Am I a Video Nasty?

All I did was take a Mum’s eye view of the sort of video games my sons play with their friends – for the Daily Mail - and suddenly I’m Public Enemy Number One!
Well, if I thought being attacked by virtual zombies and stabbed in the face with a computer generated pitchfork was lethal, I was mortified when one gaming website crowned me the Mary Whitehouse of the gaming world, accused me of spouting “old person, hate filled drivel” and told me to get back to my knitting circle!
Ouch! Now that really hurts. But like the notorious moral crusader of the 60s, I do believe that consumers should speak out about products like tv or video games – and not just blindly buy what some genius computer geek inside Nintendo or Sony thinks acceptable or allowable. These people aren’t interested in improving our quality of life, nor upping our intellects – they’re just in it to make money, holed up as they are inside their dimly-lit, million-dollar dens and hardly ever going out into the real world they influence so hugely. Which is why, amidst all of the blood, guts and explosions, someone has to yell: “Stop! Do we really want this endless gore?”
And that’s all I did. And I bet thousands more Mums would do the same, if they spent thirty minutes, rather than thirty quid, actually studying what their children play.
I didn’t actually call for RE4 to be banned. That was the Daily Mail ratcheting my words up one notch! It suits today’s media to blame video games for the woes of the world  - it lets them off the hook! I do still worry, though, about the effect of such mindless violence. Look, me and my sons played it in our kitchen – and yes, we rolled about laughing at the nonstop stream of insane zombies and their bloody clothes and bloodier language, their rolling eyes and mangled heads – but that’s because we were all together, in a family room – and yes, there was an adult around to call stop after a while. Too much exposure – particularly if you consume this diet of high octane violence cooped up inside your bedroom, away from the family, must be bad for you. Your tolerance of blood and guts, four letter obscenities and the constant rattle of gunfire, goes up. Your fun is being fired by death and destruction, and that – at the risk of sounding Mumsy – is just plain wrong! Honestly, I think that unless you balance your gaming hours with real life, going out and kicking a football around, socialising with your mates and interacting with your family and friends, your mind becomes darkened.
Bottom line - Mum and Dad should know what their kids are absorbing through video games – but I doubt tighter censorship will make a jot of difference to what’s bought and played  in homes throughout the land. Far better would be to stop games consoles in bedrooms, and make video gaming something that’s done in daylight, where parents can see what’s going on. But you can’t legislate for that.
I have, however, been really impressed to find that many of my critics have a sharp sense of humour – so maybe that’s a twinkle of hope! When I said I quit a game because I was drowning in a fountain of my own blood, one wit responded: “Noooooooooo....that means that evil wins! Keep fighting Anne! Keep fighting!”
So perhaps I will return to RE4. But only for twenty minutes. And then I’ll knit a nice woolly jumper!