It's quite amazing just how violated videogames seem to make some people feel, as if any kind of link between them and a game is something dirty, filthy and shameful. When it's not some twerp whining and complaining that Grand Theft Auto IV dares to look a bit like New York, it's Jesus H. Christ himself on the warpath, crying because The PS3's Resistance: Fall of Man has a section in a church. Oh nos! That's right, Resistance features a scene inside Manchester Cathedral, and this is so terrible, the Church of England are going to sue Sony, a company that didn't actually develop the game:
The Church of England is considering legal action against entertainment firm Sony for featuring Manchester Cathedral in a violent computer game.
Sony Playstation's 'Resistance: Fall of Man' uses the interior of the cathedral's nave without permission.
The Church said Sony did not ask for permission to use the cathedral and it has demanded an apology and the removal of the game from shop shelves - otherwise legal action will be considered.
"It is well know that Manchester has a gun crime problem ... We are shocked to see a place of learning, prayer and heritage being presented to the youth market as a location where guns can be fired."
Because of course, the first thing players will think is that they can shoot mutants in high definition at every damn Church they visit. That's exactly where I'm going tomorrow, planning to pop into Sunday service at St. John's with a sub-machine gun and blast the bloody vicar right in his vicar face. Then I'll throw a grenade in the front and say something awesome like "Thou shalt ASPLODE, BITCH!" I just hope the C of E win some form of lawsuit quickly so I don't do that thing I'm definitely going to do thanks to such an insidious videogame.
[Via Evil Avatar. Warning: The above post may have contained more sarcasm than is humanly safe to read]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:51 AM on 06.09.2007
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WAIT NO! It's just a video game. I know it may be difficult to communicate this to you through the heady fog of violence and murder simulating, but it's just a video game, you don't have to actually kill anyone as a consequence of seeing or virtually murdering someone! DON'T DO IT FOR REAL!
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
DAMN YOU TO HELL SONY!
WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE, JIM STERLING?!
Manchester has a gun crime problem?! I thought nationwide gun control magically solved all of england's gun crime problems. At least that's what they tell us it would do in the US.
Apparently the Church of England hasn't read many passages from the Book of Armaments, or they'd find this perfectly acceptable. Brother Maynard, please enlighten them.
A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:
"Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, 'Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.' And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals ... Now did the Lord say, 'First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.'"
This is so stupid it draws comparison with the stupidity with Jack Thompson challenging MS over Halo 3. CoE are gonna get OWNED by Sony ;-)
http://www.insomniacgames.com Check out the "about" section.
Shouldn't the warning go at the beginning? I mean, the NC-17 label doesn't come at the end of pornography saying "Oh yeah, this was explicit and sexual, in case you didn't notice."
I thought you were English. If you are, are you really advocating an end to gun control in this (comparatively) peaceful isle. I have never in all my life heard another Englishman call for the legalisation of handguns. If the Americans want to kill each other everyday in their benighted society (whilst arguing that guns are a good idea), that's their business. Surely you don't want every fucking idiot with a grudge easy access to lethal force?
if I've got it wrong and you're an American then I apologise, I know you guys see things differently
Religious people are fucking assholes. They always find someone or something to complain about. The also are contradictory little bastards. What happened to turn the other cheek? Also, doesn't what they are doing count as two of the deadly sins, pride and greed?
(I know there are gun deaths here in the UK but they are insignificant compared to those in the US and the vast majority occur within the "criminal community")
I wasn't commenting on the situation in the US, you do what you want, I'm just saying that it would be nuts to replace a crime prevention model that is RELATIVELY successful in deterring serious violent crime with one that isn't.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2097486,00.html
this seems crazy to me, but its your country you do what you want
It's a myth that gun control would lead to people going insane with firearms in the street. Relaxed gun laws don't mean you can just buy them over the counter at Sainsbury's. Now, I don't especially care about gun control, and while I was a little more forceful in my last comment than I should be, all I'll say is that gun laws are not the safeguard they appear to be.
Gun crime in America is more a cultural than a legal issue. As I say, some of the safest countries in the world have relaxed gun laws too.
*crickets chirp*
Yeah? Me neither.
thestripe, I'm impressed you bothered to read the article although I'm not sure I agree with you that it implies Bush and the war on terror are responsible for rising gun crime.
mario srikers anyone? 369467 892171
Please don't bother to insult my intelligence after the fact. Its easy to dismiss someone with an opposing political viewpoint as a raving nutbag, but if someone presents 'evidence' the only way I can discount it is to actually find out what it is. If you're going to link me to an article that refutes my point, I'm going to read it.
Armed citizens don't save other citizens from crime as much as they deter it. In Dallas, random street thug had better think twice before trying to roll granny for her bingo wad, because one of those stern looking rednecks already giving him the eye may just be waiting for the chance to free his brain from his skull.
America certainly has a culture of violence, guns are not responsible for this, nor is getting rid of guns a solution. Personally these gun deaths would have occured in the absence of guns. The irrisponsible father that let his two year old shoot himself probably would have let the kid drown in the toilet, the squabbling brothers could have easily ended with a fatal stabbing. Guns in America get a bad rap because everyone is afraid to blame those really at fault. Guns didn't cause the deaths in your cited article, angry teens, irrisponsible fathers, poor parenting and corrupt cops caused those deaths.
To blame these deaths on guns is like claiming the guillotine caused the French Revolution.
Please don't bother to insult my intelligence after the fact. Its easy to dismiss someone with an opposing political viewpoint as a raving nutbag, but if someone presents 'evidence' the only way I can discount it is to actually find out what it is. If you're going to link me to an article that refutes my point, I'm going to read it.
Armed citizens don't save other citizens from crime as much as they deter it. In Dallas, random street thug had better think twice before trying to roll granny for her bingo wad, because one of those stern looking rednecks already giving him the eye may just be waiting for the chance to free his brain from his skull.
America certainly has a culture of violence, guns are not responsible for this, nor is getting rid of guns a solution. Personally these gun deaths would have occured in the absence of guns. The irrisponsible father that let his two year old shoot himself probably would have let the kid drown in the toilet, the squabbling brothers could have easily ended with a fatal stabbing. Guns in America get a bad rap because everyone is afraid to blame those really at fault. Guns didn't cause the deaths in your cited article, angry teens, irrisponsible fathers, poor parenting and corrupt cops caused those deaths.
To blame these deaths on guns is like claiming the guillotine caused the French Revolution.
My badz.
I think the author is just representing the views of the people affected by the problem. He makes no (implied or otherwise) comment to causality or solution.
I understand your argument "guns don't kill people, people do", but I respectfully disagree. In my opinion if guns were made (more) legal here, the number of murders would increase and conversely I believe the opposite to be true in your country.
Jim, would you carry a gun if you could? If so I'd like to know where you live that makes you so paranoid so that I may avoid it in future.
Where I live now, if I were leaving the house at say, this time of night, almost 11pm, I'd feel so much better if I was armed. South East London is not a pleasant place to be.
not a millwall fan are you?
I love me some FPSing too. I may hate the PS3 but I support Sony here.
Maybe it's because I live in the South?
For now they're content to simply move away from the violence and corruption in their own society, but sooner or later, they'll want to take back their cities from the crime and the filth, and the only way to do that is with an armed populous.
As for the gun laws, of course they don't work, they really are stupid. But so are many of our laws, it's not like I expect anything better of this country. Getting rid of them however, well as much as it could work it could also make things worse. The real problem is the guns getting into the country illegally. If those could be stopped then gun crime would fall ... of course this means knife crimes would rise, but then we ban those ... and end up with a rash of spoon related killings. Sigh, I wash my hands of this matter and leave it to philosophers and politicians, you know ... those people who don't actually do anything.
Seriously, I love America, but your censored television is a joke. I'd rather take less violence than less freedom of expression.
You're absolutely correct. How a TV show that airs on ABC at 8PM can show a mangled, burned corpse, but get slapped with multi-million dollar fines for the first nipple or F-word is beyond me. Our censored television is a huge, bloated joke. An unfunny, hypocritical joke. I was merely commenting on the discrepancy between violence in the US media and violence in the UK media, and how apparently the US is okay with presenting children with depictions violence and murder, as long as it's not in a videogame devoid of anthropomorphized animals.