Mature content in the console wars

Video games may be the only form of media still young enough to be revolutionized by a single group making a concerted effort for change.

Only five years ago, the idea of a video game having adult themes was truly revolutionary. Mario, Luigi, Kirby, and many other cutesy characters ruled the day. Now Solid Snake, a member of an extremely covert anti-terroist operation in Metal Gear Solid, and Alucard, a human-vampire hybrid out to destroy evil in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, enjoy devoted followings.

COURTESY PLAYSTATION.COM

To be fair, graphically, games have only recently begun to maintain a look of realism in keeping with adult themes. You might have flinched a bit when Mario died, but now you feel at least mild agony when the same happens to Solid Snake, because he seems so much more real. Given that Playstation and Nintendo 64 are both much more realistic graphically than any pre-ceding system, Sony has chosen to follow a generally more mature game route than Nintendo, which tried to stick to a tried and true formula geared toward kids (i.e. Pokémon) while offering a touch of maturity here and there, as with Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Technologically, X-Box, the new console backed by Microsoft, looks to leave Play-station 2 and Nintendo behind. X-Box is calculated to be able to handle 80 to 100 million polygons per second with effects while running at 733 MHz. Playstation 2, in contrast, runs at 294.9 MHz with 18 million polygons per second and Nintendo's Gamecube at 485 MHz and 6 to 12 million polygons per second.

Sony's market share is indeed ripe to be challenged, as Playstation 2 games did not deliver on the revolution that Sony promised. Naturally, there are exceptions, such as the recent releases Devil May Cry, Grand Turismo 3, and Grand Theft Auto III. Devil May Cry takes a great concept and combines it with stunning delivery and interesting game mechanics, being one of the few to switch quickly between gun and sword play. Gran Turismo III takes racing realism to a new extreme.

Looking at screenshots, one sometimes cannot distinguish the models in the game from photos of actual cars. The control is almost spot-on and the variety of racing available is spectacular. Grand Theft Auto 3 is a game that defies genre-classification. An RPG/action/race game, you must carjack autos, outrun the police, fool the mob, and stay hidden from all your foes. The game wins on its pure originality and amazing scope—you can walk for what must be miles within one of the game world's many cities.

On top of this, the new consoles that Nintendo and Microsoft are launching in less than a month each promise to give a more mature experience than before. Nintendo's soon to be released Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem has already taken the award for coolest title ever. Nintendo started to prove its possible depth near the end of the 64's lifetime with games like Zelda: Majora's Mask and Conker's Bad Fur Day. If they can take the graphical and memory advances possible on their new system, Nintendo Gamecube, they may be able to take Sony to the mat.

The president of Rare-ware, a second-party company to Nintendo, offered this statement: "[With the Gamecube] we're telling stories like we've never told before. All of the ideas we've wanted to convey, we can do this with the new technology." And X-Box? Sony shocked the world by entering a world that Nintendo had dominated for years. Microsoft can do what Sony did if its content can compete, and, as recent developments indicate, content must appeal to a larger, more mature audience.

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