Funny, I was at a test today at the pshrinks's at the uni. They claimed they wanted to test whether you get higher reflexes from playing games. Well actually they lied and wanted to test our behaviour. (they told me afterwards)
I played NFS with a car made 'worse' by a cheat and so they monitored my reaction for not even coming close to the opposition after 16 races...
I wasn't very upset as I had similar experiances in some parts of NFSC so I kept my calm, but they said some others really lost their temper and even became violent against the testers and one even broke a keyboard the other day....
Does that make NFS Hot puirsuit a violent game?
well so much for that anecdote...
On topic:
I think that games displaying graphically intense scenes of violence should not be available to minors in open buiseness.
Here in Germany we have a rather strict regime on that. Games are rated and categorized the following: "Suitable for all ages", "not under 6/12/16"(respectively) "not free for minors"(18+) and "Indexed". Actually indexed has two stages the low one is a game that it deemed not suitable for minors and is not allowed to be advertised or publicly displayed in a shop.The shops still have them and you can buy them if you ask for it and display an ID. Mainly this happens for extensive violence, but is now not happening very often anymore. Examples of this group would be Doom, or Quake...
The hard indexed group are those programs forbidden by law. Like Wolfenstein in the english version featuring swastikas and such.
Personally I find this system well enough. All games have to be rated by a government sponsored "independed Rating board", or will automatically fall into the first indexed category. (Nobody really doesn't do it as you can't really get off worse...and the process is free)
There are standing rules on what is allowed for what restrictions and violence and it's intense is valued against other factors. So Hitman "Blood Money" is rated 18+ as it's main idea is not killing as many as possible but to perform with as few kills as possible (allright one can argue with that) while Doom was indexed as killing was the main (only) intention of the player...
Edit: As companys try to reach the 16 rating (to reach where the money is...) Games tended to be quite censored in past years featuring no or unred blood in shooters or exchanging nonlawful symbols with others. "Funny" was having robots as units in the original command and conquer and Red alert...
This has changed a little in recent years (the later C6Cs allowe blood...
) as manufacturers try to not be so much interested in the 16+ rating for some games, and the rules also became a little loosened.