Sick Fantasies

I'm sort of a casual gamer at best - I have a PSP with more ports than a cardiac center (Parappa the Rapper, Crazy Taxi, Lego Star Wars, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc), and I play in increments of about 1 minute and 20 seconds at a time. It's what life with a motor-mouthed 4-year-old allows.

But while I play stuff suitable for a 6-year-old with fast thumbs, I'm not a complete virgin to gore in games. I remember visiting an arcade in California when I was 8 and seriously digging the graphic violence: Knives in eyes, lopped off limbs zombies eating girls in bikinis. It fueled the dark side of my adolescent imagination until Freddy Kruger came along about a year later.

I point this out not to seem unsympathetic (reading that back it does sound a little creepy), but to point out a) the human psyche has a dark side that's neigh impossible to repress and b) now that I'm an adult and gore is no longer necessarily prurient, that is to say I can watch whatever content I damn well please. It's not an argument made very often, but it's the most relevant argument when it comes to censorship - adults watch porn because they want the sexual arousal, they watch horror because they want the shock and on some level enjoy the gore. In other words, until the law tells me differently I can consumer whatever content is legal for whatever reason I deem prudent, and that includes playing games like "Manhunt 2" because I think a sick fantasy where you sneak around an insane asylum and kill other crazy people is fun. If I thought that. Which I don't.

Let's start over - Rockstar Games, the folks behind the often maligned Grand Theft Auto, created a game called Manhunt 2, where a crazy guy goes around murdering people in an insane asylum. The game is so over the top and pervasively graphic that it got the dreaded "AO" or Adult Only rating in the US, which means most platforms won't support it. Moreover, the game was out and out banned in the UK in the past few days. They cited the games tone and gore as the reasons for the ban.

It's easy and somewhat effective to argue the game is a bad influence. Most of the research shows that children who play violent games and are not supervised or are without positive adult role models can alter their behavior in a negative way because of the game. It's also effective to argue that not all kids receive appropriate adult supervision and shouldn't play the game. I would make that argument.

But if "Halo 3," which made more money than any other video game in the history or gaming taught us is that adults and kids play games, meaning that adults are fully integrated into the video game process. If the system to keep kids away from adult games is broken (again, I'd argue it is), why should that penalize those seeking a dark thrill from a gory video game who are of age and legally able to consume such content? Fix the system that might put "Manhunt 2" in the hands of kids. Work hard on it. Treat it like booze. But if I couldn't have a bunch of beers one night because little Dylan down the street bought booze, there'd be a riot in the streets. There is no ideological difference because it's a dark, gory and ultimately gross game. It's legal, it's supported and I should be able to play it, no matter how dark it is.

Personal responsibility, morality and the beauty of the human soul all fit into a completely different argument. Go to Rogerebert.com and search for "Chaos" for a really good argument on that front (or better yet, buy his book "You're Movie Sucks," it's a great bathroom read). But if you allow these movies, games and other media to be legal in your society, you can't whine about it. You have to let people consume them.

That being said, "Manhunt 2" will never be played in my PSP. I've got a rapping dog to navigate to the bathroom.