Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Kevin McCullough vs. Mass Effect (Xbox Game)

xepherys · 01-15-2008, 02:12 PM

Who IS this douchebag anyhow?

LINK

He blogged the following:

Quote:

I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys.

It's called "Mass Effect" and it allows its players - universally male no doubt - to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of.

The objections to such filth should be simple to understand.

Starting with the disgusting idea that one can "create" their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing - shall we say - the extended features of the game's characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships. Right? We can all agree on this?

Then there's the dishonesty behind the game' title. "Mass Effect" sounds like a war game with a deadly virus that is spreading unless the GI-Joes are able to defeat the evil and deadly substance and it's covert war plan. By it's design, kids could ask for it, or for their parents' Best Buy Card to go purchase it with nary a raised eye-brow. Generic, non-descriptive, and relatively harmless.

But it IS marketed for the X-Box 360, perhaps the most visually stimulating gaming system ever made. The software for such allows the blending of DVD video, component graphics, and the manipulation of actual pictures so that an alternate reality engulfs the fifteen year old boy playing it without much objection.

Now if I have trouble with my son taking his James Bond 007 games a little too emotionally, imagine the powerful effect that hormones add to the mix when the player's own character is copulating like jack rabbits with super-models, actresses, and anyone else they can spend the patience to create, name, and "put into play."

I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Government has no business censoring freedom of expression." Figures, he's a libertarian.

In the race for President there has been a lot of discussion about faith and it's impact on the lives of the individual candidate. Some pretty inane ones like Carl Cameron's less lucid moment this past week when he posed the inquiry about marital submission to Governor Mike Huckabee.

Yet here's a question that deserves to be asked, and in all likelihood will not be: "How much moral judgement should the President push into legislative issues that are likely to severely damage our children's innocence, function, and capability?"

I hear the nay-sayers claiming I'm being the wild and crazed Bible thumper I've always been - but its a worthwhile question isn't it?

If a pre-teen, teen, young adult, or adult male plays such a game in which the women DO submit without choice, are made to appear as Barbie streetwalkers, and perform whatever act can be imagined, what's to stop that same male from assuming that the women in his "other world" shouldn't be forced to do the same.

We now know because of the lengthy track record of serial killer after another that addictive use of pornography was prevalent in case after case - long before the switch got flipped and what their masturbatory imaginations have given into became what they were forcing real live human beings to do.

And because of the digital chip age in which we live - "Mass Effect" can be customized to sodomize whatever, whoever, however, the game player wishes.

With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.

Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008 but how refreshing would it be for a President to prove to the nation that his own manhood was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated sex excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?

As technology continues to push the limits of imagination and interaction more and more the brain, the emotions, the feelings will integrate with physical responses in reality. And while the makers of such trash seem to be pushing our next generation of young men through the gates of hell as fast as is humanly possible, it needn't be that way.

Here's hoping that as the next President will be forced to deal with this continual emerging reality - and enemy that has set its site to our destruction from within - that we will have elected a man of such character that he will have precision in the clarity of his response.

How would that be for a bold and uncompromising "Mass Effect?"

a) This guy has obviously never played, seen or seen somebody play Mass Effect.

b) This guy is why political pundits annoy the fuck out of me

c) Sadly, someone out there read this and found a brand new soapbox about something they are equally ignorant about.

So, let's see. First of all, the sex scene in Mass Effect is rated about as maturely as a Snow White kiss. It's pretty tastefully done, especially since the game is rated 'M' for Mature.

How exactly is the game's name a misnomer? I think it's pretty specific to the story of the game. His spiel about a War against Bioterrorism seems a stretch of the imagination. Obviously the guy is not a gamer.

Quote:

With it's "over the net" capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away.

WTF does this even mean? Virtual Orgasmic Rape sounds like a feature of a 21st century Leisure Suit Larry game. No, even LSL isn't that explicit. Maybe some Japanese Teledildonics game? Virtual Orgasmic Rape... VOR! I just really don't even have anything constructive to say against this point. It's so utterly senseless as to just frustrate my very core.

Man, this is the kind of guy I wish I could just see on a street corner, walk up to him and say, "Mr. McCullogh?", "Yes...", *sucker punch* I hate idiots. I exceptionally hate idiots on a soapbox. I detest soapboxing idiots that haven't the faintest clue what they are arguing for or against.

Can BioWare sue for libel? *grumble*

Update: This is the email I sent him from the link on his page:

Quote:

Wow! I submitted a comment, but felt I had to actually extend my feelings to you personally. I pray you get this, and hope seriously to hear a response from you.

As you can see from your comments area on this blog posting, the people are against your viewpoint here. You've overstepped your knowledge base considerably for this article.

First of all, Mass Effect has a small "love scene" that is hardly rated PG-13, and since the game is rated M (Mature), children under 17 should not even be playing it. Shame on the parents who do not monitor their children's gaming habits.

Second, You cannot customize whores to your very liking. The only customization in game is the character you play, and you can customize the face... somewhat. The "love interests" in the game are static and cannot be changed. The romantic aspect is very much a proper courting. You talk to either of the two females that you can develop a relationship with about their families. You develop something mutual. You don't just haul random chicks off to the back of your spaceship for a quick shagging. This is NOT Grand Theft Auto.

What is this "Virtual Orgasmic Rape" crap anyhow? There is no rape. You do not force any women to do ANYTHING sexual in this game. Also there is no multiplayer, online or otherwise. The only internet connectivity the game has is for updated content (such as patches to fix glitches and the like). Virtual Orgasmic Rape? I believe you are trying to sensationalize the matter a considerable bit.

"One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to "engage" and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game "persons" hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of."

You cannot customize the other characters. And you cannot hump in any format except a very mild, tasteful, sheet-covered love making session between what is, in the game, two consenting adults.

Gah! I just haven't the words to truly express to you how horrified I am that there may be someone out there who read this and found a brand new soapbox to be ignorant about.

As a soldier serving overseas in a combat zone, I pray to God Almighty that no president ever gets into office that would so widely try to stop freedom of creativity and expression, especially over something as tame as Mass Effect, a game that you know absolutely nothing about. you want to complain about killing hookers in GTA? Fine. I don't terribly care that such a game exists. My son will certainly not be allowed to play it. But this? Seriously?