Csi Miami Video Game Views

General Goods

But getting mad about bad TV depictions of video game culture takes such pointlessness to truly stratospheric heights of inanity. When I first saw the reports Monday morning on various geek news sites warning that the upcoming episode of CSI: Miami involved a plot in which college students run amok around town imitating scenes from a game called Urban Hell Raiser (an obvious homage to Grand Theft Auto ), I found it hard to get riled. I was more amused than anything else -- who can't grin at the thought of one medium already under (misguided) assault for purveying murderous schlock going after another? Sure, TV rots your brain, the producers seemed to be conceding, but, but, but, look over there -- video games destroy your brain cells even faster.

Never mind that in the real world, teen violence has steadily declined, almost in parallel with the rise in sales of video games. Let's not go there -- after this episode of CSI: Miami I am almost ready to concede that there is a link between media portrayals of violence and the real thing. Just one hour of watching David Caruso's leaden acting and banging my head against this ridiculous plot did, I confess, make me want to get my own Tec-9 and start laying waste to televison executives. But I refrained, just as 99 percent of everyone who has ever played a violent game refrains from throwing a punch at someone in flesh and blood.

The CSI: Miami episode “Urban Hellraisers” takes a bit more of a realistic approach to how video games can lead to violence not in the future, but in the presence. The game was definitely inspired by the Grand Theft Auto video game series created by Rockstar Games but with a different twist. Here is a quick synopsis on that episode:

In the CSI: Miami episode Urban Hellraisers a gamer played to death. By this I mean that he didn’t eat or sleep for 3 days. He drank energy drinks to keep awake and urinated in bottles so that he wouldn’t have to get up to use the bathroom. I personally know people who do this but not to that extent. Even though the plot was a bit far fetched they really did do their research when scripting this episode.