Hey, guess what, my astonished reader? Someone in California is making a great scene over "violent videogames" again. To borrow a phrase, "well, lah-dee-freakin'-dah!" It seems to be a regular quarterly cycle for these people: every holiday season, some new blockhead crawls out from the skirting-board and starts giving the standard outdated complaint about how violent games are corrupting our children... well, not my children -- I haven't got any. But just a few short years ago, I did qualify as one of the impressionable minors who was having his mental abilities suppressed by the playing of interactive gaming devices.
I suppose, in that respect, the argument has changed somewhat. What was, in the '80s and '90s, an umbrella attack on gaming in general has become more specialised to target only the "violent" ones.
Anyway, I shan't go into a great, long manifesto defending games and debunking bad science, 'cos I've already done that, probably twice in the past. A quick perusal through the nether pages will yield my thoughts on the matter.
Suffice it to say, there are just some people who are anti-gaming: typically middle-aged men of religion or science whose most recent gaming experience was the original Pong back in the '70s. Basically none of the people who come out with these decidedly one-sided anti-game studies or who support them in ill-fated legislation have any idea what they're talking about. They wouldn't know Mario from Master Chief. My suggestion when you consider getting your son that game for Christmas: don't listen to your priest or your congressman. This situation is exactly what the ESRB rating is for. What's in the game? The "E" or "T" or "M" will tell you exactly what you need to know, without divulging any of the game's plotline.
Don't let a faceless panel of pediatric psychologists and clergymen make your decision for you. End mannequinism!
