After watching BBC News last night I felt compelled to write this piece. I'm sure many of you may understand why! You can visit The-Latest.com by clicking here, or view my article directly by clicking here.
Maybe it was a slow news day, or that the BBC lacked the capacity to research their topic, but Friday night’s Six O’Clock News contained a needlessly scare-mongering report on the BBFC’s defeat to Rockstar Games over the release of their graphically violent game, Manhunt 2.
The original Manhunt, released in November 2003, was a ground-breaking game. Using the Grand Theft Auto 3 engine, the main character, James Earl Cash, does not receive the lethal injection for his death row crime. Sedated instead, Cash awakens to find that a director of underground “snuff” films has given him a second chance at life, with his aim to guide Cash through murder-based trials on camera.
The game was ultimately blamed for the death of 14-year-old Stefan Pakeera, whose murderer, Warren Leblanc, 17, had lured him into a park and stabbed him with a claw hammer. Strangely, the game was in Pakeera’s possession, not Leblanc’s.
Regardless, the media swooped on this opportunity to start Fox News-esque ‘reports’ on the dangers of video gaming and their awful effects on the minds of the children who played them, neglecting the fact that the game had an 18 rating.
For instance, the original title’s release had the BBC et al implying that those who the player-controlled ‘protagonist’ murdered were actually innocent people - far from it. Although it is not a great excuse for escaping criticism, targets included white supremacists, insane murderers and frenzied occultists.
Sadly, these broadcasts also gave Leblanc credit in almost implying that a lack of Manhunt would have resulted in a lack of murder - but surely all Leblanc needed was a trigger? There are many more violent films, TV programmes and even books that could have served as ‘blame’ for the terrible act that he committed.
By 2007, it all pointed to a repetition of this lazy journalism when Rockstar announced a sequel in 2007.
What became apparent again is that virtually every media outlet that does not review games approaches the market with a level of condescension.
This is all too understandable, given that the generation that truly understands the evolution of gaming on a personal level - my generation - is only just getting into the working world, and as such cannot yet advise these reporters as to the real truth around what is a genuinely important cultural phenomenon. To many of them, it is a glorified toy.
Their lack of research has led them to make some painful assumptions with the new game, which brings me back to Friday night. The BBC reported that the BBFC’s original ruling against Manhunt 2 was overturned, and that the game would be released - without any censorship - with an 18 certificate.
Funny really, given that Rockstar Games had to completely review their murder sequences after most countries banned Manhunt 2’s release outright.
IGN, one of the most respected game reviewers on the internet, had this to say:
“Speaking of the animations, it's somewhat disappointing to see the kills as censored as they are in this game. The first title was spectacular because of its brutality and its over the top nature. When you have a character that walks around with a pig's head on and his genitals hanging out on top of the bloody or violent kills, you've got something that is literally ground breaking. Manhunt 2 doesn't get nearly as over the top. No character is like Piggsy, and every kill, from a Hasty strike to a harsh environmental kill, has its color bleached out, akin to "The Punisher" game that came out a few years ago. Even worse, the camera shifts on and off of the action so much that it doesn't even feel as though you're harshly killing enemies. In this manner, the facet that made the title stand out feels somewhat neutered in its presentation.”
Before the BBFC ruling, Manhunt 2 had these sequences presented as you would see them in real life. I have seen the reworking of these cut scenes and, well… I couldn’t make out the weapon. Or who was the victim or murderer. Or anything, really. Trust me - the videos are available, and it makes the killings look like a Picasso-made music video.
But according to the BBC, Telegraph and Daily Mail reporting on the March 14 overruling, the game is as uncut as it was when the media pounced on it back in June, when the BBFC described the true original copy of the game as having “unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing”.
Although this point is no doubt fair to the original copy, the BBC ignored Rockstar’s self-censoring move. And why? Because otherwise, it wouldn’t be a story. It would be a tale of how Rockstar changed its game, the BBFC being irrational and Rockstar rightfully winning a case.
The real issue, however, leapt out at me during the course of two or three weeks of watching Newsnight reviews. A truly violent film was praised by the critics, yet when presented with a Nintendo Wii, their arrogance was in full flow as they remarked that they could get more imagination and fun from a book.
The truth is that the media is afraid of what they do not understand. Gaming is a young person’s lifestyle, yet the media is still full of old people who have been content with the Big Three for decades - film, music and literature. Until mainstream journalism changes, it will continue to be lazy.
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