And so once again that time of year has come. Fairy lights lining the streets, nights closing in ever earlier, and bugger me if it isn't freezing cold outside. Dark in the morning and dark when I leave work, daytime sunshine outside is a tease, taunting me with its warm glow as I sit at my desk hammering away at an icy keyboard as my fingers slowly seize up from the cold.
In the evening, why would I want to go outside? Keep inside and warm, and a whole world of entertainment is at my fingertips. And so it's a marathon of art films, new albums (via Amazon and iTunes, natch) and, for the first time in a while, video games.
I'd forgotten this simple pleasure. The worries of the world dissolve when you can hold, in your sweaty palms, the ability to take a small yellow rat, summon the power of lightning and use it to explode a Giant Evil Robot. Cackle in glee as you mercilessly plug poorly-realised archetypal villains in the face with an excessively loud blast of hot lead. Squirm around in fear as you bat the fat zombie woman off your neck long enough to take a swing with that fire axe you found lying around in the preposterously outdated water well round the corner. Smile as you see her head pop off and rather more than eight pints of blood come flying out of her neck.
Video games invariably get a lot of hate thrown at them. As with cinema and rock 'n' roll before it, the fantasy provided by these simple games proves an easy scapegoat for explaining away societies' problems. Rising unemployment, a domineering drinking culture and an increasingly disenfranchised populous are, of course, minor factors in catalysing the spread of violent crime when compared to a teenager unloading his stress by shooting a few badly pixellated zombies in the face in front of his television. Or a child imagining he can race around a cartoon world on his little kart, flinging bananas and storm clouds as heralds of simple and impermanent death.
Violent video games are the new video nasty, and in many cases the publishers of these games couldn't be more pleased. As the exile to VHS allowed the development of a truly independent film industry spawning classics such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cannibal Holocaust, The Evil Dead etc., as well as establishing a proving ground for future mainstream directors such as Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, who started with schlock zombie horror and ended up directing Lord of The Rings and Pan's Labyrinth respectively, so too have studios such as Rockstar games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, flourished under their initial classification as outsiders.
The truth of the matter is these games are no more dangerous in precipitating violent culture than the many generations of equivalent controversies that went before them. In no way is this more in evidence than a consideration of the one of the most passive and frankly boring computer games ever created.
Microsoft's Flight Simulator was a flagship application for many years, and remains probably the least offensive computer game ever created. Yet it is also the most closely linked game to the single most violent and despicable act of terrorism of the 21st Century. In the same way that it would be preposterous to accuse Microsoft of training al Qaeda, so too would it be completely inappropriate to fling accusations of encouraging youth violence at what is, at it's core, a fledgling creative industry.
Ultimately video games should be treated as what they are - games. They do not encourage political doctrine, they do not promote violent lifestyles. They are the homeground of the geek and the techie, and they open their arms to those with a desire for a winning combination of fun and sloth. If we really want to deal with the rising problem of violence in society, we need to look to the root cause of the problem, not what is at worst an unfortunate offspring.
Anyway I must be off. The bloodlust is rising and there are banks to rob, police to kill and zombies to mutilate...
In the evening, why would I want to go outside? Keep inside and warm, and a whole world of entertainment is at my fingertips. And so it's a marathon of art films, new albums (via Amazon and iTunes, natch) and, for the first time in a while, video games.
I'd forgotten this simple pleasure. The worries of the world dissolve when you can hold, in your sweaty palms, the ability to take a small yellow rat, summon the power of lightning and use it to explode a Giant Evil Robot. Cackle in glee as you mercilessly plug poorly-realised archetypal villains in the face with an excessively loud blast of hot lead. Squirm around in fear as you bat the fat zombie woman off your neck long enough to take a swing with that fire axe you found lying around in the preposterously outdated water well round the corner. Smile as you see her head pop off and rather more than eight pints of blood come flying out of her neck.
Video games invariably get a lot of hate thrown at them. As with cinema and rock 'n' roll before it, the fantasy provided by these simple games proves an easy scapegoat for explaining away societies' problems. Rising unemployment, a domineering drinking culture and an increasingly disenfranchised populous are, of course, minor factors in catalysing the spread of violent crime when compared to a teenager unloading his stress by shooting a few badly pixellated zombies in the face in front of his television. Or a child imagining he can race around a cartoon world on his little kart, flinging bananas and storm clouds as heralds of simple and impermanent death.
Violent video games are the new video nasty, and in many cases the publishers of these games couldn't be more pleased. As the exile to VHS allowed the development of a truly independent film industry spawning classics such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Cannibal Holocaust, The Evil Dead etc., as well as establishing a proving ground for future mainstream directors such as Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, who started with schlock zombie horror and ended up directing Lord of The Rings and Pan's Labyrinth respectively, so too have studios such as Rockstar games, makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, flourished under their initial classification as outsiders.
The truth of the matter is these games are no more dangerous in precipitating violent culture than the many generations of equivalent controversies that went before them. In no way is this more in evidence than a consideration of the one of the most passive and frankly boring computer games ever created.
Microsoft's Flight Simulator was a flagship application for many years, and remains probably the least offensive computer game ever created. Yet it is also the most closely linked game to the single most violent and despicable act of terrorism of the 21st Century. In the same way that it would be preposterous to accuse Microsoft of training al Qaeda, so too would it be completely inappropriate to fling accusations of encouraging youth violence at what is, at it's core, a fledgling creative industry.
Ultimately video games should be treated as what they are - games. They do not encourage political doctrine, they do not promote violent lifestyles. They are the homeground of the geek and the techie, and they open their arms to those with a desire for a winning combination of fun and sloth. If we really want to deal with the rising problem of violence in society, we need to look to the root cause of the problem, not what is at worst an unfortunate offspring.
Anyway I must be off. The bloodlust is rising and there are banks to rob, police to kill and zombies to mutilate...
