Just don’t throw away Turok, okay?

I do my best not to play the more violent games when my son is around. If the stuff is cartoony, like what he’d see in a Justice League cartoon or in a comic, then I’m fine with him being around. Games like GTA or anything with bad language will be saved for a much later hour or when he’s not around.

I remember mentioning to one of the supervisors at the drop-in center that I take the kids that my son was turning everything he got his hands on into a gun. She just laughed and said, “At that age, EVERYTHING is a gun.”

It’s odd that that is the case but if you think back to your childhood, there’s a better than likely chance that you were running around with little plastic six-shooters and playing cowboys and indians.

Of course, I’ve got my son convinced that zombies roam the streets when he goes to bed and that any and all aggression he has should be vented in their direction. He’s more concerned about saving his family from the undead hordes than he is about making us join their ranks

But all of that said, good on you for drawing a line in the sand and being able to follow through with it. I’m not sure I could do it, though I do find myself backing away from more of the big ‘me-too’ action games these days because I’ve already played a million of them and I’d rather invest myself in a game with a good story and/or fun game mechanic than just trudge through the same gritty ubersoldier fantasy again.

But you will have some very strange kids, I’ve you succeed in keeping them away for too long. Or you will alienate yourselves from your kids, once they want it and you will appear to ‘not get it’. Like losing your connection to your kids, because you decided to end your ‘adult’ lifes to be ‘responsible’ parents.

In my view, the kids I grew up with, that had parents, that kept their ‘adult’ personality alive, instead of killing it for their ‘parent’ personality, rather end up ’socially successful’, than those with parents, who gave up their ways along the way.

Just my two cents

Up until GTA IV, video game violence affected me very little. Some of the choices presented in that game changed how I play games a bit.

Some people will say “it’s just a game,” like I used to say, but sometimes I wonder if that’s really the case.

Young boys have a tendency to act out. I kind of see my role as a parent in helping them understand what is and is not appropriate. I don’t worry about the games so much, but I think content is important to.

Sooner or later they’ll pick this behavior up. You cannot insulate them from the whole world and I’m not accusing you of trying, but reality has come crashing down on my head far too many times since becoming a parent. I simply cannot hold the world at bay even though I desperately want them to retain their innocence for as long as possible. I simply do not understand parents who let kids the same age as mine have unrestricted access to movies and games in their home.

I do believe our actions have effects even when we think no one is looking, but don’t push the blame on yourself too much. I think what you’re attempting to do is noble, but I wonder if it isn’t the wrong response for the right reasons.

“I don’t know if it’s because I’ve gotten older, but overly mature or violent games don’t really impress me that much anymore.”

I’ve actually noticed the same thing in myself. I really don’t need to spend 40 hours watching people being eviscerated anymore. I don’t know if its my age, or that the technology has improved making everything look more realistic, or what.

I think “tone” plays into it a lot for me, too. For instance, Uncharted… I played through it and loved it. I appreciated the lack of blood and dismemberment even though I was shooting humans, so it really didn’t bother me. It was just like its inspiration: saturday afternoon adventure films.

The flipside for me is Bioshock. I played part of the demo, and found it fairly horrific. One of the first things I had to do was bludgeon an insane person to death. Then start jamming needles into myself. No thanks. I understand that the story is amazing and all, but I just wasn’t going to be comfortable playing the game.

By the way, I don’t have kids. So this isn’t about anything but me and my lady. I still feel better about my gaming hobby now that I’m not constantly reveling in slaughtering other people/entities.