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Monday 23 February, 2009
So though the hell part of the game has left me questioning the games true purpose, overall the game has given me some things to think about. The big question I have right now is what makes some violence okay and other violence bad. Violence and video games, at least big time hits, go hand in hand so why did I find it a little harder to stomach the violence going on in Super Columbine Massacre RPG? The easy answer is to say that it is because the game represents a real tragedy and even real deaths and killings that occurred. But a movie documentary on the subject, though it might have an emotional impact, would not seem so taboo. The answer to this then is probably that no one would want to make themselves responsible for the tragedy at Columbine, but playing this game sort of makes you feel like you are since you control the characters that cause it. But then I have to wonder about games like the Call of Duty series that are World War II shooters. When I play these games I don't really feel guiltily or morally troubled when I have to shoot Nazis or Japanese forces. But shouldn't I since these are representations of actual events and actual people who were killed. The killings and violence in a war context seem justified as long as we are playing as the side that is considered good. But surely at the time the Nazis and the Japanese thought they were justified in the war that they raged and surely Eric and Dylan felt justified in what they did as well? So by whose opinion are we to base what is justifiable and what is not? What if we made an Iraq war video game? How would we feel about the violence depicted in that game where half the country feels that the war is wrong. Pressing the trigger button on the x-box might be a little harder when your not so sure that the person your about to kill needs to or deserves to die.
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