Posted on 11/18/2004 9:40:03 AM PST by red_is_beautiful
This time, the blood spills in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," which looks, feels and sounds a lot like its predecessors. That means you pull off drive-bys and other hard-core criminal goals, while killing cops, prostitutes and hundreds of innocent victims on the side. Some people complain that the game could desensitize children to murderous images. But it's rated M for Mature. Kids aren't supposed to have access to it, even though we know that many will. [...] There's sex in "San Andreas," as there was in "Grand Theft Auto III." For a small amount of money, you can pick up hookers and drive them behind a bush. The car rocks. Talk is exchanged. [...] The game is smart like that, but the characters aren't. The one thing I can't make happen is intellectual reflection. Characters point guns. Characters kill one another other. Not one stops to think.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesdispatch.com ...
God home Mr/Ms Nanny-state, all you want to do is have government censor people to suit YOUR personal taste under the guise of 'help the children' which is one statement that has beaten like a dead horse to the point where is it cliche.
By the way, red_is_beautiful joined Since Nov 5, 2004.
I smell a plant.
Finally, it was released that ONLY THREE PEOPLE were the ones responsible for the push to censor 'Married with Children' and fine Fox in the 80's.
Go home Mr/Ms Nanny-state, all you want to do is have government censor people to suit YOUR personal taste under the guise of 'helping the children' which is one statement that has beaten like a dead horse to the point where is it cliche.
By the way, red_is_beautiful joined Nov 5, 2004.
I smell a plant.
Finally, it was released that ONLY THREE PEOPLE were the ones responsible for the push to censor 'Married with Children' and fine Fox in the 80's.
We live in a country of two income families with unsupervised latchkey kids for whom the videogame is babysitter. We live in a country where parents simply do not have the time or energy or razzamataz to contradict media images. That is reality.
To control the moral content of media images parents must work together through the medium of censorship.
That is fundamental folly of libertarianism. Since 1965 society no longer has the power to censor media images (i.e, nudity, obscenity, the end of the Hayes Code, etc) or control negative behavior through ostracism or disgrace. So society asks the state to do what it no longer can.
"I like the ratings. The "M" rating convinced my wife Halo 2 is not appropriate for our kids."
Actually, that's another problem with the ratings - they don't distinguish very well.
Halo 2 is rated "M" because you kill a bunch of aliens who are trying to destroy the universe and because one type of enemy looks extremely grotesque.
GTA, in contrast, has you killing numerous innocents and police officers, while also including massive sexual content that is absent in Halo 2.
Now, I'm not saying that Halo shouldn't be rated "M" for its violence, but GTA should certainly be rated as worse than Halo (maybe a gaming version of NC-17).
Ratings just don't seem to care about sex - just about violence - and don't seem to distinguish between defensive violence and violence against innocents. Really, I think they should have separate ratings for sex and violence.
Another case of this would be comparing R-rated war movies like Black Hawk Down to the many steamy PG-13 movies out there - which of these movies do you think is worse?
As I said earlier, my parents locked up the Atari. My dad locked up the cable box. They could do it, why can't parents nowadays? I wasn't allowed to go to anyone's house unless my parents met their parents.
>>It is just a game.
True. I got Vice City for Christmas last year. I wonder if I have to bring that up in confession (I'm Catholic)? :-)
They sure are fun though. I'm a big car nut, so I like chasing/getting chased. And that emergency brake can work wonders getting around a corner!
Wait you can swim in San Andreas! Oh boy I gotta get it.
i just expressed my opinion. seems like you want a "nanny forum" in which you hear nothing else but your own opinion. it's not that dopey to question a game that allows children - you can't protect them completely - to play "killer of the month of innocent"...
I was writing a note in total disagreement, saying there has to be a cutoff somewhere, which I tought was "M." Sort of like adulthood--once you reach 18, anything goes, whether you're 18 or 80. I thought "M" was the same idea for video games.
But I am wrong.
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (http://www.esrb.org/), which rated the game "M," actually does have a category "AO" for "adults only," and I don't know why this rating wasn't chosen based on their criteria for an "AO" game. The difference in practical terms is negligible, as M is for 17+ and AO is for 18+.
FWIW I'd play this game if I had time... my PS2 has been collecting dust--saw dust, drywall dust, etc--while I work on my house. :)
Is that the norm for latchkey and single parent kids these days ? Gangs, crank, etc... That is the threat for most single and latchkey parents, not libertarian nostrums about 'censorship' or 'nanny state'. And it's getting worse.
Look, if you libertarians want us to become like Holland, well fine. Most Americans don't and they put GWB back in the White House.
Hey, cool.............TAG LOCATIONS
http://hem.bredband.net/708145/tags.html
Uh-huh. And Bush pushed to have these games removed how? I see, he didn't. Because he doesn't want to be your kids' daddy.
WOW - its been almost 2 years since I played Team Fortress...
that was the most fun you could have for free...
best free game ever
You crossed the line from opinion to censorship when you stated "these games shouldn't be produced at all".
I have seen your kind before, you are the same as those who arre part of the anti-gun-rights movement, the high-taxes for schools, the 'let's enslave the children (and the rest of America)' to 'save the children. All you want is to silence the rest of us and keep us FROM ACTUALLY ENJOYING LIFE.
Here's a hard lesson, humanity has a savage side, especially during puberty, that needs to be fed. With violent videos and video games this can be done virtual in environment where no one actually gets hurt.
But if you censor those videos and video games, you CLOSE that pressure valve, YOU cause REAL LIFE violent actions and crimes to rise in this country.
The single strongest component of the GOP is the cultural right, which correctly sees censorship as the parent's friend and ally. People who voted against the party of Hollywood, against the party of license voted for George Bush.
Your side lost. It lost because the public can tell the difference between 50 Cent and James Joyce. It lost because GTA wasn't made by some outspoken free spirit but by the centers of American corporate media power using the most sophisticated tools available, spewing poisonous cultural messages (for people to become consumers 24-7 owned by mass marketers they must cease listening to any other cultural voice than the mass media. that is why the mass media are so hostile to church, family, deferred gratification, basic moral values.). Parents know that they must fight back collectively to protect their families and culture.
My side lost? LMAO. I voted for Bush. And you must have been upset that he didn't do anything to censor or keep games like this off the market in the past 4 years. You will also be annoyed when he won't in the next 4 years. He believes in a few things you don't: freedom and capitalism.
"The Entertainment Software Rating Board (http://www.esrb.org/), which rated the game "M," actually does have a category "AO" for "adults only," and I don't know why this rating wasn't chosen based on their criteria for an "AO" game."
'AO' basically translates to "There's full frontal nudity and sex in this game." And as far as I know, only two games so far have that rating.
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