R - Games Without Frontiers&;#063;

We watch and cheer as my friend dismembers a prostitute with a
chainsaw. It took him long enough to catch her. Blood sprays everywhere
as he plunges the whirling blade into her chest and her
fishnet-stockinged legs convulse spastically. "Get her again, do her
again!" one of the onlookers shouts. I'm starting to feel edgy but I
don't say anything. The police will turn up soon. Then we'll be
screwed.

It all happened in my front room, actually. The more astute of you will
have already realised that - ho ho - I'm referring not real life, but
what is known amongst the technological cognoscente as a 'video game'.
That's the twist you see.

Umpteen column inches have been given over to the subversive and
malevolent influence of violent video games on young, impressionable
minds, usually written by people so blindingly computer literate that
when they are instructed to 'press any key' they have to ring technical
support. Oh, the studies cited change, the anecdotal maimings and
deaths shift from state to state, but the message is always the same:
video games corrupt our children and turn them into vicious, sadistic
killers.

Take the recent case of an eleven year-old boy from Hartlepool, who,
after playing best-selling World War II sim Medal of Honour, burst out
of the sea on a Normandy beach wielding a 7.7mm Lee Enfield No. 4 rifle
and mowed down scores of stunned German holidaymakers. The resultant
media furore almost beggared belief. One hysterical broadsheet
columnist fatuously opined: 'It's possible there may have been some
causal link between his playing this game and the subsequent massacre.'
Balderdash. Obviously this person has no children of their own, or they
would know that kids do things like this all the time.

I was no exception. I can vividly remember stomping up and down on my
brother's pet tortoise after a marathon session of Super Mario Bros,
and scarcely a Christmas goes by where Mum doesn't regale the family
with the story of when, inspired by Pac-Man, I ate so many flashing
dots I was sick all over her new throw rug. Kids are like little snotty
sponges; they're constantly soaking up influences and acting
accordingly.

Comic genius Robin Williams showed us the military potential of
pint-sized video gamers in the brilliant and moving film Toys, where
children are trained to drive tanks and pilot helicopters through
scrotum-tighteningly unforgiving desert terrain. Kids are the future of
world conflict. History has shown that war is by far the best means of
resolving international disputes, so by extension, video games are a
panacea for all the world's ills.

Certainly, I will actively encourage my children to imitate the
behaviour they see in computer games. I can just picture it now; after
a hard day at the office, I return home to find my son slouched on the
settee, flanked by a pair of busty - albeit eviscerated - hookers, the
opulent capo di tutti capo of an international drugs and prostitution
racket. My lower lip begins to tremble. It's all I can do to stop
myself bawling with pride.