Rhetoric and Miami Vice

The game I have looked at this week is “Miami Vice” which involves you playing the character of a young man who, throughout the game, develops a career as a stereotypical gangster. I looked at the theory of rhetoric while playing this game. Rhetoric ‘is the method of discussion or expression that contains underlying values or beliefs, that attempts to persuade others.’ As defined by Sutton Smith. This can be shown by the influence that the game has. “Miami Vice” is a good example for this as you see this young man who is quite thug like in appearance trying to work his way in the ‘gangster world’, the game allows you to control his moves which involves being able to throw people out of cars, steal cars, pick up hookers and kill people. This therefore shows how although the game is trying to be hip and cool it can also relay the wrong message and be interpreted in a bad way. Influencing the player to be like the person in the game. The values this promotes are like survival of the fittest and seen in some gang culture as well. This leads well onto the problem of moral panics and violence which is seen by parents as they may consider this game as a bad influence on there child as it does promote violence and general frowned upon things. However when I played the game “Sims” which has a similar theme behind it in the sense that you live a life that you don’t really live in which you build your way up. The rhetoric behind Sims followed a more positive view in that it encouraged problem solving of everyday life matters and make you think about your next moves and how this would have affected your characters.