There’s been a lot of hysterical uninformed nonsense written about this trailer.
Of course it all skirts around the real issue here.
The trailer looks a bit shit. If this trailer is in any way indicative of the final product, it looks like Hitman has finally abandoned his roots and I confidently predict that there will be chest-high walls. Possibly even a 2 gun limit and regenerating health.
Sigh.
As for the issue of sexualised violence, why does gaming get singled out? Comic books and films do it all the time, and nobody bats an eyelid. Here’s a perfect example:
One rule for one kind of media, another for videogames.
(NOTE – I do sincerely hope that Daddybrown turns out to be right and I’m wrong on this and that Hitman: Absolution comes out farting rainbows to critical acclaim, but if Kane and Lynch 2 is anything to go by, I think IO may have lost the magic.)
Personally I think Rob Fahey has taken this far too seriously and has, rather ironically, painted the games industry as a far more darker and sinister place with his little diatribe than the tabloids could ever hope to achieve.
It took years for film to be commercially and socially accepted by the mainstream and the “powers that be” and it will be the same with video games regardless of how it presents itself now – and I do mean YEARS.
So what if the nuns turned out to be sexy, rubber-clad assassins? And so what that Agent 47 then wastes them all in such graphic detail?
The link between explicit sex and gratuitous violence in film, particularly those of a more exploitive nature, (the likes of which Tarantino has built his whole career on), is – whether right or wrong – nothing new which makes me wonder if Rob Fahey has watched any films for the last 30 years or more? What makes video games so special that they should be somehow treated any differently by the mainstream press and even those actively involved in games?
Video games are are a new form of entertainment medium and for as many thought provoking, moving and erudite pieces of work released on to the masses there will be bucket loads of PVC wearing, gun-toting nuns shooting the place up and until there is a major cultural shift in the link between sex and violence we’d best get used to it.
Just to clarify, I’m neither defending or condemning the trailer, I’m merely accepting it’s existence and in turn then accepting it for what it is. Just a trailer.
It’s like when Sega of America put trousers on Electra and Soozie, and changed the colour of Blaze’s dress all over again.
Underworld. Kate Beckinsale wears a PVC catsuit whilst carrying enough guns to arm a small country. She gets punched, kicked, headbutted, stabbed, shot and blow up.
I don’t recall anyone being outraged by it?
Yes, the more I think about it the more I think that Rob Fahey’s article is nothing more than hysterical ranting.
It’s hysterical alright. In more than one way.
I thought gaming had moved beyond this, really.