Let's Blame Videogames! Part 1

Well not really part one, but the next iteration in the continuing war being waged on video games by the media and unscrupulous "journalists." This weeks episode guest stars this guy, who, I will readily admit, is one freaky as fuck dude. He's a gay porn star, is rumoured to have killed cats, and possibly another dismemberment of a body in L.A. Oh, and apparently either a huge fan of Christopher Walken (personally I can't blame him there) or of a video game called Ripper.

The apparent connections include the actor changing his name to match the name of the character Walken plays in the game, sending an email to a British newspaper saying "I can't stop killing" (unconfirmed in the report), mirroring the characters email to a newspaper claiming he's addicted to killing, and of course the mutiliation and murder of his victims.

Well, where do I start? Let's start with the video game itself. Ripper is an adventure game from 1996 made with video footage characters and a point and click interface. The games starts, as accurately reported in the article, with a newspaper receiving emails from someone claiming to be the person responsible for recent murders.

And I'll bet you can guess which real-life historical figure the game, the murderer, and murders in RIPPER are all based on.

That would be the guy who was hunting Heather Graham, the bastard!

Here's some video of the game:

So all of the is pretty circumstantial so far, but the really damning "evidence" is the conscious decision by the "Canadian Psycho" to change his name to Magnotta, which happens to be the name of the character Walken plays in the game. But here's where the reporters little pet theory hits the reality wall, Magnotta is one of 4 characters in the game who are randomly decided by the game to be the Ripper during each playthrough. Meaning essentially that there's a 25% chance that the Detective Magnotta character will be discovered to be the murderer, and the story reports the same, "Although the Walken's character Vince Magnotta character is ostensibly a police officer investigating the series of murders one outcome of the game sees him as the 'Ripper' killer himself." The insinuation, however, is very, VERY, clear.

Yep, positively damning evidence. The story goes on to report the remarks of a police commander in Montreal, Canada. "Asked about parallels with the game, Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafrenière admitted: 'There are lots of similarities there.'" Really chuckles? You mean similarities in the game to actions taken by Magnotta and the famed serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who the game was based on? Or how about similarities to Dahmer?

Oh fuck it, this is, surprisingly, the only article I found with a quick Google search to bring up the argued Ripper - Canadian Psycho connection. Most do mention the "gay porn star" frequently. Unsurprisingly, it's from a UK news source infamous for anti-video game articles. The author here is attempting to make the insinuation that the killer got his inspiration for his murders from a video game thats over 10 years old at this point, and thus make an argument that violent video games or games that depict violence can cause a person to become violent, even murderous.

By that reasoning I should be a raving, psychotic sociopath hell bent on reducing everyone I meet to a pile of bloody flesh in progressively more creative ways. Hell, it's a miracle that my wife and 3 children have survived this long, I'm a ticking time bomb. This sort of thing pops up once in awhile, but as in this case it's usually bunk put forward by people with an agenda, to label the video games industry as underminers our children's moral code (since, y'know, ALL games are aimed at children...) and society at large.

I'm still waiting for someone to make the connection between the Florida bath salt "zombie" and F.E.A.R.'s Paxton Fettel....