Gone are the days of "Super Mario Brothers," a video game world of pastel animals and upbeat music. No blood, no violence, no sex between Mario and Princess Toadstool, and no JFK assassination attempts. That's right, one of the newest video games on the market today offers players the chance to recreate JFK's assassination.
The Scottish website even offers $100,000 to the player of "JFK Reloaded" who "most closely re-creates the shots Lee Harvey Oswald fired from the Texas School Book Depository. (Points are subtracted for hitting Jackie.)"
"Violence in video games does not concern me so much for college students and adults as it does for children," senior Lauren Fleischer said. "Adults are hopefully rational enough not to act out what they see. But violence in video games that children can get their hands on is disturbing. They are not capable of separating video games from real life."
Senior Alicia Faneuil, a psychology major who has discussed violent video games in her classes, concurred. "People think they are never affected but they are -- it's been proven," Faneuil said. "Video games are worse than TV because TV-watching is passive, video games require active behavior. They provide active scripts with aggression and violence."
