[Solved] Call of duty : modern warfare 2

I don't play games so can't comment on the rating of this game in particular, but the ratings are there for a reason and it is a long way above his age. The problem, presumably, is peer pressure because his friends are playing it. Ultimately, the choice is yours, aloong with any limits placed on it if you do allow him to play it. Is there anything you could encourage/reward him with as an alternative?

When my children were younger and living with their mother, she allowed them to watch 18 rated films (I didn't approve at all) - I know Stephen King's IT was quite disturbing for them, so the ratings certainly mean something on films.

I think it depends on the child and the content.

This game has a level in which, in order to infiltrate a terrorist cell you have to massacre civilians to prove yourself. You can opt out of the level whilst playing the game.

Does playing a violent game influence a child to be violent or aggressive? I don't think so - but if this were a film would you let your child watch it ? if not then don't let them play the game.

I thinking the ratings are their to allow parents to make a judgement call - lot tougher though when all his mates are playing the game.

I think it's a bit crazy that this game has an 18 rating when most the copys sold are probally for kids under that age. My step-son plays it and he's 14 but to be honest he's been playing these sort of games for a few years,i've only had a quick game with him on Cod 2 but im suprised it's an 18 rating.

If you were talking about Grand theft auto then I would say definately not as it's all guns,drugs and a different type of violence to Call of duty,maybe you could preview in the Game store and see whether you do think it's suitable.

Big Fat NO from me - if your sons plays that type of game at his age then it desensitises him to violence at a young age. This in turn leads to the need for a greater "rush" so more violent morbid games/films being produced to meet demand.

It's the end of the world I tell you. 😯

... and the meek shall inherit the earth...

.... but only after playing modern warfare 😆

Hi all

I have the same situation - my 12 year old "young adult" claims he is responsible enough and indeed old enough to have this game. We allow him to play 15/16 games once we have vetted them however the 18 games are for ADULTS and therefore contain many of the things we try to protect him from.

We would not allow him to enter a pub, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol all available for 18 year olds why should we let him play those games?

A friend of mine's son who is 13 is in tears over this game as again 'all his friends are playing it' and he hasn't got a copy. His response is that whilst he can't control what his son does at this friends' houses, he has control at home and is sticking to his guns (excuse the pun) over this. He had done some research online about this game and I understand You Tube has various clips of the game to view before he made his decision.

I have Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the XBOX 360, firstly it is a very graphic game with some high language used, but what we need to realise is that the game is based on real life warfare, something we would not send our kids to fight in.

some parents i think are too lapse when it comes to games and movie ratings with the opinion that if they do not have nightmares it cannot be that dangerous for them.
Most consoles have a parent lock similar to a child safety program on a pc which stops a child playing or viewing stuff that is not for them, maybe parents need to be looking into setting all the safety levels up on consoles.

Children need to learn they are kids and not adults and these restrictions are there to protect them.

I think its the realism of the game that's the problem. I think if the graphics were cartoonie (is that a word 🙄 ) then it wouldn't be so much of a problem. I remember when i was a kid - my brother and i would watch wrestling on Saturday and then afterwards kick 7 bells out of each other pretending to be the wrestlers however Tom and Jerry (which was far more violent) didn't make us go running for the frying pans to start whacking each other round the head.

I seem to remember something about the more realistic something is the more kids are unable to disassociate it with real life. I think the age ratings are there for a reason and there are times when parents should respect them.

Call me old fashioned, but I just don't get the whole game thing. I know the graphics these things have now are really incredible looking and life-like and I can see how 'cool' they may seem to young people, but it's our responsibility as parents and adults to explain to children the differences between these games and real life and why these games are unhealthy and how they effect us. Children can really imitate what they see and hear around them, whether it's from people on the street or from characters in a game. I think these games even for adults can change our viewpoints and reactions to things. The same is true for tv and the Internet. I also don't get the whole peer pressure thing like 'my mate has it' blah blah. Why can't we encourage our kids to be individuals??

What's wrong with good old Connect 4?!! 😆

I like to think I'm a pretty responsible parent when I had my kids ( in care at the moment due to my EX endangering them and I'm reg disabled so being assessed as to whever I can look after them safely before I can get them back). Anyway my son is 6 yrs old and my Daughter is 11 yrs old and I let them play it but only against each other where you don't get the bad language or the blood n guts in the single player mode. It's not at all an 18 rated game in the one on one matches but I'd not let them play the campaign mode which does contain the violence. I also didn't let them play on it for hours and hours and never will. The last thing I'd want us a child who just veggies out on their consoles for 5-6 hours a day.

Hi

Not sure that I agree with you there - these games are 18 for a reason and whilst we allow our 12/10 year old to play on games rated 15 there is too much exposure on 18 rated games. After all we wouldn't allow them to drink alcohol or read "mens" magazines!!!

It is difficult as their friends have them they need to abide by your values and this is something that we both feel strongly about. I also feel that 6 is too young as they lose their childhood as there are lots of games that help the develop.

However this is very much my opinion and not a personal criticism.

Mario

Hi all

Computer games with ratings. Yea I agree with what most people have said there's a good reason why it's been rated so high.
Its because nowadays there making games to similar to films, and with the realistic images it's very easy to get sucked to to a reality
and a storyline that doesn't exist.

e.g I recently purchased the football game pro evolution soccer and the realism in the game so high that when you find yourself
scoring people tend to get carried away as if it's the real thing. So imagine it was a shoot em up game where there tends to be
a lot of blood spillage or a grand theft auto where there game encourages your character to be rebellious to all rules.

JJ

Well we didn't get the game in the end and went for some other pressies, which all went down well

Thanks dadtalkers it was great to get so many opinions on the proposed Christmas present, and really helped me clarify my thinking. I love this community.

Ron.

cheers

Tee hee. Is there an echo in the room or did you just talk to yourself 😆

Seriously though. I would definitely preserve my children's innosence and this includes computer games, TV, Videos (ok-I mean these new fangled DVD things).
The most frustrating bit for me is encouraging independance and giving a child the opportunity to make good decisions - but at other children's houses I can't imagine the situation where I hear "... I'm not going to watch because I'm not 18..."

A game I would recommend and real fun and still maintaining the 'hit the moving target' aspect is Raving Rabbids. Shooting rubber suckers at moving rabbids and so on. It even allows 2 players to play at the same time. This is a rough representation of a 'rabbid' (I still pronounce it RABBIT).

I realise I'm very late to the party here so I'll cut to the chase, I'm very into videogaming. Admittedly I'm 25 and grew up with them, my brother is 8 years older so they were always around when I was growing up and I've developed a real passion for gaming as a whole. That being said, I never play anything more violent than a Super Mario Bros game around my daughter who is currently 5 is around unless its via my PSP and she's busy elsewhere.

This applies to games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

It's easy to give in and let your kids play games such as this, I know my Mother did with the first Grand Theft Auto on Sony's original PlayStation around 12 years ago I think it is now. But that was so far removed from what games are able to do now as a medium, they offer such a stronger experience of what they're trying to portray than when I was a teenager that I'd not consider letting a child below the age reccomended play them unless I felt they were mentally mature enough to deal with the content, and would only do so after playing the game myself.

This is the problem with games at the moment. They're still seen as a childs play thing, when in reality the average age of a gamer is in his early Thirties, and thus many titles are developed with content in that is suitable for such an audience.

That said, kids (teenager especially, I'm obviously still young enough to remember the things I got up to 😉 )have a habit of getting hold of things that you'd personally deem unsuitable for you, and in reality I think the single player aspect is more shocking than anything the online multiplayer modes could throw up (if you factor out the problems such communities can have regarding racism, sexism and general immaturity dressed up as "trash talk" but in my personal opinion is mostly crude and sometimes despicable behaviour hidden behind anonymity) as the developer (this particular instalment was created by the award winning Infinity Ward) has tried to tackle the realities of war within some of the scenario's presented to the player. The multiplayer however is little more than paying for your kids to attend a paintball or laser quest event really.

That's interesting - a few of you have said that the single player's story line is quite graphic but the multi player, which lacks a story line and context is safer.

With headsets off (on XBox 360) the single player is little more than a virtual paint ball game really.

The single player attempts (in some cases succesfully, in others ridiculously) the harshness of modern warfare (hence its title), I think the previous Infinity Ward release in the series (Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare released in 2007 iirc) does a better job of this though.

I do think that if your child is of an age where they're learning about the World Wars and some of the politics surrounding it, and indeed if you're happy letting them watch TV shows like Band of Brothers and The Pacific and they can understand that personal and human side to warfare then there's nothing in the Call of Duty games that would be damaging in the slightest, aside from the "No Russian" level in Modern Warfare 2 that many non-informed people have kicked off about.

For the record it see's you playing an undercover agent within a Russian terrorist unit who attack an airport, at no point are you forced to shoot anyone until the armed forces attack your group, but the option is there to attack civilians. I understand the reasoning behind Infinity Ward including this in the game (this sort of thing is being reported all over the news, happens in real wars, we're fed it every day that kind of thing) but do feel its inclusion was purely to gain headlines.

That's really interesting about the different versions of the same game. I feel I can't really comment as I haven't played any of them, but I would say that my issue is that they shouldn't be used as educational tools in learning about war. I think a trip to a war graveyard or a concentration camp or a conversation with a survivor of conflict is educational enough. There are lots of people in this country who have escaped war and persecution in our lifetime, e.g. Bosnia, Congo and they can teach us so much more about the reality and aftermath of 'modern warfare'. You don't always have to just go back to the Second World War. It still happens today.

Its not the same game, but part of the same series, like films and books.

I'm not saying use it as a sole tool in education, but there's certain things that only games can do thanks to the sense of immersion many of them have now that other media or even first hand tales cannot do. Its only really recycling those first hand tales just as films do but rather than being a voyeur in the events a game allows you to live with them.

As I said though, its all dependent on the mental capacity of the person playing or viewing games and films like this. We've all heard the stories of how X film (Evil Dead series/ Childs Play series etc) or X game (Grand Theft Auto) or X book (Catcher in the Rye) or X song or album (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin played backwards that kind of thing) have supposedly influenced people to go out and commit some ridiculous crime, but you have to ask is that society making something thats currently popular (and therefore scary to an older generation through a lack of understanding) into a scapegoat for an act commited by someone who was potentially unhinged in the first place (Doom and Marilyn Manson still being blamed for the Columbine Massacre being a very good example) or do we really believe that these creations, whether you regard them as art or even worthy of release or attention, are really to blame?

Videogames are as important a medium as anything else out there that can deliver a story. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 probably isn't the best example of this (although its predecessor could be considered amongst those ranks) but playing through something like Valve's "Half Life 2" series (on PC, or PS3 and XBox 360 via The Orange Box) reveals that whilst yes games are violent, they can deliver something spectacular as the world in which those games are set tells its own story.

And now I'm inspired to write a blog post over at Daily Wannabe Otaku Attack Squad 😆

All my mates at school were watching the Young Ones and Not the Nine o'clock News when
I was at school and my parents didn't give in.

The hint there is "give in" who's the boss, you or the kid? If you don't feel the game is appropriatee
Then don't let them play it. I'm sure if you asked all the other parents of the children who "claim" to
Be playing it you would find many are not really.

These issues come up all the way though the child up-bringing, they are learning negociating skills
And how to communicate effectively. If you just give in to what they request and there only arguament
Is that everyone else is doing it then what exactly are you hoping to teach them?

Right Dad's

Firstly, I am a MW2 gamer on the pc!

I don't know about the content restriction for pc, but I have been told, that if you have PS3 or X360, there is a parental control setting that restricts the view of blood and the swearing, so they won't see/hear it!

dunno if that's true,

anyway, how many of you play it on pc?

My steam name is steveydee25 if anyone want's to add me!

steve