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Games Entertainment

The Moral Pathology of Vice City 331

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-think-about dept.
SiliconRedox writes "An interesting article at the NYTimes (reg req) outlining the rise of rockstar games and the imminent release of Vice City. What the article mentions but never brings together is the ability of the player to win the game through peaceful(ie: not killing people) or criminal means. The game, while being hailed as morally reprehensible, is in fact only acting out the pathology of the player." Everything worth knowing in life can be learned from GTA. For example, upside down cars explode, and flying cars can jump the bridge between the first and second city without finishing the quests. Just like in real life. I still haven't picked up Vice City, but I'm stoked. And I will most definitely not win through peaceful means.
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The Moral Pathology of Vice City More

The Moral Pathology of Vice City

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  • pathology?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dollargonzo ( 519030 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:51PM (#4541806) Homepage
    cmon...most of the missions in gta are to kill someone. just like technically, gangsters can be "peacefull", they very rarely are. what is wrong with a little addictive destroying of vehicles?

    • GTA has missions?! And here i was just driving around blowing stuff up and seeing how many fbi agents i could evade. (and stealing their cars if i can get em)

    • Re:pathology?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 403Forbidden ( 610018 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:41PM (#4542049)
      I agree that saying how the game is really open-ended and a "peaceful" game is very wrong to use as an example to combat these media sensations.

      Going through the game and not killing anyone is more of something to do when you have beat it and want to explore every possibility, but not if you are a casual player.

      Please, don't post half-assed comments like "oh i can complete it without bloodshed!" because that makes us no better than the RIAA, MPAA, and all those other stupid groups that manipulate facts and stats to server their purpose.

    • Unleashing the monster... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sterno ( 16320 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:48PM (#4542089) Homepage
      The logic behind most people's objections to games like GTA are that by playing out these actions in the game we are somehow re-tuning our own personal ethics to suggest that these things are okay to do for real. We kill a thousand virtual hookers and then at some point killing a real hooker doesn't seem that out of line. There are people who can make this kind of logical leap, and they are hopefully diagnosed for their psychosis and treated before it becomes an issue.

      People like Lieberman are afraid that if we flirt with our internal dark side, we're going to end up turning into devil worshipping crack head rapists. In reality, the exact opposite is likely to be more true. That by flirting with our dark sides, we can let off a little steam and not have our dark sides come boiling out to do harm to others. Their afraid that if we admit to ourselves that we have a darkside, we are going to be seduced into unleashing it, when really, recognizing its existence is the best way to insure that it won't come out.

      Personally I love violent video games and GTA: Vice City is on my short list of games to get in the near future. In addition to playing games like that, I love going to play paintball, and play violent paper role playing games. Now, am I violent? No. I wouldn't want to touch a real gun, let alone fire one, or use one to harm or kill another person.

      So there's nothing wrong with it. The point that should be made in the intro to this story isn't that you can win the game peacefully, but rather that there's no reason you should feel compelled to do so, unless you just like the challenge of it. I've played violent games where I intentionally tried to be ethical in the game to make it more interesting.

      Actually, I'd love to see somebody do a terrorist video game, honestly. I know there's things like counterstrike, but I mean something where you'd do things like plot out bomb attacks, etc. That could be a lot of fun, but I somehow don't think any major game publisher is going to be backing that sort of game anytime soon :)

      • Re:Unleashing the monster... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by IsoRashi ( 556454 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @02:22PM (#4542257)
        It's not open-ended like GTA, but remember Final Fantasy VII? It was actually pointed out by my roommate's Muslim ex-roommate (after the 9/11 attacks) that Cloud and gang were pretty much terrorists. It's interesting though how when the story is presented in a certain way, you feel like you're the good guys.
        • That goes for the real world too. I guarantee you that the hundreds of people who have done suicide bombings are firmly convinced they are doing a good thing for all the right reasons. There are few things more amazing than the human ability to justify any action in one's own mind no matter how reprehensible.

        • Re:Unleashing the monster... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Gropo ( 445879 ) <groopo&yahoo,com> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @03:06PM (#4542495) Homepage Journal
          It was actually pointed out by my roommate's Muslim ex-roommate (after the 9/11 attacks) that Cloud and gang were pretty much terrorists.
          Rather like a rogue group of individuals that would destroy a large spherical spacestation (terminating thousands of 'innocent' lives) because the Empire that built it was hell-bent on assimilating all cultures under its anti-spiritual, homogenous rule?

          Oh dear... My childhood heroes were terrorists :(

          • Re:Unleashing the monster... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @04:32PM (#4542987) Homepage
            Rather like a rogue group of individuals that would destroy a large spherical spacestation (terminating thousands of 'innocent' lives) because the Empire that built it was hell-bent on assimilating all cultures under its anti-spiritual, homogenous rule?

            Rather like the french resistance during World War II?

            Let me elaborate on what i suspect to be Gropo's point: In the last year or so, the word "terrorist" seems to have lost almost all meaning. Let's please try to remember: The terms "terrorist", "saboteur", and "guerilla" all mean three different things. There's some overlap between the three groups, but the words themselves mean different things.

            The word "terrorist" means that civilian targets and infrastructure are targeted specifically to manipulate the emotions of a larger civilian population. This is why we can make blanket statements like "all terrorists are bad"-- it doesn't matter what their goals are, becuase by definition they are using the unacceptable means of reaching those goals of targetting civilians to manufacture widespread fear.

            The french resistence, the rebel alliance, and Barrett's group from FF7 don't fall under this definition. They attempted to sabotage military infrastructure in order to weaken a war machine while minimizing civilian damage. There's something of a difference. On the other hand, Al Qaeda doesn't see themselves as a future islamic empire fighting the U.S. government; they see themselves as fighting a war between Islamic and American culture. From their viewpoint, the people in the WTC towers weren't collateral damage, they were targets.

            In fact, the interesting bit about Final Fantasy 7 is that while Barrett's group was decidedly "freedom fighters" or whatever, the media in the game, which was controlled by the totaltarian corporate state they lived under, constantly blackens your name with the populace by labelling you as a tarrorist group. There was one bit where the evil empire thingy destroys a big section of city and kills a huge number of poor people; you try to stop them, and fail; and after escaping the rubble, you see a news report on a television claiming that section of city was destroyed maliciously by the infamous terrorist group: Barrett's group. The one you are playing as. And of course everyone believes it; they saw it on television.
        • heck if you look at it that way... MacGyver was a terrorist.... he never shot anyone but every eppisode he snuck round blowing stuff up

      • Can be summed up.... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by kaladorn ( 514293 )
        ...as:

        There is a key distinction between reality and make believe.

        In reality, I'm not a knight in shining armour, nor am I the evil gun-toting gangster. But both make for interesting excercises of the mind. Sort of like walking a mile in someone else's shoes, even if that someone never could be in the world as we know it.

        Lately, with the way these joyless anti-everything doomsayers keep attacking anything that even vaguely titilates or allows us a peaceful harmless (for most mentally together people...) exploration of our darker natures, one begins to feel that imagination and invention are themselves under attack.

        Good Lord save us from those that think they know better than we do about what is good for us....

  • More real life lesson (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobtheprophet ( 587843 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:52PM (#4541812) Journal
    And of course, in real life I get points every time I run someone over!
    • In real life, its:
      10 points for guys on bicycles.
      200 points for anyone pushing a baby stroller
      50 points for people carrying shopping bags

      Atleast, thats what my dad taught me.
    • I think the origin of points for hitting people comes from the movie Death Race 2000. Go see it if you're curious, and aren't expecting a good film. (Although it is a good drinking movie).
      • Death Race 2000 was also a computer game, long ago (pre 1990, I think). You'd drive around a track, laying mines, shooting guns and missiles at the other cars, in an attempt to win by killing everybody.

        This whole violence thing has been around as long as games, movies, books and storytelling have existed, people who get excited about it need to eat a bag of dicks.

    • 10 points = 4 legged under 25 lbs.
      15 points 4 leeged over 25 lbs and over
      20 points for 2 legged creatures
      25 points for any flying creature
      double points for hitting more than one at a time

      automatic win if its Hillary Rosen...

    • Real Life In Action (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LafinJack ( 9054 )
      I just wanna know why "games" like football, soccer, rugby, and hockey act out their violence (granted, without killing anybody (usually)) and are hailed as something "good for the kids" by being sponsored in schools, yet video games, which haven't hurt anybody, are called evil because people get killed on the screen. ...oops, just like movies! Movies don't get nearly as much flack as video games, even though they're watched by a much broader audience.

      Gah!

      • Movies don't get nearly as much flack as video games, even though they're watched by a much broader audience.

        The same people do give a lot of flack to movies as well, but movies have much deeper pockets to rally against it. The video game manufacturers need to start lining some pockets then they won't hear this as much.

  • Even the Assassination Missions? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rayonic ( 462789 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:53PM (#4541814) Homepage Journal
    You mean even the missions where you have to kill someone, can be completed without violence?

  • I learned.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bobulusman ( 467474 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:53PM (#4541816)
    That is you increase the mass the mass of a taxi to 40000 kg, you won't lose any speed but can send cars you crash into flying into space.

    I also learned that if the center of gravity of a police car is 5 feet above the roof of the car, the slightest disturbance can send it spinning end to end and bouncing like a superball. Watch out if you've in it when you do this!

  • Ways to win (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:53PM (#4541821) Journal
    Ok, so the game CAN be won peacefully. he question is, is it advertised that way? Do they say "No one way to win - the gameplay fits your style!" or do they say "Death! Explosions! Prostitution! (and peace, if you want it)"

    It's only acting on people's psyche's if they go into it with no preconceptions. Sounds to me like people've got some preconceptions already.

    Triv

  • Now there's something else... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Da Fokka ( 94074 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:54PM (#4541824) Homepage
    Most people are only involved with wreaking havoc in peaceful games like SimCity; Haven't we all unleashed all kinds of disasters on a city?

    People play games to escape from reality, finishing GTA peacefully kinda defeats its purpose.

  • That unpossible! (Score:3, Funny)

    by jdcook ( 96434 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:55PM (#4541827)
    "The game, while being hailed as morally reprehensible . . . "

    In true /. form I haven't read the article. Still I somehow doubt they are hailing the game as morally reprehensible.

  • Superficial analysis (Score:3, Insightful)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <[<remove_spam>ju ... spam>gmail.com]> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:55PM (#4541829) Homepage
    Again this begs the question of causality from video game violence to real life violence. Numerous studies show a correlation but not causality. This is the modern version of D&D causes kids to become interested in the occult and worship Satan that we saw in the '80s.

    My copy is pre-ordered through Amazon. Can't wait...
    • For the record: My friends and I played a lot of D&D in the 80's, as far as I know none of us ended up "worshiping Satan". I have a healthy respect for Satan, but I sure as heck dont worship him!
      • You mustn't have bought the correct expansions! Module S666: The Road To Ruin.... Instead of paying $10, you had to sign a contract for your soul and those of your gaming group. (That's okay, sometimes a DM has to make sacrifices.... errr.... well, maybe in this context that takes on another meaning). ;)

        (I also played far too many hours of RPGs in the 80s and probably hacked down more kobolds and orcs than could reasonably be installed in any biosphere)

        PS - for the humour impaired, the foregoing was a joke!
    • I think there's slightly more at issue than just that. Though I'd agree that violent video games in and of themselves are highly unlikely to make a person violent, the question is whether violent video games may have a detectable effect on behavior on a significant number of people. For instance, violent games may encourage some people to "let out their anger" rather than reason through it and learn what is making them angry. And, it has been seen that expressing anger [apa.org] tends to cause an increase in one's liklihood to be angry, not a decrease. I posted about this before when GTA3 came up in a slashback [slashdot.org]. Hopefully I was clearer this time.
    • I think video games introduce kids to violence.
      If you take a kid and they grew up without violence in their face (like video games, friends that were violent, being bored or interested in violence on the internet, seeing Jackass/cKy, etc...) the chances are smaller than if they have seen all those things.

      I think violence shows kids this stuff exists and it's left up to them if they want to act on it. That to me supports the idea of correlation but not causality.

  • What are you waiting for!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @12:56PM (#4541834) Homepage
    I still haven't picked up Vice City

    Still!?! YOU STILL DON'T HAVE IT?! Jeez it's been out since next Tuesday and you're just sitting around talking about getting it instead of doing something about it. What a maroon!

    Meanwhile, my GTA:VC complaints [linuxgames.com] and I don't have it either! ;^)
    • I totally agree with your complaints, networking ability would be awesome. But, according to a statement from a Rockstar employee, they are planning to add networking to GTA4. If Vice City is as big of a hit as GTA3 was, I'd assume that they're going to get started on GTA4 immediately.

    • You do realize that Sony does not have much, if anything, to do with GTA? They did NONE of the development, and aren't even the publisher!

      While they do have a console-exclusivity agreement with sony (I think), that doesn't mean that sony drives them in any way (as opposed to bungie, who is owned by MS).

      Your complaint is like writing an article that it's epic's fault that UT2003 didn't use the full dx8.1 spec, which would have sold a lot more radeon9700's and geforce 4's.
      • Sony may not have much to do with development directly, but I'm willing to bet good money that if Sony offered the right incentives, development equipment, etc. that Rockstar could have done a lot more than they're doing with GTA:VC. I'm saying that it was in Sony's best interest to push the network adaptor this holiday season, while they still have an edge over the competitors, and that the best vehicle for doing that was a game like GTA:VC. It's in Rockstar's interest because they need to continue to innovate and ensure that people don't see VC as "just another GTA3". And if Rockstar doesn't think they have the inclination to do so, then Sony can exert some pressure to make it seem like it's in Rockstar's interests.

        Since we've known about Vice City for months now, that probably means that Sony and Rockstar have known about it for over a year. With that kind of lead time, Sony could very well have had the killer app for their network adaptor and left the Microsoft and Nintendo online plans looking anemic by comparison.

        Again, I know Sony doesn't have that much of a hand in the development of VC. What they do have is a network strategy that looks weak and an opportunity that's passed them by to make it much, much stronger.

  • People like Lieberman still haven't grasped this simple concept.

    If you don't like a game, DON'T PLAY IT!!!!

  • Big deal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dh003i ( 203189 ) <`dh003i' `at' `gmail.com'> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:03PM (#4541868) Homepage Journal
    This is bullshit. I get sick of hearing about how horrible and abhorrent and violent games are.

    Who cares? Playing the latest, greatest, most violent game does not make you any more or less likely to go out and commit some violent act. Games do not control people; people control people.

    Just because the two nutcases who shot up Columbine happened to be avid Doom players (or whatever), now we all have to hear this bullshit about how "violent games cause people to go out and act violently".

    Give it a freaking rest. I've played quite a few games -- Descent 1-3, Quake 1-3, Tomb Raider 1 - 5, Eternal Darkness, etc. Despite that, I haven't been any more inclined to kill people. Gee, go figure.

    • Re:Big Deal (Score:5, Funny)

      by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:34PM (#4542025) Journal
      I played Descent 1-3 and Tomb Raider 1-5, and now I keep getting these urges to explore caves and mines. Why does no one ever talk about my plight?

      --Dan

    • Re:Big deal (Score:5, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:48PM (#4542090) Homepage Journal
      Give it a freaking rest. I've played quite a few games -- Descent 1-3, Quake 1-3, Tomb Raider 1 - 5, Eternal Darkness, etc. Despite that, I haven't been any more inclined to kill people. Gee, go figure.

      Me neither. In fact, since playing quake, my hand-eye coordination has improved threefold and now when I do a driveby, I hit 57% less pedestrians!

      Now if that isn't a ringing endorsement for violent video games, I don't know what is.

      • Re:Big deal (Score:4, Funny)

        by archen ( 447353 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @03:49PM (#4542747)
        I don't know what would be more disturbing. The number of pedestrians you probably had to hit in order to start hitting 57% less, or the fact that you do drive by shootings and have in depth analysis of your accuracy.

        What happened to the good ol days when you saw some guy you didn't like, and stuck a tommy gun out the window, let her rip. Then drive away without looking and see if you got him by reading the newspaper headlines the next day? Now days we have spreadsheets analyzing our hit ratios! Kids and these new fangled devices....

  • My Take (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rob.Mathers ( 527086 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:04PM (#4541881) Homepage
    I've been saying this for quite some time now, but once more won't hurt. The following is my take on the, "video games cause children to go on killing sprees" mentality.

    If a child (or anyone for that matter) plays a video game, then goes on a murderous rampage, there has to be something wrong with him other than the fact that he plays games, ie he already has some serious issues. Just like some people are predisposed to alcoholism, some people are predisposed to violence. When a kid starts shooting people, we shouldn't be blaming video games or anyone related to them, we should be questioning the parents, who are letting their child play games which they should realise could affect the kid in negative ways. Just like if you know your son or daughter is sensitive you don't let them watch horror movies, if you know (or even are mildly suspicious) that your child has violent tendencies, you shouldn't let them play video games that are violent.
    Like drinking, some people can play tons of games their entire lives without any adverse consequences, while for others all it takes is one round to set them off.

    • Re:My Take (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Gulthek ( 12570 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:27PM (#4541988) Homepage Journal
      "Oh lord," said William Shatner in a resigned voice.
      -- Futurama "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"

      If a child (or anyone for that matter) plays a video game, then goes on a murderous rampage, there has to be something wrong with him other than the fact that he plays games, ie he already has some serious issues. ... if you know (or even are mildly suspicious) that your child has violent tendencies, you shouldn't let them play video games that are violent.

      Oookay. There are two problems with your argument.

      1. You assume that children who have "violent tendencies"
        will have those tendencies augmented by playing a video game that plays on those tendencies. (i.e. harm the child)
      2. You assume that not playing those games (i.e. their prohibition by an authority figure) will help to ameliorate those tendencies. (i.e. help the child)


      There is no causal correlation between playing violent video games and becoming violent. There is no evidence to show that if a violent child plays violent video games that child will demonstrate an increased tendency towards violence. In fact, a recent study [slashdot.org] by MIT, The University of California at LA, and the University of London showed that violent video games are potentially helpful to children. By allowing them to act out their fantasies in a setting designed for that purpose those fantasies are relagated to the fantasy world and farther removed from the real world.

      Futhermore, there is strong evidence showing that the stronger something is prohibited by authority figures, the more attractive it becomes to children (and not just rebellious children). Especially if it is something that is banned for no readily apparent reason.

    • Re:My Take (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BlueGecko ( 109058 ) <benjamin.pollack@ g m a i l . c om> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:35PM (#4542026) Homepage
      If a child (or anyone for that matter) plays a video game, then goes on a murderous rampage, there has to be something wrong with him other than the fact that he plays games, ie he already has some serious issues.
      I buy that argument for adults, but not for kids. Studies on the effects of television have shown that (1) kids will pick up social and cultural norms from practically whatever they see, and (2) up until at least six and seven and sometimes as late as nine or ten, they really do not distinguish properly between fantasy and reality. In other words, a young kid watching a violent show who then engages in violent behavior may have nothing wrong with him except that he is learning, Pavlovian-dog style, that violence is good. Is such his natural tendancy? I absolutely believe that it isn't. But certainly we have adequate historical precedents (Sparta being a biggie) to show that kids absolutely pick up violence if it's part of their environment, even if nothing else is particularly wrong. Young kids honestly don't even really understand that death is permanent. Show him in his learning stages that people engage in wonton violence and that if they die they come back, and I don't care who the kid is, you really will get a violent kid who doesn't fear death.

      I'm not arguing that videogames should be censored; all I'm saying is that a child (and I do mean child here, not a 16-year-old; someone that old who plays a violent game and then mimics it really does have a serious problem) really shouldn't play this kind of game. Nor am I arguing we should blame the video game per se; rather, we should blame the parents . I think that's something a lot of people miss and yet that is very important to discussing violent games such as GTA. So while you can enjoy videogames, know that it can affect those little kids, but be a good parent and ensure they don't play them until they're old enough. Do that, convey that message, and maybe we'll be able to keep the state from acting like our parents since our parents for us.

  • CNN Headline News (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Daleks ( 226923 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:07PM (#4541890)
    I saw a short blip on CNN Headline News this morning about GTA: Vice City. At first I expected it to be another bashing of violent video games and have it somehow tie into the current sniper issue, but much to my surprise it didn't. It involved the news anchor telling a game magazine writer how much he liked GTA3 and wanted to know if GTA: Vice City would live up to it's predecessor's success. They also made the point that this was a mature game intended for adults and thus excessive violence wasn't really an issue. Wow.
    • So you saw a "news report"/promotional fluff piece, then?

      It's like how Leno says he loves watching whatever show/movie his guest is currently hawking, except it's not late night talk it's a 24-hour cable channel "news report". Do you think the anchor really plays GTA, like Leno watches his guests shows all day?

      They oughtta have that guy on the Daily Show. Seems like ample fodder for them.

  • Fashion & Style??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SoSueMe ( 263478 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:13PM (#4541920)
    This is on NTYs site under "Fashion & Style" and there is a huge ad for MSN 8?

    Is it just me, or does that big "Butterfly guy" look like Arthur from "The Tick"?

    So much for my Halloween costume!

  • Gamescritics lagging behind on moviecritics? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by The Moving Shadow ( 603653 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:14PM (#4541922)
    The discourse on violence in movies has been concluded years and years ago. Moviecritics were even happy to embrace the - what they called - "Nouvelle Violence" [New Violence] movies like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Shallow Grave or a random John Woo movie. It was violence taken all over the top and in a way a playful dialogue with society. So sayeth the moviecritics. But every time a new game is released that contains violence this whole debate about "violence in the digital entertainment industry" has to be dragged up again. Can't the gamecritics learn something from the moviecritics? Can't we just embrace violent videogames/computergames as a sign of the times? A product that reflects the current society? Apparently there's a need to show violence in games, apparently there's a market to play violent games. What's wrong with that? (BTW, i read that a game called "Sniper" was taken out of the shelves in Washington. I don't know what to think of that.)

  • Deus Ex (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MagPulse ( 316 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:15PM (#4541928)
    Has anyone seriously solved GTA3 without killing anyone? Even if it's possible, it must be superhumanly hard. The game pushes and prods you in to killing every step of the way. One mission (spoiler warning) off the top of my head is to snipe eight people on a ship before they can kill your friend. Maybe there's a series of missions you can do without killing anyone, but even if there is.. if you buy GTA3 and never hurt anyone you really aren't getting your money's worth. There also is no real reason in GTA3 not to kill; the worst that can happen is you lose your stuff.

    Deus Ex [deusex.com], on the other hand, always gives you the opportunity to go the peaceful route. If you kill, things can get harder, and people you care about might die. The storyline is so engrossing and the characters so deep (as opposed to GTA3) that I found myself taking time to go the non-killing route in many cases. The game rewards this behavior in a realistic way. Everything doesn't turn out perfectly if you don't kill, and it is sometimes hard not to, but it really makes you think twice.
    • Of course, this is mostly because Deus Ex (my fav game of all time) is ment to be a stealth type game against impossible odds so to speak. It has much more of a role playing element and you are rewarded at the end for stelth and colletion of items.

      Heck, (spoiler) toward the end when you are in level4 lab under the UNATCO base and all those gaurds are comming, I just unleashed those big genetic mutations and hit up the stairs.. watching the slaughter of course. That has to be THE MOST satisfying moment of the entire game. It's such a thrill to not do any work in that game (no joke!)

    • But the real question is... (was: Deus Ex) (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...despite my copy of Deus Ex predating 9/11, it does not feature the twin towers in the New York skyline. Is that spooky or what? Did the developers ever comment on why they made this choice?
    • Deus Ex does not permit nonviolent solutions to problems. If you confuse nonlethal force with nonviolence, then you might think so, but there are places in the game's linear plot where you just have to kill people to advance. In several places the storyline designers have ignored your ability to apply sub-fatal force, creating plot holes.

      1. The ship. Your mission is to blow up the ship, and there's about 50 people on it. They're all going to die. If you don't kill them, you can't progress in the game. I even tried clobbering people and carrying them away, but that gets ludicrous (and you can't really get them outside of the explosion radius anyhow).
      2. The airport. Your mission is to kill an unarmed "terrorist" leader. I go in there, tranquilize him, and heft him over my shoulder for the march back to headquarters. Even after the slumbering criminal mastermind has been deposited on the desk of the UNATCO chief, they still don't notice that he's still alive, and gameplay proceeds as if you'd killed him.
      3. "Bosses". There's a handful of cybernetic supervillians you've got to fight your way through. Its possible to defeat them in a manner that is technically nonviolent (overriding a computer code to power them off), but they still wind up dead.

      Deus Ex is a still a great game, though. For any particular problem it has, there's really no way they could've done it better without impairing the fundamental gameplay.

  • Appropriate quote (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mfos.org ( 471768 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:18PM (#4541943)
    I think the attraction of being a bad ass can be explained by this quote from Neal Stephenson in his book Snow Crash

    Until a man is twenty-five he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastry in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Columbian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad. Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about being the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken. The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class motherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. If it wasn't for the hydrogen bomb, a man could still aspire...But Raven's nuclear umbrella puts the world title out of reach.
    • Yeah, it would have if you had stopped right before "Hiro used to feel that way, too". As it is, you just pasted twice as much content as you needed to. The copyright police will be at your door with a copy of the fair use statutes bright and early monday morning.

  • If I pirate Vice City... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IIRCAFAIKIANAL ( 572786 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:18PM (#4541944) Journal
    ... what would that say about me?

    Here's a better question - if the people that play these games lack morals, then why do they pay for it and why can RockStar games stay in business? Obviously, this game is a hit because moral people like to act immorally in a fantasy environment.

  • Win through protest? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rizzuh ( 594786 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:19PM (#4541952) Homepage
    First of all the article is just about Vice City and the controversy surrounding it. Warren Spector (Thief, Deus Ex) mentioned the freedom of choice (be good or be bad), but that's not really the main focus of the article.

    The summary given in the submission is misleading. There is absolutely no way you can "win" the game without raising a gun. To complete the narrative (GTA does have a story, you know!), I have no doubt that there will be some murder here and there. If GTA3 was any indication, more often than not you will be killing someone.

    In order to get 100% (which is separate from the main narrative) you must rob stores, complete "rampages" (killing as many as possible in a given time), and even collect hidden packages which I think are statues this time around.

    Now, if you want to run around delivering Pizza, only killing criminals with police vehicles, drive people around in taxis, or sell ice cream, you are very welcome to do so. In fact, Vice City even lets you buy businesses to profit from and houses for you to live in.

    While GTA: Vice City allows you to do basically anything, if you really wish to play the game you're going to kill a lot of people and you'll be a gangster.

    My copy comes Tuesday.

  • I'm a big fan of GTAIII and I've already ordered my copy of VC. It's a great game. It's an adult game made for adults. Nothing wrong with that.

    How on earth can you win it peacefully though? How many of the missions are to kill somebody? I think we lose credibility and the argument when such claims are made. There is no way to win that game without taking the life of some of the characters in it. Can you win it by taking fewer lives? Sure but that's far cry from peaceful.

    I'm not particularly in favor of banning games or things like that. I don't really mind the labels on them, parents should know what they are getting their children and then ultimately I think a good parent would play along or at least observe their kids gaming habbits. You're a parent and don't lke GTA3, then don't let your kids play it. There isn't a credible way that you can claim that the game can be played peacefully though; unless you're talking about just driving around and exploring which isn't really playing. By saying such things you make the statements of the opposition more credible.

    Violent game? Certainly, you're lying if you think it can be played peacefully. Morally objectionable? Probably in the same league as watching CSI or paying to see Red Dragon, in other words, not terribly extreme. Morally objectionable to let young teenagers play without supervision? Possibly, that's really for parents to decide though.

  • Vice vs. BMX XXX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:23PM (#4541970) Homepage
    OK, I am a very conservative person and am generally disgusted by the kind of things shown/done in movies and on TV. I am also an avid gamer.

    Now that you know where I'm comming from, here is my take on things. This is the second game mentioned on /. recently, so I'll give you my oppinion on both, and why they differ.

    GTA
    I have played GTA3 and it was fun, and I plan to play vice city. Does it show killing? Yes. Does it show hookers? Yes. Does it show law breaking? Yes. Do they do it all just to get people mad? NO. All of these things are in the game because they belong there. The guy you play lives in this seedy world, and these are the kind of things that go on. It's sorta like real life. Do people complain that there are people dying in war games? No. Can you make a good wargame where you're a soldier without killing? Probably not, at least not one that's realistic. In the same way, you can't make a game about a thug/gangster/whatever without the kind of missions in Vice City. In shot: these things are there for mood and story. They are not just thrown in. Objecting to the content in this game is like objecting to the death and nazi stuff in Schindler's List. It's an essential part of the story/game/movie/whatever.

    BMX: XXX
    This game, IMNTBHO never should have been made. While most everyting "objectionable" in GTA is there for a reason, all the disgusting raunchy perverted sub-juvinile stuff in the game is just there to get publicity and the attention of horny people. There is no reason for nudity and pimps in a game about BMX biking. Last time I checked, there were very few pimps who are BMX stars. Dave Mira BMX doesn't need that stuff. This game is simply grossity for grossocity's sake. It is perfectly reasonable to object to this game for the kind of content in it, because that content has no bearing on the gameplay.

    In short, GTA:VC is perfectly fine; the people who made BMX XXX need to be dragged out into the street, and run over repeatidly by hookers and pimps on bicycles. Under stand I tend to use hyperboly, and that I haven't played either game. I intend to play GTA:VC, but I'll be dead before I play BMX XXX.

  • Ahhhhh.. the youth of today (Score:3, Insightful)

    by exhilaration ( 587191 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:25PM (#4541979)
    With two working parents that are rarely around to discuss ethics and morality, religion being out of style, MTV constantly boradcasting images of drug/alcohol use and sexual exploitation of women, and finally video and computer games allowing them to actively indulge their media-inspired fantasies, I really have to wonder what kind of adults the kids of today are going to make.

    It's going to be an interesting future.

    • You know, of course, that 30 years ago everyone that was older than 30 said exactly the same thing, and what happened? The adults of today turned out to be more or less the same as the adults of yesterday. I predict exactly the same thing happening again. Hysterical reviling of youth culture has been a hobby of the current generation in power for as long as we've had youth, culture, hobbies, and generations.

  • I'm pretty sure.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:26PM (#4541984) Journal
    That blowing up cars, and killing people by various methods is a lot better done in a game, then oh.. I don't know, say in real life?

    I'd rather see people get their frustrations out on a computer game than to literally run someone down. Of course, there's not even a correlation between the two, which really brings to question why the HELL people blame video games for real life violence.

  • Lets be stupid (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantax ( 12175 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:33PM (#4542016) Homepage
    Using games as a reflection of real-life violence is getting old. We have all watched this week the various screwed up problems around the world, from the Chechen music-hall siege, israeli-palestinian killings, etc etc. For some reason people are convinced video games are a source of violence, but interestingly enough I doubt the people involved in the above mentioned conflicts even give a shit about video games, let alone play them.

    1. People are often motivated to kill others for strong emotional reasons.
    2. Video games are like play-acting (cowboys & indians, cops & robbers): they resemble their real-life counterparts, but only a mentally deranged person would confuse the two. Little kids recognize the difference.
    3. People have inherit violent tendancies, the right series of circumstances will bring this out no matter what. This is different for each person.
    4. Proper manipulation of those tendancies results in violence. In the case of Columbine, the constant being picked upon was the catalyst.
    5. Violence is often commited to achieve a goal. Video games do not give you a goal that transfers to real life; their goals are usually narrow and simple. Ie, kill all the monsters, fight the boss badguy, etc. The person would have to provide their own seperate goal to be able to kill because of a video game since the game's goals do not transfer very well to RL.
    6. Trying to summarize a person's actions through one attribute/action is piss poor, and is akin to saying that people are stupid robots that are completely predictable. History shows that humans are about as predictable as electrons.
    7. If a person is determined to kill because of a video game, it is irrelevant that the catalyst was a video game as that person has already shown mental instability and thus is not valid as a reference. The idea being here someone determined to be stupid will be stupid no matter what.

    • Come on!

      Everyone knows that guns don't kill people, video games kill people!
      Before videos games there was no violence, just bibles and kittens.
      Please, think of the children.

  • Bowling for Columbine (OT) (spoiler) (Score:5, Informative)

    by pneuma_66 ( 1830 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @01:41PM (#4542051)
    I just saw Bowling on friday, and this movie tries to get to the issue, of why there is so much gun violence in the us. It does happen to graze on the video game aspect, however it bypasses that as the reason, and later says, that the two columbine boys went bowling on the morning of the killings, so, is bowling responsible?

    The movie touches on that most first world countries have yearly gun murder rates below 200, whereas, the us has over 11,000.

    From what i gathered from the movie, they come to the conclusion that gun violence comes mainly from the extreme paranoia generated by every form of media. They compared the nightly news from canada versus the news in the US. The top story in the canadian news was about speed bumps, and the top stories in the US were all about death, and killing. Plus, to really bring their point home, they point out that canada has 10million homes, with over 7million guns in the country, so it's not the prevalance of guns that cause violence.

    However, every person who wants some ammunition (pun intended) to fight the 'videogames kill' mantra of unenlightened politicians, and parents, go see this movie. It will definitely give you very good arguments to defend our position.
    • The movie touches on that most first world countries have yearly gun murder rates below 200, whereas, the us has over 11,000.

      Please, don't ever compare absolute numbers for things that should be measured per-capita. The US has a much greater population than the other first world nations.

      Maybe you're just re-quoting a statistic Moore tossed out because it sounded exciting, but regardless of your stance on the issues, please don't propagate incomplete facts.

      Oh, and what's the spoiler? How is it possible to spoil a documenary, anyway??
      • With Moore's propensity for fiction -- this is a man who declared that his writing satire overrides means that he need not be responsible for getting the details right, and who has a bad habit of exaggeration and promulgating unchecked accusations, at least according to Spinsanity [spinsanity.org] -- it should indeed be treated as a spoiler.
      • please don't propagate incomplete facts.

        Ya really. That stat is totally useless. Because there are so many first world countries less than 1/55th the size of America, boasting populations of under 5 million people.

        Moore does state in the movie that the per capita figures are equally harrowing, and while he doesn't give stats, as he should, the viewer tends to believe him, because he throws out insanely low numbers (by comparison) for countries like Japan, Germany, Britain and Canada, which have decent-sized populations.

        I went into the documentary expecting Michael Moore to have already decided how he felt on the issue and to rail blindly and shrill-ly for liberal causes like gun control, but I was surprised. The movie was nuanced, funny and really, really good.
    • The movie touches on that most first world countries have yearly gun murder rates below 200, whereas, the us has over 11,000.
      Yet the fact that the US is many times larger than those other first world countries doesn't have anything to do with that? You're comparing apples and oranges, my friend.

  • GTA3 is funny (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sunhou ( 238795 ) on Sunday October 27, 2002 @02:03PM (#4542176)
    While playing GTA3, I found myself laughing more than anything else. The violence and "offensiveness" is so over-the-top it really is funny. I get a kick out of telling my friends that I love the game, and what the game is about, because they invariably give me these odd looks like I am insane. But that's a big part of the fun of the game -- immersing myself in a world which I will never otherwise be a part of. And because it is so over-the-top, it makes the immersion more satisfying in some way.

    I am a math professor, and I have occasionally made up homework problems related to GTA3 in my classes. And I've organized a couple of video game parties for students in my dept to get together and play (mostly to see if anyone can beat me at Mario Kart 64, which no one can, but we also sometimes laugh at GTA3).

    I beat GTA3 long ago, but I occasionally fire it up and drive the tank around, causing tons of mayhem in a virtually indestructible vehicle. I've been thinking of replaying it from the start. And there are other things I have yet to do, like get one of the cool FBI cars (I almost got one once, but by the time the FBI is after you, it's hard to walk around on the street without getting gunned down by all the law enforcement types).

    I will be running out to get GTA:VC.
  • I say the old civilization games coz i hear from every where the new one sucks.

    Anyways there you could win trough peacefull means (launching a space ship), or by taking over the whole world.

    I almost never won by launching spaceships, and even if i did i made sure i had the world firmly under my foot by the time my spaceship arrived.

    I think video game critics should at last realize that one of the purposes of the video game is to feed a person's anti-social and violent urges in a safe way.

    The same video game critics should instead examine those that do not wish to vent their sadistic urges on videogames.

    In the past 10 years i have watched ordinary law abiding people in the US and abroad get warm and fuzzy feeling watching afghanis, iraqis or serbs being bombed into oblivion. I have seen my friends get very satisfied and amuzed when they saw thousands of iraqi soldiers burnt to a crisp as they were trying to run for their lives.

    And the same people always make sure to vote for a president that will guarantee those images will keep coming to their tv screen.

    We also have a quite popular tv show detailing the sick and inhuman torture that happens in our prisons. That such stuff happens is common knowledge and the source of millions of jokes told by fratboys and bad comedians.

    Yet if a politician ever promises to create humane conditions in our prison system, he is guaranteed to lose. The voters want that stuff to happen in their jails.

    Well those couple of examples should show that the people complaining about violence on video games are hypocritical. They blast the realistic but fake violence in video games, but are too scared to face the sadism and lust for very real violence present in the ordinary non video game playing citizen.

    Well I would much prefer it if every one got their kicks from putting the world under their iron fist in civilization, instead of watching their country carpet bomb some poor third world peasants on tv.

  • Violent games vs racist games (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dirk ( 87083 ) <dirk@one.net> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @02:35PM (#4542308) Homepage
    I remember hearing a while ago about some nutbag who made a white supremecist game. The idea was to run around kill as many minorities as you can, in the most horrible way you can. It was advertised along the lines of "run through the hood and hit niggers with bat, shoot all the spics you can" and things like that. Now, I think it would be a fair statement to say that most people (even on /.) would be against this game. So the big question is, what is the real difference between a game that encourages you to kill "spics" and a game that encourages you to kill other people? Is it really that much worse to be a racist than to beat up a prostitute and blow up a police car?
    • So the big question is, what is the real difference between a game that encourages you to kill "spics" and a game that encourages you to kill other people? Is it really that much worse to be a racist than to beat up a prostitute and blow up a police car?

      Not a bad question, but I think that it would lie more in the obvious fact that the "kill spics" game not only openly promotes racism, but violent racism. With this game, you're imitating an Aryan extremist, whereas with the "beat up a ho" game, you're imitating a common street thug.
    • People who would buy a game like that would only buy it because they are racists. Someone who was not racist would be absolutely uninterested in such a game. To the contrary, people who play GTA are almost invariably not murderers.
    • Politically correctness is about popularity, not ethics. Nowadays the popular opinion is that hispanics and blacks are cool but arabs are target practice. It's wrong but it's popular.
  • Anyone see the TV ads for Conflict: Desert Storm? One of the clips they show has Saddam Hussein squarely in a sniper's sights. Haven't heard any outcry about this game, but I guess in this case killing people (or a certain person in particular) is just fine to teach our kids.

    Just thought that was interesting

  • What the article mentions but never brings together is the ability of the player to win the game through peaceful(ie: not killing people) or criminal means.

    It doesn't "bring together" that point because it's barely relevant. It's an interesting aside at most, which is how the article treats it.

    It instead "brings together" the much more germaine point that there is a healthy market for games aimed at adults. It leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions about whether adults have a right to expect such games to be created and marketed, but rather pointedly implies that we do. It puts anyone who thinks this game should be taken off the market in the position of also thinking that only G-rated movies should be released and that all books published should be appropriate for children old enough to read. Certainly, there are people who feel this way, but the article doesn't let them disguise themselves. IMO, a good piece of writing.

    Michael

  • I put GTA3, Vice City, Eminem, Marilyn Manson, etc. in the same catergory: scapegoats people use when something goes wrong with society. Their reasoning is if they point the finger at someone else quickly enough, no one will point the finger at them. 2 kids shot up Columbine? If their parents had paid a tiny bit of attention to them they might have noticed something early enough to do something about it and it never would have happened. But that doesn't matter, all that matters is they played violent video games and listened to loud music. The media can't be to blame for glorifying violence either (live coverage of the latest war, proudly sponsored by Coca-Cola, anyone?), because the media are the ones bringing us our news, our atrocities, and our thoughts. I see this complaining about Vice City as "softening the beachhead", so when whatever bad happens 6 months from now they can say "These kids played games like Vice City, that's what made them do these horrible things. We told everyone when these games came out that they would cause things like this, now look what's happened!"
  • i just imagine the headlines when it finally makes into stores around here.. butchering people in 3d. and no peaceful means. http://www.gopostal.com/ [gopostal.com]

  • generational gap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv@nOspam.ivoss.com> on Sunday October 27, 2002 @04:14PM (#4542886) Homepage Journal
    Of all the people who are blaiming video games for just about everything these days, I haven't heard from one person who actually plays video games for leisure and thinks violent video games turn kids in to killers. Almost all of the higher-ups blaiming video games had an intern go, "Here Senator, look how evil this game is!"

    What's so surprising is how shortsighted and hypocritical these people can be, because they are reacting the same exact way many politicians did to rock music in the 50's and 60's. While I don't usually agree with Mr. Gore's politics, we do share the same musical tastes, the Grateful Dead. The logic that Mr. Gore uses against video games is the same logic that was used against various types of music in the 50's and 60's. The MUSIC was blamed when the kids grew their hair, the MUSIC was to blame when kids took drugs. Now its video games and rap music that are causing violence. So if Gore or any Baby Boomer politician wants to regulate or ban video games, they should really start with a ban on the Beatles.

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