Sick School Shooter Simulator Shocks

I don’t believe that violent video games directly lead to violent behaviour, or even that they desensitise children to violence – a philosophy supported by recent studies.

I do believe that there’s a line that should be drawn when it comes to class and taste (surprising, I know!) – and that line’s been crossed..or rather hurdled over. A group of game mod developers, calling themselves Checkerboarded Studios has created a Source engine mod that recreates and glorifies school shootings like the awful events at Columbine and Virgina Tech – right down to accurate models of the weapons used by Eric Harris and Seung-Hui Cho in their rampages.

This game, obviously designed to offend, is “dedicated to being the best school shooting experience an angsty little shit could ever experience.” One of the developers of the mod, in an interview with The Escapist cites the inspiration behind School Shooter: North American Tour 2012 as that fact that “nobody has ever tried to create a proper game about a school shooting.”

“It’s not my place to try and teach the world to love again, or to cure society’s ills,” developer “Pawnstick” says. “The purpose of video games is to be fun, and to provide players with scenarios they can’t (Or shouldn’t) re-enact in real life,” arguing that the mod might even prevent massacres, saying “one of our intents with the game is to make it it’s own sort of exclusive experience: That any angst-ridden kid who has the idea in his head to shoot up his school, who ends up playing the game, finds it amusing enough of a substitute that it keeps them from doing it in real life.”

While I’m not a prude, mother grundy or trying to be one of the countless sensational media types that’ll likely latch on to this story, this tacky and tasteless game just seems to overstep the boundaries of healthy entertainment.  The “No Russian” level in Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 was equally tacky, created for shock value – but it had its place within the context of the game. This doesn’t really have a valid reason to exist. I will disclose that I’ve not played it – and my opinion might change after I do.

I believe in freedom of expression and free speech; but this will just end up being more ammunition for angry, overzealous anti-game lobbyists like Jack Thompson, and saying things “like it’s just a video game” is poor justification.

Here’re the mod’s “features,” direct from the mod’s site in case you’re a sociopathic nutjob interested in giving it a spin when it’s available.

• 6 amazingly realistic maps with cool features like high dynamic range, and multiple students for you to shoot at.
• A points system that tracks every murder you commit. Bonuses are received for various things such as headshots, difficulty level you are on, what your health is, how cool you are in real life, and some other stuff that we’ll probably crowbar in as time goes on by.
• A weapon loadout system based on 4 real-life spree killers.
• 13 brand-new fuckin’ weapons based on the weapons used by the aforementioned 4 spree killers, these will all be pain-stakingly modeled by one of our best (and probably only modeler), [NAME REDACTED].
• A round timer that will give you about 5 or so minutes to do what you do best, kill people. Gamemodes will be programmed that interface with this round timer, the ones we’re working on right now are a “survival” type gamemode were you try to survive the longest amount of time, and another were you are given 60 seconds to kill as many people as you can. The more kills you get, the more time you get.
• Music that sounds a lot like the things certain school shooters (their names rhyme with Shmylan and Shmeric) were thought to be influenced by.
• Developer commentary by fellow developers of this fine project. Note: Developers actual voices will be masked in order to protect them from potential backlash.
• And what is more better than the ability to commit suicide at the end of your spree with a self-inflicted gun shot wound? What’s even more special is that this works, even if you’re completely out of ammo! (Real spree killers keep a single bullet hidden in their boot incase some shit goes down).

Source : The Escapist

Last Updated: March 1, 2011