Violent video games, your parents, and you

Getting to the age where I'm thinking about having kids myself, I can really start to see where these protective parents are coming from. If you start thinking that you want to protect your baby from bad influences, games are a really good place to start.

My parents were incredibly liberal when it came to playing whatever I wanted: one of the first games I remember playing was Wolvenstein 3D. My mum occasionally kind of suggests that I've become jaded because of my excessive amount of gaming, but I really don't think that's the case.

On the other hand, I hardly think every game is okay for a kid to play. I mostly dislike 3D shooters because they seem to be very limited in scope (shoot/get shot/respawn). I think a game like GTA (equally violent, but much more diverse in interactivity) teaches you much more, and I do think I would encourage my kid to play a game such as that rather than a "brainless" shooter. But to be fair, even if a game isn't violent it can still be bloody stupid.

But I realise that by the time I have a kid I may be out of touch with the latest games and unable to judge their merit properly. If that's the case, I will have to trust my kid's taste, I suppose. =D

Jam it back in, in the dark.