Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

I am indifferent about gore in games with a few exceptions. For instance the Ninja Gaiden games were so ridiculous at times with the gore that I actually started laughing. Back in the day though I loved how gory games like Mortal Kombat or Splatterhouse were but I think being 13 or 14 is a good enough excuse for that reaction.

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Dragon Age, however, I only seem to remember getting bloody if you got hit or you were hitting someone. My mage who kept everyone at range was rarely, if ever, bloodied... though even that didn't make sense, as Allistar was always right in front of me swinging that sword around and it seems like some kind of spray from that sword swinging around should have gotten something on my Warden.

Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

That's why I never took that perk, but I am always weirded out when a headshot results in decapitation in Fallout3/F:NV. For whatever reason, I almost prefer the laser weapons that disintegrate or plasma that goo-ifyies over blowing the heads off people.

Demosthenes wrote:

Dragon Age, however, I only seem to remember getting bloody if you got hit or you were hitting someone. My mage who kept everyone at range was rarely, if ever, bloodied... though even that didn't make sense, as Allistar was always right in front of me swinging that sword around and it seems like some kind of spray from that sword swinging around should have gotten something on my Warden.

Since the game was developed to be optimized for consoles, there's only so much you can do with 512 MB of RAM. Maybe one of the perks of the next generation of consoles is realistically modeled and simulated blood spray

JillSammich wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Dragon Age, however, I only seem to remember getting bloody if you got hit or you were hitting someone. My mage who kept everyone at range was rarely, if ever, bloodied... though even that didn't make sense, as Allistar was always right in front of me swinging that sword around and it seems like some kind of spray from that sword swinging around should have gotten something on my Warden.

Since the game was developed to be optimized for consoles, there's only so much you can do with 512 MB of RAM. Maybe one of the perks of the next generation of consoles is realistically modeled and simulated blood spray :P

You may be joking... but I bet there could be a company who could sell the system to people... like Havok with physics stuff?

You may be joking, and I'm not much of a gore person myself, but blood behaving more realistically in terms of wall splatter, pooling, and other such things would actually make me a bit giddy.

Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Wait, when did Fallout try to be serious?

Dakuna wrote:

I like gore in my games. I don't mind if people choose to believe I'm a sociopath. I will say that Fallout 3 gave me some pause, looking at tons of dismembered blood spattered corpses became a little unsettling after a while.

I had a few people look at me oddly when I got into the habit of posing my kills in hilarious happy poses.

hbi2k wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Wait, when did Fallout try to be serious?

I would say 3 tried to set a different tone for the series than the previous 2. New Vegas went back towards the original games in tone. But I think the "everything in explodes from a 9mm shot would have been weird even in a game like Saint's Row.

ccesarano wrote:

You may be joking, and I'm not much of a gore person myself, but blood behaving more realistically in terms of wall splatter, pooling, and other such things would actually make me a bit giddy.

Totally serious, and with the amount of work necessary to get those kinds of physics and such into games... I'd be willing to bet more work like this is going to be sold to companies... which hopefully will lead to better core gameplay developments/systems from studios while the ancillary, but visually important stuff is handled just by buying these systems from other people.

I'm going to venture a thought here, I suppose it might be considered blasphemy by some.

Why do I want a game about killing people to have a no-gore option? Is killing someone cleanly somehow less barbaric than killing someone realistically? If I bury someone in magic missiles, is there some reason why said missiles shouldn't tear the target's body to shreds and get blood everywhere?

I don't think we should have gore in Tetris. That would be really weird. I could even go so far as to say gore in a racing game isn't really worthwhile, although the last car accident I suffered was pretty gory. When you're killing people, however, I think there has to be some level of blood a guts getting tossed around, or it becomes inane.

A new one.

Diablo III is embarrassingly stupid. I mean, not the gameplay; I'm enjoying it. I like the range of powers and how you can re-spec your character's skills at any time without cost, and I'm having lots of fun with the gameplay. That being said, how is it that Blizzard, a company people think of as producing highly-polished games, wound up releasing a blockbuster title where it sounds like all the voice acting was done by people who aren't qualified to be in a dinner theater in the middle of Arkansas? It's not even "so campy, it's so bad it's good"; it's actively embarrassing how cheaply done it is. The cut scenes between acts are pretty phenomenal, but geez, this game is just dumb. People waited years for this? It's a solid action RPG, but, from the hype train, I was expecting something a little more polished and impressive than the generic OMG TEH EVIL BE COMIN crap this game is spouting at me.

Dakuna wrote:

I'm going to venture a thought here, I suppose it might be considered blasphemy by some.

Why do I want a game about killing people to have a no-gore option? Is killing someone cleanly somehow less barbaric than killing someone realistically? If I bury someone in magic missiles, is there some reason why said missiles shouldn't tear the target's body to shreds and get blood everywhere?

I don't think we should have gore in Tetris. That would be really weird. I could even go so far as to say gore in a racing game isn't really worthwhile, although the last car accident I suffered was pretty gory. When you're killing people, however, I think there has to be some level of blood a guts getting tossed around, or it becomes inane.

There's nothing blasphemous or strange about that. At the very least I'd like each game to have such an option so M games can be a bit more safe to play around kids (unless it's something like Arkham Asylum where the imagery of a bunch of guys strung up on nooses can't exactly be censored and certainly isn't fit for young eyes). As games are interactive, there isn't much reason to leave that out as an option.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

A new one.

Diablo III is embarrassingly stupid. I mean, not the gameplay; I'm enjoying it. I like the range of powers and how you can re-spec your character's skills at any time without cost, and I'm having lots of fun with the gameplay. That being said, how is it that Blizzard, a company people think of as producing highly-polished games, wound up releasing a blockbuster title where it sounds like all the voice acting was done by people who aren't qualified to be in a dinner theater in the middle of Arkansas? It's not even "so campy, it's so bad it's good"; it's actively embarrassing how cheaply done it is. The cut scenes between acts are pretty phenomenal, but geez, this game is just dumb. People waited years for this? It's a solid action RPG, but, from the hype train, I was expecting something a little more polished and impressive than the generic OMG TEH EVIL BE COMIN crap this game is spouting at me.

agreed. And the story is so incredibly rote and boring. I stopped paying attention about half way through.

Spoiler:

to the point where, when Leah (I had to look up her name) became... tainted or whatever. Killed? I don't even know. I didn't notice and it had no impact on me whatsoever. I was like "wait... so she's dead now? I guess that happened at some point." and kept trying to level my monk.

Don't get me wrong. The cut-scenes are brilliantly animated and rendered.

Yeah, I can accept that games often have cheesy and stupid stories; it's just how it goes. What really bothers me is that those cutscenes are so incredibly well-done, and everything else is so incredibly shoddily done. If there had been some so-so cutscenes, I'd just shrug and roll with it, but to have one part of the game having such exquisite polish and the rest feel like it was crapped out by a remedial fiction class in high school is jarring.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Diablo III is embarrassingly stupid.

No, that's not a blasphemy, it's a statement of fact

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Yeah, I can accept that games often have cheesy and stupid stories; it's just how it goes. What really bothers me is that those cutscenes are so incredibly well-done, and everything else is so incredibly shoddily done. If there had been some so-so cutscenes, I'd just shrug and roll with it, but to have one part of the game having such exquisite polish and the rest feel like it was crapped out by a remedial fiction class in high school is jarring.

To be fair, I kiiiind of thought the same thing through most of WoW in the expansions when it came to instances and the raids. The over-arching stories of each patch/new zone/etc... were interesting in the sense of world building and details... but the actual dialog was kind of awful and those confrontations with bosses were always pretty lackluster in terms of acting and such.

And really, was anyone playing Diablo III for the story itself? Story is my second focus in games (behind creating my character, customizing it with skills, talents, etc... from the D&D side of my personality). I want to know what happens, I want to add my own personality to the story where possible, etc... etc... and I barely paid attention to the story in Diablo III once I got like halfway through Act I and realized that I would watch it once, then skip for any other runs/characters. Same with Torchlight 2 actually, things got weird there and I really just wanted to smash more stuff with my Engineer. To me, I guess I see it as a loot pinata, and it would have been nice if the story was more engaging, but I just wasn't expecting it to be, and it didn't disappoint on that mark.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Diablo III is embarrassingly stupid.

I was expecting something a little more polished and impressive than the generic OMG TEH EVIL BE COMIN crap this game is spouting at me.

Honestly? Outside of a few random cases, this overwrought theme and setting has driven me almost entirely to nerd-ass simulation titles in 2013. I'm over saving the world in epic, violent grandeur. I just want to retire to a life of virtual simplicity in relaxing activities like farming, bus, rail & truck driving and maybe a little aeronautic engineering/space flight to boot.

I still get a kick out of sandbox stuff like Borderlands 2, Skyrim and Saints Row 3, but man if I'm not wearied by self-important power-fantasy crap that feels like it's marketed to teen demographics.

Maybe it's just a phase or something but I'm getting such a kick out of the natural wonder of the boring old real world. These days, slaying the demon hordes (yet again) just isn't as engaging as cultivating, sowing, spraying, and harvesting my wheat fields.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Yeah, I can accept that games often have cheesy and stupid stories; it's just how it goes. What really bothers me is that those cutscenes are so incredibly well-done, and everything else is so incredibly shoddily done. If there had been some so-so cutscenes, I'd just shrug and roll with it, but to have one part of the game having such exquisite polish and the rest feel like it was crapped out by a remedial fiction class in high school is jarring.

Sounds like a Final Fantasy game. Solid gameplay mechanics with gorgeous production values and a storyline that's not only completely stupid but poorly performed.

Aaron D. wrote:

Maybe it's just a phase or something but I'm getting such a kick out of the natural wonder of the boring old real world. These days, slaying the demon hordes (yet again) just isn't as engaging as cultivating, sowing, spraying, and harvesting my wheat fields.

I definitely have to balance out the world-saving demon horde games with puzzle games, platformers, life sim games, and the like. A diet of only gory power fantasies would chase me away from gaming really quickly.

Demosthenes wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Yeah, I can accept that games often have cheesy and stupid stories; it's just how it goes. What really bothers me is that those cutscenes are so incredibly well-done, and everything else is so incredibly shoddily done. If there had been some so-so cutscenes, I'd just shrug and roll with it, but to have one part of the game having such exquisite polish and the rest feel like it was crapped out by a remedial fiction class in high school is jarring.

To be fair, I kiiiind of thought the same thing through most of WoW in the expansions when it came to instances and the raids. The over-arching stories of each patch/new zone/etc... were interesting in the sense of world building and details... but the actual dialog was kind of awful and those confrontations with bosses were always pretty lackluster in terms of acting and such.

And really, was anyone playing Diablo III for the story itself? Story is my second focus in games (behind creating my character, customizing it with skills, talents, etc... from the D&D side of my personality). I want to know what happens, I want to add my own personality to the story where possible, etc... etc... and I barely paid attention to the story in Diablo III once I got like halfway through Act I and realized that I would watch it once, then skip for any other runs/characters. Same with Torchlight 2 actually, things got weird there and I really just wanted to smash more stuff with my Engineer. To me, I guess I see it as a loot pinata, and it would have been nice if the story was more engaging, but I just wasn't expecting it to be, and it didn't disappoint on that mark. :D

I thought Torchlight 2 was fine. The voices were just there but weren't actively bad, and the cartoony theme really helped. Going back to the blood and guts discussion, Diablo III is filled with buckets of heads, torture implements, and other bits of really unpleasant and violent stuff, and there's blood everywhere. Mixing that with the overwrought attempt to sound all serious kills off any chance of fun or camp for me. Torchlight 2 did the same general overarching "EVIL BE COMING, HIT EVIL WITH STICK" idea, but kept the theme light enough to where it slid into the background and let me just enjoy the gameplay. Diablo III is very intent on throwing its stupid story in my face every three steps I take (oh, good, another book, so I can hear Deckard Cain ramble). Actually, that's one of the reasons I quit playing Kingdoms of Amalur; if your story is dumb, please stop having bad voice actors recite it to me every five minutes. Either give me a real story to play through, or just give me a general framework and background (like Torchlight 2) and let me go; don't keep hammering it home.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Sounds like a Final Fantasy game. Solid gameplay mechanics with gorgeous production values and a storyline that's not only completely stupid but poorly performed.

Them´s fighting words! But yeah, I have to agree. They are stupid. At least, the latest ones are pretty stupid...and repetitive, and trite, and boring.

ccesarano wrote:
Dakuna wrote:

I'm going to venture a thought here, I suppose it might be considered blasphemy by some.

Why do I want a game about killing people to have a no-gore option? Is killing someone cleanly somehow less barbaric than killing someone realistically? If I bury someone in magic missiles, is there some reason why said missiles shouldn't tear the target's body to shreds and get blood everywhere?

I don't think we should have gore in Tetris. That would be really weird. I could even go so far as to say gore in a racing game isn't really worthwhile, although the last car accident I suffered was pretty gory. When you're killing people, however, I think there has to be some level of blood a guts getting tossed around, or it becomes inane.

There's nothing blasphemous or strange about that. At the very least I'd like each game to have such an option so M games can be a bit more safe to play around kids (unless it's something like Arkham Asylum where the imagery of a bunch of guys strung up on nooses can't exactly be censored and certainly isn't fit for young eyes). As games are interactive, there isn't much reason to leave that out as an option.

I get what he's saying, though. Why is it better for children to virtually murder hundreds of people with the nasty consequences abstracted away than to put them front and center? If we're going to expose ourselves to virtual murder, shouldn't it be horrifying? Shouldn't we have a visceral gut reaction that something ugly and wrong is happening? When you think about it, isn't it MORE disturbing to depict death and violence as clean and pretty?

hbi2k wrote:
ccesarano wrote:
Dakuna wrote:

I'm going to venture a thought here, I suppose it might be considered blasphemy by some.

Why do I want a game about killing people to have a no-gore option? Is killing someone cleanly somehow less barbaric than killing someone realistically? If I bury someone in magic missiles, is there some reason why said missiles shouldn't tear the target's body to shreds and get blood everywhere?

I don't think we should have gore in Tetris. That would be really weird. I could even go so far as to say gore in a racing game isn't really worthwhile, although the last car accident I suffered was pretty gory. When you're killing people, however, I think there has to be some level of blood a guts getting tossed around, or it becomes inane.

There's nothing blasphemous or strange about that. At the very least I'd like each game to have such an option so M games can be a bit more safe to play around kids (unless it's something like Arkham Asylum where the imagery of a bunch of guys strung up on nooses can't exactly be censored and certainly isn't fit for young eyes). As games are interactive, there isn't much reason to leave that out as an option.

I get what he's saying, though. Why is it better for children to virtually murder hundreds of people with the nasty consequences abstracted away than to put them front and center? If we're going to expose ourselves to virtual murder, shouldn't it be horrifying? Shouldn't we have a visceral gut reaction that something ugly and wrong is happening? When you think about it, isn't it MORE disturbing to depict death and violence as clean and pretty?

I think depicting violence realistically is something video games seldom even try to do, and when they do make an attempt they usually do quite poorly.

Specifically with respect to DA, my issue isn't that it's depicting a horrible reality I'd rather not confront, it's the fact that it just looks... kind of goofy and incongruous to me. To me, Bioware always seems to live in the Uncanny Valley, and the games' depictions of gore are just another example of that fact.

You get what I'm saying, though?

Demosthenes wrote:
hbi2k wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Wait, when did Fallout try to be serious?

I would say 3 tried to set a different tone for the series than the previous 2. New Vegas went back towards the original games in tone. But I think the "everything in explodes from a 9mm shot would have been weird even in a game like Saint's Row. :P

Orrrrr, you could not take that perk?

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
hbi2k wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Wait, when did Fallout try to be serious?

I would say 3 tried to set a different tone for the series than the previous 2. New Vegas went back towards the original games in tone. But I think the "everything in explodes from a 9mm shot would have been weird even in a game like Saint's Row. :P

Orrrrr, you could not take that perk?

Didn't that perk also give you extra damage though?

hbi2k wrote:

You get what I'm saying, though?

I do, but I think of it similarly to movies as well. How often do you see blood and gore in, say, Lord of the Rings? Or other similarly PG-13 films with swords and such? Or Hell, how much blood do you see in the Marvel flicks despite the body counts?

Games do have space to disturb you, and I think a few of them do, but I also think sometimes it goes over the top. For example, I feel like the overall tone of the new Tomb Raider actually felt like a Teen game to me, but all those gory death sequences, the cringe-worthy opening, and some choice language pushes it to an M. If you got rid of some of the blood effects from shooting people, the gory death, and removed some of the language I think the game could have been Teen, and I think that would have been good for opening it to a greater age-range.

Then again, it also depends on how we feel about rivers of blood and piles of bones. I know that stuff has flown in PG-13 films, but films are also more lenient than games.

In any event, my point is, I think sometimes games go unnecessarily far for the sake of reveling in the violence and gore. Sometimes it is fitting (Dead Space), sometimes it is uncomfortable (Tomb Raider or Bioshock: Infinite (though I'd argue there's a purpose in BInfinite)).

But for a lot of games, I think having the option to shut it on or off should be pretty standard. At that point its up to the player's personal tastes. Would I play Brutal Legend without gore or language? Hell no! Can I understand why some people might? Of course, and I think it's better that the option is there for everyone to have whatever experience they like.

So to me, there's no harm in games offering the option for it to be off, though I can also see games where it's part of the experience (you can't exactly censor Dead Space).

To be fair, I think it's at least as silly in movies when you stop and think about it. Discretion shots-- cutting the camera away right before the gorey part-- are one thing, but when you see a dude cut another dude with a sword and he just falls down with no blood as if he were a mannequin, well, that affects my WSoD more than a bit.

ccesarano wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

You get what I'm saying, though?

I do, but I think of it similarly to movies as well. How often do you see blood and gore in, say, Lord of the Rings? Or other similarly PG-13 films with swords and such? Or Hell, how much blood do you see in the Marvel flicks despite the body counts?

Games do have space to disturb you, and I think a few of them do, but I also think sometimes it goes over the top. For example, I feel like the overall tone of the new Tomb Raider actually felt like a Teen game to me, but all those gory death sequences, the cringe-worthy opening, and some choice language pushes it to an M. If you got rid of some of the blood effects from shooting people, the gory death, and removed some of the language I think the game could have been Teen, and I think that would have been good for opening it to a greater age-range.

Then again, it also depends on how we feel about rivers of blood and piles of bones. I know that stuff has flown in PG-13 films, but films are also more lenient than games.

In any event, my point is, I think sometimes games go unnecessarily far for the sake of reveling in the violence and gore. Sometimes it is fitting (Dead Space), sometimes it is uncomfortable (Tomb Raider or Bioshock: Infinite (though I'd argue there's a purpose in BInfinite)).

But for a lot of games, I think having the option to shut it on or off should be pretty standard. At that point its up to the player's personal tastes. Would I play Brutal Legend without gore or language? Hell no! Can I understand why some people might? Of course, and I think it's better that the option is there for everyone to have whatever experience they like.

So to me, there's no harm in games offering the option for it to be off, though I can also see games where it's part of the experience (you can't exactly censor Dead Space).

Devil's Advocate here, are you saying we need a way to ease children into high-violence games, because putting them in full-force might traumatise them?

Rykin wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
hbi2k wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I have no issue with it if it matches the tone of the game. Fallout is one of those games where it was just weird and didn't make sense. Trying to be serious then having a perk where a gunshot wound to the head caused limbs to spontaneously launch from their bodies in ridiculous ways... that was weird and distasteful.

Wait, when did Fallout try to be serious?

I would say 3 tried to set a different tone for the series than the previous 2. New Vegas went back towards the original games in tone. But I think the "everything in explodes from a 9mm shot would have been weird even in a game like Saint's Row. :P

Orrrrr, you could not take that perk?

Didn't that perk also give you extra damage though?

Yup. 5% more damage at the level it became available was pretty big (negligible later on, as your character goes from a vault dweller to like a vault god of the wasteland).

Not to mention... it still happens with other weapons, with or without that perk. Shooting a guy in the arm once, then three times in the head... rocket arm still happens... it's just not all limbs at once without.