Torture Game Criticism Cranks Up Torture Game Popularity

A controversial torture game has been given a big bump in popularity thanks to the efforts of watchdog groups that are decrying the existence of the controversial torture game.

Available on Newgrounds, The Torture Game 2 lets people go to work on a helpless ragdoll dummy suspended in the air by ropes. Tools available to the player include spikes, rope, razor blades, a chainsaw, numerous firearms and more, with which the player can inflict various forms of punishment and bloodletting until the subject dies.

GamePolitics reports that MSNBC's Winda Benedetti described the game as "horrible, unspeakable, and totally sick, sick, sick," calling attention to the game from the likes of Fox News and the Parents Television Council, which issued a parental alert about the game.

Ironically, all the watchdogging and alerting has apparently resulted in a large upsurge in the number of people now playing the game. "The latest controversy has been surrounding The Torture Game 2, a fun little ragdoll physics engine that lets you do all sorts of horrible things to a lifeless dummy," Newgrounds webmaster Tom Fulp wrote on the site.

"MSNBC picked up on the TIGSource debate and posted their own article about the game, but the real fun came when Fox News weighed in with a Fair & Balanced video, expressing their disgust while showing real-time footage of the person being tortured," he said. "Hey! At least we slapped a MATURE rating on the game and made you click a link to view it... Fox just dumped it into every living room in America!"

"As a result of their efforts, many more people are now enjoying The Torture Game 2," he added.

If you want to enjoy The Torture Game 2 yourself, hop on over to Newgrounds and give it a try.

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What evidence of children playing this game is provided other then a rather melodramatic fox news anchor saying "your!!!! children play this game"

I also found it amusing that the first thing the fox news PTC representative goes to is "lots of evidence of media exposure affecting children" while theyre showing this thing to millions of people for the first time on the news :-P

My favorite thing about that pic is that the torture doll is both tied up and nailed to the wall. Remember kids, you can never be too careful when you're suspending the victim in the air.

yet again, Fox news are all over the slightest thing that could shock people. Its newgrounds, what do you expect! Someone should really point out that fox news is basically talking about a site that has anime porn and see what they say to that.

Just looks like high school PE to me.

Sounds boring. But given that the thing's in a cruciform position, I'm surprised the Christian Right's not all over this with some spiel about disrespecting Jesus or something.

Having played it a few weeks ago, it's not something I'd really give a second thought to. I played it for about 10 minutes and was like "Eh" and went to play something else.

The overreaction of the American media (i.e Fox) just goes to show how retarded it really is when Republicans have their say. Although, in saying that, the Democrats haven't been doing that good of a job of getting the Gaming community onside *eyes Hillary*

Not that great of a flash game anyway, get's old after 5 minutes or so.

Somehow, melting an army man figurine with a lighter seems more violent and sadistic than this little "game."

Just another chapter in Fox News' continuing saga of Fail.

So what? I can get free torture games but no-one will bother investing in a free pr0n simulator!? /jk

Still, it's pretty disturbing, although, who knows, maybe it's a good stress reliever, think I saw an option to stick images on the face O_o

i like how she brought up tv shows with torture themes, fox's own big hit show 24 has how much torture in it????? oh wait, that's tv it has context and even though there you get to hear people scream and beg a lifeless mute MANAQUIN is somehow more damaging. i'm not saying the game is wholesome fun but come on on newgrounds alone you'll find much worse stuff than that.

Uhm. there's stuff floating around the internet where it shows people murdering other people, and pictures, and stories of people who have died, and they care about an animated drawing. Also in that fox video they refer to him at "It" and "Thing" so they arnt really taking ti that serious. And later they refer to the person who made it. They refered to him as "Some kid in south africa." im not sure if this kid is south african, but to me it sounded racist (not that u took office, mabey im just looking on the dark side.) But ya. What im getting at is theres more grusome things than that on Public sites, and even on the news from time to time.

I haven't played the game yet, but I will now. It's amazing how the media and conservationists can screw things up. Reminds me of the Mass Effect scandal on Fox News...

In any case, I wouldn't have know of "Torture Game 2"'s existence if it weren't for this article. Which proves in turn the point of the message. ^^

Nicely done :)

Jumplion:
Not that great of a flash game anyway, get's old after 5 minutes or so.

Lasted 3 minutes here. Tried each tool once. Ah well, everybody'll have forgotten about this thing in a few days anyways.

HalfShadow:
Boring game; he doesn't even scream.

What's the point in torturing someone if they don't scream?

I know, I'm taking this guys skin off for over 2 minutes, and not a scream, the game is hardly fun, the only sign of life is when he dies he exhales, which I find hard to believe because all the air leaked out of his lungs when I PUT A SPIKE THROUGH THEM! >:D

Saphatorael:

Jumplion:
Not that great of a flash game anyway, get's old after 5 minutes or so.

Lasted 3 minutes here. Tried each tool once. Ah well, everybody'll have forgotten about this thing in a few days anyways.

Hell, i never even HEARD of this game until this article. Infact, i bet most kids went to Newgrounds because they saw this on FOX News and now it's even more popular........oh wait....

Well, not having played the game (and not going to with the "resounding 'eh' " it's gotten so far), I can't comment on that, however, it does remind me of a situation a few months back I'd like to relate. Passing a local video store on our way to... elsewhere, we (doesn't matter who) spotted a group of protesters outside of said store who apparently did not approve of the store's rental of [shock and horror] pornography. [/shock & horror] Naturally, my first reaction was "Huh, I didn't know they had that. Cool." Not that I rent or buy that sort of thing, mind you, although I must say watching it for the so-call storyline is almost always good for a laugh, but enough of my odd habits. The point I was going for there was I'm sure their business rose too, and that's when my inner skeptic kicked in to full red alert. They weren't there when we drove by again, and I haven't seen them since. Conclusion: the video store put out these protesters to boost business, and that's the same kind of thing I see here. Secretly, Microsoft, Fox, NBC or some combination thereof own Newgrounds.

Go ahead and tell me how utterly wrong my conclusion is (I never go to Newgrounds and know next to nothing about it), but to those who will follow, remember I said "secretly".

iamnotincompliance:
Well, not having played the game (and not going to with the "resounding 'eh' " it's gotten so far), I can't comment on that, however, it does remind me of a situation a few months back I'd like to relate. Passing a local video store on our way to... elsewhere, we (doesn't matter who) spotted a group of protesters outside of said store who apparently did not approve of the store's rental of [shock and horror] pornography. [/shock & horror] Naturally, my first reaction was "Huh, I didn't know they had that. Cool." Not that I rent or buy that sort of thing, mind you, although I must say watching it for the so-call storyline is almost always good for a laugh, but enough of my odd habits. The point I was going for there was I'm sure their business rose too, and that's when my inner skeptic kicked in to full red alert. They weren't there when we drove by again, and I haven't seen them since. Conclusion: the video store put out these protesters to boost business, and that's the same kind of thing I see here. Secretly, Microsoft, Fox, NBC or some combination thereof own Newgrounds.

Go ahead and tell me how utterly wrong my conclusion is (I never go to Newgrounds and know next to nothing about it), but to those who will follow, remember I said "secretly".

Your conclusion is utterly wrong. Everyone knows Fox isn't smart enough to do something like that.

zoozilla:
Your conclusion is utterly wrong. Everyone knows Fox isn't smart enough to do something like that.

Yes... and Microsoft loses money on everything they do that's not Windows, which would be difficult to do with something so popular as Newgrounds. And if NBC/Universal/GE for all intents and purposes owned it, no one would care... hmm...

(Many chalk-scratching, blackboard-erasing, Mountain Dew-fueled hours later...)

Yes, it's all very clear now. They are mere fronts for the true owners: Warner Brothers, Paramount, and the revived juggernaut that is DuMont! Can't you see? It's all so very clear!...

(Words words words words)

... so it was Marilyn Monroe who took the fabled shot from the grassy knoll! (Grabs zoozilla by the shoulders and shakes him) DON'T YOU SEE IT TOO?! IT'S ALL HERE! JFK, Roswell, the pyramids, the Firefox crop circle outside Amity, Oregon, New Coke, string theory, P vs NP...

(iamnotincompliance is drowned by the the sirens on a van driven by nice men in white lab coats.)

iamnotincompliance:

... so it was Marilyn Monroe who took the fabled shot from the grassy knoll! (Grabs zoozilla by the shoulders and shakes him) DON'T YOU SEE IT TOO?! IT'S ALL HERE! JFK, Roswell, the pyramids, the Firefox crop circle outside Amity, Oregon, New Coke, string theory, P vs NP...

(iamnotincompliance is drowned by the the sirens on a van driven by nice men in white lab coats.)

The government silences the truth again!!

I'd just like to say, as a general note to America, the hypocrisy is becoming tedious. Trying to legalize *REAL* torture on *REAL* people, then kicking up a fuss when someone makes a silly flash game, it's pathetic.. really.

I wish I could say it's just FOX to blame, but it isn't, it really isn't.

I and I'd like to be the first to add in this thread that I think this game isn't particularly healthy .. and yes it WOULD be dangerous for children, IMHO.

*Goes and checks Newgrounds security*

So the direct link really is.. a direct link? For shame. Parents should obviously monitor their children online, but in every way this is an "adult" game and adults should be the only people playing it. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable if I saw a preteen playing this game, in fact I might be very angry.

So, I'm not the only one bored with this? And I don't mean the "game", if you can even call it that.

I don't seem to be the only one who notices that Fox tries to stir the pot with people who don't watch their stuff in the first place ... so they have more people watch it. Better viewing numbers, better advertising dollars...

*yawns* I'm getting the impression Fox is just an attention whore, you know the kind, starts ranting and raving when the mob who showed up to see what kooky thing they would do next starts to leave because they have better things to look at in their spare time.

It's not real torture without the classic "Araldite, laxative and buttplug" option.

I would play that...

If only it weren't so pointless, boring and overall bad .

L.B. Jeffries:
My favorite thing about that pic is that the torture doll is both tied up and nailed to the wall. Remember kids, you can never be too careful when you're suspending the victim in the air.

If we learned anything from the Crucifixion it should be that it's hard to nail a good man down.

Saskwach:

L.B. Jeffries:
My favorite thing about that pic is that the torture doll is both tied up and nailed to the wall. Remember kids, you can never be too careful when you're suspending the victim in the air.

If we learned anything from the Crucifixion it should be that it's hard to nail a good man down.

I thought it was "check the wallet before you fuck yourself by nailing that guy to a tree"?

L.B. Jeffries:
My favorite thing about that pic is that the torture doll is both tied up and nailed to the wall. Remember kids, you can never be too careful when you're suspending the victim in the air.

After the nailing, they uses Scotch Tape. He'll never escape from the Scotch tape.

L.B. Jeffries:
Remember kids, you can never be too careful when you're suspending the victim in the air.

Today L.B, I learnt more about your hobbies than I ever wanted to.

I...I...Ihink I lol'd myself at the article a litle bit. i Like seeing how a media giant like Fox showed it to EVERY home in america and instead of turning people away, they got more people on it. and i saw the deal they did on it... it was too much fun to laugh at them...

This is rather embarassing.

I tried ripping off his arm at the shoulder and his feet exploded. The only remotely realistic part is that nothing works as it's supposed to do.

Edit: Attempt 2 - ripping off legs by pulling his head doesn't seem to harm him in the slightest but a shotgun to the foot is lethal at full health.

Attempt 3 - I tried attaching a rope to his leg and decapitated him somehow.

Attempt 4 - Complete dismemberment with a chainsaw = non lethal. Razor to toes = lethal.

Atttempt 5 - Rubbing his hand against his head decapitated him again.

I guarantee most, of not all kids didn't know about it until now, and Fox told them where to find it. The game looks pointless and boring anyway.

I hardly can beleive it. After playing this 'filth' for over two minutes I still have no urges to go out and torture people in real life.

Maybe I should stop listening to everything I hear on TV and guess that kids are not as impressionable as they are made out to be. I am bored though.