Violence in Videogames (not what you think)

I was re-playing Resident Evil 4 the other day. The premise of the game is that the President's daughter has been kidnapped and is being held in Spain somewhere. So you, special agent Leon Kennedy, are sent out to save her. Well, it's not terribly long into your adventure you find the President's daughter, and your objective changes to keeping her safe and certainly to get her out of there, but of course, progress is impeded when she gets taken away from you several hours later.

Well, when you eventually find her again, she's bolted to a wall, screaming for help, and you're upstairs with no discernible way to get downstairs and help her. Now, if this were real life, a true super agent would then proceed to stop at nothing to find a way downstairs and free her from her trap. Instead, I take the time to walk around smashing vases to see if perhaps there's any gold in them, or better yet, a medicinal herb that would heal the wound I got from that guy that threw a sling blade in my face.

Conservatives worry about videogames desensitizing youth to violence. What they should be worried about is an entire generation of people who, if inside a building that has suddenly been sieged by terrorists, will sneak around, knocking over trash cans, looking for a rocket launcher. Or worse, building managers who, fearing an eventual terrorist besieging, hide shotguns in the trash cans for would-be commandos to use to save everybody in the future.