Back in February of 2000, Maxis (now owned by EA) release The Sims, and it became a huge success. It was hot, and I mean H-O-T! I spent days at a time playing, not bathing, not eating, not socializing, and that was me, my Sim, however had the perfect job, wife, and child and I smelt of spoilt milk. You could do everything with your Sim, you were it’s home designer, it’s therapist, it’s family advisor, it’s marriage counselor, and it didn’t love or hate you for your choices you made for it. A lot of flack came down on the game for making you “God” being an abomination. Dude… it’s a computer game…
Fast forward, a year, to Lionhead’s release of Black and White. B/W gave you control over an animal creature who did your bidding. Why your bidding? Because you were a deity. You were in control of a lot of things, however there were something you weren’t in control of (ie: weather, villagers, etc.) so calling yourself the God was never brought up or at least in the time I played.
Then Sims 2 came out in 2004 and it took Sims and jacked it on steroids. You had more freedom to do as you pleased with your Sim, including growing ages (instead of the ever-lasting-post-toddler-alien-of-doom) and added a bit more community based stuff. You still only had slight control over your Sim, just as much as you should.
Now, in only a few days, Will Wright (the genius behind the Sim franchise) will drop the next game in his attempt to rule the earth: Spore. Now, Spore isn’t just one game, but five, but the beauty of it all is you don’t have to start at the beginning, you can start anywhere. However, the beginning of the game you start as a one cell organism and evolve into a creature, which becomes a tribe, which becomes a nation, which becomes a galaxy jetting culture. Here Wright takes the God approach and jacks it with evolution, just to piss people off.
Folks, there’s this thing called video games, it’s fake, and it’s all allotted (warning: improper use of word) by a age restriction system.
Yes, Halo and Call of Duty 4 are ‘M for Mature’ which means you have to be at least 17 to buy the game. To me, that means all of those 12 year olds on Halo are spoilt brats whose parents need a reality check. Yes, some kids are more mature than others, however, drop them into Halo on Live and they revert into 2 year olds who just lost their binky, trust me, I’ve been one of those people.
Now, there may or may not be a huge thing about Spore, from a Christian stand point, mainly because all real Christian video games blow, there shouldn’t be any word from us. Give me one good example of a good Christian video game. I’ll wait for your answer, but while I wait, I’ll move on.
Spore is a toy, nothing more than that, and anyone who says it’s a teacher of evolution needs to stop watching their children watch Pokemon, that too teaches evolution, as does Spongebob Square Pants, but those are only cartoons!? Well, then Spore, too, is just as cartoony.
What about violent video games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty and Rock Band. Well, I haven’t played Rock Band, so I guess I’ve missed the ‘biting heads of a bat’ DLC they put up (probably a joke at time of this article, but if they DO add that, I want some royalties!) but as for GTA and CoD, yes, they are violent, and yes, they have some messed up stuff in it, but if you’re letting your kids play a game called grad THEFT auto, then you’re in need a family therapist. If you don’t want your children playing realistic video games (and my no means have I just called Sims, B/W, Spore or GTA ‘realistic’) then buy them a Wii and let them throw green turtle shells at one another.
I’m currently working on a charitable Halo 3 tournament (for ages 17 and over only) so I can see the benefits of video games where some people just see mindless violence. Watch the news, there’s plenty of mindless violence there.
