Dear Politicians: No One Gives a Damn About Manhunt 2

So Hillary and Lieberman have got their respective panties in a twist over video games again. This kind of sucks, because they were doing so well, but they’re obviously old and there’s still alot they don’t understand about this new-fangled interactive television entertainment that all the kids and manchildren are into. So just a year after praising the hard work of the good folks of the ESRB, they’re now bitching at them again.

Let me tell you something: the ESRB is very strict in their ratings, they don’t let a whole lot slide. Some games are rated E 10+ for “comic mischeif” for the love of delicious cake. Even Super Smash Bros. Melee was rated Teen. But once again Manhunt has gone and ruined it for everybody.

As hilariously as Penny Arcade depicts it, there is a real problem facing the ESRB. Right now there’s a bill sittin’ on the steps of capitol hill that would require the ESRB to play entirely through every single game before giving them a rating. With many games, this is somewhat impossible, given user created content and procedural content generation, as the comic says (which you’re gonna find prominently in the game Spore when it finally comes out in friggin’ 2080 at the rate it’s going.) Obviously the Senators, the writers of the bill, and anyone who thinks they could do better than the ESRB has a fundamental misunderstanding of the games industry and video games in general. Now Manhunt 2 is threatening to make them up the anty on their well-meaning but completely misguided crusade, and they represent a looming threat to put the absolutely clueless in charge of telling us what we can and can not play.

Now I never played Manhunt 1. As an ornery aging gamer I’m set in my ways, so I didn’t give a shit about Manhunt 2. Apparently, neither did anyone else. I know Rockstar is known for their artful, at times satirical and highly entertaining games, but I just can’t make myself care, even with a Wii version. Apparently Manhunt 2 was slapped with an Adults Only rating, meaning no retailer in their right mind would carry it, and no company in their right mind would release it on their console, so it had to be retooled until it could achieve an M rating. Kind of like when an NC-17 or X-Rated movie has to be toned down until it can be given an R rating so cinemas will actually screen it. In fact, it’s exactly the same. So what’s everyone’s problem?

Well according to GamePolitics.com one of the big concerns is that the motion-sensitive Wii controller “permits children to act out each of the many graphic torture scenes and murders.”. Hillary, I know you’re like 60 now and all, and it’s terribly difficult for you to envision grown men and women indulging in video games, but you’re going to have to accept that they do. In another 10 or 20 years, video games will be as common an entertainment as movies and even television. An M-rating still means that no children are going to be able to get this game without a parent’s permission. If a parent is irresponsible enough to let their 10 year old play a game where a bunch of criminally insane people in an institution kill each other in brutally obscene ways that’s entirely their own fault. Don’t take entertainment away from the grown-ups just because some other grown-ups out there don’t know how to raise their kids. My mom wouldn’t even let me watch Freddy Krueger movies when I was a kid, what the hell is wrong with parents today?

If you want to protect children from violent imagery and violent games, protect them from their own parents’ apathy first.

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