Miranda Devine, House of the Dead Overkill, Wii and Sega, and 7.5 chooks from Jung and Bajo

Won't someone speak up for the zombies?

Sure they're flesh eating automatons with a certain mindless attitude to tearing off your limbs and devouring your brains, but do they deserve this?

When Matt White bought a Wii video game for his 16-year-old son, he thought its MA15+ rating and ''Strong Horror Violence" warnings were par for the course. The game, House of the Dead - Overkill, is renowned for holding the Guinness World Records title for most F-words in the history of video games: 189 in total, or more than one a minute.

But Matt (not his real name) is no prude. His son has had, "lots of MA games before, so we thought we knew what to expect, violence (against zombies, so that's OK).

Okay?? Zombies are people too, just a little sub-human and possibly infected with a virus or some kind of cosmic ray mutation or perhaps a dash of satanism. Sure they're the living dead, but they have needs and wants. Is mindless cruel violence against them okay, while bad language and adult sexual content so shocking?

Well as we've mentioned before, in the world of conservatives, sex offers the daily possibility of undermining if not ending western civilization as we know it.

So hey, here we go, deep into the thirtieth level of despair, namely a Miranda the Devine column entitled A Wii shock to the system for parents.

The problem this week - there's always a problem - is that Matt (not his real name) was shocked by the bad language and sexual content of the Sega produced game.

What shocks me is that it seems to have taken Miranda the Devine this long to work out that the follies of censorship produce stupidities and incongruities, and games have long been the one area to suffer because they came late to the scene, and could get done over by Christian activists:

In the US and Britain, Overkill is banned for children under 18. But in Australia, the only country in the Western world without an R18+ restriction for computer games, it is deemed suitable for 15-year-olds.

Why would such an absurd situation exist? Paradoxically, it is because the Australian Christian Lobby and family groups have been lobbying against moves to introduce an R18+ rating. Their good intentions have backfired spectacularly. Instead of protecting children, they have exposed them to unsuitable games shoehorned into the MA15+ category because the alternative is an outright ban, and the ire of anti-censorship activists.

Well yes, at last the Devine gets something right. It's all the fault of the Christians!

The games industry and game players have been begging and pleading for an R rated category for years, with Australia the only developed country in the world not to have such a rating - all the more surprising because the dominant demographics in gaming have over the years shifted to the adult category (see a relatively recent survey here).

But it's also interesting how little ratings count in the games area, as outlined by Jason Hill in his blog Screen Play way back in 2007 (see here):

The Interactive Australia 2007 report found 62 per cent of respondents in game-playing households said game ratings have no influence on their decision to purchase or hire a game, and a further 16 per cent said it only had "a little" influence.

Screen Play has previously warned the Federal Government and the OFLC that consumer confidence in our classification system was threatened by farcical decisions such as the banning of Marc Ecko's Getting Up for promoting crime and the tardy back-flip on Manhunt, but the Bond University results are still a big surprise.

The news gets even worse for our censors, with very poor consumer understanding of the various ratings. Only 32 per cent of respondents in the comprehensive survey knew the difference between M and MA classifications.

Even worse news for the censors is that they are largely irrelevant to adults with the necessary cash and skills:

But Dr Brand (author of the 2007 Interactivity Report) does not believe the absence of an R classification is a problem, as so few Australians have an interest in game ratings and many gamers choose to import or download titles that are refused classification.

"The irony is that although Australia is the only developed democracy in the world not to have an R18+ for computer games, the gamer community has used its high level of literacy, particularly computer literacy, to get games it wants."

Hill then produces what has been for a number of years the standard industry game line:

I have argued before that the lack of an R classification sends the wrong message to the non-game playing community, perpetuating the dangerous myth that games are only played by children and all games are suitable for minors.

Classification should be helping to protect children, but the lack of an R rating might even be giving some lazy parents an excuse for not monitoring what their children play.

Screen Play will also continue to argue for an R classification on behalf of Australian adult gamers.

While most of the games refused classification in Australia have not been worth playing, we should fight for the right to be able to choose whatever games we wish to play, offered the same freedom as consumers of other media.

The introduction of a R classification would be a long-overdue recognition that gaming is a legitimate form of entertainment for both children and adults alike, deserving the same treatment as films and printed publications.

Amazingly even Miranda the Devine has finally got the message:

A discussion paper and public consultation process now under way may lead to a new R18+ classification for computer games. This time the Christian lobby should focus its energies on tighter restrictions on what is permissible under MA15.

But a Miranda the Devine column wouldn't be divine without a dose of absurdity. Long after grindhouse - courtesy of Tarantino and others - became popular again in the cinema, and long after House of the Dead Overkill was released into the marketplace, back in March of this year, she proposes that Sega has decided to turn itself as a company into a whorehouse of shock and horror, as opposed to being a family orientated gaming coming.

News flash: the abuse of zombies has been a staple part of the industry for years, and catering to a market segment doesn't mean everything goes down market. But how to turn that into a random bit of hysteria?

But the family image is obviously something Sega wants to jettison, a little like a former child star who poses nude, does drugs and engages in performance self-harm to prove she has "grown up".

Well no, actually, Sega can go on happily serving all segments in the market place without doing a Lindsay Lohan.

And yet, clearly not satisfied with this kind of mischievous metaphor, in order to maintain the hysteria, the Devine wanders off to NG4, a games forum (here - site is intermittent at the moment) and selects a set of comments by a gamer with the handle "Product" and his review of this House of the Dead outing (of the "shock and awe" kind), to come to her own bizarre set of conclusions:

Overkill's unsavoury sexual content has had even hardened gamers choking with disbelief this year, with ''wtf'' being the most common refrain in online gaming forums.

... When the gamers themselves are disgusted it makes you wonder what "community standards" the classification office is applying.

Um? One gamer on one forum means all gamers are disgusted with the game? What sloppy careless lazy journalism that is. How on earth does she know "Product" is a hardened gamer, how on earth can the views of one gamer be taken as the views of all, in a kind of generalized disgust at the zombie killing fields?

Well two can play at that game, so I immediately dragged myself off to my favorite ABC show with Jung and Bajo, Good Game, and their 16th March review of House of the Dead Overkill, along with Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop.

You’ve probably guessed by now that despite being on the Wii, neither of these are kids’ games. Dead Rising has the option to turn blood green, or off altogether, but Overkill is rampant with gore and language. Adults will find it pretty funny though, as it takes the path of a really tongue-in-cheek Tarantino movie, with a ridiculous villain and a narrator that just gets more over the top as you go along.

... final thoughts Baj?

BAJO
*gurgle*

JUNG
Yeah I agree, even though it's the Wii and there aren't many zombie games available, I'd still probably give it (Dead Rising) a miss, 5/10 chicks. What about House of the Dead: Overkill?

BAJO
(is busy munching on a random arm)

JUNG
Unfortunately halfway through in Overkill the Wii had a hard time handling it, and there was a lot of slowdown . You can ask for extra mutants , and buy different guns, and there are mini-games for up to 4 people. Its best asset is its comedy, and if you’re alone with 2 Wiimotes, you just can’t resist...the dual-wield. I’m giving it 7.5 chickens.

Its best asset is its comedy, and it's worth 7.5 chooks on the Jung scalometer? It's a Tarantino style comedy, a bit like the Grindhouse flick Planet Terror dished up by Robert Rodriguez? Well okay, I'll pass, but remind me again about the international shock and horror of gamers?

Sorry Matt White (not your real name, Tim Blair might take a view) and gamer "Product", but you is running up against the man, and Mr. White shows an amazingly inept capacity to research a product when the full to overflowing intertubes is full of the vital information he needed to know.

By running off to Miranda the Devine for a shock horror zombie sex story, you've done one good thing - beat up the Christians instead of the zombies.

So it goes, when you take an old game, in release for months, do a beat up without much thought or insight, and then lather up a frenzy about games and gamers, while clutching at the half understood truth that as usual the censorious have ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

But not one word of concern for the zombies. Won't someone think of the zombies?