Top ten list of the most violent games released in 2015:
Battlefield: Hardline
The latest chapter in the Battlefield franchise steps away from armed conflict in a war zone into armed conflict between cops and drug dealers. Players take on the role of a police officer attempting to dismantle drug networks. Players can use pistols, shotguns, and rifles to blast criminals, and firefights are frequently intense, with lots of blood spilled and characters screaming in pain. Cut scenes show execution-style gunshots to the head, as well as a character fed to crocodiles. There’s a wealth of profanity, and characters are shown consuming large amounts of alcohol and snorting drugs. On the bright side, Battlefield: Hardline lets players choose to take a nonviolent route, tasing and arresting criminals instead of killing them.
Bloodborne
This extremely challenging third-person action-RPG was designed to test a player’s skills — and patience. You’re tasked with hunting down and destroying creatures that were once human, using pistols, axes, scythes, and other devastating weaponry. There’s loads of combat, and buckets of blood will pour from every strike against you and your targets, and it frequently stains the ground; in fact, blood acts as both currency as well as the basis for health potions, which is important because players will frequently get killed by beasts that defy description.
Dying Light
This first-person survival horror game is notable for its action sequences and creative gameplay. The player is cast as a soldier who’s airdropped into the large fictional city of Harran, Turkey, to investigate the cause of a zombie outbreak. Players can use parkour-inspired moves to evade and attack the undead, along with weapons that can electrocute or incinerate them. You’ll be covered in blood and gore as you decapitate and dismember; in a sly twist, you can even become a zombie and hunt down other players in multiplayer matches.
Hatred
This is one of the most controversial releases in recent history, thanks to its content and plot. Notable as the first Adults Only-rated game to be released through Steam, the game was clearly designed to provoke a response. The premise makes Grand Theft Auto seem tame: Players play as a sociopath who attempts to kill innocent bystanders and police officers with guns, flamethrowers, and bombs to satisfy his hatred of humanity. Blood and gore is rampant, as are characters begging for mercy before they’re executed, frequently during profanity-laced rants.
Mad Max
Based on the post-apocalyptic films, this game takes an open-world approach to Max’s journey through the wasteland — and he delivers loads of violence from start to finish. Players can drive over enemies in cars, snap necks, and impale other characters with harpoons thrown from moving vehicles. Cut scenes offer characters having their throats slit, along with piles of bodies, lots of profanity, and drugs being inhaled.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The last chapter in the long-running stealth action franchise focuses on the hazards and effects of war. Though players have the option to use nonviolent methods to subdue opponents, they can use firearms, explosives, and knives. There’s torture, scantily clad women, references to rape, and derogatory language toward women.
Mortal Kombat X
The 10th installment of the popular and controversial fighting-game series offers more intricate gameplay mechanics and features than ever before. Though the title focuses on split-second timing, counters, and projectile attacks, it also has some of the most brutal violence, including executions, in series history. Spines are snapped, heads are crushed, players are diced into cubes — and these are some of the tamer fatalities. Mortal Kombat X is a sophisticated and technically complex fighting game that requires a lot of skill, but it’s definitely not for kids.
Onechanbara Z2: Chaos
The latest installment in the long-running action hack-and-slash franchise pits players against hordes of zombies and other monsters. Players use swords, chain saws, and firearms to dismember and destroy creatures; limbs and corpses litter the ground. Blood frequently sprays into the air after successful hits, triggering special “Blood Frenzy” attacks. And, in addition to the gallons of blood and copious profanity, the game dresses its heroines in revealing bikinis.
The Order: 1886
This visually striking third-person shooter is set in an alternate London. Cast as knights of the Round Table, players fight to keep society safe from werewolves and rebellious humans. Knights use pistols, knives, and futuristic weapons to make blood erupt from enemy wounds. The game opens with a torture scene and features topless women in a brothel, a scene with sexual intercourse, and full-frontal male nudity.
Until Dawn
This is one of the most striking (and, needless to say, violent) adventure games to be released in years. Set in an isolated mountain lodge, it lets players control a set of teens who are being hunted and picked off one by one. Characters frequently die in brutal fashion; teens are shown beheaded, dismembered, sliced in half, and more. There’s also loads of profanity and lots of sexual innuendo.
Source: Jeff Haynes Senior Editor, Video Games & Websites
Factors that contribute to violence with youth:
Poor monitoring and supervision of children by parents.
Harsh, lax or inconsistent parental disciplinary practices.
A low level of attachment between parents and children.
Low parental involvement in children’s activities.
Parental substance abuse or criminality.
Parental depression and low family income.
Unemployment in the family.
Associating with delinquent peers and/or gang membership.
Source: World Health Organization.
In the wake of violence like the school shooting at Madison Jr./Sr. High School 12 days ago, many people, including law enforcement, spend a good amount of time trying to make sense of a seemingly senseless act.
Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones says investigators have a motive for why the teen suspect in the Madison shooting — 14-year-old James Austin Hancock — opened fire in a cafeteria packed with his friends and classmates during lunchtime; but he is refusing to reveal it at this time.
The question of what drives people to violent acts in our society is one that continues to be debated among scholars and sociologists. Are there too many guns on the streets? Do violent video games and movies play a role? Could social media and coverage of killers and their violent acts by the news media be a factor? Are more mental health services needed?
Brad Bushman, a professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University, along with 11 other experts around the country, conducted a study called “School shootings and street violence: How they’re alike and different.” After finishing the study, the group called for politicians, educators and citizens to make youth violence a national priority.
“We can never say that playing violent video games is the one cause of a youth going on a shooting rampage,” Bushman said. “But there is a lot of evidence that exposure to media violence increases aggressive behavior. And evidence suggests such exposure may be a contributing factor to violent behavior, even if it isn’t the main factor. The main factor is probably easy access to guns.”
Video games versus violence
Video games, prolonged exposure to violent movies and gang-related activities have long been issues debated after school shootings or street violence occurs involving youth. Glenn Muschert, an associate professor of sociology at Miami University in Oxford, has been looking at all the angles that play out in school shootings and street violence and says those situations can be very complex.
“I look at it as a three-pronged or three rings of issues that comes up after these shootings as underlying factors: guns, violence in the media and mental health,” Muschert said. “We have zero tolerance for a problem that cannot be reduced to zero.”
He added there is an aura of being desensitized when it comes to American culture and how it views violence, but scientifically, it is hard to prove that violent video games and movies cause youth to be more violent.
“In Japan, they watch twice as many violent movies and play twice as many video games as we do, but they have much less violence in their society,” Muschert explained. “I took my wife to see the movie Deadpool recently, and there was so much gratuitous violence in it and a lot of younger viewers at the movie, but even that or prolonged viewing of these movies won’t automatically lead to violent behavior.”
However, Muschert cautioned, “If you kids are already exposed to too many violent video games or movies, it’s probably not a good thing.”
Muschert said another factor that he believes contributes to youth violence is image.
“There is an image out there of what a school shooter looks like — almost like from a script,” he said. “There is a subset of our population that is drawn to that. We need to have better and more positive images.”
He said that any socioeconomic class or race can be drawn to the image of power that a gun brings.
“Trying to gain masculinity, and they feel that is a desirable trait,” Muschert said. “But we have just as many guns as people now, and that is likely not going to change.”
Muschert said he is not anti-gun, but more in tune with how to deal with what can be addressed. “There is something called ‘leaking.’”
He explained that one of his students did a project interviewing schools in New England who had not been victimized by a shooter. Leaking is when students learn of a possible threat to the school and report it immediately to teachers after the perpetrator (s) have leaked their intentions.
“That was the number one thing to help improve safety,” Muschert said. “Look, I want to add this, schools are some of the safest places we have and the victimization rates are very low.”
Social media and intense media coverage of tragic shootings
Jeffrey Strawn, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at University of Cincinnati, and a child and adolescent psychiatrist with UC Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, says social media and news coverage of tragic shootings can also play a role in the violence seen nationally.
“It can have both positives or negatives. Certainly, social media is a source of support for a lot of individuals,” Strawn said. “There is often something very therapeutic about it, just the cathartic experience of sharing it with others. However, when we are also talking about social media, there is the risk of continuing to expose individuals to the trauma or the violence. And may even be a vicarious traumatization that occurs as a result of that.”
Jeffrey Blevins, the of UC’s Department of Journalism, said he believes there are many positive aspects of having an tragic event like the one that happened at Madison Jr./Sr. High School put under a media microscope.
“There are some people that think the media shouldn’t devote so much coverage to these types of events because it inspires copycats, but I tend to disagree,” he said. “Sometimes the coverage has led to helping find out what happened and even capture the killer or killers. There are some ways the news media can improve, like not making the sole focus only on the shooter or overly focus on a manifesto or suicide note, but really tell the story about the lives lost. Don’t glamorize the killer.”
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