Comments on: Ask GD – Left 4 Dead and Kids

By: blabla

blabla — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:25:17 +0000

You can kill in Fable….It was an accident….but I did it none the less….HE WAS SOO YOUNG….

By: VAM

VAM — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 02:01:28 +0000

A kid shouldnt be playing this kind of game. Period. You take shotguns and blow heads off in a spattering display of blood and chunks of brains. Im quite disturbed at how MANY parents will let their kids play games with this much violence in them.

Also most kids dont like the social ability to take consequence for their actions. Example earlier i was in a public match and there was a kid on my team. Many times he would run off alone, even after being told to stop doing so. He was request to be healed because he “already used his med kit” BECAUSE he wouldnt stop running off alone.

Parents do yourself and the rest of the adult gaming community a favor and get your kids something else to play.

By: All-out-Gamer

All-out-Gamer — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:29:57 +0000

Yea probably for GTA 4 on the 360 and PS3 there is no children in it that you could kill. Though in Saints Row 2 there are a few cheats so it looks like you are killing children. There is a cheat that makes you a giant so that might do it for you. If that is not good enough there is another cheat that shrinks all the pedestrians. So with those two combined or just shrunk pedestrians it might just seem like you are killing children. And same with Sims 3 they probably wouldn’t have it so you could kill them. Though I would wonder what would happen if a baby or toddler was put into a pool what would happen.

By: ROFLCopter

ROFLCopter — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:32:40 +0000

No problem, it was the first thing I noticed, actually. It does show what kind of assumptions people make, but hey, that’s why you’re here, right?

In fact, I should thank you, GamerDad; reading your website has helped my parents several times with deciding what games they will allow me to play, and now they know to research a game instead of just saying “no, it’s rated M.” I remember we found the site a few years back, when I asked to buy Halo so I could play online with my friends. Good times…anyway, thank you, GamerDad, I appreciate your work very much and will continue reading in the years to come.

By: Simon Windmill

Simon Windmill — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:57:53 +0000

The game Prey has spirits of posessed children that you can kill. I believe they pulled back from having you kill the actual child NPC models.

By: GamerDad

GamerDad — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:28:18 +0000

Rockstar isn’t stupid – provocative, yes, but not stupid, so I’ll relegate the “child” to rumor and myth (or a mod, maybe). I don’t think I’ll have time soon to try and kill a child in Sims 3, but to be honest, I’d be very surprised if the game allowed it. EA is too careful and everybody in gaming seems to get the limitation (as they are) now. Besides, all the major scandals of the past few years weren’t really bad taste on the part of the devs, but exploits, orphaned code, or mainstream media misunderstanding the game.

That’s probably how the GTA4 kid thing started. To most people, being able to kill a kid in that game sounds plausible. The only reason it raised a red flag with me is because I know the Rockstar people and while they LOVE pushing buttons – they’d be very unlikely to “go there.”

Thanks, btw, to ROLFCopter. I can’t believe I missed his “killing innocent children” line at the end of the question. Shows what people assume about the hobby, doesn’t it? Most people don’t realize that the ONLY reason you get money when you kill a hooker in a GTA game is because ANYONE you kill usually drops money when they die in that game. Yet people assume Rockstar intentionally set out to have you pay,kill,get money back in some misogynistic trifecta. The hooker thing really is just them adding the ability to buy a hooker as a sort of developmentally impaired joke that, admittedly, fit the game’s “do realistic things bad people do” aesthetic.

Also there is a molester I believe, I think, but he’s there to be killed. If I’m remembering it right I think I used a cheat and a rocket launcher to kill that guy. That’s how I roll!

By: All-out-Gamer

All-out-Gamer — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:14:49 +0000

Well I don’t know in GTA 4 if there are children I was guessing. Though alot of my friends and I have it so we could look into it. There might be a child Easter Egg. With the pc version i bet there is a mod where you can get kids in it. Also I have Sims 3, so I might go experiment and see if I can kill a child in game. Just to see if you can because that would be pretty weird if you could kill a child. GamerDad if you can kill a child in Sims 3 please say so because I want to try that out.

By: James

James — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 22:24:41 +0000

Yeah they’re pretty wary of putting in children you can harm — that would probably be an insta-ban in fascist-run countries like Australia and Germany. Even Bioshock made a big deal about it, but in reality the Little Sisters aren’t quite 100% human.

By: GamerDad

GamerDad — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:19:11 +0000

Hmmm… I played GTA 4 and I never, ever, saw a single child model in the game at all. Are you sure about this? Some sort of weird “easter egg” (wow, I hate calling it that) that the ESRB never saw? If you have proof, please let me know. I’d love to pursue that angle.

Also, maybe I’ll check, can you “kill” children in The Sims 3? I really haven’t tried to kill anyone in a Sims game since the first one and I only did that for a humorous article (removing the ladder from the pool was my favorite).

By: All-out-Gamer

All-out-Gamer — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:20:55 +0000

Well I havent seen this myself, but maybe GTA 4 has it. As in there is a family with a child out walking in the park and you can go by and kill them.