buttonmashing

Mashing buttons since 1984

Commentary

Law & Order takes on Video Games

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I’m a fan of the Law & Order franchise and I catch most of the Special Victims Unit (SVU) episodes. One thing that makes the series compelling is that the cases they deal with don’t always end up tied up with a happy little bow where the bad guy is caught and the victim can pick up and move on with their lives. Sometimes, the bad guy (or girl) gets away with murder. It something that bugs the heck out of my wife (she needs everything packaged perfectly) but I enjoy it. I don’t enjoy the fact that bad people do bad things and get away with it, I like the fact that life isn’t fair and sometimes really crappy stuff happens. So it was this reason that caused a little trepidation when I heard that tonight’s episode was about some kids doing a crime they have done over and over in a video game. I thought for sure they were going to hammer away the “violent video games make violent kids”. At first it seemed like that was the path they were going to take. It wasn’t looking good.

The officers come across a body of a hooker who’s been hit by a car, beaten and robbed. Det. Stabler’s son recognizes the M.O. as the object of a video game called “Intensity” (*cough* I mean Grand Theft Auto *cough*) where the object is to run people over and beat them up to take their money. Again, I don’t like where this is going.

Long story short, they catch the teenagers who did the crime, and their high-profile, ignorant-as-nails lawyer cooks up a plea of not guilty because they were addicted to video games and couldn’t distinguish right from wrong. My favorite character of the series, Dr. Wong lays the psychiatric smack-down on the lawyer and basically says the narcissistic adrenaline junkies knew exactly what they were doing. When the lawyer asks him if he thinks video games make the kids that play them violent, he basically says “No”. What’s this? They are actually saying the violent video game “Intensity” didn’t drive these kids to do a heinous crime? That they, of their own conscience, ran a girl over because they were sickos, not whacked-out video game players? Astonishing! I can’t believe it, but the “Main Stream Media” (the evil one?) is actually saying violent video games don’t make kids do violent things? I thought this was a no-no! Someone is gonna get it over at NBC! Didn’t they get the memo? But sure enough, there it was, laid bare for all to see. Complete with the guilty verdicts for the two teenagers on the count of 2nd degree murder. Amazing.

Overall, they did a pretty good job of portraying video games in the episode. The don’t just show them off as mindless entertainment and they definitely don’t make it seem like they’re a breeding ground for an army of killers. The company that made the game Intensity also made children’s games. The gamers weren’t nerdy looking teens, although of the game programmers did. I’d have to ding the kids who played the perps. They weren’t convincing gamers. The boy in particular seemed more like a frat gamer than a “real gamner”. But I give them credit, they did a lot of things right. The even had Stabler’s son playing a Tapwave Zodiac at the end of the episode (shameless product placement? Probably. My guess is the kid owns a GBA in real life). I thought the episode was well done, and I applaud the writers from avoiding the knee-jerk reaction of blaming the video game and getting to the root cause — these kids were just plain bad seeds.

Update (2/9/05) – It appears I wasn’t the only one who caught this episode. Andrew at Tales of a Scorched Earth posted his comments here.

Update (2/15/05) – Here are some more comments, by new-to-me Clubberjack. He also made some pretty good points.

More good stuff.

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At Popular Culture Gaming, the topic of women in video games and in particular their use in magazines comes up, this time discussing their prominent display of scantily-clad (man, that’s a cool phrase) women on magazines. He says he’s ashamed to be a gamer. When I see this stuff I can’t help but agree. It doesn’t do anything but further pigeon hole us gamers into male teenagers (and tweenies) with raging hormones. But I think this problem is deeply rooted in pretty much all print media. With the advent of the internet, I think it’s clear that print media is struggling to find its place and magazines are using sex to sell issues. Just look at any magazine rack at your local 7-11. Unfortunately, I think video game magazines are particularly guilty of this.

From the I-could-have-told-you-that research, apparently guys prefer video games to TV. Yup. I watch one or two shows regularly (Lost and Scrubs) and sports, but I definitely prefer games to TV. Unless one of my sports teams is on TV, I’d rather ve gaming. Sometimes that means waiting until the wife is done with her shows, but often she shows me the love and watches her shows on the little TV in the bedroom and I get the big TV for gaming. This particular article concentrates on online gamers and comes for the UK, but I think it’s pretty applicable here, too.

Also from the article –

Global rivalries are strong online, with a third of UK gamers (31 per cent) choosing the US as the nation they most like to beat online followed closely by the French (18 per cent) and Germans (11 per cent)(3).

I love this!

From Guardian Unlimited Game Blog

New Games Journalism and Blogs

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Today there was a pretty good discussion over at EvilAvatar, discussing the so-called NGJ (New Games Journalism) where the formulaic review is eschewed in favor of the more colloquial and personal review.

I won’t duplicate the links here, you can follow them from EA. I did want to elaborate a little more on what I mentioned in a comment there (I go by i_aint_yer_pa). I really think gaming blogs are going to fill the void produced by reviews of games that lack emotion. They won’t be reviews per-se, they will be more like impressions and experiences that people have with a particular game. I mentioned my experience with The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. As I was playing through WW, I stopped playing more than once to take in the environment and admire its artistry and beauty. The under-water palace is one of the more sublime experiences I’ve had playing video games. It has been a long time since I felt a part of a video game, but in that instant, after I had vanquished all my foes and I was alone in the great hall, I just looked around in awe. When I descended the stairs and saw the marvelous stained glass windows, I was absolutely immersed. I try to convey in words what I felt but they still feel inadequate. Nevertheless, people who have played the game understand what I mean and hopefully people who haven’t played the game will consider giving it a try, if nothing else because they want to have a similar experience.

That’s the kind of thing I want to read about when I read snippets and reviews about games. I’ve already sworn off previews, I want to read about how people have been affected by a game. This isn’t going to happen all the time, but when it does, I want to read about it. I want to have similar experiences. That’s why I think gaming blogs will become more of a source of gaming trends and become more influential in gaming purchase decisions.

As a small example, I point to GTA:SA as a hint of what could happenin. The “main-stream” review sites are giving it high marks. But then I read things from bloggers complaining about certain aspects of the game, I have two sides to weigh. But it’s nice to know that there’s more than just the unending praise that some of the bigger sites (and print magazines) give to games. I wish I could have read a review similar to what I wrote about Fable before I plunked my fifty hard earned dollars down for that stinker. I probably would have still purchased Fable, but at least I would have a better idea of someone elses experience. Not whether it pushes 30 fps or sounds fantastic in surround sound but if it was fun and as immersive as was promised. That would have been a start.

Well see how these things develop. It will be interesting.

Gaming Blogs

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Hopefully this is a trend to come: more gaming blogs. There have been a few “gaming blogs” (if such a thing exists). Penny Arcade has been a sort-of blog for a long time, Game Girl Advance is another site that has some great insight into this world we call gaming. Now sites like Joystiq and Kotaku are starting to garner more of a wide spread audience for gaming blogs. There are a few sites I’ve got bookmarked as gaming blogs, and I’ve started a list in the sidebar of gaming blogs I read.

So how did ButtonMashing become a blog? I began thinking about starting a gaming site back in January when I was a SAHD (stay at home dad, for the uninitiated). I was looking for something that was productive and fun to do while the baby slept. The idea of ButtonMashing was born. At first I thought of making a site that would be an aggregate of reviews of video games, but GameRankings does a pretty good job of that. Then I thought about a site for links to gaming news and announcements, but GameTab and Evil Avatar do that much better than I could. So I there went that idea, too. I finally settled on using simple blogging software (Blogger in this case) and simple blog about what gaming I was doing and what I thought about gaming in general. I had the best of intentions, but then life happened and I got a full-time job. That not only reduced my video gaming time, but my online time in general. Now that things have settled down, I can finally get some good gaming in and some good blogging. While I’m still working on garnering an audience, I do appreciate those of you who stop by and read whatever I’ve jotted down. Hopefully it will be worth something.

Now I’m on the look out for new and old gaming blogs. If you have one, or know of a good one I’m missing, let me know. I’d love to hear from fellow gaming bloggers. Hopefully we can build a community similar to other “blogospheres” out there.