 |
         
|
Both ABC and CBS offered a review of Rockstar Games' latest videogame release Manhunt 2. The protagonist is Daniel Lamb--"I live in hell"--whose task is to escape from Dixmor Insane Asylum "where they torture and murder with axes, fire, wire," as ABC's Jake Tapper (subscription required) put it. It "may be the most violent videogame yet." Still, it has been watered down, Tapper pointed out, with its creators "removing a castration scene." Banned in Britain as "casually sadistic," Tapper stated that there is "no doubt, in this country, the game will make a killing."
In CBS' Eye on Technology feature, Daniel Sieberg told us that Manhunt 2 can be played on a SONY PlayStation 2 console, but "the experience is even more intense using Nintendo's Wii, which gets players to act out the violence." Thus killing with a knife requires a lunge with a stabbing motion; beating someone's brains out with a sledgehammer or shovel requires the swing of a club. Sieberg worried about children becoming aggressive or desensitized from playing Manhunt 2 even as he reassured us: "Researchers have not found a direct scientific link between playing violent video games and carrying out those acts in real life." So parents who have committed their children to vicious mental institutions can sleep easy, we suppose.
Nintendo Wii is the very system that Sieberg's colleague Jon LaPook praised just three weeks ago for offering wholesome low-impact exercise games for the elderly to play.
You must be logged in to this website to leave a comment. Please click here to log in so you can participate in the discussion.
