On this day, the 24 August 1992, the arcade cabinet above for Mortal Kombat was released. Not too long after it received release on the home systems and like all things violent and computer gamey it was amid controversy. Basically it's a standard 2D fighter, two players punch and kick eachother until one of their characters is too injured to fight on, note the injury is purely the little bar at the top of the screen going red no matter how much you drag them across the room with a hook aside from the red pixels representing blood flying out with impact.
This is repeated until one player has won two rounds, I assume aside from the blood and gore this was the real sticking point for parents groups, was the special "Finish Him" moment in which you had one last move to finish them with. With a special combination of button presses and joystick waggling you had the option to rip someones head off including spinal column, rip out and show them their still beating heart and a host of other nasties. Of course, it was up to you to find this out and it wasn't in the manuals, this meant MOST fights ended purely with a last punch in the face, of course it wasn't going to stop the various parental groups campaigning. The trouble I got for getting "that horrible game" off a mate when I was 10, until my dad got home and tried it out with me finding nothing that bad! It's not the only time games have got much hype and complaining though...
Not particularly well known in the UK but a well known example of this case would be an old Atari 2600 title called "Custers Revenge". Assuming people know the story of "Custers Last Stand" where tribesmen surrounded and slaughtered American troops under our titular incompetent soldier you could be forgiven for assuming this would be a little game about shooting injuns... You'd be wrong, no the way Mr Custer gets his revenge is obvious. Tie an injun woman to a tree and then you must dodge a hail of arrows on the way over to rape her repeatedly. Developers Mystique clearly knew the buttons to press with the media and parental groups in 1982, previewing it with a womens rights and native american groups! Though the content saw it ultimately banned it has received a modern remake on the interwebs. Mystique specialised then in Adult games for the Atari and titles like Beat 'em and Eat 'em (players represent two nude women catching blobs of liquid dropping from a substantial male member) followed.
Of course, they're by no means isolated cases in this sort thing and recently there was a great deal of fuss made about a "Japanese Rape Simulator", which ultimately is actually a story about the girl getting revenge after being sexually assaulted in public. Of course, once again the developer knew exactly what they were doing with this project by making it so the game changed perspective, playing out the initial assault before switching roles. Ultimately though there's nothing special here but in both this and the Custers Revenge were both blamed for a spate of sexual assaults on women. Usually though, it's the violent games that get the real blame in these cases.
On the 27th February 2004 Stefan Pakeerah was murdered by his "friend" Warren Leblanc and the reason for this was painfully obvious... It could only be a game by controversial developer Rockstar (GTA series) entitled Manhunt which had been released in November 2003. The reliable source for this was the victims mother claiming that Warren had become adicted to the game and the outcry that the game could lead to this led to it being withdrawn from shelves in most high street retailers.
Manhunt was then banned in New Zealand (where posession is still deemed an offence), Australia, Germany and in Ontario, Canada became Adult Only, effectively banning it from most stores. Surprisingly the rest of North America pretty much ignored the hype and attention satisfied by leaving it's classification as 18 as per any other excessively violent game or movie. The thing that hurts me the most about Manhunt is that I had it, finished it and then resold it at the start of February, had I waited I could've made a small fortune in the illegal black market for games. Damn my stupidity!
The thing is, from Custer beyond Mortal Kombat, Manhunt and as recent as Red Dead Redemption (western game where there's a trophy/achievement for the old tie a damsel to the traintracks cliché) games for whatever reason seem to garner a worse reception than any other medium. While I don't see the enjoyment to be had out of sex games (and there's a reasonable amount amazingly) I can't believe that because someone sits at his Atari wriggling his joystick back and forth he's going to go out and gang rape a native american woman same as playing Manhunt didn't make me go out, hide in alleys and batter people to death with a baseball bat. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas had the perfect mix though, I could have consensual sex with a prostitute then beat her to death with a dildo. Pure perfection there!
Thing is, Mortal Kombat was just a standard Kung Fu film, Custers Revenge was numerous substandard porno films, Manhunt was torture porn (VERY similar to the SAW series which are flagrant rip offs), the GTA series is a cartoonisation of "gangster" culture. Ultimately they mean nothing except that - as former WCW and WWE creative boss Eric Bischoff said - "Controversy = Cash". People deliberately do these things and they know they'll get a rise out of it. Games are no more to blame for "loose morals" than films or books but people will never seem to accept that.
Damon Brown wrote a book entitled "Porn and Pong - How GTA, Tomb Raider and other sexy games changed out culture" which looks like it covers this in more detail and could be worth a read. I'm not searching for it on Play from the library though, how long will I last when purchasing anything with the "P" word in it's title?!
No comments:
Post a Comment