"Dark" is a Loose Term These Days...

[templar1138a]

Haven't played Diablo III and not planning to (against the DRM is a big reason, but mainly I'm not interested). But I know what you mean about futility endings.

But there is one Dark game that lived up to the name: Dragon Age 2. For all the moaning I hear about gameplay, Dragon Age II had a well-constructed story that was certainly dark.

In particular, I think of this sequence. I almost cried, and I still wonder what I could have done differently to prevent it (and no, I will NOT look it up in forums). Don't view if you don't want spoilers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OCJhvsIbo&feature=player_detailpage

And there were many other instances that were dark. Times when I was betrayed in the most horrendous ways. Times when I literally had no choice but to commit atrocities. Times when I desperately fought against a startling turn of events with no intention but to survive.

And in the end, I wasn't the triumphant hero and everyone didn't live happily ever after. I was someone who'd fought for what I thought was right, but did a lot more damage and spread a lot more chaos than I'd intended or wanted.

Now that, my friends, is a Dark game.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

But there is one Dark game that lived up to the name: Dragon Age 2. For all the moaning I hear about gameplay, Dragon Age II had a well-constructed story that was certainly dark.

Well, it had a story anyway. I'm actually one of the bigger defenders of DA2 on these forums, and even I wouldn't go so far as to say it was "well constructed". For all that there were some interesting ideas floating around in that stew, DA2 had some serious pacing issues.

As to whether it would qualify as dark...it definitely touches on some dark themes and has some dark moments, but the overall tone of the game is fairly traditional RPG fare. Bioware tends to stray into levity...a LOT...which undermines the ability of the game to build atmosphere. Very few games/films/books can adroitly spin between comedy and drama/horror.

ME3 was more successful at building a dark atmosphere, although it pulled a lot of punches and wasn't nearly as dark as it could/should have been (strayed a lot more into triumph, really, and then into WTF at the end). That's about as close as Bioware has ever really come, IMO, to crafting a truly dark game.

Witcher 2 is a better example of a "dark" game. There's levity, but less of it, and the world is more consistently miserable, and even your victories tend to have a bitter aftertaste.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

There's a difference between Dark (a spin on a realistic, but nontheless kinda "everyone's screwed" setting) and Gothic setting. Dark usually means things that are pretty fucked up, but is down to earth in presentation so that it still has an effect on you. Gothic is just a reversed "cartoonish" style, (take for example Tim Burton or Diablo), those are not trying to be realistic in the slightest, but rather put an aestethic feel to it.

What's bad is that many games seem to think that "dark" just means saying fuck and showing people having sex and getting killed (Mass Effect isn't dark in the slightest, people have sex with their underwear on for christs sake!), Mortal Kombat isn't dark, all the blood and gore is just hyped up * 10000 which means that nothing of it has any weight whatsoever. And, dare I say it, The Witcher is also trying too hard, with people saying fuck in every sentence and being generally unpleasant. The humour in there feels sort of out of place and weird, don't get me wrong, some parts is quite hilarious, but it really doesn't fit in.

I'm with you on the Witcher. Don't get me wrong, I like the games and I think they're doing alot of things well- but the humour/dialogue are off at times. With the former being too campy and the latter being too crass.

And I'll concede that the rhyming intro the Brood Mother boss fight *was* done fairly well. But it was still ultimately just buildup to a fairly standard boss fight. And there was never any followup to the encounter. The insane corrupted lady walks on stage, introduces the boss monster, bows and then walks off.

Dark Souls is pretty bleak, and for the sake of clarifying: Do you mean Dark or do you mean Explicit?

Because I've seen this kind of thread before and you seem to be requesting games with detailed, visualised torture/violence/sodomy/cats or whatever which is different to how I personally see Dark. In my view a game's Dark even if it just implies horrible things, like in the first Onimusha game finding a note detailing how a monk resorted to cannibalism while hiding from Demons, it doesn't show anything but it's still kind of dark given he wrote down what he was thinking before he did it. Heck, Shadow of the Collossus had you killing 16 giant stone creatures who half the time did nothing to provoke you, that always felt a little off to me too. Also, Dragon Age was a dark fantasy in the sense the Elves lived in Ghettos except the ones in the forest who you can sacrifice to the Werewolves who eat them. So... there was some stuff in there

 

[Skratt]

The term Dark is inversely proportional to your own level of desensitization. DA:O is Dark by standard definition, but probably not what you would consider dark due to your own exposure. Kinda cool how we are geared isn't it? You can overcome any "stigma" with just the right amount of exposure to it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The term Dark is inversely proportional to your own level of desensitization. DA:O is Dark by standard definition, but probably not what you would consider dark due to your own exposure. Kinda cool how we are geared isn't it? You can overcome any "stigma" with just the right amount of exposure to it.

I suppose that's true, but going by the "average" level of desensitization to this sort of thing I'd say DA:O is still not a particularly dark game. As with DA2, it brushes up against some dark material, but spends way too much time having a laugh to really build up an oppressive atmosphere. DA:O is also to some degree a victim of expectations, as Bioware specifically name checked George R.R. Martin's ASoIaF as a major influence, and other than very baldly ripping off the Night's Watch they did precious little to appropriate the tone of those books. The villains in DA:O are as black as midnight, many of the heroes are as pure as the driven snow, and what little moral complexity the universe offers is aggressively buried in the subtext. The Mass Effect universe suffers from the same problems. There are some interesting, adult themes in play in those games, but they're wrapped in the cheesy tortilla of a children's fairy tale, and end up going down really easy as a result.

 

[Something Amyss]

Personally I dislike "gritty" the most. It tells me a game is likely to be quite boring and bland and possibly leave a nasty taste in my mouth. If I wanted grit, I'd just go and shove my face in some gravel.

Dark is massively overused, but the perception of something as dark and edgy sells.

Mature has some place but I prefer intelligent, it suggests that some thought has been put into the dialogue and game challenges, that it will require the input of some intellectual ability. Bonus points for being more specific.

Yes, it's oh so important to analyse game descriptions and mark them as if they were an exam paper.

"Gritty" was acceptable back when it didn't automatically translate to "you move like a snail with a monster truck on its back." I did like more down-to-earth games when space fantasy wasn't already populated with gritty, "realistic" space marines.

Dark means anything this side of Bugs Bunny, so yeah.

And "Mature," to me, means "BOOBIES!" or "BLOOD!" Which are technically mature in the sense that you should probably BE mature before you see them, but they tend to be alluring to and aimed at teens.

I'd prefer intelligent, too. Intelligent, intriguing and thought provoking don't tend to sell. It also wouldn't tip off my 90s cynicism.

 

[JEBWrench]

Yeah, shit just got real. God, I love 40k.

In the grim darkness of the future, there is only WAAAAAAAGH!

A setting where the "good guys" are either a)Fanatical zealots, b)Fanatical zealots, or c)Fanatical zealots.

 

[Emiscary]

I'll quote another Escapist:

"In the grim darkness of the future, there is only... the status quo."

 

[BloatedGuppy]

In the grim darkness of the future, there is only WAAAAAAAGH!

A setting where the "good guys" are either a)Fanatical zealots, b)Fanatical zealots, or c)Fanatical zealots.

That's a little unfair. I've played a little 40K and there's at least 2-3 factions who are really more Zealous Fanatics than Fanatical Zealots.

 

[JEBWrench]

In the grim darkness of the future, there is only WAAAAAAAGH!

A setting where the "good guys" are either a)Fanatical zealots, b)Fanatical zealots, or c)Fanatical zealots.

That's a little unfair. I've played a little 40K and there's at least 2-3 factions who are really more Zealous Fanatics than Fanatical Zealots.

This is very true. The bad guys however tend to be Zealous zealots or Fanatical fanatics.

 

[SilverBullets000]

Dark is realizing that there's nothing you can do to prevent a kitten from dying.

But what if you can save the kitten, but a dog must die instead? And if you dont choose all the kittens and dogs in the world die? And then you save the dog but through unforeseen consequences all the dogs die anyway? Thats dark.

Dear sir, I'm appalled that you didn't mention that the rabbits would then eat the corpses of the dogs and then mutate into rabid flesh-hungry vampire rabbits with wings that would hunt down every single person on the face of the planet regardless of your original choice.

Captcha: Patience, child...what are you trying to tell me, escapist?

 

[FatalFox]

Dark souls is pretty damn dark (beside the name of course) it's the very definition of depressive atmosphere in a land with no hope.
actually thinking about it, Demons souls os probably darker.
LA. Noire is pretty dark too, the distrubing murders and strong social issues in a city where everything is corrupt.
Infamous 1 was dark, but more in a cartoony fashion, like the dark knight batman.
I've said dark so much it doesnt sound like a word anymore