Video Games That'll Warp Your Mind

Five leading American parent, church and women's groups along with NY Councilor Eric Gioia recently issued a list of the years '10 worst violent video games' just in time for the holiday shopping season in what they say is an attempt to better educate parents and grandparents on the content of certain video games that might be bought as gifts for children. However upon releasing the statement they've made some rather major slip-ups, in the process putting severe scrutiny on both their credibility and what motives they hold.

The joint group urged the games industry to come up with an improved and more widely promoted game rating system that parents can understand. In addition they feel that retail stores need to take a greater responsibility not to sell R rated games (or M/AO in the USA) to minors. As well as that all R18 rated games should be separated from other products so that children cannot access them.

Whilst the above seems rather normal and tame, and similar to requests that come out often they have very little backing to their claims, with their top 10 list being uneducated and incorrect much of the time, bringing forth the question, did they even bother playing the games first? So when they said their list was full of, "cesspools of bloodlust, degradation of women and racial stereotyping", chances are they were stereotyping themselves.

Top 10 worst violent video games (Note: List is alphabetical and not ranked in order of disapproval)

-1. Doom 3
-2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
-3. Gunslinger Girls 2
-4. Half Life 2
-5. Halo 2
-6. Hitman: Blood Money
-7. Manhunt
-8. Mortal Combat: Deception
-9. Postal 2
-10. Shadow Heart

So going by that list we see that; a) Gunslinger Girls 2, which actually is Gunslinger Girl Vol. 3, is a game that was never released outside Japan, so how in gods name could any child buy this, b) Manhunt and Postal 2 were first released in 2003, not this year, c) Hitman: Blood Money hasn't been released yet and won't until mid-2005, raising the query of how could they rate a game that no-one has played yet, d) they couldn't even spell Mortal Kombat correctly. Lastly Shadow Hearts was released way back in 2001. While most will admit that the above games are violent the group never backed up their choices with examples, provoking further conceptions that simply put, they never bothered to test the games out themselves, rather have gone on external sources.

Further one of the persons on the statement, Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson (who actually isn't a real doctor) is being discredited by her own church for not playing the games she has condemned with passion.

On a more lighter not the group also released what they say is this years recommend non-violent games.

-1. Antigrav
-2. EyeToy:Antigrav
-3. Jak 3
-4. Karaoke Revlution Vol. 3
-5. Madden NFL 2005
-6. Mario Power Tennis
-7. Prince of Persia
-8. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3
-9. SimCity 4

Yes, that's right, Karaoke Revlution. But seriously, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is an extremely violent game, I mean hell, one faulty cog on a roller coaster and Boom! It's freakin' mass genocide.

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