According to mass media, violent Violent video games teach and encourage the players -- typically children -- to engage in horrific virtual violence. Examples include:
* Postal 2: Apocalypse Weekend (M-rated) -- The ads for this game boast that new weapons will enable you "to hack your enemies to meaty bits!" It involves a game character who commits violent acts against unarmed civilians. Other features in the Postal series include: urinating on people to make them vomit in disgust, using cats as shotgun silencers, and playing fetch with dogs using human heads.
* God of War(M-rated) -- Game features disembowelment, mouth-stabbing, eye-gouging, severed limbs, and human sacrifice.
However, studies have shown time and again that violent games tend to relax the players and cause less violent tendencies (As opposed to more mainstream and less controversial activities, such as football). Nevertheless, video games, like comics and other new forms of entertainment before (and surely after), are constantly under attack by the uninformed masses. The Court of Appeals for the [[Eighth Circuit]] declared this to be [[free speech]] and struck down a [[Minnesota]] law that prohibited minors from purchasing or renting video games bearing a "Mature" or "Adult Only" rating.<ref>''Entm't Software Ass'n v. Swanson'', 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 5634 (8th Cir. Mar. 17, 2008).</ref> However, all major chains refuse to carry AO-rated games and enforce the checking of IDs for M-rated games.
== References ==
* [http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60631 Violent video games free speech?]
* [http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36786/98/ Flagship study says violent games make people relaxed]