My main objection to this dude is that he really does seem to think that the Goobermint should be my mom.  I hope he gets his butt handed to him on this issue.  :twocents:

That being said, I think there are certain games I wouldn’t let my kids play until they were older.  I wouldn’t care if they played Quake, or Unreal Tournament, or a lot of the spamfest shoot-em-ups, because I feel like that’s probably about as dangerous as letting them watch R rated action films.  We’d have a little discussion about “fantasy” vs. “reality,” and do a quick sanity check-- (Uh, Ok, you know it’s not cool to actually shoot real people, right kiddo?’ ‘right dad!’ ‘Alright then.  Don’t camp the flag, but if the Red team gets close to it, drop the ‘deemer in their laps.  Nothing like a little nuke action to discourage full out assaults.  You need another phone book to sit on, so you can reach the keyboard?  No?  OK, tiger, go get ‘em!):evillaugh:

On the other hand, I remember that I would get a little “jumpy” when I played the Resident Evil games for too long of a stretch.  (Ok, I’d get really freaked out, and wander around the house kind of twitching, for hours.  :O
Then I’d have these fever dreams, and mumble weird shit in my sleep that would totally freak my wife out:  ‘Bury the blood in the lava’ ‘it’s your turn to call the boss and mail him the potato’ and her all-time favorite ‘even the gold modems are getting slapped around these days.’) :confused:
I think it was the soundtrack, mainly, plus the way the zombies lurch out of nowhere and then just swarm all over you.  There’s no way I’d let my kid play that game unless I WANTED to traumatize him for life.

I certainly agree with the idea that parents should be aware of and limit what games their kids play and that not all games are appropriate for all kids, but the key word there is “parents.”

Courtney is 13 and has a pretty good grip on the differences between fantasy and reality and as such I don’t tend to be too worried about her playing most of the games I have on my PS2 including Grand Theft Auto III. A couple of years ago, however, it was a different story. The only first person shooter Court has shown any interest in has been the Medal of Honor: Allied Assault game I have, which is not only fairly tame in the blood and guts category, but promotes team play so I don’t have a problem with it.

The point being, again, that it was my decision based on what I know about my daughter and her ability to handle the game in question.

Why is it that the government sees it as the country’s responsibility to govern what individual children do or watch?

If anything, this stupid law will just make it a little more inconvenient for kids to get these games (i.e.  “Game run” instead of a “Packy Run").  Utter stupidity - its regulations like these that make it easier for kids to develop a rebellious ethic, which in turn will lead into other things.  It’s the same principal as marijuana as the “gateway drug”.

What’s next, an attack on painball?  A similar situation happened when the paintball club at our school was forcefully disbanded due to the idea of controlled violence being part of the extracurricular activities.  It seems the administration couldn’t get past the fact that kids were using “guns”, much less the point we all used strategy and teamwork as well.  Zero tolerance sucks ass.

And as you can see, I’ve gone off on a tirade for several different subjects which bear little direct relation to each other (unless, of course, someone enjoys playing painball video games while high)- I REAAALLLLLLYYY need sleep…

They were worried about controlled violence being part of extracurricular activities?

Damn, your school’s football team must be worried!  They’re next!

I can remember after playing Half-Life for days at a time, I would go to sleep for the night and never get beyond a state of half-asleep, as every time I closed my eyes I would only see visions of myself smashing fleshy alien things with a crowbar.  The only thing that did was induce me to vomit from fatigue and vertigo during the night :drool:  Come to think of it, any time I play any video game for more than five straight hours a day, it has this effect on me, violent or not.  It never makes me more violent.  Unless I’m concentrating on some particularly difficult situation, and someone interrupts me, then they get a scathing earful.  As for “how to stalk and how to maim and torture and kill people,” I didn’t learn that from video games, that’s what my friends are for :devil: