I've been playing
Rockstar North's new offering,
Manhunt, for a couple of hours, and although it's indisputably a solid game, it's also very, very sickening, and very, very
wrong. Killing people is one thing; getting points for offing them as gruesomely as possible is another.
And by "gruesomely" I mean completely, utterly, and viciously ghastly beyond compare.
Playing the game for an extended period of time, you just feel dirty. Like a real criminal. A murderer.
And perhaps that's the point; to immerse you in such grim and unconscionable immorality, such darkness and misery, that you get overwhelmed and sickened by it. It's uniquely real, without being in any way realistic. Maybe it's a commentary on a society where violence is worshipped at the altar of TV.
Or maybe it's just speculative "entertainment", tailored to be as controversial as possible to sell as many copies as possible.
The point is, a well-balanced adult gamer will probably be able to handle
Manhunt's excessive violence without any lasting effects aside from a loss of appetite. I'm not about to go out on the street and strangle strangers to death with a plastic bag (actually the first weapon you get access to in the game) just because I've done so in a game.
But someone might. And while the mere existence of that hypothetical 'someone' - the possibility that violence on the screen may trigger violence in real life - is not a good reason for censorship, the fact is that games like
Manhunt, which speculate in violence, are giving games in general a bad name.
Yes, adults ought to be able to make their own choices and play the games they want to play. But planting a big 'M' on the box and wagging your finger at the under-17s isn't going to stop children from playing
Manhunt...or
Grand Theft Auto. Or any other 'Mature' title. In fact, the mere fact that these games are "forbidden" just makes them so much more attractive. And while I think it's important that the "interactive entertainment" medium cater to a wide variety of age groups and tastes - just like movies and TV - there's no avoiding the simple truth:
Manhunt wasn't just made for adult gamers. The creators are well aware that kids and teenagers everywhere will be buying it over the counter from stores that simply don't care about ratings, or begging their blissfully ignorant parents to get it for Christmas.
The point is, Rockstar didn't need to make
Manhunt as disturbingly violent as it is. It would be a good game without the morbid, and frankly disgusting, executions. They put the old ultra-violence in because it sells copies. Not to make a statement. Not to make it realistic. Not for any good reason aside from money.
And that's the problem. Because, while violence is an unavoidable part of life - and sometimes an important aspect of art; what would
The Godfather be like without the murder of Sonny Corleone? - and while games that strive for realism should portray violence and death in a realistic manner, they should do so for the right reasons and for the right audience.
There's a big difference between censorship and responsibility. Rockstar is being irresponsible, and it's sure to damage our industry's reputation - which is already under fire because of, yes, Rockstar and the GTA series.
All of that said, I still believe that games such as
Manhunt and
Vice City must be allowed to exist. I enjoyed the latter immensely, not because of the violence, but because it was a great game where violence was a crucial part of the setting. As for the former - I don't know how long I'll be able to stomach it, but there's no doubting the fact that it's a very good stealth game.
Thing is, I am an
adult - a well-balanced person who is quite capable of separating fiction from reality. A child doesn't have the same defences, and while these games probably won't turn him or her into a murderer, they can't possibly be doing much good either.
The solution? There's no simple answer. Parents, of course, must take responsibility for what their kids watch, play, read, and experience at home. But parents can't always be watching their children, and while that shouldn't stop us from making mature games for mature gamers, it should stop us from simply
speculating in calculated violence - violence that exists only to create hype and to sell five million copies of a game. That's just wrong.
