Tuesday, August 19, 2008

You Are Not Old Enough To View This Tree

I happened upon an editor-demo for FarCry 2 today (Far Cry?) and being a nerd as well as a game designer, I thought I would check it out. I clicked on the video and was presented with a little screen asking for my age verification. I input the necessary numbers (I just scroll all the way to the bottom for the year) and then prepared for the most magnificent, incredible, age-appropriate editor demo I had ever seen.

There were trees. Some of them were set on fire. Oh, there were mountains and a river too. And a bunch of buildings and cars.

Upon finishing the video, it left me wondering why the hell I had to verify my age. The trees, though technically naked, were probably not enough to stir the libido of even the most crazed biologist. The fire effects, though pretty, really did not warrant an 18+ rating. It was, all being said and done, a pretty sexy editor. Not that sexy though.

There were never any actual people shown in the video! Or violence! Or nudity or blood or anything! Nothing that could possibly warrant age verification was shown.

Frankly, this irritates me to no end.

If I’m going to bother to enter my age to watch a video, it had better be scandalous. Sailors should blush upon viewing it. Nuns should pass out. Scientists should drop their beakers in a dramatic fashion. Super models should be so shocked, they actually eat something.

Now, I realize that the good people that make the Far Cry games don’t want any lawsuits, so they probably slap age verification on everything. That’s fine, but at least, y’know, give us something. An explosion, a volcano, seven wood nymphs doing aerobics, anything.

That was a sweet editor, though.

Cheers,
-Jason

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damm Straight, and you should have been drinking beer too. I mean if they believe they need an age, make it a good one. Make it worth it.

(you never know they may have just wanted the information for the archives.

Jason Janicki said...

Yeah, they're probably just getting marketing info.

Still kinda irritating, though.

Anonymous said...

For some reason, this reminds me of a story relating to the Franco Zeffirelli. As many people who had to watch the film in high school will recall, it featured approximately 1 millionth of a nanosecond of uncovered breast, belonging to the underage Olivia Hussey. Most of those people will not remember anything else about the film, except, perhaps, entirely too many men wearing tights...

When the film was completed, Miss Hussey attempted to see it in a theater near her home. She was denied entrance on the grounds that the film featured the scandalous image of a naked breast. She pointed out that the breasts so featured were her own. This did not sway the theater managers and she was turned away.

Yes, Olivia Hussey was too young to see her own breasts.

Jason Janicki said...

If it was one-millioneth of a nanosecond of breast, how did they (the prudes) figure out it was in there? Was there some sort of press release or something?

I was recently reminded of the scandal over the poster for For Your Eyes Only in the early '80s. If you remember, it showed Bond through a pair of shapely legs, with their attached derriere at the top. The french cut bikini the model was wearing was considered 'shocking' and many theatres refused to display the posters and others drew on hotpants.

It's just all so silly. Though the bit about Miss Hussey not being able to see her own breast was funny :)