God-fearing Web site Every Day Christian has today published a handy little guide for idiotic parents, giving family-focused videogame critic Bob Waliszewski's thumbs-up and thumbs-down on a variety of videogames. Now parents will be able to know which games are suitable for their little cherubs, because Lord knows they can't be expected to think for themselves. Let's take a look at what Bob had to say!
Strangely enough, war-themed videogames are A-OK by Waliszewski's standards, endorsing both Empire: Total War and Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X as completely child-safe games. The lack of blood makes Total War fine, because apparently violence is acceptable if you don't see any red. Wii Music and LittleBigPlanet also score big with Bob.
Naturally, Grand Theft Auto gets a thumbs down, with Chinatown Wars criticized for allowing gamers "to rip the heart of a person in graphic fashion, be exposed to detailed information and glorification of drugs, and the liberal use of cuss words."
It is Fallout 3, however, that has the best summary of all. According to Bob, there is no opportunity for the player to make compassionate choices, instead only choosing to reward players for "pulverizing women and leveling cities with atomic weaponry. It includes upper levels where cannibalism is part of the game." There is no talk of the karma system or ability to save cities from the aforementioned atomic weaponry. Apparently Bob only takes notice when cannibalism's mentioned. He must have a keen interest.
Resident Evil 5 and MadWorld also come under fire, but frankly if you need an online Web guide to find out if any of these games are bad for children, then you are officially a complete moron. The article itself makes excuses for incompetent parents (oh they work so hard, they can't understand game ratings), but it's really not that difficult to work out that a game called Resident Evil may not be suitable for your snot-filled little brat.
Contest:
11:40 AM on 05.20.2009
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Like you said, no mention of the fact that if seen, cannibalism is shunned universally by the DC residents.
Also, F3 is an 18 ffs, how difficult is it to compare two numbers, one of which is your child's age?
Exactly, lol. How hard can it be to read the rating? or i dunno, do some research and watch a gameplay video on youtube or somthing.
And it's obvious Bob just indulges his hidden desires when playing games that give you a choice, just so he can double his jollies by condemning the game later. Y'know, like all those religious right wing gays.
But they work so hard! They can't be asked to parent as well!
He only cares that you get rewarded for hitting women and not that you are also awarded for hitting men!
stupid double standards. since women want to be treated equal, they are going to be bashed over the head when im being attacked by them as well.
im sick of all this "you cant do that to women" crap.
anyone can attack you in real life. women, men, children,dogs,cats, horses, pigs,lions,tigers and bears oh shit. so why cant they do it in video games?
what about all those shows on womans networks here they cheat on there husbands with some young boy and kill there husbands because he caught them in the act? but if you did a show like that on a man's network, it would be canceled the day of it being aired.
equal rights my ass.
-So all adults do during the summer is visit golf clubs and eat at outdoor cafes? Okay...
-They pulled out the "average gamer is now 30-something" statistic- that's good, I guess.
-"It doesn't mean, however, the only adults are playing those games, a fact game producers are acutely aware of." The fact that it goes right into talking about addiction makes that little bit of business sense sound a lot more sinister.
-Okay, videogame addiction- so many problems with that, I'm not even gonna bother discussing how there are a ton of factors, that anything can be "addicting", that the same amount of time spent with books wouldn't be looked at the same way, etc.
-"'We try not to be preachy,' Waliszewski said of the site's reviews, which do sometimes quote Scripture." Wait, what?
-"It can be a huge responsibility for parents to evaluate these games with 10, 11, 12 levels that they can't always work their way through but their kids can," Games still have levels? I had no idea.
-"Metaphorically, the rating system for kids can be a modern version of the forbidden fruit so well-known from Genesis 2:15-17." Smoooooth.
-"There's a lot of difference in an M-rated game like 'Halo' where you're shooting aliens than a game where you reach in a body cavity and pulls out guts and spray them all over the screen with foul language," Sweet! I didn't know you could pull out guts in Halo.
-People have already mentioned how ridiculous the evaluations of the games are, so I'll leave those alone.
Moral of the story: Do the research or suffer The Internet.
The main issue I have with the article he wrote (other than the whole Fallout 3 thing) is the fact his thumbs up games are all either E or T and his thumbs down are all M.
So kids should play E or T games not M...WHO KNEW?
hahhahahahahahahaa!
Plus, if he knew anything, he'd roll a female character and get black widow. Everyone knows there are far more men to pulverize than there are women.
Just for reference, that's the fallout review the summary is based on. And he clearly understands that karma exists, so does he think the frowny face, and the "You lost karma" message is somehow a REWARD?
If that's not a "compassionate choice" then I don't know what is!
Is that really true?? Just about everyone I associate with has one, including my girlfriend (38) and my mother (er, older than 38).
Not only are you pulling it out, you're pulling it out WITH LANGUAGE!
Zing.
This article is not a helpful guide, this article is a manual of common sense for dipshit parents.