Manhunt 2: Take 2's Top Man Comments

So what you are asking is if this is the sort of game you would wish your wife or builder to play? This does smack of the Victorian view that the intellectual elite could "handle" pornography, but the lower classes could not.

Manhunt 2 could very well be the thin end of the wedge. What is to stop the BBFC, if they win their appeal, from then banning GTA IV? I'm just guessing here, but I bet GTA IV will be a far superior and worthy game than Manhunt 2, but it is from the same people who tried to get Manhunt 2 published.

What's next after GTA? UT III? Call of Duty? Uncharted? Halo? Burnout desensitizes you to car crashes, even encouraging you to create them, how irresponsible is that?

Do you really want Manhunt 2 to be the starting point for a comics code like set of rules for games?

Yes I do think it's true. I do not think any publisher in the Western world would touch it with a bargepole.



1) They are only generally accepted as classics because they all got published.
2) We can't start banning things because they are crap.
3) We can't know crap from good if we ban things.



I'm going to have to refer to the classic Mervyn Griffith-Jones' quote:





Is the murder rate actually up? Are we in a more violent world? Do they play a lot of video games in Darfur?

There will be a tet (Sic) later.

ho-ho-ho

Tim

I would say that in all the other games you've cited, the violence is justified in the wider point of the game. In the case of Manhunt, the violence is the point of the game, and that's why it shouldn't be tolerated by a responsible industry.

Any multiplayer shooter exists solely for the purpose of carrying out acts of violence on the other players. There's no story to justify the violence, with death match games boiling down to "how much more death can one player deal over the others".

Should those games be banned, or is death by pistol, automatic weapon, rocket launcher, sniper rifle or heavy ordnance seen to be more acceptable than knife, garrot, baseball bat or axe?

The difference comes down to little more than the implement used and the proximity it affords when carry out the act.

When you play a multiplayer shooter, do you take more gratification from the way in which you've destroyed the representation of your opponent, or just the fact you have? There is brief amusement when you frag another player with a rocket launcher in Quake, but mostly you revel the fact you've beaten them when they could have beaten you.

In Manhunt, you're rewarded for brutalising who is often an unsuspecting virtual victim in the most violent way possible.

Therein lies the difference. Multiplayer FPS' didn't arise because someone said "hey, let's allow the player to see what it looks like when they blow someone up with a rocket launcher." It's a competitive genre in which violence is a means to an end, and the weapons have evolved from that. In a way, it's not so far removed from tag.

My guess is that Manhunt, and correct me if I'm wrong, came about from someone thinking up a way to get some violent acts into a game to be controversial and bending a fairly poor story to fit around it. You'll notice how there isn't a silent-violent-hunter-killer genre because it's too weak to justify these games being made for anything other than hype and money.

My guess is that it was made to make money. This was the case because a ready audience exists that revels in that kind of pointless violence.

Nope, no guess. Certainty.

I'd prefer that audience to be sat inside getting rid of their violent urges on a video game.

As I asked before... is the world more violent since video games? Or is violence merely more widely reported?

Tim

I think we both know there's an argument for both of those, and I'd tend to agree with the latter. But as long as the lines are blurred, and there's still no conclusive proof that the encouragement of violent repetitive behaviour in computer games doesn't make the individual more aggressive, I still support games like Manhunt 2 being banned if studios aren't responsible not to make them in the first place.

Yes. In Warhawk, the exhilaration of a silent, swift knife kill, multiple wipeout with a single TOW missile or leaving an enemy as road paste under your 4x4 is nothing compared to a landmine or tank kill. Same was and is true of Quake 3's gauntlet and railgun.

The execution of the, um, execution is often half fun. Because I enjoy it doesn't make me potential murder, and the more I play these game isn't going to increase the likelyhood.


Unsuspecting? No. Manhunt had you play a murderer on death row who'd been spared and then forced into played the bait for an exclusive snuff video show. Your victims were tooled up, and you had to take them out silently whatever you had at hand in order to progress.

Ignoring the graphic kills, the situation is hardly different to Arnie's "Running Man" movie. The Stephen King book was less brutal and would have made a much better movie given today's reality TV overload - it had the protagonist as a regular guy from ghetto looking to win money for his family by becoming bait for the TV show. Should either book or movie be banned, despite scenes of chainsaws to the groin (movie) or characters walking on their own trailing intestines (book)?

Anyway, I'm not sure the how important the style of the kill is in Manhunt - it's been a long time and after several "levels" the play became tediously repetitive. However, I think that like most games the player settles for the most efficient and least risky method and sticks with it. The fact that one could chose a more grisly attack for one's personal gratification wasn't something Manhunt created - Soldier of Fortune (PC) and even Barbarian on the old 8-bits courted controversy over their optional limb/head removal manoeuvres. Did the BBFC ban either of those? Nope (though the nanny state Australia banned SoF)

It seems the BBFC's argument revolves around the game's "unremittingly bleak tone" and "casual encouragement of sadistic violence". The first statement is just ridiculous and without merit - I find Eastenders "unremittingly bleak", but millions of people watch it every week with no ill effects (well, aside from they themselves becoming unremittingly bleak). As the for the latter - I cannot say as I've not (nor am I ever likely to be allowed to) played it, but if it's anything like the first game I think they're taking single element and suggesting it's the central gameplay mechanic. Plenty of films on general release fall into this category, but haven't been refused classification. Don't even get me onto book, which manage to get away without any classification - maybe The Man thinks kids don't read (apart from the Anarchist Cookbook)



I think you're making a leap there. Nobody but the folks at Rockstar North can say, but playing the game it felt to me that it was first and foremost a stealth game with some interesting AI granting enemies advanced 'sight' and 'hearing'. I've no doubt at all that thoughts of making a great stealth game where soon followed with "let's make it ultra violent because folks buy it and it get loads of press" (both evidenced by the studio's GTA successes)

Oi! I quite like those games, and in my default state have no violent urges. I'm a lover, not a fighter. And before you ask, it takes quite a bit of "encouragement" to knock me off my steady state and draw out them there caveman urges.

There's a fundemental difference here. Psychologically, watching a film or reading a book is just that - you empathise, but you do not partake. Computer games are different. Granted you do not have a knife peripheral and a plastic dummy in which you have to make these actions physically - but how far would, for instance, a Wii version go with this?

Anyway, my point is this - playing games may well involve a different part of the brain. The part of the brain that forms behaviour. Repetitive actions, performed enough times, create new habits and behaviours. I'm not our famous friend Jack Tretton in disguise here or claiming that computer games are training our kids to kill, but think about the sentence I've written before this fully.



See above. Can you disprove that computer games have no effect on behaviour? This runs into a wider debate but Manhunt is a prime example. We're not discussing the effect it could have on kids because kids shouldn't technically be able to play this game. But nevertheless, let's say playing a certain game, like Manhunt, increases the aggressive tendencies in an individual by the smallest fraction each time.

That individual gets into an argument with his girlfriend, and he has the opportunity to lash out. How confident are you to say that there is no chance repetitive, rewarded, aggressive actions played in computer games will have no effect on the situation and he will be just as likely not to use force in real life as if he'd never played a game?

To my knowledge there is no conclusive evidence either way, but as I've said before, I'm not comfortable with the industry supporting games like Manhunt until it's been disproved.

Excuse me for cutting most of your post to reply, but let me assure you I have read it all.

I'm not sure I can reconcile your suspicion of the impact of repeated killings, or other undesirable actions, in games and your particular distaste for Manhunt 2.

You've previously said that other games are OK because the violence in them is justified, yet the violence is just as repetitive (in some cases much more so) and desensitising as it is in the Manhunt games. How about the special death scenes in The Punisher for example?

Either repetitive violence is bad and we can't let it out, or it's not a massive factor in real world violence and we should concentrate on the societal issues that surround the perpetrators of awful acts of violence.

I don't think we can base our judgements on factors such as "it's a s**t game and nobody will buy it anyway". Either we are for games being censored to a greater extent than films or we aren't. I'm not.

Good or bad, games deserve to be given the same access to market as DVDs. The "interactive situations are more likely to lodge in your brain" argument was contradicted by the BBFC's own research into the subject which found that the thought required in manipulating the controller caused a mental disconnect from involvement in the on-screen violence. So they can't use that argument to support stricter regulations for games.

In my opinion, it comes down to education. The "won't anybody think of the children" aspect is played upon because "the establishment" still thinks that games are for children. They need to be educated as much as parents do. Hopefully the Byron review will help towards this, but for now we need to keep shouting about our adult status and our ability to differentiate games from reality. And we need to protest the different standards that games are apparently expected to comply with.

I can't comment on The Punisher as I've not played it. I wouldn't be as black and white to say either that other games are okay, nor that the violence is justified, but I think in some cases it fits with the context or is displayed in a more appropriate way.



I wouldn't, for example, discourage the practising of martial arts but I would be inclined to prohibit two people who wanted to beat other to death with wooden planks with rusty nails in them.



So you don't agree with their decisions but you're championing their research? ;) Either way, I'm not convinced by that. And I think the Wii controller is a good example of how that line is blurred further. As long as you are rewarding the player for choosing to commit a violent act, I am convinced that there's a level of conditioning going on, however subtle.



I agree, and arguing for Manhunt 2 to be released will undermine that cause. I play games, I'm well educated, I still disagree with it being released. How willing do you think the average Daily Mail reader or MP will be to discuss it like this without pushing for further restrictions on what can or can't be released?

Even if your arguments are valid in the long term, now is not the time to be standing up for a game like this.

One is based on research by reputable scientists, the other is the opinion of a bunch of mealy-mouthed idiots.

I hope you're not referring to me. I'm no expert, but last time I checked there was no conclusive evidence either way as to the true effect of gaming, and in addition, not every scientist says the same thing, and finally I'm studying for a second degree in psychology and have just learnt about conditioning. What I've read about doesn't fit neatly with the BBFC's conclusion.

As I say, I'm no expert, but I'd like to think I bring more to the discussion that name-calling.

Feel free to do the same. Or have you been playing too much Manhunt?

feh...you sicken me...

Even defeating you in detail would be an excecise in futility...rather it would be like decapitating a zombie chicken and while watching your headless carcass run around the barnyard might be worth a chuckle, but not a belly laugh, so I shall refrain, aside from saying that you are dead wrong, and the 'industry' must push for even-handed and appropriate standards at all times, most especially when they are under attack. You sound like the industry should 'appease' its critics somehow...I don't think thats a stategy for success, Neville.

Your attemt to use your educational aspirations as a cudgel is charming, though, if pathetic in an amusing way...a Psychology degree...and this...


smells like the same brand of bullshit the people who try to discredit Evolution in favor of Creationism shovel to me...not saying you're a Creationist or anything, but you're using their playbook...

But while an "abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence" an unprejudiced scientific view would find no reason to suspect videogames of having any deleterious effect on children or anyone else, given "no conclusive evidence either way". Why, desipte your claims of an advanced education are you so determined that the reverse is true?

*snigger*

You know a good argument's gone bad when Comic Book Guy feels like he can contribute.

Spong - it was a pleasure debating the issue with you.

damn, the zombie chicken knows its dead after all...

It will be a pleasure to be proved wrong if he does indeed STFU.

Just where the hell do you think you're going?! Anybody would think it was 'The Holidays' or something.

Merry The Holidays and a Happy New 365-day cycle (or is next year a leap-year, I don't recall?)

Tim

It's a leap year when the year number is divisable by four, unless it's divisable by 100, unless it's divisable by 400.

2008 is divisable by four and not divisable by 100, so it's a leap year.

Phew, and I've just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which I can thoroughly recommend.

Cheers

Tim