Issue 2: Editorial

[Originally Published in Forge Press:Issue 2]
By Peter Walsh

Rarely could we imagine that Sheffield student media would stoop so low as to start wagging a disappointed finger at those ‘too realistic’ violent videogames. The last issue of Forge Press saw columnist Daniel Baird take GTA4 to task for killing a taxi driver, and for Manhunt ‘inspiring’ an accountant to kill a nurse.

I doubt I’m alone in feeling a bit *facepalm* about this one. You don’t have to be ‘educated’ or ‘mild-mannered’ to realise that games, films, or even rubiks cubes cannot turn people ‘criminal’. Back in the day they used to wheeze that silent movies were turning good upstanding citizens to criminality, murder and petty larceny. Looking at your average Keaton or Chaplin feature these days makes it quite hard to see the link. Maybe the plinky-plonky pianos were particularly inspiring to those of a dastardly inclination.

The columnist then goes onto quote his housemate as saying that GTA4 made him drive more violently. Trying pulling that line of reasoning on a speed-camera cop and see how far you get. If anything the game teaches you consider the green-cross-code before you venture into a busy road, as well as highlighting how incredibly stupid it is to drink and drive.

One of the most realistic details in the game is the fact that if you hit a tree at high-speed your character goes flying out of the windscreen headfirst. It was a genuine ‘gee-whiz aint that neat’ moment, but unlike a certain taxi-driver killing Thai teenager, I didn’t feel the urge to go out into the real world and try it myself.

But then again maybe I’m just lucky I can tell the difference between violent delights and mundane (if socially responsible) reality.