P5

a) Task 1 - Infographic

From looking at reviews and comments on an IGN page called 'Why Senua's Sacrifice is the most important game I've played this year' where the writer talks about Hellblade and the effect it had on him, I can tell that this game attracts a lot of mixed views. Some people love it, some people hate it. For example while one person said, 'This game was amazing. The representation of the voices was spot-on. The visuals were amazing, as well. Can't wait for more from this studio!' another explained, 'Game wasn't that good to be honest. Very repetitive, am I missing something?'. This highlights how Hellblade has mixed reviews and opinions from the public. However, as I scrolled through the comments on this page, I realised that most of the comments on Hellblade were positive and the majority of people said they loved playing the game.  

b) Task 2 - Representation/Annotated Images

I think Hellblade breaks character conventions with the main character Senua. She is a young female character who is a Celtic warrior who is very determined and will fight to the death. This defeats the stereotype that some people believe young women have of being vulnerable and having less physical capability than men. In many Hollywood films, young women are portrayed as these things and are seen as the 'love object' while the main heroic character is played by a man. However, in Hellblade, this is different as Senua is the strong main character and is fighting for the soul of her dead lover who is male. This also breaks character conventions as it is normally the other way round with the genders. I think Ninja Theory did a good job at picking that particular actor to play Senua as she had suffered from Psychosis in the past, therefore, her acting was very accurate as she knew what it was actually like to suffer from this mental illness. Some ethical issues for Hellblade would be the mental health issues. These could come across badly in some people's views. Also, the ethnicity balance could be considered an issue as all the human characters in the game are white. Additionaly, all of the violence within the game could be an ethical issue. A legal issue could be copyright as there may be certain things within the game that other people have copyrighted before Hellblade.

This image displays how Senua, the main character, fights against mythical creatures to progress on her journey to fight for the soul of her dead lover. This defeats the typical stereotype for young females as you can see she is ruthless and strong.

Task 3

I believe that violent video games do influence some people to be violent in real life. However, this is very rare that people are influenced by these games in a very negative way. Also, in many cases such as the incident in Norway where their was a mass shooting, the shooter said he practiced his shooting skills and technique on the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 but it didn't influence him to shoot people. This is obviously still very bad as he used it to practice killing people and then took that into a real-life circumstance.

c) Legal and Ethical issues for Hellblade

Hellblade faces many ethical issues. For example, there is a lot of violence within the game and people disagree with violence. Some claim that violence in games can influence people to recreate the violence in real life. This is also one of the reasons as to why it is an 18 rated game. Another ethical issue that Hellblade faces is the portrayal of the mental health issue within the game which is Psychosis. People could say that Psychosis is not represented accurately in the game. They overcame this aspect by having people who suffer/suffered with Psychosis being a part of the production of the game so that they could show the mental health issue accurately in their game. A legal issue that Hellblade could face is copyright. They could have an aspect in their game that is already copyrighted by another company.

d) Hellblade Pegi Rating Prediction    

I think that Hellblade's PEGI rating will be 18. There are many reasons as to why I believe this. First of all, PEGI explain that 'The adult classification is applied when the level of violence reaches a stage where it becomes a depiction of gross violence, apparently motiveless killing, or violence towards defenceless characters'. In Hellblade, there are many scenes when Senua is confronted by mythical characters and has to battle to the death with them. In these scenes either Senua or the mythical creatures are brutally murdered. This links back to PEGI's description of an 18 rated game, therefore, I believe that Hellblade will be an 18 rated game. The reason that I do not believe that Hellblade will be a 16 rated game is because, in the description of this category PEGI explain that, 'This rating is applied once the depiction of violence (or sexual activity) reaches a stage that looks the same as would be expected in real life'. In my opinion, the level of violence that occurs within Hellblade is not the same as would be expected in real life. I also think it will be an 18 because, mental health issues feature heavily in the game as Hellblade focuses strongly on Psychosis. This is when people hear voices in their heads. There is also an element of fear within the game as there are creepy voices, creatures and dead bodies in the game. I think that there will also be two content descriptors, which will be 'Fear' and 'Violence'.  

Hellblade's Actual PEGI Rating

After researching Hellblade's actual PEGI age rating, I found out that my prediction was correct and it is an 18 rated game. They possibly made Hellblade an 18 because of some of the reasons that I stated above in my prediction.