I came across this article:

Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game Ever

I had heard of this game recently, before the above article, and thought really nothing of it — it’s just another shoot-’em-up game. I like first person shooters; FPS is my preferred game style. But because I don’t have much free time lately, I’m not looking for a new game. And even if I was in the market for a new shoot-’em-up game, this doesn’t sound like something made for me:

There’s an excess of profanity, of course, including frequent use of F-words. And Bulletstorm is particularly gruesome, with body parts that explode all over the screen.

I don’t mind games taking realistic language and violence a little over the top, but when it is gratuitous and/or fantastic, it looses my interest. So I’ll not be getting this particular game. But. . .

And with kids as young as 9 playing such games, the experts FoxNews.com spoke with were nearly universally worried that video game violence may be reaching a fever pitch.

First off: “kids as young as 9 playing such games….” What the hell? These kinds of games are designed for and meant to be played by adults.

Some “experts” have been crying this video-games-are-too-violent warning for years. DOOM was the first target for this expert attention back in ’93. Video game violence has not caused a break down of our society in all these years despite the many tenuous attempts to attribute heinous crimes to these games. Violent video games are not a societal problem.

“If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm’s explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant,” Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute

Well how about parents pay attention to their kids and don’t let them experience anything with explicit language and violence? Huh? Is it too much to expect parents to be friggin’ parents and attend their children?

“Violent video games like Bulletstorm have the potential to send the message that violence and insults with sexual innuendos are the way to handle disputes and problems,” Weichman said.

So don’t let the kids get exposure to this stuff! Holy crap! How is this not completely obvious?

Hey, an axe has the potential to hack off fingers, toes, limbs, and heads! Oh noes! This is why caring and attentive parents don’t let 9 year old kids play with axes.

“The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games,”

According to the Department of Justice, “Rape rates have been stable in recent years,” and have actually decreased dramatically in the years video games have existed. Holy moly, look what actual facts show!

“Games without sufficient quality of gameplay — games that include highly objectionable violent or sexual content — often pump up the level of this kind of content to gain media attention….” said Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research.

And when the over-the-top violent game gets media attention, the Chicken Littles jump into the fray to get their own media attention. It’s a virtual daisy chain of media whoring.

Video game advocates say the existing warning system [ESRB] works fine: Parents are responsible for deciding whether their kids can play games, not the government.

Hell yeah! But it’s a shame that anyone who says parents are responsible for their kids gets labeled an “advocate” for the things kids shouldn’t be exposed to. I’m not an advocate for things like torture-horror movies, (I don’t like them), but I still recognize and say that parents are responsible for keeping kids away from such stuff.

Show me a 9 year old kid who plays some game like Bulletstorm, and I’ll show you a pathetically irresponsible parent.

Bullgrit

I’ve watched people play Guitar Hero (and Rock Band) a few times, here and there, over the past year or so. It’s a lot of fun to watch — the graphics, the animation, the music (especially the music). I love just about every song I’ve heard and watched played.

But I’ve never felt the interest to try and play the game, myself. The whole interface of the fake guitar (and the other instruments for the other game) just looks unwieldy. It doesn’t look like really playing a guitar (which I can’t do, anyway), and it doesn’t look like playing a game controller (which I, at least, used to could do). So I’ve never even tried to play the game.

During Calfgrit9′s recent birthday party, I gave it a try. Adventure Landing (where we had the party) has a big game area with all kinds of arcade games, including a two-player Guitar Hero game. I had a pocket full of extra tokens for the games, and so I thought I’d finally give GH a play.

Since it was my first time with the game — I’ve never even held the guitar/controller — I chose the “Beginner” level. It said Beginner level doesn’t require pushing the color buttons, only strumming. And I chose “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by Scorpions.

Strumming to the visual cues of the game felt nothing at all like playing anything like the song. I couldn’t even get the rhythm by following the visual cues. After only about 30 seconds into the song, I had lost all interest in the game. I was scoring with my strumming to the visual cues, but it felt like just touching a button while an unrelated rock song played.

After about a minute, a 30-something man walked up beside me and suggested I tilt the guitar to really rock it out. I commented back, without taking my eyes from the screen, “This is my first time, and it’s taking all my concentration to strum.”

The man beside me was a fan of the game, and explained, after I complained about the strumming not following the song, that the Beginner level skips notes. This seemed to make sense in one way: not having to hit every note on time should be easier. But it made the game harder in the same way: I couldn’t play the controller to the rhythm of the music I was listening to.

Had the visual cues, and my strumming, matched what I was hearing over the speakers, I could have kept the rhythm, and it would have more felt like actually playing the song.

I gave up. I took off the guitar strap from around my neck, and handed the controller over to the man beside me. He said, “No, you finish it,” but I told him I wasn’t interested.

“I’m just going to let it play out on its own if you don’t take over.”

So he took the guitar from me, put the strap around his neck, and rocked out. He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the last half a minute of the song. More power to him.

At least now I can say I’ve tried Guitar Hero. I didn’t like it, at all, but I did try it. It’s kind of ironic that maybe playing at the Beginner level is what actually turned me off of the game. Maybe if I had tried it at a higher level, and been able to strum with the actual song I was hearing (rather than seemingly random visual cues), I might have liked it Ok.

Bullgrit

I purchased and installed Modern Warfare 2 this past weekend. I just got around to playing a little of it one night this week.

First off, the graphics are amazing; everything looks almost photo realistic. And to go with the great graphics, the artificial intelligence and animation are superb. The soldiers (allies and enemies) move realistically, react realistically, kill realistically, and die realistically. It’s a total package of amazing.

When I play a computer game, I like to really get into it. I turn off the lights in the room, put on my headset, and have no distractions so I can fully immerse myself in the game environment. The graphics and animation of this game really helps the immersion factor.

The main story of this game has the player (me) as a British and/or American soldier fighting enemies in war (standard practice for the Call of Duty series). But there’s one battle scene in this game that some find offensive. I had heard of it before purchasing it, but I didn’t think the concept offensive.

At one point, for one “battle,” you play on the side of a terrorist group. You play as a member of the bad guys when they assault a crowded civilian airport. Although I wasn’t offended by this idea, I was a bit unnerved by playing it.

Again, I knew this battle scene was in the game — I even chose the option in the game to allow me to play through this level instead of automatically skipping it. But the realistic graphics, the realistic animation, and the realistic artificial intelligence reactions startled me, here.

It’s one thing to play as a soldier in battle, fighting and killing enemies fighting back at you. Even when the graphics and all look realistic. But this scene of gunning down civilians who scream in terror and pain, bleed all over the terminal floors, fall, crawl, and die in very realistic ways, is stunning. The scene is gory and gruesome. Disturbing, even.

When the terrorists started shooting the civilians (and I was standing with the terrorists), I soon turned on my “allies” to kill them. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t let you kill your own side. This makes sense, as doing so would completely derail the story line.

As the terrorists continued shooting, and moved forward, I slowly came to accept that I was supposed to be role playing a terrorist right then. But I couldn’t bring myself to gun down the civilians. I eventually started firing my gun, but I shot high, intentionally missing all targets.

It took me a few minutes to convince myself, Come on Bullgrit, this is just a computer game. These are not real people no matter how eerily realistic they look and act.

When the civilian police forces showed up at the scene, and started shooting at us, it started to feel more like the standard army versus army game I was used to. I eventually took on the role play of the terrorist side.

After about 10 minutes, the scene ended. I was rather glad for it to end, too; I didn’t like playing that scene.

I was not offended by it, but I was somewhat shocked. I don’t think what is shown is anything worse than what has been shown in some movies. The only thing different, really, is that I was playing the part of the bad guy. I wasn’t just supposed to watch bad guys killing a bunch of people, I was supposed to actually do the killing personally.

And I really don’t think it was the playing the role of the bad guy that got to me so much. It was the realistic graphics and animations and sounds and reactions of the people. It’s so real-looking that it’s downright disturbing.

Bullgrit

Last night, I just started Call of Duty 4, Modern Warfare (not MW2, yet). This is a really great game. The play of the game, the plot, and the graphics.

I loved the first CoD (I’ve played it all the way through at least 3 times), and this is a fantastic continuation of that style of FPS. I love having the teammates.

Not only is the standard FPS fun in CoD4, but I love the chance to gun from the C-130 (the 40mm is my favorite). And then gunning from the helicopter as the marines fly into the Middle East county, great fun. And I have to say, the ending of the Middle East battle: Shocking and Amazing.

And really, the graphics are so realistic.

And I love that just like in the original CoD, you can still knock the helmets off enemy soldiers :-)

Bullgrit