Lanza, 20, especially liked “Call of Duty” — a wartime role-playing game where participants use high-powered assault rifles, machine guns and other weapons to slaughter scores of people,…
“The kids who play these games know all about them. I’m not blaming the games for what happened. But they see a picture of a historical gun and say ‘I’ve used that on Call Of Duty.’”
From the article
“They had one poster of every piece of military equipment the US ever made,” Wlasuk said.
I don’t blame violent video games, I blame the US military.
Also, in that article, they should investigate the hair stylist because it sounds like he has issues as well.
“Call of Duty” — a wartime role-playing game
twitch
Yeah, the hair stylist sounds a bit freaky.
However, maybe we should address violence in video games, but that’s seemingly impossible to do because that would have to address the excesses of gamer culture.
Call of Duty is an RPG? Never having played one, I thought they were all FPS. Maybe I should try one.
You gain experience and level up. Sounds right to me.
It’s an RPG in the sense that you progress through levels based on kills to get rewarded with unlocks. The latest, Black Ops II, has a pretty cool single player system. However, it’s no RPG.
It definitely has RPG level-up through grinding mechanics in the multiplayer. You unlock abilities, weapons, more loadouts (think character classes) and even special powers.
Here’s a CNN article as well. I have not seen this level of press against gaming since Columbine when Doom/Quake was used as a planning tool.
NRA/Gun manufacturers: “Yeah, man, it’s the video games, man! And the movies, man! Yeah man! Bishop should go! Good idea!”
“They had one poster of every piece of military equipment the US ever made,” Wlasuk said.
“The kids could tell you about guns they had never seen from the 40s, 50s and 60s"
I guess I don’t need to say it here, but they sound like gun enthusiasts, not just gamers.
Edit: actually, the end of the article specifically state Aspergers, which would probably make sense to fixate on hardware with lots of little variations and categories like guns.
Also, are there “historical guns” in CoD? I thought the whole point of Modern Warfare was that it was, well, modern. I guess WWII weaponry would’ve been in the original CoDs, and that’s probably what they mean by historical more than, like a Maxim gun.
I think this is an issue we should discuss, but I’m not sure that it should be discussed here.
Plus, Black Ops had 60’s-80’s era guns.
I kind of wish I had taking a picture of the transit bus I saw today that was all black with COD branding all over us.
Beware, by the end of the day, this Canadian city will be full of crazies! (more so than normal)
I don’t think that’s necessarily an Aspergers thing. That sounds like a kid thing to me. Kids love taxonomy, whether it’s dinosaurs, Pokemons, or even stuff like cars or guns. That’s certainly something I’ve retained since being a kid, although my bag was airplanes.
-Tom
P.S. Good lord, that hair stylist needs some sort of outlet to blow off steam. I suggest violent videogames.
Knowing the NY Post I wouldn’t be surprised if 99% of the hair stylist quotes were fiction.
Yeah, old fogies tend to forget that kids obsess. Something isn’t cool, it’s absolutely the coolest thing on earth. They draw it on their Peechee. They write terrible fanfic about it. They draw the photo of whatever or whoever it is on any piece of paper they can find. THEY JUST CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT, OMG.
Then one day it just isn’t as cool any more, and they move on.
Guess it makes people feel better to compartmentalize this stuff with a easily-defined medical label.
'Course, now, if said kid/people can’t stop obsessing over something…
Jesus, not this shit again. Oh no, some crazy nutjob played Call of Duty, so videogames must turn children into crazy nutjobs. How many people who commited multiple murders played sports in school and were sports fans? How many people in prison for murder watched CSI and other crime dramas on TV? How many enjoyed action movies? How many READ BOOKS? Where does it end?
Yeah, that was my thought when I noted he just seemed like an enthusiast. Some people (kids and adults) just really love some things. The Aspergers thing was just an afterthought. It makes sense, if true, but it isn’t necessary at all to explain it. Kids especially do love military hardware though.
As for the stylist (assuming its legit), creepy sure, but we all cope in our own ways. Imagining that you could have done something to stop it is his.
They threw in that RPG term to make it scarier than just plain video games, because people still believe crap like this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084314/