you're on or why you pull the trigger.

But it isn't indiscriminate, or for the joy of killing. It is far more complicated than that. Why we play games is a complex question and many of them don't involve the issue, but some do. If it were just about killing then people who like Call of Duty would not like Mario Kart or Tetris, but they do.

There is some other ground besides "I want to kill X" and "I just want to see everything dead". Don't be trying to set up false dilemma up in this place.

People who are extreme on both views probably need some help but most people aren't.

blinky wrote:

H.B.M.C. wrote:

TommyStriker wrote:Isn't it scary when people start playing games because they can kill Americans/Germans/Cops/Middle-Easterners?

This is actually a bigger thing than you might imagine.

There are companies in the Middle East that produce games specifically so you can play as a Palastinian and kill Israelis and Americans....
BYE

Now I think that the big JT has a right to be stopping those kind of games, as they are actively creating hate and tensions. To a lesser degree it could be said that (for example) COD4 demonises Middle Easterners, however the game is not designed to create fantasies wherein you kill the people that you may have a political disagreement in real life.

Now that is what should be called a murder simulator.

Wait a second.....isnt that a bit of a double standard?

Anung Un Rama wrote:Well then, back on topic.

I wrote a letter to the german minister of family affairs in which I express my concerns regarding the way the german government regards the topic of videogame violence.

I'll let you know it turns out.

Out of curiosity, would you mind posting a translation here?

Well, I'm actually to lazy to write a whole translation and in the end, I wasn't quite as satisfied with the letter as I was with the one I wrote to the bavarian minister for internal affairs (who is kinda like Jack Thompson when it comes to this topic.) I basically just wrote her ( the family minister) that the whole videogame concept is something which can only be handled through informing the public. In the end the letter was more whining than I intended it to be, but I'll let you know if there's an answer.

The thing with videogames in germany is, that a lot of games get cut or won't even get published here. Sure, I can drive an hour over to swizerland from where I live, but it is still annoying. Games like Ninja Gaiden 2 (which looks awesome) or Dead Rising (which is TOTALLY AWESOME) didn't come out here, some of them are technically not even allowed to be sold over here.

And the recently introduced new law for youth protection actually forbids games which are, and I quote, "violence dominated". Not that any politician who read or wrote that ever played a real videogame. It's just so damn frustrating, because the criteria seem to be different for each game. In Resident Evil 4, the mercenary missions got cut out, because there is no real point beind it besides killing. "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" arrived uncut but in "Shaolin Monks" the screen get's blacked out when you do a fatality. And in the old C&C Games, all the "Soldiers" weren't recruited in barracks, they got "build" in "factorys" because they were all "androids". So every time you drove your tank over an infantry unit, it sounded like stepping on a soda can.

I coudl go on, but I'm tired. If you're interested, I tell you more about the stupid decisions regarding media violence in germany later....

Anung Un Rama: Wow, that is an impressive list of oddities. I really had no idea things were that bad there. All in the misguided name of protecting the children huh. *Sigh*

"God save me from all the hideous people hell bent on doing things for my own good." Jonathan Barret

Anung Un Rama wrote:And the recently introduced new law for youth protection actually forbids games which are, and I quote, "violence dominated". Not that any politician who read or wrote that ever played a real videogame. It's just so damn frustrating, because the criteria seem to be different for each game. In Resident Evil 4, the mercenary missions got cut out, because there is no real point beind it besides killing. "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" arrived uncut but in "Shaolin Monks" the screen get's blacked out when you do a fatality. And in the old C&C Games, all the "Soldiers" weren't recruited in barracks, they got "build" in "factorys" because they were all "androids". So every time you drove your tank over an infantry unit, it sounded like stepping on a soda can.

I played C&C in Germany and was disturbed to see that they bleed oil instead of blood. When I went over I brought a UK copy of Quake 1 with me, complete with gore and gibbing, and my host friend was extremely amused by it. Germany and the USA are basically polar opposites in censorship. Germany heavily censors violence, the US heavily sensors nudity. For that reason, a combined German-US game project would either be totally boring or totally fantastic

It goes on and on. In many action games these days, they cut out the raddoll physics, so the "killing" won't look too realistic. In some games, the amount of blood gets lowered down, or coloured green in a few cases.
In the last few GTA games (part 4 not included) you couldn't kick people who lay on the ground, nor get money from random people on the street.

Some of those changes are demanded by the USK, (which is similar to the ERSB) and some are directy built in by the developers, so that they won't have trouble selling the title.

The producers of Prototype, worked together with the USK, trying to make the game "safe" for the german market, but in the end it was decided not to bring the game to germany.

legoburner wrote:

Anung Un Rama wrote:And the recently introduced new law for youth protection actually forbids games which are, and I quote, "violence dominated". Not that any politician who read or wrote that ever played a real videogame. It's just so damn frustrating, because the criteria seem to be different for each game. In Resident Evil 4, the mercenary missions got cut out, because there is no real point beind it besides killing. "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" arrived uncut but in "Shaolin Monks" the screen get's blacked out when you do a fatality. And in the old C&C Games, all the "Soldiers" weren't recruited in barracks, they got "build" in "factorys" because they were all "androids". So every time you drove your tank over an infantry unit, it sounded like stepping on a soda can.

I played C&C in Germany and was disturbed to see that they bleed oil instead of blood. When I went over I brought a UK copy of Quake 1 with me, complete with gore and gibbing, and my host friend was extremely amused by it. Germany and the USA are basically polar opposites in censorship. Germany heavily censors violence, the US heavily sensors nudity. For that reason, a combined German-US game project would either be totally boring or totally fantastic

Yes....its great. The U.S., where sex is bad and violence is good, vs. Germany, where "we have so much guilt over the Nazis we can't have Nazis in a game where you kill Nazis"

Yeah, that's a weird law with the symbolism. You're not allowed to show swastikas in public, but a lot of people my age wear batches and stuff with swasstikas either crossed over or a stick figure throwing one into a waste basket to make a statement. Personally, I think that's pretty cool, because that's the way my generation handles the topic, altough it is technically forbidden.

So, about that letter I wrote. I got an answer, but it wasn't like anybody cared about what I said. It was basically the same kind of answer I got when I wrote to minister Beckstein ( our Jack Thompson-like politician) about the same topic. They just send me back a list what they already did or are planning to do, basically all the points I complained about with no reaction to my questions at all.

Maybe I should just start throwing stones at the Bundestag, at least I leave some impression