Mature Games that are actually Mature

[ChupathingyX]

Fallout: New Vegas offered some really good choices when it came to who would run New vegas. Along with other storylines throughout the world.

Most people just say that NCR are the good guys and caesar's legion are the bad guys but ti i much more in depth than that. If you actually bother to do some research on the two factions you can find some major negatives and positives for both factions. Plus there's also Mr house who adds more to the choice, considering he's the reason New Vegas is still standing.

Not to mention Boone's personal storyline, that was messed up. Also Raul had some creepy moments in his storyline.

Plus there's all the violence, gangs, rape, murder, poverty, corruption, prostitution and gambling found throughout the Mojave.

 

[Sejs Cube]

Ah... no. The legion is not the best choice. If you, again, follow the epilogue, the NCR Ahh... no.
Caesar's legion only works if Caesar is in charge. The Legate victory is a little less 'civilised'.

Oh granted. That's largely because Lanius is pretty much the last person who should be in charge of the Legion. Making sure Caesar lives through his little 'problem' goes a good way in helping that. Caesar is a smart man, but Lanius. Lanius is just a blunt instrument. Useful in persuading others, but not exactly the thing you want making decisions.

 

[JimbobNoPants]

I think I would put Dante's Inferno in this category.

Yes, it's about as subtle as a wet fish to the face, but the overarching storyline of a deeply flawed man having to come face to face with all his life's mistakes was a surprisingly adult plot for a God of War clone.

 

[Cypher10110]

It depends how deeply you look to be honest. A well written game doesnt need to be overtly "mature" to prokove thought. You just need to know what questions to ask yourself.

Personally I'd think of:

system shock 2
deus ex
mass effect
amnesia: the dark decent

If you want a truly "thought provoking" game though,n try
Hazard: The Journey of Life

It's a mod for Unreal Tournament 3, although it may be available stand-alone now. It's a philosophical puzzler fps. Think portal but both more abstract and meaningful.

http://www.demruth.com/hazard.htm

 

[RuralGamer]

The Stalker Games are quite mature.

Spoiler

The main " villains" have a pretty noble goal; to create world peace and end human suffering; their creation of the Zone was an accident and they strive to repair the damage as well as keep the Zone's secrets safe from people who would exploit them for personal gain. If you think about it, they could actually be seen as the good guys and everyone else (including you) who is in the Zone is bad.

Edit: No gore or nudity because it wasn't necessary; two things a lot of developers here in the West seem to have forgotten about.

Huh, I never really thought of the Monolithians (you do mean the Monolith faction right?) like that.

However they are pretty much regular people brainwashed into guarding the Zone with their lives and they themselves don't so much want world peace, (C-Consciousness does though) but to stop anyone from reaching the center of the Zone.
Then again if that happened it would be very bad for everyone no matter how you put it, so Monolith fighters might be indoctrinated killers which chant creepy litanies from rooftops during battle, but they're still doing the right thing...in a way.

Thoughout the series but mainly in CoP its strongly hinted that

Spoiler: Fairly minor spoiler

While artifacts are being smuggled out and used mainly for good causes like to cure diseases, the Zone itself is beginning to expand and envelop the outside world. If I remember correctly at certain points in CoP Stalkers mention rumours of swarms of mutants getting past the army checkpoints and even attacking the nearest towns.

Ha, the more I think about Stalker the more I realise it also conveys morality quite well for a game, particularly the idea of the war between the Freedom and Duty factions and their differing ideologies, whether or not to exploit the Zone and risk it negatively affecting the outside world, or to destroy it completely and lose any possible benefits forever.

Spoiler: Major elements of the plot are mentioned

Yeah, I meant the C-Conciousness than the Monolith faction itself; they are just mindless fanatics, whereas the C-Con is effectively a superhuman hive mind that strives for a better world. Also, you have to reckon that some of the artefacts being smuggled out of the Zone can't be for good purposes; e.g. the Mercenaries being paid by shady government types to get artefacts and recover the research documents for whatever sinister purposes they have and remove anyone who sees them. The question is; is the Zone a good or bad thing? Is it important in Humanity's future or will it be its doom? In the end; Duty or Freedom; destruction or preservation? The Army has proven in all three games that containment/control of the Zone is impossible and the zone is growing; every time someone falls for the Wishgranter trap, it grows considerably.

Also, you're name isn't a reference to a rather nice gun in Stalker is it?

 

[Swny Nerdgasm]

Dragonage actually wow-ed me with how obviously elves are treated as secondclass citizens. That made me feel incredibly bad at some of the actions my character did at times towards this downtrodden people.
So i'd propably say that.
Fallout too, with how some people are openly hostile against ghouls just for "being different"

That was the greatest way I've ever seen elves having been treated, I swear if I can find the guy who decided, "Hey lets makes Elves the race everyone shits one!" I will buy him a beer or seventeen.

 

[LesCorbeaux]

IMO: Assassin's Creed Franchise, Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV, Heavy Rain and Mafia II

 

[The Night Shade]

All Fallout games

 

[run_forrest_run]

matture i.e. Encouraging serious thought

So where did you get this defintion of "mature" from? Thin air?

Why not? It's as good of a definition as any. He's referring to "games that don't rely on blood and breasts and epic badassery to grab the player".

Because it's different from any definition of mature that I've ever heard. I'd like to see a dictionary that uses the term in that way at least. If run forrest run wanted to talk about games that encorage thought he could have used that phrase as the topic title rather than make up a new definition for a word.

Yours and his definition don't actually share anything in common btw.

It's an example of what a mature game should do. When referring to such subject matter, mature would mean "suitable for adults", or fully developed people. I feel that a truly mature game would encourage the player to think about what they're playing through, while having fun of course. I'm also talking about the themes of the game, not just the gameplay. Are the themes mature? So no, I'm interpreting it slightly, not pulling it out my arse.

 

[run_forrest_run]

I'm going to throw in Mass Effect 2 for that one particular choice during legions loyalty mission where in

Spoiler

You have to, essentially, choose between committing genocide or removing a races free will.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I'm going to throw in Mass Effect 2 for that one particular choice during legions loyalty mission where in

Spoiler

You have to, essentially, choose between committing genocide or removing a races free will.

Danm ninja....i was going to say that lol

It's true though, like that guy (James?) from Extra Credits i was genuinely stumped by this for like 20 mutes whilst i mulled over the implications of that choice. It's one of the best written parts of any game i have played in my opinion.

 

[Thyunda]

[ I'd have to disagree with you there. If you play Boone's story to the very end, you have a real touching moment.

Spoiler

Basically, Boone's wife is kidnapped by Caesar's Legion. He tails the Legion until they set up a little slave market. The Legion are well known for their atrocities toward women, which, by the way, is the reason I will never, ever support them, and Boone had only his rifle to save her. He shot her, to protect her from the torture they'd subject her to.

That little story actually quite got to me. In fact, so did Raul's. I don't know where you got juvenile from, well, some of the characters are infantile...but people are different. Deal with it. Not you personally deal with it. You know what I'm getting at.

Sure, there are some truly mature parts, but when you walk into New Vegas and then get hired to find a sex-bot, any pretensions of maturity are immediately shot to hell. FISTO, the fact there is a Wild Wasteland trait, and a psycho Nightkin who is in love with a robot. Yes, this is a very mature game. It is as Fallout has always been, a game made to entertain with soft science and hilarity that occasionally, and almost accidentally, hits upon gritty, mature themes. It's Fallout and we love it for that, but to hold this series up as the model of how a mature game should conduct itself is only slightly better than doing the same with Postal or Duke Nukem.

Basically, there is too much wackiness and too little grittiness to get the "Mature, Stuck-up, Adult gamer" stamp of approval. Which is fine by me. It's not meant to be played totally seriously because it can't be. That's all i'm saying.

Don't read this as a serious argument of butthurting, I'm just arguing because debate is healthy.

You get hired to find a sex-bot. Not really immature. I mean, it's a possibility. People have odd fetishes now, what will they be like when they CAN actually have access to a sex robot? It would be immature of the game to repeatedly point and laugh and say "look at this weirdo, he wants a sex bot. Let's laugh at him!"
All the game does is (poorly) tell you to find a sex bot for a 'customer'. So what if the owner has a thing for robots? Some people have a thing for sheep.

We can ignore the Wild Wasteland trait. All that does is turns the game from a possible candidate for a mature RPG to a fun little day out. Imagine it as a different game, if you know what I mean.
And by Nightkin in love with a robot...do you mean Tabitha and Rhonda? I never got much of their story. I was raiding Tabitha's store-rooms when I found a robot. I reactivated the robot for the sake of it, and it wandered off with Tabitha. So I genuinely didn't have a clue what happened there. But again, I don't count character interactions as part of the game's overall theme.
People get fucked up. That much is obvious. Real life is mature, but you'll always run into the occasional doomsday-crier or watch as twenty-six year old men fight to the death because Optimus Prime apparently shouldn't have flames. If we're fucked up now, what happens when there are literally no societal norms for us to keep to?

 

[Gunner 51]

What about Metro 2033. I always thought that was a very mature and dry game, though it doesn't mean to say that the game lacks any sense of fun. (Especially Ullman messing around on the intercom.)

 

[Mallefunction]

Bioshock has been said a million times, but I have to show my love for it. :3

 

[Halo Fanboy]

It's an example of what a mature game should do. When referring to such subject matter, mature would mean "suitable for adults", or fully developed people. I feel that a truly mature game would encourage the player to think about what they're playing through, while having fun of course. I'm also talking about the themes of the game, not just the gameplay. Are the themes mature? So no, I'm interpreting it slightly, not pulling it out my arse.

What does thinking have to do with old age? The most popular games for old people are usually Bejeweled or Angry Birds not Total War. And I really don't see how young people are incapable of games that require heavy thought. I was at my prime in chess when I attended High school and went to a couple of tournaments. Most competetive strategy games are dominated by people who are High School or College aged. There is only an extremely thin relationship between the concept of "adult" and games that encourage thought.

 

[Ultress]

I'll go with Persona 3 handling the various themes of death and dying in a meaningful way.The characters reacted like normal humans and grew stronger by dealing and overcoming there grief.

 

[Lord Deathray]

The ones I think of is:
Eternal darkness sanity's requiem.
Legacy of Kain series (Dark fantasy that is actually dark.)
Bioshock
Silent Hill 2
Dreamfall: The longest Journey
Mass Effect

I know that most of them don`t have a M rating, but they are all games that really have the mature audience as their target grup. They are also doing it in a natural way unlike a lot of other games that are trying to be mature, like why to many other who do it by tossing in blood, gore, swearing, sex, alcohol and drugs.

 

[run_forrest_run]

It's an example of what a mature game should do. When referring to such subject matter, mature would mean "suitable for adults", or fully developed people. I feel that a truly mature game would encourage the player to think about what they're playing through, while having fun of course. I'm also talking about the themes of the game, not just the gameplay. Are the themes mature? So no, I'm interpreting it slightly, not pulling it out my arse.

What does thinking have to do with old age? The most popular games for old people are usually Bejeweled or Angry Birds not Total War. And I really don't see how young people are incapable of games that require heavy thought. I was at my prime in chess when I attended High school and went to a couple of tournaments. Most competetive strategy games are dominated by people who are High School or College aged. There is only an extremely thin relationship between the concept of "adult" and games that encourage thought.

When I said mature I meant mentally, not physically, I hoped you'd understand that physical maturity wouldn't apply to games. Mental maturity isn't based on age, I know some very mature 11 year olds and they're only just hitting puberty. Now maybe you could stop worrying about word choice and contribute to the thread with your own ideas.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

It's an example of what a mature game should do. When referring to such subject matter, mature would mean "suitable for adults", or fully developed people. I feel that a truly mature game would encourage the player to think about what they're playing through, while having fun of course. I'm also talking about the themes of the game, not just the gameplay. Are the themes mature? So no, I'm interpreting it slightly, not pulling it out my arse.

What does thinking have to do with old age? The most popular games for old people are usually Bejeweled or Angry Birds not Total War. And I really don't see how young people are incapable of games that require heavy thought. I was at my prime in chess when I attended High school and went to a couple of tournaments. Most competetive strategy games are dominated by people who are High School or College aged. There is only an extremely thin relationship between the concept of "adult" and games that encourage thought.

When I said mature I meant mentally, not physically, I hoped you'd understand that physical maturity wouldn't apply to games. Mental maturity isn't based on age, I know some very mature 11 year olds and they're only just hitting puberty. Now maybe you could stop worrying about word choice and contribute to the thread with your own ideas.

My mother is more mentally mature than me by a huge amount. She still will never play any complex games. Physical maturity and mental maturity usually go hand in hand. That maturity is primarily based on age is how the term is usually defined.

I have to worry about word choice when it's the focus of the topic.

 

[plugav]

Silent Hill 2 is the one title that comes to mind.

And Planescape: Torment, possibly the most mature fantasy RPG ever made.

Deus Ex might qualify because of a few choices you're presented with during the game.