Curmudgeon Gamer
21 September 2007
Distinction without difference
Kris Graft has a Tokyo Game Show impressions/interview piece up at Next-Gen.biz about Ninja Gaiden 2. You might want to check an earlier post about NG2. Anyway, here's the quote I wanted to highlight:
It sounds like they're saying that their intention to make a game that extends the Extreme Combat genre is a defense, while the effect will be to make a game that has horrific imagery. Imagery like this description Graft relates:
What's the difference between a game that sets out specifically to let you brutally dismember a person and a game that claims it's about making fun combat and along the way rewards brutal dismemberment?
For the record, I have experimented with sadistic acts in games which allowed me to do it. There is a parking garage on the second island in GTA3 which is near your second hideout, and I recall spending time with Bob experimenting with the NPC crowds and explosives. For example, you could kill a bystander, watch the NPCs run up to help him/her, and then toss a molotov cocktail in amongst them, and more people would come over to help those victims, and so forth. Eventually, the game would punish you if you let your wanted rating get too high. Even then you could try to extract rewards, though. If you waited until the FBI cars showed up, you could escape in one of them, and keep it in your garage as a prize, provided you were skillful and lucky.
(Disclaimer: I have written and continue to write for Next-Gen.biz.)
"[Violence is] one method that you can use to really bring a player into a game and make it more satisfying... It's one portion of making this game the best action game on the market, but it's not like we have a specific goal to [make this the most violent game ever]."I don't buy it. If you're making a game and you're thinking "in this game, we want the player to behead and dismember his enemies limb by limb" then it is technically true that you may not want to make the most violent game ever. But the effect will be the same.
It sounds like they're saying that their intention to make a game that extends the Extreme Combat genre is a defense, while the effect will be to make a game that has horrific imagery. Imagery like this description Graft relates:
Chopping off an enemy's arms won't necessarily kill him, for example, but will leave him with no way to wield a weapon. Chopping off an enemy's legs will drop the torso to the ground, immobilizing him, but he'll pull out a grenade and try to blow himself up along with you from his stationary position.Delightful.
What's the difference between a game that sets out specifically to let you brutally dismember a person and a game that claims it's about making fun combat and along the way rewards brutal dismemberment?
For the record, I have experimented with sadistic acts in games which allowed me to do it. There is a parking garage on the second island in GTA3 which is near your second hideout, and I recall spending time with Bob experimenting with the NPC crowds and explosives. For example, you could kill a bystander, watch the NPCs run up to help him/her, and then toss a molotov cocktail in amongst them, and more people would come over to help those victims, and so forth. Eventually, the game would punish you if you let your wanted rating get too high. Even then you could try to extract rewards, though. If you waited until the FBI cars showed up, you could escape in one of them, and keep it in your garage as a prize, provided you were skillful and lucky.
(Disclaimer: I have written and continue to write for Next-Gen.biz.)
--jvm at 12:01
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[ 5 ]
12 September 2007
The future of violent videogames
The future. Not the future (and probably NSFW for some people). Just so you know.
The longer version is that we've reached the point where more graphic gore doesn't actually make games more appealing. You can have more blood. You can have more fluid-like blood. You can have severed heads and limbs that bump around the environment with amazingly realistic physics. You can even have those severed heads and limbs give off appropriately heavy or squishy sound effects in Dolby Digital 5.1.
But it's all for naught. I think Valve has put their finger on what matters: a visually appealing game that is (hopefully) fun to play. It will be more broadly appreciated. It's not that terribly far removed from Looney Toons that we've all watched as kids.
I don't know what a game like Ninja Gaiden really thinks it will accomplish with gore like that, but the one thing it won't achieve is mainstream acceptance.
The longer version is that we've reached the point where more graphic gore doesn't actually make games more appealing. You can have more blood. You can have more fluid-like blood. You can have severed heads and limbs that bump around the environment with amazingly realistic physics. You can even have those severed heads and limbs give off appropriately heavy or squishy sound effects in Dolby Digital 5.1.
But it's all for naught. I think Valve has put their finger on what matters: a visually appealing game that is (hopefully) fun to play. It will be more broadly appreciated. It's not that terribly far removed from Looney Toons that we've all watched as kids.
I don't know what a game like Ninja Gaiden really thinks it will accomplish with gore like that, but the one thing it won't achieve is mainstream acceptance.
--jvm at 01:07
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[ 11 ]
10 September 2007
Deceived
I enjoyed the time I spent with Tecmo's Deception games on the PS1. I've spent about an hour with Trapt, a sequel of sorts on the PS2. I've seen exactly three features which distinguish it from the original trilogy:- Nice 3D graphics
- Decent sounding Japanese voice work
- Attractive women dressed in trashy leather clothing
Seriously, I am fairly sure that even the first few missions are exactly the same enemies in the same rooms that I played in Deception III: Dark Delusion.
Sad, Tecmo. Really, really sad. Then again...I did buy it.
--jvm at 21:54
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[ 2 ]
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