I think I have become completely desensitized to violence. I saw "Saw III" on opening night this weekend and it didn't scare me or gross me out one bit. I've seen the first two Saw movies, and in my opinion each one is gorier or more violent then the previous one. But, seeing someones face blown off, limbs torn off someone's body or someone's skull being smashed with a sledgehammer doesn't have an effect on me. Nothing shocks me anymore, it's all entertaining. Nowadays when someone is decapitated in a movie or a game I'll say "cool," "sweet" or "nice." For example, in video games, I enjoy executing thugs in Manhunt. I love hearing the sound the crowbar makes when you jam in it a thug's skull. I'm amused by using the chainsaw to tear out the insides of my oppenents by sticking it down their throats. Does anyone else think they are desensitized to violence? Is this a bad thing or a good thing? I know it's different in other countries. Some movies and games get banned if there is too much violence.

How have I become desensitized? I never watched scary movies when I was a kid. My parents wouldn't let me. But I've always played video games and my parents didn't care what I played. It's weird because I know my mom didn't want me to watch Masters of the Universe because she thought Skeletor was demonized and my dad didn't want me watching GI Joe because it was about war. But I could watch Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both of which probably had as much violence as MOTU and GIJoe. I dunno though, but I remember in 5th grade my summer school teacher had everyone watch the movie Pet Cemetary. There is a scene in the movie where a very old woman is locked up in her room and you see that she is just skin and bones. There is a shot of her back and you see all of her ribs as if you're looking at a skeleton. I remember I got so scared that I left the room. I also felt guilty because I knew my parents wouldn't let me watch that movie. Surely back then I would have been scared seeing someone's head getting blown off, right?

I never got into horror movies until I was 21 or so. Sure I had seen most of the Friday the 13th flicks and all the Nightmare on Elm Streets but those never scared or shocked me. I checked out all the Romero movies and none of those scared me or grossed me out too much. Maybe something other then movies desesitzed me? Maybe it started for me, with the game Robocop vs Terminator. I remember if you got a certain weapon (grenade launcher or something similar) you could make a guy explode and his legs, arms and head would fly off. I thought that was cool. Gradually over the years the violence would get more realistic with the advancing technology. I've always enjoyed shooting up demons in Doom or blowing the heads off zombies in Resident Evil 2, executing thugs in many creative ways in Manhunt and most recently (althought I haven't gotten a 360 yet but I know I'll love it) plowing through hordes of zombies in Dead Rising. My quesiton now is: do video games have the ability to desensitize someone to violence? I think they do.

So I've been playing a lot of Need for Speed Most Wanted for Xbox lately. I'm now about 45% of the way through the career mode, last night I beat the chick with the Mustang and the crazy chick with the Mercedes. Next up is a dude with a Lamborghini. It looks like the game might start getting hard now. It hasn't been too much of a challenge but it's been a lot of fun so far. For the last 4 or so Blacklist racers I've been using the Porsche I won from the "Baron." It's got great handling but it's also fast.

I won this game on Ebay a couple weeks ago. I won and paid for the Black Edition but the disc I got is the regular NFS:MW. I emailed the guy and he said he was sorry he screwed up and that he will send the correct disc but I still haven't gotten it. It's been almost a week now. Everything but the actual game disc itself, is the Black Edition. I got the bonus DVD, the instructions, case and cardboard sleeve that all say "Black Edition" but the idiot either purposely gave me the regular version or mistakenly put the regular one in the case when he shipped it. Either way he's a moron. If I don't get the disc by this time next week I'm leaving him negative feedback and filing a report with Ebay/Paypal. I didn't pay $30+ for the regular version of NFS:MW when I can buy it brand new at Wal-Mart for $19.99.

Continue reading if you want to read my review of the game so far...

The game is better then NFS Underground 2 in some ways but it's worse in other ways. They really concentrate on the whole story thing in Most Wanted. They dabbled in it a little in NFSU2 with the Brooke Burke hosted comic book style story but in this game it's full motion video "real time esque" actors. They put some filter over the video that makes it look like you're still in a video game and not watching a movie. Some of it is dumb but it's kinda interesting. The most annoying thing is every time the game starts up there is this stupid message about driving safe from the hot chick who's your "girl" in the game. She looks so annoying in her damned sports bra lol

There's a good selection of cars in this game, tuners, exotics, and some luxury cars. The one thing that dissapoints me is where's the Skyline and Civic? Those are standard tuner cars and the most popular IMO. And why the hell are there so many frickin Audis?? There's like 5 different ones! EA kind of dropped the ball there but they do have enough cool cars to make up for it. It's nice you can even put body kits on the exotics. You couldn't do that in Midnight Club III and I don't think it's been done in any other games. I'm also a little disappointed about the amount of custimization of your car. In NFSU2 there were tons of parts to buy for your car. Now there are only 5 body kits for each car, maybe 20 spoilers (not counting carbon fiber ones as different parts), 40 roof scoops, 30 hoods, 50 rims. It's nice that each body kit is different for each car but I like being able to pick and choose my front/rear bumpers, side kits and fender kits like you could before. I'm not too big on rims. I could care less about spinners, neon, graphics and stuff but I love the way the cars look with the body kits. They seemed to cut down on the whole tuning part of the game and instead put in the cops and the blacklist system.

You start out driving a BMW M3 GTR (the one on the cover) and you race Razor Callahan (whom you've probably heard the GS crew talk about quite a bit) He has a black Mustang GT. There is a cutscene where you're racing him and some cops show up. Then you jump right into the race, but you can't win since it's part of the story. The story flashes back and you race a couple fools with your BMW and can smoke them easily. Then it goes back to the Razor race and someone sabotaged your car. Razor wins it from you and uses it to become the #1 spot on the Blacklist. Your goal in the career mode is to get to the #1 spot and beat Razor.

The Blacklist is a list of 15 of the top racers in the city. As you go up the list each one has a higher "bounty" with the cops. Meaning you're a wanted man with the police, and the #1 spot is the "Most Wanted." Before you jump into challenging each blacklist racer you have to earn the chance to challenge them. Each racer sends you a list of requirements before you can race em. You have to win a number of race events (sprint, circuit, drag, tollbooth or speedtrap). Sprint, circuit and drag are the same as in NFSU2 but the drag is much improved and much easier. Tollbooth is basically a time attack mode (easy as hell) and speedtrap is a race to see who gets the highest total top speed. You could be in 4th place and have the highest top speed and still win.

Then you have to achieve a number of milestones. These relate to the pursuit mode. Some examples are hit a minimum of 4 caps with your vehicle (known as trading paint), run through 2 roadblocks, evade a pursuit in less then 4 minutes, achieve 25,000 bounty in a pursuit, etc. Then the last requirement is to achieve a set amount of bounty. Bounty is earned in the pursuit mode. The more damage you cause, the more heat you earn and the longer the pursuit the more bounty you earn. Heat is kind of like the star system in Grand Theft Auto. Each star adds a level of police resistance. I think the highest is 4. Bounty is the price you're worth to the cops.

So after you've reached the requirements to challenge a blacklister you race them in two events. So far I've done either pursuit, circut or drag. But I think there are speedtrap events and maybe even tollbooth. When the races start they begin with a cool little real time cutscene with some dramatic elements as your oppenent shows up to the start line. I like these more then the real time videos. Once you beat them in both events you have the chance to win their car. Yes, it's only a chance. This is the main thing that pisses me off. You put your pink slips on the line but if the computer loses, they still have a chance to keep their car. You have to play a little minigame (if you want to call it that) and pick 2 of 3 markers. They will either be the pink slip, a get out of jail free card or a get out of impound lot card. If you pick the wrong ones you have to do the whole thing over if you want to win the blacklister's car. (trust me, you do). I've had to re-do races several times for this reason. So once you've beaten them you move up on the blacklist. Then the races get a little harder and you have more things to achieve before challenging the next dude. Luckily you unlock new parts, visual upgrades and performance upgrades with each blacklist racer beaten. You will want to upgrade your performance parts each time new ones are unlocked cause you'll need them.

Overall this is a great game. I played the Xbox version so I'm sure the 360 version has much better graphics but they look good enough for me. A lot better then NFSU2. One thing to note is that there is no night time racing. It's all during the day. It makes it much easier to see, which is nice, but there is still rain that shows up out of nowhere and dissapears just as quick. The sound is great but the music sucks. Each car has a distinct sound to their engines. And when you upgrade them it changes. My fav is the mustang muscle car sound. The music is the crappy EA trax as seen in other games. I turned them all off. I don't think this supports custom soundtracks but if it does I haven't found the option for it. Definitley pick this up if you're a racing fan.