As I rifled through old tapes a few days ago to record over with my Sony Handycam, I came across a 2000-and-something grainy version of myself, looking a lot younger, innocent and much more vulnerable to the term ‘newb’. Sorry. ‘Noob’. Luckily, the dudette behind the camera had absolutely no idea what that term was. Unluckily, it was my older sister using me in a documentary that she was filming for her Media Studies coursework – one I still remember feeling that I should have received some praise after helping out with half the entire work. But then I wanted to. That’s me. As my mind began drifting into a state of self-admiration, my hand thrusted itself across my face in a slapping motion. I awoke to the harsh reality of what was really happening on this small deteriorating screen.
Where I thought I had once been helping to defend the opinion of every gamer on the planet, it was clear from a more mature viewpoint that I was being made to look like a freak who’s addiction to gaming was inevitably going to turn me into a mass murderer at some point in the near future. You know, that innocent school child playing first person shooters. They’re blatantly going to find a futuristic weapon in three weeks and terrorise the local community. The documentary was titled ‘The Effect of Video Games on Young Audiences’. While this is still a very debatable subject, one which I’m sure I’ll be covering very soon in comparison to film, I remember how shocked I was when I saw the final edit. The depressing music. The composition of shots between myself playing GTA: San Andreas and a school teacher explaining their fears that kids would simply copy everything everything they saw on their consoles.
Well it’s half a decade later, and I haven’t shot anyone, let alone touched a real gun. I haven’t punched anyone, created a secret haven under the sea, worn a bandanna whilst performing a ‘CQC maneuver’ or swan dived off a large Incan-inspired cliff with a ponytail haircut. Despite every possibility outlined in this lost documentary, I have never, ever, copied anything dangerous from any game I have played. This bias opinion isn’t going to stop me from understanding what was actually made of this footage, and why it was edited to portray the message it did. If there’s one thing thats certain, it’s that I’m not going to stop here until that footage is destroyed and corrected and destroyed. Yes, destroyed twice. But I’m a nice person. I think I’ll virtually kill the evidence. Don’t want to harm the environment now, do we?
Consider this a warm up to my real look at how videogames affect us. As a film student, I want to get to the bottom of the reasons behind the general thought that those who play ‘Manhunt 2’ will be much more negatively affected than those who watch ‘Saw V’. For now, I think I’ll get back to pwning nwbs on the classic TF2 by ramming a metallic baseball bat through their dented skulls.