I must admit, I've killed quite a few people in my life. Hell, I've killed hundreds of thousands of people. Not just young people -- I've gunned down old people, too. Animals and other creatures, wild and domesticated, all were in the scope, too, cuz I believe in equal opportunity.

Oh, did I mention I've done all this in my video games?

Yup, like most gamers who are diehard FPS and 3PS (3rd-person shooters), I have slained plenty of men and women who figured it would be better to go up against me in a gun fight than to stay home and take care of their family doing something else in their lives, like becoming a chef or something like that. From racking up points turning lively straphangers on the street into decapitated piles of mush in Carmageddon 2 to slowly filling a henchman's head with bullets (Matrix-style!) in Max Payne, from launching a mini-star set to explode using my trusty Nova Cannon in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter to simply beating the crap out of an old lady with her own cane in GTA: San Andreas, I honestly can say I've done it all!  And we cannot forget being able to destroy entire solar systems in Twilight of the Arnor - that probably racks up about up to 50 billion lives wiped out in an instant.  And that's just one game where you can destroy whole solar systems - just play some Space Empires V and you'll really take pleasure in collapsing a star into a black hole...

Oh, and I can't forget casting Ultima on a bunch of Rabbites in Final Fantasy III -- it's overkill, but OHHH, what a thrill of hurting such innocent creatures!

See, if a politician, such as, say, Hillary Clinton, were to read all of the above, she'd probably say something like "See, this is the problem with America's youth, these video games, and all the more reason to give more games an AO rating!"

The AO rating, as most of you know, is referring to the rating change done to the multi-million sellout, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PS2, XBOX, and PC. Although it has been a few weeks since the changeover, already it is clear the kind of message that our government is sending to the American public.

Or is it?

This is what the politicians are saying -- on TV (not really quoted, of course):
"San Andreas is an example of video games at its worse, allowing children to gain access to scenes of sexual intercourse that they can participate in. It is UNACCEPTABLE that children should be exposed to anything sexual in video games, let alone the pornographic scenes that are allowed by using the "Hot Coffee" modification. This is why we all agree that a rating change was necessary, from the Mature rating to Adults Only."

...Ok, now, read that through a few times so it's seared into your memory banks, because now I'm gonna tell you what the fuck is wrong with this image.

First off, let us disregard the fact that Rockstar Games did have the hidden "sex romp" embedded within the games, even though you did need the HotCoffee mod in order to access it -- there was NO OTHER WAY to gain access to the interactive sex scene in the games without the mod. I am here to rant about the issue over WHY the game's rating was changed.

Let us look at GTA San Andreas in depth. Now the game was initially given a Mature, or M, rating. According to the [defunct] ESRB, an "M" rating means "you must be at least 17 to purchase and play this game." In GTA: San Andreas, you can do the following:
--spontaneously start fights with anyone
--rob houses
--kill innocents
--hijack almost any vehicle
--run down innocents with vehicles
--kill military and police officers
--kill the elderly
--shoot people while they're sleeping in their houses as you rob them
--"have sex" with prostitutes and then kill them to get your money back
--rob innocents after killing them
--slit people's throats from behind
--destroy property
--shoot down airplanes and helicopters
--gambling (you have to be 18 in the US to legally gamble in casinos)
--kill your girlfriend(s)
--several references to the use of drugs, and being able to "purchase" drugs

Let's not forget the cursing! Oh, the language in the game is just filled with almost as much cursing as the South Park movie!
Did I miss anything?

This game got an "M" rating, after taking all of this into consideration. The minute there is a hint of sex -- sex that cannot be unlocked unless you go out of the way to get a mod that most people didn't even know about until it got on the news -- the game is slapped with an AO rating. According to the ESRB, "AO" means "you must be at least 18 in order to purchase and play the game".

So, according to all the politicians and the US government, it is PERFECTLY OK to have our children and teens exposed to excessive violence and wanton destruction of the human body (taking drugs, shooting someone), but the minute there is a touch of sex -- and the sex offered by the Hot Coffee mod ain't as big a deal as the gov't would lead you to believe -- all of America goes nuts! That's our Puritan roots for you.

In Europe, they got the formula right, IMO. See, they censor a lot of blood and gore over there, but sex and nudity is all good. Why, you ask? Well, to me it makes a lot more sense, because at some point in a person's life they will have sex and/or see a woman/guy naked. The human body is a natural thing and something to embrace instead of fear. Hacking people to pieces is not a natural thing, which is why bloody scenes in games are more censored in Europe than they are here.

Now American society has fully embraced violence in video games, but sex cannot be allowed IN ANY FORM. Two words for that: TOTAL TRASH. I'm not saying that sex should run rampant in all our video games, but I am saying that sex in a video game is NOTHING LIKE sex in real life. For example, take the characters from The Sims 2. If you get a mod to remove the blur that censors their bodies when they are naked, what do you see? I'll tell you what I see: a blurry, non-descript body that has no real distinguishing features -- no nipples, genitalia, nadda. In San Andreas, nobody is fully nude in the sex scene -- no nipples, no penis, no nothing. The only thing you do is push buttons in succession to make CJ pump her faster and faster. Whoopdy do.

I am not a violent person in real life. I love killing in my games, but I'd never do that in real life. Pinning the murders of others by teens on their parents is what we should be doing, because the majority (more than 90%) of gamers are more rational than that. The US government shouldn't be parenting for the parents.

Parents, before you buy a game for your teen, look up info on it and don't be afraid to ask questions! If there is a big fat "M" on the box, it's there for a reason! Be a part of your kid's life instead of letting him or her run around till midnight, not even caring what they were doing or with whom. If your kid ends up doing something stupid, it isn't the GAME'S fault, it's YOURS.
Politicians, you all are idiots. Before you join the extra-points-in-the-polls-for-a-future-presidential-nomination bandwagon, play the games that you are about to attack, because you would realize just how stupid you make yourself out to be to people like us who know you're dead wrong about the games you attack.

The damage has already been done to San Andreas and other mature games, such as Manhunt 2. I must admit, at the pace we're going with this nation, compulsory chastity belts will be forced upon all of us and our children until we are legally married. Not wearing one will result in immediate arrest and an investigation of your home to see if any "sexual taboos" such as making out, "getting to 3rd base", and other sexual acts were committed. However, you can legally buy a gun when you turn 13 and can get away with murder if you simply chop the body up into shoebox-sized pieces and bury them in your backyard. Don't forget to hack up the dog -- it might give away the location of the shoeboxes.

God Bless America, Our Backwards Home.