Postal 2; Have games gone too far?

Hey,

Just finished the Postal 2 Demo DL and had a game.

Not really my taste. I enjoy FPS, but games with a bit of a story line. I know it's just a demo - but it seems like a game with random objects and items planted around for you to pick up and use as weapons against innocent people and animals.

Have games gone too far in creating virtual worlds, such as this "postal 2"? In that it shows the ability to use a spade as a deadly weapon to kids. Sure, the game may have a restriction rating in shops, but kids can still get hold of it. (I did the demo anyway without Identification).

I'm mature enough to shrug this game off and accept it for a fictional COMPUTER GAME. But I was just curious as to other's thoughts on these new "real life - do anything in the game world" genre games.

I love Wolfenstein / Enemy Territory and Jedi Knight - which all include killing, but it just seems in a different light as to:

"Smashing a house window, jumping in, using a shovel/spade to decapitate a man in his home and then walk through the house looking for goods to pick up. Be it matches to light more people on fire, gun ammo, etc."

Your age and thoughts, on this game and others in the like.

(I ask for your age because I'm curious - no obligation to give your age, but if you do so - be honest.)

Cheers.

 

I think extremely violent video games are the source to things such as school shootings. Guns were much more readily available in the American old west, yet I've never heard of kids shooting each other for sport in that day and age.


RRG

 

I think a game has gone to far when it has a mini-game called *** hunter

 

Stupid is as stupid does.

It's no different than snuff films or racist propaganda.

RRG, they have violent videogames in Canada and Australia and Japan. And they have about the same amount of guns as us. Yet America is the 4th or 5th highest country for gun murders, below only Russia and some Eastern European countries. While Canada and has about the same murder rate as European countries that don't allow gun ownership. It's not videogames that are causing the problems, no more than violent movies or lack of prayer in school (as some people in the South would think as the root of the problem). There's just something freakingly odd about Americans, I guess.

Forgot age, I'm 17.

 

I'm 17 and have the full game of Postal 2, and have played it through at least twice. It is a great FPS for those who want a more loosely mission-based story, where you can take as long as you want to do the mission, and do it as violently and non-violently as you wish.

I'm sure you're asking "Won't the wanton violence influence young minds to go out with a shovel and murder hundreds of people??"
Well don't get your hopes up. I've played Postal 1, and Postal 2, killing hundreds of thousands of civillians, and innocent people. I wouldn't even think of doing it in real life. Why? Because it's only fun when it's in the game. I know I won't get arrested, or killed, so it gives one a chance to vent (for lack of a better term) their agressions, through one-man genocide.
The day a small town man decapitates a priest's head with a shovel, then urinates on and kicks his corpse, then killing all the other dancers in the dance club with a molotov cocktail, I will be proven wrong (sarcasm).

And if the kids get a hold of it, too bad. Go demonize the parents who own pg-13 and up movies where they have little kids. If little 11 year old Timmy gets his hands on Postal 2, mommy and daddy should take it away! Hell, he's already been playing Half-Life for several years by then.

I think extremely violent video games are the source to things such as school shootings. Guns were much more readily available in the American old west, yet I've never heard of kids shooting each other for sport in that day and age.

Sure. That game alone does it. Back in the old west there was little MEDIA to suggest any of that too. And sure you won't hear of kids shooting each other for sport; where are you going to read it, CNN.com?
Again, if the kid is unsupervised and gets a violent videogame/movie/whatever those fundamentalists believe are the "source" of violent, perhaps he will be disillusioned. Hell, get mom and dad to tell him that if he kills anyone in real life (unless serving his glorious freedom-loving nation against "evil), he'll suffer and get arrested or killed in return. Develop a conscience early on, that's what I did. I can shoot as many people as I wish in Postal, Half-Life on the computer, or shoot my friends in paintball or what have you, and I won't necessarily think it's a good idea in real life. Just stop lettering your kids do WHATEVER they want, and letting them play their loud devil music in the basement as they play their ultraviolent games and watch unclean movies, and they won't think of harming a soul.
(By the way, as said before, look at where the murders are actually happening. I can't recall the last school shooting in the country in which I live)

 

I'm 14
Okay, so some games diffinitely take the level of violence way too far, Postal 2 obviously, and, on a lesser note, Soldier of Fortune and GTA. The violence in GTA and SOF are all a part of the game, fine. But Postal is built on violence, it's the game's selling point, and this is going too far. However, I don't think it's fair to blame school shootings on a game. Maybe FPS' glamourise guns but lets face it, games are an outlet from reality. More likely, real world shootings and violence among young people have a lot to do with music taste and artists glamourising guns. Anyway, in the Uk at least, the average schoolkid spends more time listening to music than playing games.
Postal 2 is a matter of taste but I reckon it has gone too far.

Edit: Anyway, it's not just fun in videogames to shoot people. There is paintball. And don't tell me you didn't play soldiers or some deriviation at school when you were young. Games are to blame for school shootings, neither is culture (though legal gun ownership doesn't help). What is to blame is sick mentally disturbed people who don't understand right from wrong.

 

When I was growing up, restrictions from certain movies and etc. were very big in my house. Until I was 17, I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies at all. No questions asked. I totally believe in restricting games or movies that are way too innapropiate for children.

I really hate watching CNN and after some school-shooting or bombing somewhere, someone blames movies or videogames. We shouldn't blame videogames, movies, or the people who make them. We should blame the parents. I don't believe everyone should be blamed just because one family or one person screwed up.


"Have you ever tried turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?" -Bender from Futurama.

 

Best explanation of this thing called "discipline":

Maddox's Article, "Love your kids? Prove it by beating them"*

*Language warning; and DON'T take the content that literally

 

I think excessively violent games are proof of two things:

1)The developers are trying to rip off GTA, but make it "better".

and

2) The developers have such a low level of creativity, can't manage to come up with anything else.

 

come to think of it I think bountyhunter2999
has a very good point. In this day and age no one excepts responsibility for anything, but try to shove it off on someone or something else, wether it be obese people or those who go around and murder, the responsibility lies with the individual.


RRG

 

the responsibility lies with the individual.

So the player of the game is to blame eh? Then the blame shall be put on the weak-minded kids who buy the games. Hence why some are influenced, and many more not.

 

I hate the games like Postal and GTA. I'm just not into ultra violent and realistic games that have you running around as a criminal.

But I don't think they should be banned. Could a violent videogame gave a nutso kid another reason to start killing people in RL? Probably, but it's the parents fault that their kids get ahold of all those violent games. And one game, or even 10 isn't going to corrupt a child. If I was forced to play nothing but ultra violent games, movies, and TV shows, I wouldn't decide to start killing people because I've been taught that it's wrong. Too many parents seem to think that it's alright just to be their kid's friend, and let them do whatever they please and always stick up for them. All this does is create a little monster who if he has any screws loose in his brain, will kill people.

Maybe if the parents came into Johnny's room and cared that he had 50 different ultra-violent games, listened to nothing but music promoting violence, wore all black, and was anti-social, he wouldn't create a massacre at a school. And it doesn't help that the parents usually keep a crapload of guns laying around or in an easily accessable gun case for their "protection".

Oh yeah, I'm 17.

 

I agree with those that say "don't blame the game". It is the individual who commits the crime. And I understand that (hopefully) 99% of the people who post here are sane and can say that it's not the games fault if someone does something wrong in society. However - we, who post here, are not the majority. Fact is THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE that may be influenced by these games, and it's these minorities that game produces DONT think about when creating a game such as Postal.

I personally own guns. I have been brought up and taught the correct use and handling of firearms. And I know these games are just crap. But as I said above, there are people who can be easily influenced and then go out and repeat the acts they see / do in the game. People copy actors and musicians and are influenced by people such as Eminem etc I'm sure - but we can't "ban" music, I know - i'm just saying people copy others. Only a few may - but that one or two may be the one or two that could hurt a member of your family or a friend. Crime is already too readily availble on the news and stuff. What happened to pac-man?

 

"Computer games don?t affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we?d all be
running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive
electronic music." Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989


Seriously, mental illness is "in" a person whether or not they play video games. If they ned violent stimulation, they can get it from all manner of outlets these days, notibly TV, Videos, movies.

No "sane" person will suddenly become a psychopath because of gaming. But gaming will not help the situation of a mentally disturbed person, and may continue to interfere with that person's warped take on reality.

Some computer games, though, are in extremely poor taste. The way to stop that sort of game being produced is to not buy it.

 

ah, the wisdom and simplicity of age.

/\ well said JP.

 

How do you stop the sale of it when gets mass media attention for being so bad? You know how people work. If someone says something is bad every kid is going to go check it out. Happened with GTA3 (except that game deserved the attention, cause it's a good game) and it happened with Postal 2.

The problem is multiparted. It's the insanity of people to be murderous in the first place which can't be helped much, it's the faults of the parents for not knowing what it is their children are doing, it's the faults of having loaded guns avaliable to these messed up children, it's the faults of the media for portraying violence in the community every single day on the news (if it bleeds it leads). But which is the biggest problem? You can't fight them all.

 

Good point. If American law made firearms illegal, people wouldn't need to own guns for their own "protection".

 

But is gun ownership really the problem?

People kill people, remember, not guns. I'm no gun owner or hick hunter (altough I know plenty of them living in Memphis, Tennessee) and I'm usually a big opponent to guns and warfare and all that crap. But I've been thinking lately and I'm not sure gun ownership or legislation is the problem. It's the fear or insanity coupled with the guns that causes the problems. So it's two parted, and it seems to be a really huge problem in the United States.

 

"Good point. If American law made firearms illegal, people wouldn't need to own guns for their own "protection".

well according to the FBI 90% of guns are never used in a crime and guns are used 6 times as much to stop a crime as to commit it. I know of people who have gotten AK 47s off the black market. Those are already illegal and can still be bought. the criminals don't give a rip about laws and will enjoy getting a firearm MORE if they're illegal.

And how could you defend yourself if some one came in with an ax and started taking hacks at you? should we make axes illegal too? It's the person that kills, not the gun

 

Okay, what's wrong with this picture? Darth-Plonker, you're making a case AGAINST guns, and you're bringing up the UK in your arguments?!?!? They have revoked guns excellently. Yet now they are right next to Australia in having within the top two crime rates in the world.
All I saw is that you can't tell me that when a guy in a bank pulls a gun and tells everyone to lie on the floor, you wish that someone there would have a gun and kill him before he could continue terrorizing everyone.
Joeseph Stalin once said(And I quote), "A man with a gun can control a hundred people without one." He knew that if he could get all the civilian's guns away from them, who would stop him, as a general in charge of all these troops from establishing his power in Russia? All this, of course, being a case for guns, but the point is, they are generally used for defence, for keeping up the common good. They keep in place alot of moral values and support our laws, with them, Maybe it would be alternate and kids shooting up their schools wouldn't be getting far if their teachers or comrades had pistols and shotguns of their own. Erik and Dillan killed thirteen people. If any one of the teachers had a concealed weapon, maybe it would have only been one or two. Not ideal, but better than twelve innocent kids and a teacher. They broke eighteen gun laws going into that school. One more wouldn't change anything. Video games are not to blame, but we need to make decisions regarding how they effect us. I admitt that I think it would be alot easier for me to drive a sword through someone after watching THE LORD OF THE RINGS sixteen times, but in anger? Is Jackson to be blamed for that? We just need to realize that these things affect us, to realize that the death of ANYONE on earth is a terrible thing.(Though quite often it is necessary). And, I think we need God's help to not let us dwell on death, per say, all the time.


-Evil_Slayer

 

CCW permits = hurting criminals.
And a little off the guns topic, What if everyone on those four planes on that faitful morning of September 11 2001, had had knives like the terrorists? It's our patriotic duty to keep and BEAR arms

 

So you're advocating everyone on board aeroplanes should be armed?

And you fail to see a slight flaw in your logic?

 

Then yes, now no.
Then you could legally carry a 4inch blade with you. now since it would be illegal no. My point is that when you can you should be armed. Like right now, I'm sitting here typing with a combat folder in one pocket a dive knife in another and a boot knife shoved in my boot. Why? there has just been a murder in our area, and I'm about to go walk my dog. If I was attacked and killed without doing my best to hurt/kill the murderer I would be letting my fellow citizens down.


and could you point out the flaw in my logic?

 

Ever heard of Air Rage, when normally sane people go crazy on long flights. Do you realise alcohol is supplied free of charge to flight passengers?

I sure as hell would feel much less safe on a plane knowing every stranger, some getting drunk, around me was packing.

 

Although it hasn't yet, I feel this thread might go too far. What does this has to do with Star Wars games anyway?

EDIT: Just read those really long posts, and yep, its gone too far.