Ten reasons why we're all going to burn in hell, apparently. After the furore has died down about "that particular scene" in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2...
...the bleating masses damning gaming from on high might get their memories back and remember the other times that videogames have run roughshod through the red-tops for all the wrong reasons. Levels of violence in videogames, and the realism of games running on powerful consoles and PCs may well make for sensationalist headlines, but at least MW2 gives you the choice to filter out the most shocking content before you've even fired a bullet.
We haven't always been wrapped up in cotton wool though. In no particular order, witness ten more tests of your moral fibre dotted through the history of videogaming.
1) The scientists / refugees in Oids (Atari ST / Amiga).
[THUMB1]
You're an ace pilot who just happens to be flying one of the most technically sophisticated spaceships in the history of mankind. That craft just happens to have a death-dealing arsenal capable of levelling entire landscapes. As you cruise low over the green forests and undulating hillsides in Oids, you spot the very humans you've been dispatched to rescue.
Moral choice: Toast 'em or save 'em.
At some point the developer chose to include a rather satisfyingly gruesome animation triggered by you shooting the refugees with your napalm gun. Refugees run around waving at you, but with one twitch of your itchy trigger finger they run around on fire before withering slowly to the ground as charred husks. Sick enough but once you realise you can do this "accidentally" you just can't help yourself.
2) The scientists / refugees in Zzoom (ZX Spectrum).
[THUMB2]
Hang on a minute, I could just type entry 1 all over again. Same deal - super powerful aircraft with machine guns, same hapless refugees milling around on the horizon. They even wave in the same cute manner that the poor little dolts in Oids do. Who'd be a scientist in a videogame eh? (see also: Half Life 1, 2, 3, etc etc).
Moral choice: Defend them or make them eat leaden death
Ahhh bless those developers. Once again rather than making the humans just disappear without a whimper, loosing off a volley of bullets into a group of cheerily waving refugees will see them propelled into the air sickeningly before their bullet-raddled corpses thud back to earth. Running your guns along a group of these poor little guys gives you the opportunity to turn them into a deathly Busby Berkeley chorus line of corpses.
3) Interesting uses for a plastic bag in "Manhunt" (1 and 2) (PS2, PSP, Wii).
[THUMB3]
As the subject of experimentation in prison, and in the case of Manhunt 1, the inclusion in a sick televisual festival of carnage, you're not exactly on the most stable moral ground the moment you set foot in either of Manhunt's gaming worlds. The over-the-top levels of violence weren't what caused outrage when the first game was pulled from shelves by worried retailers, but a tenuous link with a murder investigation ensured that hundreds of thousands of gamers who hadn't even batted an eye at the thing suddenly all wanted a copy.
Moral choice: Go gung ho, or sneakily suffocate your foes.
Though primarily a stealth game, it is possible to play through Manhunt 1 and 2 taking on your foes face to face for the majority of the time. It's far more prurient to find new and interesting uses for the various objects in the game, and ways of sneaking around in the shadows dispatching your enemies stealthily. Finding a plastic bag, you're given the opportunity to sling it over an enemy's head, suffocating them with it. Strangely enough, no major supermarket chains wanted to enter into a product placement deal with Rockstar for that particular in-game item.
4) Live a life less ordinary in Alter Ego (C64, PC)
[THUMB4]
What if a game could truly offer you the chance to live your entire life from birth to death in an entirely different way to the way you've actually chosen?
We're constantly hearing people describing their experiences in Second Life or The Sims as offering them chances and opportunities for illicit moral behaviour that they otherwise wouldn't have been given the chance to exercise, but Alter Ego truly gave the player a constantly branching set of choices to see exactly how their actions could affect their in-game future.
Moral choice: Spray cream or healthy snack?
Really early on as an infant exploring your immediate environment, you find your way into a fridge and start exploring all the various foodstuffs stashed away in there. You're a baby, incapable of determining what's good for you and what's not. The game offers you the choice to see what happens if you feed the baby (you) various nasty things. Can you imagine for a moment if Alter Ego was redeveloped on modern gaming systems capable of producing immersive 3D environments, and to wit, 3D representations of your character, and realistic animations to show you the consequences of your actions? There'd be more than uproar.
Alter Ego relied on your imagination to fill in the gaps. Personally I found that a little bit more terrifying than a polygonal representation of my toddler self.
5) Are you human? (or are you a robot dancer?) in Bladerunner (PC)
[THUMB5]
Back before Westwood were purely the studio that knocked out soulless annual updates of Command and Conquer, they produced possibly one of the best film-licenced games ever committed to CD-ROM.
Through superb use of the original cast and Syd Mead's exquisite production designs, the players took on the role of a 'Bladerunner', a highly trained cop with a duty to apprehend non-human refugees attempting to infiltrate all levels of society. As fans of the film will know, there's an air of uncertainty regarding what you actually are and in the game this is played upon, by offering the player more than one opportunity to take sides.
Moral choice: Kill 'em or join 'em.
The plot in Bladerunner (the game) tugs at your moral fibre with multiple choices given to take certain actions that will have direct impact on other characters in the game. Through intelligent dialogue and scripting, it's virtually impossible to harden your heart to the plight of the escaped replicants. At the same time there's a rather alluring female Bladerunner who does her best to ensure that you don't stray from the straight and narrow either. So what do you do? Think with your heart or your Johnson? Blow the replicants away or see them through to safe passage offworld?
Tough choice but Stone's arse is a persuasive force of nature, n'est pa?
6)Taking away the ladder / doors in "The Sims" (PC)
[THUMB6]
We've already mentioned The Sims and the vicarious chance it offers you to live an alternate reality, albeit a dolls-house-like representation of one. Though The Sims 2 first introduced Woo-hooing (a quick fumble under the covers) and the consequences of leaping into bed with your partner, and Sims 3 slightly expanded on this by offering players the chance to shack up with either sex, the original Sims had a slightly more sinister gameplay mechanic that allowed would-be Fred Wests to get rid of annoying neighbours once and for all.
Moral choice: Invite them for a swim, or a look in your utility cupboard?
It didn't take long before the first players realised that The Sims allowed you to construct a fantastic and elaborate swimming pool complete with diving board and ladder. Once Sims entered the water, you could pause the game, sell the ladder and there would be no way for hapless Sims to exit the pool. They would paddle around for hours, clamouring for attention, before eventually running low on energy and finally expiring leaving you with a headstone or urn to clutter up your back yard with.
A similar bug also allowed you to construct a room in your house, invite an unsuspecting Sim in for a look around, before again allowing you to pause the game, removing the room's doorway. Stick an old black and white TV in there to keep them awake and before long you'd end up with another fine funereal ornament to add to your collection. Of course, no one in their right mind would do anything like this to their rich spouse in the game in order to nab his / her personal fortune, would they?
7) Lesbian sex at the offworld Cineplex in "Mass Effect" (Xbox 360, PC)
[THUMB7]
I feel a bit cheated. I didn't have the patience to stretch the boundaries in Bioware's sci fi RPG Mass Effect and certainly never got the chance to munch alien rug, despite playing a female character for the majority of the game. True enough though, it didn't take long before Fox News and CNN focussed on the fact that your character, Commander Shepherd, could potentially get it on with wild alien babes.
Moral choice: Kipper licker or choccy dipper
The inclusion of sex in RPGs seems to be workmanlike at best, and Bioware's attempt to sex up sci-fi in Mass Effect caused a tiny ripple of tittilation, but not quite enough of a huge splash to raise the game's level to anything on a par with a mildly steamy sex scene in a 15-rated movie. The player could actually (accidentally) completely miss all the racy bits if purely concentrating on the main mission structure, so it ended up being a case of choosing to hoover up all the side quests that would directly bring you into contact with alien minge, or just getting on with the main game and getting it over and done with before the graphical glitches, poly-clipping and tearing gave you a soft-on.
8) Fable / Fable 2's "Be who you want to be" shenanigans. (Xbox / Xbox 360)
[THUMB8]
Bless Peter Molyneux, bless 'im to death. Reading back through his various developer chats stretching back as far as Populous, he's a man who has constantly tried to convince gamers that they hold in their hands the potential to create great mischief or achieve the lofty heights of moral purity.
If only life dealt so neatly with absolutes. You see, for all Molyneux's claims, really you don't get much of a choice in Fable 1 or 2. It all boils down to:
Moral choice: Make your game blissfully easy and your avatar gorgeously beautiful / handsome, or make your game bastardly hard and your avatar a complete munter.
Fable doesn't quite offer the branching gameplay and the constant testing of moral boundaries that it claims to. You can delve into acts of good and evil but mostly these will merely affect how tough your opponents are, or how far down the path of rank ugliness you'll end up travelling before you can try and claw back your chisel jaw and dazzling blue eyes. Molyneux also plays the "tittilation" card when it comes to dealing with sex in Fable 1 / 2, so even when you attempt to become a lecherous lothario you won't find anything too deviant going on.
9) The lure of the dark side in "Star Wars: Jedi Knight" (PC)
[THUMB9]
Arguably the best Star Wars game ever, Jedi Knight cast you as a rogueish space trader, a Han Solo understudy but with enough knowledge of the mysterious Force to choose your destiny, and side with good or evil.
Moral Choice: Heal thyself or Force Choke the fuck out of enemies
Be honest, you're in a boring corporate meeting. On your left shoulder Ben Kenobi's telling you that The Force is fantastic, can get you the babes, win the day and overcome evil empires. On your right shoulder is Emperor Palpatine telling you that you can reduce everyone in that meeting to red-faced choking husks with a little flick of your wrist. Pop quiz, hotshot, what are you going to choose?
In Jedi Knight, Kyle Katarn can gradually begin to make a choice between which powers to attain and implement, and there's absolutely no getting away from the fact that all the "Light Side" powers (like health restoration, stealth etc) are a little bit weedy and pissy compared to the "Dark Side" powers (Force choke, Force Lightning, being able to char the very flesh off an enemy's bones). Course, if you do make the moral choice to turn to the dark side you'll look like a Goth Emo reject for the end-sequence of the game, rather than the dashing, handsome and slightly roguish figure you probably should be.
Ahhh fuck it. Force choke it is then! Now where did those Ewoks go?
10) Absolutely everything you do or say in every moment of every Grand Theft Auto game ever (multiple formats).
A colleague of mine lets his 8 year old daughter play Grand Theft Auto IV. Before you phone social services, I should point out that this rather sweet and diminutive girl previously played Midtown Madness and enjoyed driving around the virtual representation of Chicago in a variety of vehicles, rigorously obeying traffic signals, staying in the right lanes on roads and being courteous, nay POLITE to other road users.
Oddly, she plays Grand Theft Auto IV in the same way - steadfastly ignoring the mission structure, drug dealing, prostitute murder simulation and hitman missions therein.
Moral choice: Put the game in the console, or leave it in its box
Personally I can't imagine letting a kid anywhere near GTA, not even if they claim to be using it as some sort of "Driving Miss Daisy" simulator. You see, the denizens of Liberty City can't help themselves and it's actually virtually impossible NOT to run people over because as good as the NPC AI is at pretending to represent a living breathing city, it does its job a little too well. Therefore there are always those citizens who will walk out in front of you, or get in the way of stray bullets, or otherwise suffer at Niko's / Johnny's / Luis's hands simply because they're as utterly stupid as real people are.
I'll take my colleague's word for it that during supervised sessions his angelic daughter will drive around humming the theme to Hannah Montana to herself while driving around taking in the sights and sounds of Liberty City but at the back of my mind would be two questions:
1) Whose car did she steal before getting behind the wheel to do the drive-by tourist thing.
2) What does she do when "daddy" isn't watching?
Conclusion:
It's becoming increasingly difficult to argue the case in favour of playing videogames when it seems the path to Damascus is so liberally strewn with questionable moments and moral dilemmas dressed up in the name of interactive entertainmeint. It'll only get worse too. The upcoming delights of Dante's Inferno will give games the chance to attain achievements for baby killing, while Bayonetta's stylish semi-naked torture mistress approach to dispatching angels is bound to raise a few eyebrows (as well as a few other more vital organs). Of course we've also got the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto to look forward to, and David Cage's supposedly ground-breakingly mature Heavy Rain going head to head with Alan Wake.
To paraphrase the tinny computery voice of WOPR in the film WarGames, surely then the only way to maintain a wholesome moral stance is "not to play". Now if we can only convince errant parents to...naw, that'd be daft.
Bungie vows never to follow the Activision route and charge extra for online multiplayer
(1) (30/07) 
Welcome anonymous user.
You can have your say below and post a comment,
but why not sign up and register for an account?
#1 - peej - on 10/11/2009 at 12:38 wrote:
#2 - HairyArse - on 10/11/2009 at 23:06 wrote:
#3 - peej - on 11/11/2009 at 08:03 wrote:
#4 - Metalfish - on 11/11/2009 at 21:05 wrote:
/Gains +50 evil points and levels up "literary snobbery"
#5 - peej - on 12/11/2009 at 08:13 wrote:
Ta for the crit though and taken in good stead (Igor, release the hounds and hunt that metallic bastard down! :)