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Video game violence blows up into controversy
Mortal Kombat
is latest rage
By Paula Lavlgne
Staff Reporter
UNL sophomore Aaron Carlson
falls back in a pool of blood after
being kicked in the head.
Carlson retaliates with a brutal jab
to the other warrior’s chest. While the
man sways, on the verge of death,
Carlson incinerates his flesh — leav
ing only skeletal remains.
Carlson fought the battle from his
own dorm room — through a video
game called Mortal Kombat.
The violence, Carlson said, is why
he purchased the game, and the vio
lence is “what maxes it fun."
Violence in video games, such as
Mortal Kombat, has been under fire
because of the alleged effects it can
have on game players.
Mortal Kombat was developed by
Midway Corporation for arcade play.
Sega of America and Nintendo Enter
tainment Systems of America distrib
ute the game for home play. Scga’s
version includes a bonus code that
activates the additional gore. Nintendo
has no such code and has also toned
down the violence.
With Sega’s code, a player has the
opportunity to enact a series of fmish
ing moves. The victor can do a num
ber of acts to his fallen opponent,
including pulling the spine from his
body, incinerating his flesh, pulling
out his heart, or blowing off his head.
Chad Collett,ajunior political sci
ence/Spanish major and sales associ
James Mehsling/DN
aie for Kay-Bee toys at uateway
Shopping Center, said many video
game buyers arc college students.
Recently, he said the most popular
game has been the Sega Genesis ver
sion of Mortal Kombat.
“The Sega Genesis version is sell
ing a lot better than Nintendo’s ver
sion,” he said. “The age group the
game is targeted at is mainly college
students — and we like violence. In
our own fantasy world we like seeing
someone’s head pulled ofT.”
rresnman unris Nelson said tne
game’s appeal was incredibly wide
spread.
“We counted one time, a mini
mum of eight people in this room
(watching) the first day we got it,” he
said.
Nelson and Carlson disagreed over
the controversy about whether video
game violence is a serious problem.
“I don’t know if you’d consider it
violence,” Nelson said.
“I mean, just look at the TV. You
see more gory stun waicnmg me news.
I think you have to establish that this
is just a video game.”
Carlson said he did consider the
game violent. But that violence is a
vital part of the game, and it should
not be considered harmful in itself.
“If you take it seriously, then you
have to have more problems — out
side of playing the game,” he said.
Collett said the theory that video
games are making people more vio
lent was false.
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making people more violent,” he said.
“It is not making society a more vio
lent place either.”
He said the concern of people
emulating the violent action in the
game also was unjustified.
“I mean, when I was a young kid I
watched Star Wars and 1 played like I
was Han Solo, but that wasn’t harm
ful. "
See KOMBATon 10
——li BMMamm-1
Kroker’s virtual book
could confuse readers
Music by Steve Gibson
St. Martin's Press
“Spasm" is a virtual book, existing
both in hard copy—paperboundbook,
and soH copy — audio, from an in
cluded CD.
As such, it occupies a narrow space
—out of phase, or between phases—
in the middle of the current cultural
paradigm shift.
And as author Arthur Kroker shows,
the shift is bigger than we imagine.
Our cultural ground is over a fault
line, and the changes we note — that
some have called “shifts”—are real
ly only stress fractures in the visible
surface strata.
In the substrata, where value judge
ments get made, massive and invisi
ble forces work an inconceivable al
chemy on our cultural identity.
“Spasm” is an attempt to make
visible these invisible—because in
ternal—mutations. It contains a large
ly arcane knowledge.
Maybe it’s inevitable, then, that
“Spasm” should be hard to follow.
Like the ancient alchemists, Kroker
relies heavily on an occult jargon.
Even in his technique Kroker seems
to be making a statement about the
alternating transparency and opacity
of language.
StiU, it puts “Spasm” out of reach
of many readers, and that’s a shame.
Krokers very forceful arguments get
lost in his own information stream —
overloading the reader and shutting
down the process.
“Spasm” does the post-modern
trifCk on post-modern culture — tak
ing it apart according to various and
shifting levels of abstraction — and
comes up with some radical ideas.
When Europe began rediscover
ing the art of ancient Greece and
Rome after a long “dark age,” they
dug up beautiful sculptures, nudes,
without heads, arms or often, legs.
These were pure white marble and
seemed idealized, perfected bodies.
Of course when these statues were
first conceived they were full bodies.
They were also painted in—to us —
garish colors, and dressed in real cloth.
The idealized Greek vision did not
even exist until later generations in
vented it.
The shift that occurred between
when those cultural artifacts were lost
and the age that reinvented them arc
comparable in their implications to
the current shift.
Our culture is experiencing a rap
idly expanding rift between what we
think we know and our experience. *
The shift is best represented in
technology, and digital information
processing in particular.
Sampling, digital photography and
data transfer are—byte by soundbite
—degrading and reconstituting real
ity.
At some point, while we weren’t
paying attention, reality became re
combinant—and potential frames of
reference exploded.
Now it’s virtually impossible to
accept any single world-view to the
exclusion of ail others.
We, according to Kroker and a
handful of other thinkers, no longer
inhabit the “best of all possible
worlds.”
By virtue of the new “virtual” real
ity we live in all possible worlds,
together.
—Mark Baldridge
m , ,
..... —. t >
I-1-1
but swiftly cools into mediocrity.
The album’s first release, “Alien
Nation,” is definite Scorpion-style
rock ln’ roll. The band’s new bass
ist, Ralph Rieckermann, shows he
can hold his own with this experi
enced group and take the place of
departed Francis Bucholz.
The album holds its intensity
through the next song, “No Pain No
Gain, another heavy track that
shows why the Scorpions are still
around after more than 20 years.
But after these two powerful
tracks, the quality of the album
fades, with a couple of quite decent
ballads being the only other men
tionable songs. The first of these,
“Under The Same Sun,” has a no
ticeable “Wind Of Change” tone to
it, but still manages to be distinct.
“We all live under the same sun/
we all walk under the same moon/
why can’t we live as one.”
vrics proclaim the same hopc
“Wind Of Change”
might have what it
* *---r.TTTTmniMln --
takes to make it on the charts.
The second ballad and final track
of the album is “Lonely Nights,” a
love ballad that is pretty good, but
it’s not original enough to make it
very far.
These four good songs don ’ t add
up to enough to make this album a
‘must own.’ Die-hard Scorpions
fans may want to pick it up —
especially if they have the first 15.
For everybody else, just wait for
the songs to hit the airwaves—and
be ready to hit record on the tape
deck.
—Joel Strauch
“Bat Out of Hell II:
Back Into Hell...”
Meat Loaf
MCA
This is not a heavy metal album,
as the title and cover art might lead
you to believe.
Nor is this a bunch of drunken
cowboy tunes, as the 10-to-12-word
song titles might lead you to be
lieve.
This album contains nothing but
powerful, heart-seizing, classic
rock ‘n’ roll — and all the world’s
children couldn't be luckier.
Meat Loaf has returned.
Yep, the big guy with the voice
full o’ passion has again teamed up
with songwriter Jim Steinman for
the sequel to—or rather, the con
tinuation of —- the 1977 smash
“Bat Out of Hell.”
Like its predecessor, the second
“Hell” album is an excellent col
lection of songs about love and
teen-age anxiety — delivered to
the world through Meat Loaf s dra
matic vocals.
Of course, it has no reason not to
be excellent, damn it. Steinman has
had 16 years to write the stuff.
Well, okay, a few songs on the
new release may fail to match the
quality of the original “Bat Out of
Hell” material. But one new song
—the one getting MTV airplay—
runs circles around all of the old
stuff.
That song is “I’d Do Anything
For Love (But I Won’t Do That).”
Absolutely bitchin’.
In typical Meat Loaf fashion,
“I’d Do Anything For Love” goes
on for nearly 12 minutes, and every
minute is {Kicked with sentiment.
The song’s mood alternates be
tween delicacy and driving vigor as
Meat Loaf — whose real name is
Martin Lee Aday—promises to be
loyal to the woman he loves.
This will be the song you mem
orize all the words to — just like
you memorized all the words to
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light”
when you were in kindergarten,
except this time you’ll know what
the words mean.__
See LOAF on 10
