It is the latter, sir, I'm no fan of Mr. Thompson by any stretch of the imagination! He preys on the fears of parents like some sort of fictional monstrosity.

Also, very good examples, I must say, I'm happy you enjoyed my article :)

Oh, have you played it?

Yeah, about half a year ago. I was all about no guns and then I hit my breaking point. They throw 3 SWAT guys at you on a rooftop you have to go past. You can't slow down time for all three of them because it doesn't let you do it so quickly in succession, and the SWAT guys are ridiculously hard to disarm without slowing down time.

I tried over and over again forever. I tried getting around them and couldn't, I tried running straight at them and kicking them and couldn't get all three, I tried disarming them and couldn't. Eventually I cracked and just disarmed the first one and shot the other two.

I'm kind of glad I did break because then the game throws even more guys at you and I would have torn my hair out. There are some situations toward the end of that game that I couldn't even fathom doing without shooting at least a couple of the guys.

Wait, was this before or after those ninja guys?

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh, I can't remember. Before, I think? By ninja guys you mean the bad runners? I'm pretty sure it was before them.

I haven't shot anybody yet, and I've made it past them.

Did you make it past the guy in the mall with the gun turret? Or the parking structure? Or that building where you're on the top floor and you have to go down like 10 levels and out the front door past a bunch of guys? If not, good luck.

Yeah, I did :D

I got the achievement for not shooting a single person on my first and only playthrough.  It made the game a lot better for me.  I'd of course disarm everyone, but I'd not fire a single bullet.

I've got that trophy too and it was hard but nowhere near as hard as the speedrun ones. I agree that having that option made the experience a lot more compelling. 

Precisely sir! And Fox news isn't helping.

There is nothing wrong with Mortal Kombat, God of War or Modern Warfare.  They are games.  They are meant to entertain, not be a font of societal achivement or a paragon of the enduring spirit.  I'm not understanding why we have to put videogames up on a pedestal and punish games that don't take themselves seriously enough, simply because a few of them do.

To which I'd ask, why must we hold video games to a lower standard than we do movies, TV, and books? Shouldn't we hold them to the highest possible standard in order to ensure a quality product?

I love big, dumb action flicks as much as the next guy, but I like to supplement my diet of Michael Bay with Spielberg, David O. Russell, Kurosawa, Brooks, Cameron, and Ridley Scott. Video games don’t have near this level of variety. I think gaming can aspire to loftier heights than B-movies, kitschy horror flicks, and brainless action movies.

From my perspective, we ought to either regress to the days of yore, where “story” was peripheral, and gameplay ruled the roost, or do a complete 180 and ascend to loftier intellectual heights. Anything but the painful middle ground that exists today, where developers make half-assed attempts to shoehorn shitty stories (and worse dialogue) into games. Either do it correctly, or don’t attempt it. Hire professional writers (or competent ones, as it were).

As long as gaming exudes immaturity, it’ll continue to be seen as child’s play. Take Mortal Kombat—forget the shitty dialogue, awkward third act, and lousy character portraits…the girls are straight out of the wet dreams of 13-year-old boys. I consider myself a porn connoisseur, and I haven’t seen any women that look like that. They defy physics. What sort of perception does this create for outsiders?

I think you answered your own question.  I, personally, do NOT hold video games to a lower standard than I do movies, TV or books.  Some books are stupid.  Some movies are smart.  Some TV shows are meh.  The point is they all have a market, else they wouldn't be made.  Some people like ripping oddly-proportioned women in half in fatalaties (I don't), and part of enjoying the media properly to ME is not judging the, literally, hundreds of thousands of people who quite literally do not give two farts what the girls look like.  They're playing to kill people.

If you're looking to find something negative in everything you see, you will never be disappointed.  I don't think it's a sin to have unrealistic women in a videogame.  Hell, one girl changed everything doing just that; her name's Laura.

I think throwback (VVVVVV) can peacefully coexist with modern (Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood) without creating a war where one doesn't need to exist.

To anyone with two functioning neurons, videogames are not simply child's play.  Anyone who says otherwise cherrypicks the rotten apples in the bunch and says the whole barrel's bad, and that's a silly blanket statement to make.  After all, why should it matter what Judy, Mother of 5 thinks of my videogame habit?  If she's not in, she's out, and I'm okay with that.  Never let people who do not play games shape how you play games.  That's a good way to forget why you're "playing" in the first place.  If Judy doesn't get videogames, so be it.  I don't get Yoga, and I'm not judging her.

YES! I say this kind of thing all the time! Parents can't blame the media for all their problems, which is why I'm not a fan of Common Sense Media. It's useful sometimes for when I'm looking for stuff to share with my kid sister, but they recently reorganized the site. You don't organize stuff by genre anymore. It's organized by life lesson, it seems. That's annoying.