"Killerspiele" Update (The "I really wish the TV-stations would finally get something right" Edition)

Yes, it's still the same old story with the TV-stations.

Whenever they produce something about computer games these days, they work with the good old description "Killerspiele" and usually get about 40% and more of the actual content (and I don't mean things like the different point of views of psychologists about such games) dead wrong.

This Thursday I watched "Panorama", a usually quite good TV-magazine about political and social issues. They had - after the law, that should have forbidden "Killerspiele" for good, died a lonely dead - a short documentary about those games. This time they did not start off with "CounterStrike", but instead with "Call of Duty" which is set in World War II. Actually players only play on the side of the Allied Forces in this game, so you actually fight against the Nazis in the whole game, but "Panorama" seemingly didn't get it ... they pointed out that people play on the other side as well. (And even if it would be different, the point still is that it won't be the absolutely immortal Nazis against the helpless Allied Forces, both sides would be about as likely to win.) Then they went on showing scenes from "Grand Theft Auto San Andreas", which actually is a very bloodthirsty game with a lot of violence - but therefore it's strictly for adults -, to show how violent some 'ego-shooters' are (neglecting to mention the fact that by definition a game in which you can see your own character while playing isn't an ego-shooter - because in an ego-shooter you see the world from your characters perspective).

They are probably - as someone who started playing computer games before the graphics became something you could remotely call 'realistic' (you should see "Dark Forces" and "Heretic", the first ego-shooters I played, from a modern point of view, they look absolutely ugly and unrealistic), I can't judge that from an objective point of view - right about those games looking very bloodthirsty and violent to someone who has never played them before and is just watching. A lot of things in real life look a lot worse that they are. The way some people can bent their body looks quite painful to me, but to them it's not painful at all, from what I've heard.

In short: While some basic information was correct, most of it - especially those parts people really are interested in - are basically wrong. That is what I can't stand about the way journalists write about computer games these days: They don't do it right and they don't even try.