All right, so recently The Escapist, where I spend most of my forum-trolling time, has been censoring their videos. Starting with Moviebob's review of New Moon, then going on to Zero Punctuation, and lately the penultimate episode of There Will Be Brawl, F-Bombs are getting bleeped from the soundtrack and wiped-out from the screen. This created a lot of backlash from fans as indicated by overall comments getting left for these videos getting generally lower and lower, yet strangely no real announcement or comment from the editors and administrators of the site. It took a lot of searching to find someone who had actually sent a personal message to an administrator to get a response back from Russ Pitts, editor-in-chief, who stated that the site apparently has a PG-13 policy when it comes to its content.

Let's ignore and skip over the utter uselessness of the PG-13 rating, how it's become a marketing tool to get the meatiest demographic of theater-goers, and how it reduces theatrical exhibitions to advertisements for Unrated editions of eventual DVD releases. Barring all that, let's look at a statute specified for PG-13 movies: In the recent film Be Cool, Chilli Palmer (played by Jon Travolta) mentions that, in a PG-13 film, the F-Word is allowed once and only once, to which he replies, "I said, **** that.'" the irony being that Be Cool is a PG-13 film and that scene is in fact the only instance of the F-Word being uttered in the entire runtime. Okay, now consider that in the aforementioned penultimate episode of There Will Be Brawl, the F-Word is only said once by one of Koopa's minions, and it is bleeped. Make of that what you will.

Here's what gets my goat: I could really care less if they're going to censor their videos, what I do care about is that they're doing it NOW. Not only is it sudden, but it's unprecedented. It's as if they're afraid saying anything about it in some official capacity will alienate their audience... because (begin sarcasm) we all know that saying nothing and pulling the wool over our eyes won't alienate anybody (end sarcasm).

It's not enough to make me leave The Escapist and probably not enough to make me stop watching videos, but I can't help but think this might be the beginning of the end for the site. The only reason for them to compromise on their censorship policy now is if they're in serious trouble.

Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth, Silpheed: The Lost Planet, Gekioh: The Shooting King, Eco Fighters, Castle Shikigami, R-Type Final, Varth, Vulgus, Xevious, Ikaruga, Raystorm, Thunder Force V: Vastian's Steel, Viewpoint, Gunbird 2, Legendary Wings, Side Arms, Nanostray, Section Z, Exed Exes, Dragon Spirit, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1943 Kai...

I think what I love about those scrolling shooters is the sense of scale they consistently deliver. I recall one I played on Genesis: You pilot a lone biplane (barely the size of a thimble on the screen) against nigh-endless waves of enemy craft. Straightforward enough, sure, until you find yourself staring down the dorsal-mounted rail-guns of a walking tank two-thirds the screen in stature, a spectacle which effectively invokes the utterance from all present, "You've got to be kidding me!"

I never got into the Silent Hill series. Horror games on the PS1 didn't interest me beyond maybe Resident Evil 2; maybe it's the simple fact that it's really hard to create a creepy atmosphere when everything is brightly lit and nigh-shadowless. When the PS2 came out, I gave Silent Hill 2 a pass because prior to ever even contemplating renting or finding a demo, my recent issue of Official Playstation Magazine gave me a demo of the horror game that would change my mind about the genre. That game was Fatal Frame, and it ended up occupying virtually all of my horror-gaming time.

Fatal Frame II came out and I was grossly disappointed. By then I'd sort of given up on horror games; the fad passed for me. I did give Silent Hill 3 a shot through a demo, but I just couldn't get into it. It just seemed to me that Silent Hill relied on the design philosophy of "let's make everything dirty so it's more unpleasant than scary" which plagues so many horror movies of late. I know that sounds like a contradiction given what I said before about shadows and lighting, but bear in mind there's a huge difference between enshrouding something in darkness and pouring mud over it. The former toys with your imagination as your brain tries desperately to fill in the gaps made by shadows while the latter is just icky. Of course, this is letting the devilish details get the better of me, and I do realize now that I probably wasn't giving Silent Hill the benefit of the doubt. I know now that it doesn't hinge or rely on its gritty atmosphere solely; it actually has a really good story and some wonderfully eerie subtexts underpinning its characters and settings.

The next demo I gave a shot was of course Silent Hill 4: The Room. Fatal Frame III was out, but I decided to leave my library at two (if that). I played the demo through to completion and while I never quite shook the sensation that the game was trying to make me more sick than scared, something profound happened as the demo closed. I found the game compelling, but repulsive as well. Put simply, it depressed me out of moving forward. I'm talking about Cynthia, your first escort. She's an unlikeable tease, but the moment when she died in my arms, bemoaning her fate and not being able to deliver on her petty promise of a 'special favor', suddenly heart-strings start getting pulled and I'm actually resenting the game for making me endure such a tragedy. Then guilt set in, followed even by bargaining ("was I supposed to do something different?"). I felt bad for an NPC dying, and I was supposed to feel compelled to carry on?

Well, I didn't carry on; I knew I couldn't save her. I was defeated and alone after all. You win, Silent Hill.