intensity

I'm not much for TV watching. I'd rather sit down with a good movie if I'm going to be in front of a screen, though naturally my favorite type of entertainment is of the interactive variety.

One thing that always gets me into a frothy rage is the way computers and technology are portrayed in TV or in movies. How many hackers do you know have a fancy 3D interface to work with (Swordfish), or complain about deleted or corrupted data due to de-fragging (countless episodes of Law and Order). Video games are another beast entirely, as it is so easy to demonize them when they've been such a hot button issue.

I wasn't surprised, then, when I casually tuned in to Law and Order: Special Victims Unit last night to see them talking about this game called "Intensity", which was supposedly the basis for a crime. A hooker was run over by a car, beaten to death and left for dead. Clearly inspired by Grand Theft Auto III+, the show hoped to tap into the "subculture" surrounding the game (and I use the term loosely - the kids shown in the program weren't exactly credible gamers). Let's also forget for a moment that the graphics were embarrassingly bad (on a PC!), and all you saw during the show was the same sequence repeatedly.

I respect that the show tried to tackle this trendy issue, and I also like how the defense lawyer tried to pin the blame on the developers of the game only to lose because of the defendant's obviously sound mind. References to Columbine as video game violence manifesting itself were made, but ultimately the message I got from the show was that video games are just another form of media, and cannot be blamed for a person's actions. Though as video games are still a very new form of media, opinions on their influence on youth have not been objectively formed yet. You still hear the angry cries of bad parents or blowhard government officials basing their "facts" on inconclusive studies. I appreciate that this show revealed both sides of the argument, and that's a small step in the mainstream acceptance of our hobby.

we are what we remember