COLUMN ONE : Fun and Games--and Gore : Despite the power of new technology, interactive entertainment still relies on violence and cruelty to sell. Critics say the realism is troubling, but some in the industry say such fears are overblown.

Through the one-way glass, you can see the young Asian agent writhing in pain. Still, she refuses to talk. You are not a violent person. But you know what you have to do.

You are, after all, a CIA recruit who has discovered a plot to assassinate the President. And this is, after all, only a game--one that incorporates the best that digital technology has to offer. You turn up the voltage. She screams.

So goes the interactive revolution.

“The Great Game” is one of a new crop of video games that give players control over ever more realistic--and violent--fantasy worlds. It and other much-anticipated titles--”Mortal Kombat 3” and “Primal Rage”--will be released this fall.

Such power, it seems, has strong appeal. Americans are expected to spend more than $10 billion this year on interactive entertainment. Once the sole province of adolescent boys, many video games are now being bought by men in their 20s and 30s.

And with a new generation of faster machines due out later this year, game makers have been touting their economic and technological ascendancy.

But as interactive media takes its place beside television, music and movies as a potent purveyor of culture, the more profound measure of its success may be in the games’ content and their impact on the hearts and minds of those who play them.

Little research has been done to gauge the effects of the fast-evolving medium. But experts say the very nature of interactivity--in which the player is invited to identify with the protagonist and often becomes physically and emotionally engaged in the game--makes it a more compelling force than other media.

“People have long been put in the position of spectator at violent events,” said Brian Stonehill, director of media studies at Pomona College in Claremont. “This takes you out of the role of spectator and into the role of murderer. And that’s not just a little change, it’s a big change.”

The intensity of interactivity, of course, is what makes games so enjoyable for players such as William Wood, 27, of Santa Monica, who much prefers them to TV. He often plays the flight simulation game “TIE Fighter” or “Gun Ship 2000” for several hours after work. “It’s a different mode,” Wood said. “The sound effects fill up the entire space around you and you’re--well, you’re part of the game.”

But that is also what raises concerns about the consequences of violating real-world taboos in the demi-world of electronic games; about the violent messages contained in many of them, and why they are the first form of mass media whose consumers are nearly all male.

“I have days when a game will come in and it will have some image that will really upset me and I say I just can’t deal with this anymore,” said LeeAnne McDermott, editor of Gamepro magazine. “The two elements that people are most concerned about is the real graphic violence and the gender stereotypes.”

Simulated violence has had a central place since “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” hit the arcades two decades ago. And game makers have continued to churn it out even as the stick figures who used to shoot cartoon missiles at one another have evolved into smoothly animated avatars and video footage of real actors. (“The Great Game,” developed by Los Angeles-based Activision Inc., will star William Colby and Oleg Kalugin, former officials of the CIA and KGB, respectively).

Game makers say they make violent games because people buy them. An industry once filled with lofty dreams of producing “edutainment” for children, documentaries on disc for adults or even, heaven forbid, video games for girls, has been chastened by the realities of the market. With few exceptions, almost all of the thousands of titles released last year that did not hew to traditional formulas simply did not sell.

“The myth was that this new kind of interactivity would give birth to a new genre of entertainment. Well, it hasn’t happened,” said Scott Walchek, chief executive of Sanctuary Woods, a multimedia firm. “If you look at what’s been selling in the Top 15 these last 24 months it’s the same old stuff: graphic adventures, role playing, strategy, arcade shoot ‘em up and fighting games.”

Still, industry critics blame the manufacturers for taking the easy way out.

“It’s easier to get kids’ attention by offering up amputated limbs instead of putting development money into something more constructive,” said David Sheff, author of the book “Game Over,” about the rise of Nintendo.

And kids sure can get excited about amputated limbs. “I like it that you can cut off their heads and stuff,” said Alan Colburn, 13, of Lancaster, describing “Mortal Kombat II,” which together with the first installment has sold nearly 12 million copies. “Another reason I play it is the techniques you can use to actually hurt someone in the game are pretty neat. Like you can hit them so hard their head explodes.”

The “Kombat” games are played on cartridge-based Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo systems, which reside in 22 million American households.

But faster machines that allow for better graphics are coming. Two of them--along with 1,300 titles--were previewed in Los Angeles this week at the first trade show devoted to the interactive entertainment industry. Thanks to the CD-ROM, many games are now widely played on personal computers, also allowing greater realism. The even gorier “MK3” will be available for the old and new machines.

Video games are hardly alone in bombarding Americans with violent messages and crude ethnic and gender stereotypes--compared to the movies, said Sega chief executive Tom Kalinske, “we’d look like angels.” However, critics say the ability to control the violence makes interactive entertainment different.

“I’m much more disturbed by the potential of the new stuff,” said Eugene Provenzo, a professor at the University of Miami and author of “Video Kids.” “Everything I know as a social scientist suggests to me that this is a much more powerful communicator.”

Many women in the male-dominated industry are concerned about the portrayal of female characters in games. Often cast as the archetypal helpless princess waiting to be rescued, even those who engage in hand-to-hand combat are almost invariably scantily clad.

One female protagonist in an upcoming Sega game wears evening gloves, stockings with a garter and black spike heels to do her jumping and kicking. And in a recent study, Provenzo found that nine of the top 10 bestsellers had the murder, abduction or implied rape of a woman as a main theme.

There also is concern about why fewer than 20% of game players are girls. Experts say their exclusion from what often serves as an introduction to technology for boys may well put girls at a disadvantage in an increasingly high-tech world.

Cognizant of the untapped market, American Laser Games will be unveiling a “Games for Her” division this week. Its first title will involve a girl confronted with such dilemmas as whether to help a boy she likes cheat on a test.

But McDermott and several others who have formed a new group called Women’s Interactive Entertainment Assn. say the situation is unlikely to change until more women start designing games.

Nintendo marketing vice president Peter Main said his firm will try to attract more girls and women. “But while that is a legitimate objective, the key for us continues to be a very tight focus on our heavy users, (8- to 15-year-old boys).”

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Since Atari Corp. released “Pong” in 1972, video games had mostly eluded the social criticism to which other forms of media are subjected, in part because they were considered merely toys, and in part because they were largely inaccessible to “non-gamers,” who often can’t make it past the first level. By their very nature, games are harder to review than a music recording or a TV show.

Even when a U.S. Senate subcommittee held hearings on violence in video games after the release of “Mortal Kombat” in late 1993, it was Nintendo that ended up supplying senators with a videotape of the more gruesome scenes in “Night Trap,” released by rival Sega. The game features hooded killers chasing sorority sisters. When the women are captured, the killer drills through their necks and drains their blood.

Out of those hearings came the formation of a movie-style industry ratings board, supported by Nintendo, Sega and Sony, among others. But industry executives still insist that their products ought not to be taken so seriously.

“Oh God, how grandiose, to be the keeper of the American value system,” said Steve Race, president of Sony Computer Entertainment. “I just sell games, lady. To make me responsible for the mores or values of America, I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

Nintendo’s Main said video games are not to be compared with more far-reaching media such as the nightly news.

“In talking about a cultural impact, I think that may be putting video games on a pedestal,” Main said. “It’s more like learning how to play the piano, or playing football. Kids come home from school, somebody’s been in their face for hours, and here in this little world they’re going to be in control instead of someone else.”

Since the formation of the ratings board, Sega’s Kalinske said “the issue of violence in games has really blown over.” (This week he will be showing off “Eternal Champions,” in which the player can “overkill,” or just plain “regular kill” his opponent.)

Arthur Pober, executive director of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, said the industry-funded organization has rated 500 games so far. Under the system, games are classified into one of five age groups, and graded with labels such as “mild animated violence,” “realistic violence,” “animated blood and gore,” and “realistic blood and gore.”

“It’s important that consumers understand that when we say ‘realistic violence,’ we don’t mean that it’s real violence,’ Pober said. “What we’re referring to there is photographic images.”

Pober also teaches his staff to distinguish between “passive” video footage and interactive aggression. “If you have the chain saw, say, and you’re empowered to hack off an arm or a leg or something, that’s different than passive footage where it’s a video clip showing someone with a gun shooting someone.” The interactive portions are weighted more heavily.

Not all video and computer games are violent. Last year’s best-selling game was Nintendo’s relatively innocuous “Donkey Kong Country.” Sports games such as “John Madden Football” occupy a healthy chunk of the market.

“Myst,” a surrealistic mystery game that was a hit with women, and “Sim City,” which lets players construct and run their own cities, are frequently cited as positive models of innovative games that have sold well.

But such titles tend to be the exceptions. Thus Virgin Interactive will be bringing out “Agile Warrior,” this fall. “It’s kind of like, if Sim City went to war, what would it look like,” explains marketing vice president Rand Bleimeister.

Companies that have tried to develop more socially constructive titles have suffered in the market--and quickly altered their strategies. Sanctuary Woods over the past two years has published such titles as “Hawaii High,” an adventure game for girls, and a comedy disc starring Dennis Miller. But this week, it will be showcasing action adventure games.

“We’ve changed our model,” said Walchek. “We’re concentrating on the core gamer.”

The 3DO Co.--which once called its “multiplayer” console the most important development in communications since the printing press, and promised all sorts of breakthrough education, information and entertainment software--has also had disappointing sales.

Bing Gordon, executive vice president of Electronic Arts, said more complex, perhaps less violent games will emerge out of successive generations of software as a result of improved technology.

“With the audiovisual power we had through the 1980s, where the graphics looked like stick figures and the sounds sounded like beeps and chirps, it was difficult to appeal to higher-order emotions,” Gordon said. “You could do violence between stick figures, but it’s harder to get across humor and love and fear.”

But in a market where the top 20 games collect 80% of the revenues annually, game makers, too, are largely sticking to proven formulas even as the technology makes it possible to experiment with new forms. Atari plans to bring back “Missile Command” and “Defender,” from the good old days of the primitive Atari 2600--but in 3-D.

But in a market where the top 20 games collect 80% of the revenues annually, game makers are largely sticking to proven formulas even as the technology allows experimentation with new forms. Atari, for example, plans to bring back “Missile Command” and “Defender,” from the good old days of the primitive Atari 2600--but in 3-D.

“I don’t want to make things that are derivatives of everything we’ve seen before,” said Peter Barrett, chief executive of start-up Rocket Science Games, whose first generation of titles did not go over well last Christmas. “But there’s a huge amount of pressure on Rocket Science to be a more traditional game company now.”

Madeline Canepa, founder of Crystal Dynamics and one of the few female executives in the industry, said she tries to make sure her firm’s games do not include gender stereotypes. But, she admits, “quite honestly, I’m no different from a man. I’d like to develop products that make money.”

Byron Cook, whose firm created “Mortal Kombat,” said, “They’re just games. Kids understand that.”

Thirteen-year-old Tim Charlebois of Yorba Linda agrees. His favorite game is the hit “Doom 2.” Of the weapons available to him, which include a rocket launcher and a chain saw, he likes the double-barreled shotgun because “if you hit your opponent at the right angle, he loses all his power at once. One well-placed shot will kill him and if it’s close enough, even if it’s not right on the mark, it’ll hurt him a lot.”

Still, said Charlebois, “I’m not stupid enough to go out and do this in real life. I’m not going to run out, grab a shotgun and go shoot somebody. Give me a break.”

Even so, Andrew Goldman, the producer of “Great Game,” had qualms about the scene in which the player has to choose whether to torture the enemy agent to get the information. Either choice contains possible risks and rewards.

“I’m seeing myself turn the knob and watching this person writhe in pain, and shivers went down my spine and I thought, ‘My God, what are we doing here?’ ” he said. “But I ended up thinking this is exactly what this medium does best.

“What we’re trying to do is put the player in the hot seat and force them to make the decisions and bring their own code to the game. And they’ll have to live with the consequences of what they do.”

* GAMES SHOW: Sega grabs spotlight at Electronic Entertainment Expo. D2