Column: Some people call life ‘just a game’ too

Growing up I really didn’t play video games; except for a few rounds of Earthworm Jim. And, that’s about where I thought the state of the modern video game was at right now: bungeeing down a deep ravine on a string of phlegm trying to break Major Mucus’ snot chain.

But, I was wrong, dead wrong; a position that some people may like to see me in after reading this commentary.

Lately I’ve been noticing that my roommate has been playing one of those shoot-em-up style video games, ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.’

My previous exposure to this game is limited to a brief N.P.R. report where they described how Russia was considering banning the sale of this game for its horrible depictions of their country and allusions to everyone being a terrorist.

Although, my other roommate from Eastern Europe does say that some of the game scenes ‘remind her of home,’ regardless of if the graphics are accurate, I think that Russia may be right in questioning the content of this game.

The game is praised for its realistic war scenes and features like KillCam, which allows a player’s death to be seen from the perspective of the killer. One of my favorite features is how the blood splatters on the TV screen, just like in real war.

I suppose there are some unrealistic features to the video game. After all, it doesn’t show what many soldiers experience after returning to civilian life such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, insomnia, as well as drug and alcohol addiction.

I’m still looking into if they can go AWOL. I doubt if there are any conscientious objectors either, those are probably worth about a billion points if you shoot them.

Now this is a real gem, you even get to pick a name for your little robot killer. Some of the more memorable ones that I’ve seen were ‘pubesore,’ and of course ‘sandshooter.’

Even beyond the offensive names that people can choose for themselves, they also have the ability to talk through headsets to one another and say ethnically insensitive comments. I think my roommate preferred when I didn’t know that you needed a headset for your comments to be heard, because at least then I sat silently, but still horrified.

This whole realm of marketing these violent war games to children, makes me think of the movie ‘Toys’ where all the children think they are playing a simulated battle, when the are actually killing real people.
I cannot help but think that games like ‘Call of Duty’ are a clever marketing ploy used by the military to recruit the next generation of cyborg youth into enlisting.

I wonder who is in bed with the video game creators. Are they reaping a hefty sum with each sale and each person that joins the military?

I’m surprised elementary schools aren’t hosting ‘Call of Duty’ marathons with pizza and soda pop: a free Hummer to anyone that kills 100 people, a nuclear airstrike over your teachers house if you shoot all the Arabs.

From what I see, games like these are played all day and total immersion of body, mind, and emotions in repetitive actions has to be the most effective way to teach a youngster anything. Add rewards for high number of “kills” and you have an entire nation of psycho killers.

Equating winning with killing and making that a frequent action by people whose brains are not fully developed is behavior some may fall back on later in life.

Even people that are older and claim to be conscious of the brainwashing techniques must still feel some mental frustration from the game when they don’t slaughter their targets.

From what I gather, there seems to be no purpose to the game, no princess that needs saved in the castle; the purpose is to just keep killing until you become desensitized to all the violence in our society.

I am not arguing that these video games should be removed from the market, but instead that we should be aware of what’s on the market.
And, that more than likely anything that you put into a video console and that you view on your TV is an opiate of the people designed to distract us from everything that matters, or a tool to convince us what we should be thinking.

We need to be conscious consumers aware that children are being funneled into the perpetual war machine, and counter this violent exposure with positive forces such as family, community, and Earthworm Jim.