Star Game Review: Saints Row 2, XBox 360
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 6th Feb 2009 14:34 UTC
Games Do you remember the good old days? When game manufacturers fully realised that gamers don't really need a motivation and a back story to make them want to kill everything on screen? The good old days, when Grand Theft Auto 1 was released, and Carmageddon 1 and 2 were made. Those were the days. Somewhere along the way, however, game designers started shoe-horning backstories and motivations into games where the goal is "kill everything", and as a consequence, these games became pretentious. Thank god, however, for Saints Row 2: a game that brings back the good old days of mindless violence - just for the fun of it.
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jimbofluffy
Member since:
2008-07-15

But as I said, the lack of a baseline means you cannot draw any sane comparison. This is a bogus study.


Once again, you don't need a baseline. Can you explain why they need a baseline when the point of comparison is between what they label "violent" and "non-violent" where the two are randomly assigned? Or can you explain why underlying qualites between the two randomly assigned samples are different without speculation? One of the authors of the study did a similar study where instead of using the reaction to the mock fight the used physiological readings. They did have baseline.

Edited 2009-02-08 14:54 UTC

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Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

Once again, you don't need a baseline. Can you explain why they need a baseline when the point of comparison is between what they label "violent" and "non-violent" where the two are randomly assigned?


I should've been more clear. What I meant was that they need a control group, a group that has NOT been exposed to any video games. For all we know, that group would have had results similar to the "violent" group, which would've raised different questions. Without it, there is no way to tell if the violent group had increased reaction times compared to unexposed people, of if the non-violent group had decreased reaction times compared to non-exposed people.

Edited 2009-02-08 14:55 UTC

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jimbofluffy Member since:
2008-07-15

Without it, there is no way to tell if the violent group had increased reaction times compared to unexposed people, of if the non-violent group had decreased reaction times compared to non-exposed people.


I agree with you that there is nothing you can say from this study about the overall effects, but the point of comparision is relative. From what I have found they did take physiological baselines, but not the reaction time baselines. There is a possibility that for whatever reason the "non-violent" games increased the reaction speeds of the subjects and so did the violent games, but less so. I don't find that very likely, but you might find it more likely, but it seems inconsistent with their other study that indicates subjects having played "violent" versus "non-violent" heartrates etc were lower viewing video of real violence. I wish the paper was out to see how they addressed this issue.

I forgot to mention that I do agree with your point on what about these "violent" games was causing the reaction thats why I use the quotation marks.

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