I Slay the Bodies Electric

[Adam LaMosca]

I Slay the Bodies Electric

Even if you watch horror movies through your fingers, you might enjoy a blood-soaked videogame now and again. It may even be good for you.

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[The_root_of_all_evil]

I think there's a definitive line that can be drawn between roleplaying a murderer and being one. In the same way you can roleplay a Satyr, Superhero or Space Marine.

There's always that distance that keeps you safe from the trauma. No sticky dripping from the splattered viscera, no smell of pulped flesh, no concept of the hopes and dreams of the corpse.

That's why the push towards realism in games worries me a lot. Fallout 3, for example, worries me more in that people are more interested in how to kill them than why.

Once the barrier between reaching level 3 is less of a walking mound of xp and more of a person, the revulsion starts to set in.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I'm willing to agree that something psychological is going on besides actual participation in violence but I don't connect it with anything flattering. The thought hit me in an article that was up a few weeks ago...can't remember which, but honestly I think sometimes video games are just a bizarre kind of feedback, like a mirror. You're observing yourself from a secondary perspective or in a new role that you would otherwise not inhabit.

The basis for me is that we are all acutely aware that there is nothing there. The values and actions are in our minds being broadcast back, not any literal exchange besides a few electrons.

Just monkeys looking at a mirror...

 

[Dogeman5]

I read the article but the question about the title is killing me:
Ray Bradbury reference?

 

[Adam LaMosca]

Walt Whitman, originally:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=174740

 

[TsunamiWombat]

In can't help thinking that the hero's name, Isaac Clarke, is a homage to Isaac Asimov & Arthur C Clarke; not that any of their books were this gory and bloody.

I think it is actually...

 

[nepheleim]

A good op ed piece, in my opinion. Nobody plays Call of Duty, then decides that they can be an excellent rifleman in the Army. Same logic, Dead Space probably won't spawn dozens of serial dismember-ers (sp?)

 

[cainx10a]

Gore in video game doesn't come close to a film like Saw; which is one film I regret watching. I can stand some form of cartoony violence, or 'realistic' violence present in video games. But I have my limits too.

Meh, just remembered the videos an old friend showed me a while back about executions carried out in Chechnya by Soviet Troops of suspected terrorists. That's what I would call disturbing and disgusting.

Note: I haven't played Dead Space yet > . >

 

[Copter400]

Great article, Adam. We think alike, you and I.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Quite interesting. This makes a lot of sense, even if it is a tad exaggerated.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

I've still never seen a game that could compete with this Sierra-On-Line gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5f2p42bviI&feature=related

Goriest game evar!