Poll: So do you actually like "violent video games"?

[GrizzlerBorno]

Unnecessary quantities of gore can destroy a game's mood and atmosphere.

Take Dragon Age, for example: In the first game, there was a lot of blood, sure, but only a FEW violent gory animations that played once in a while (when you killed something with a crit, i think). The amount of blood looked a bit silly, but it was quite excusable.

In DA2? Well, in their effort to make the game more....action'y; Bioware did this thing where, 1/3 times when you kill an enemy....they explode. I shit you not. They literally explode in a giant splotch of blood....and a few blank, untextured body parts (think dress dummy heads) fly apart from the point of death....

It is literally the most retarded thing I've seen in that game. It is comical.... but not in any way funny. It's disturbing shit, that instantly obliterates your sense of immersion (I didn't know my rogues dagger was made out of solid GUNPOWDER!?), and utterly ruins the plausibility of the world when all 500 of those untextured heads disappear after a second. That was HORRENDOUS application of gore, and I nearly stopped playing after I first saw that. Instead, (since I wanted to see the story through) I just dropped the difficulty to casual, and just spammed R for the rest of the game, because I JUST couldn't take the combat seriously anymore.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Depends. Is the gore part of the point and appeal of the game? Then sure. In games like Doom and Mortal Kombat that's part of the visceral appeal of the product. Otherwise I see no reason for Mario to splatter intestines all over everything if he stomps a Goomba.

That says, an "it depends" option would be nice.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

I can't play mortal kombat because of the gore. I'm not squeamish at all, I've dissected rats, eyeballs and hearts before (in biology classes... I don't get up to shifty business in my spare time) and been fine with it, but it's the amount of glee that the game seems to have in it's gore that just makes me feel uncomfortable. It's as if the game thinks I'm supposed to be finding the whole deal "cool", and I find that slightly sickening.

Yahtzee pretty much summed it up perfectly, he said that devs treat this sort of stuff like "finisher porn", always displayed in such a way that makes it seem as if we're supposed to be attracted to this sort of stuff.

Gore is fine at times, when it's called for. But overusing it for the sake of overusing it is just needless, childish and I would even go as far as to say pathetic.

 

[Sunrider]

I can dig gore, but only if there's a good story behind it.
for example, if I'm wandering through an abandoned facility/space station/whatever and I hear subtle weird noises and then I find a corpse that's been pasted all over the walls, I get the whole 'what the fuck happened here?' vibe. but the gore in say... quake isn't scary at all, cause you already know what happened and who's doing it. at that point it loses all the impact.

This, pretty much.
It reminded me of a section in Final Fantasy 7, a pretty violent game with almost no gore at all. While pursuing Sephiroth, when you acquire your first Chocobo at the farm past Kalm village, you use it to cross a sandy area inhabited by Midgar Zolom, huge snakes which you have no chance in defeating at this stage. When you have crossed this area, you come to a grassy area in front of a cave where you find one of these snakes impaled on a tree by Sephiroth.

Spoiler: A-like so...

This isn't particularly gory in itself, but it's probably the most gory part in FF7. It stands as a testament of what the enemy you are pursuing is capable of. It made me feel small, pitiful and weak.
This is the best way of using gore if you ask me.

 

[Suicida1 Midget]

When it comes to gore, i just dont care about it. I like gears, and the way they did was almost reasonable.(if a downed guy crawls, theres just a a bit more blood than his body oould possible hold.) But I didnt personally care for Mortal Kombat.(fightings ok, but the gameplay is just dry.)

 

[kidd25]

Well, it's not in ultrarealistic 3D graphics, but the death animations in Fallout 2 are about as gruesome as they get.

i love how a punch can take someone ribs out

 

[DSK-]

Very mixed. Some games I have played/play consistently have very little if no violence whatsoever (example would be Total Annihilation), violent but not overly violent like Crysis and Crysis 2 to downright bloody in the likes of Soldier of Fortune 1, FEAR and others.

It really depends. I can't say that video game violence or a lack of it does anything to make my overall gaming experience better or worse.

 

[Chris646]

Most of the games I play aren't too violent. But the most violent one is clearly Super Mario Brothers. You stomp on goombas so hard that their bodies disappear into the aether! Also, you make a turtle die burning in lava.
All joking aside, my favortie games are things like Final Fantasy, TWEWY, Disgaea, etc.

 

[Fugitive Panda]

I've never felt that gore added anything at all to any of the games. Watching my enemies explode into bloody chunks has no more meaning than having them fall over and phase out of existence.

Of course, if you're going to make a super realistic shooter or something, realistic gore is important for consistency. But I've never been terribly entertained by watching my enemies entrails fly across the screen; I'm usually too focused on taking down the next one.

 

[MSfire012]

My favorite games: GTA IV, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, Oblivion, Half Life 2, Silent Hill 2, Bioshock. They are all violent games, but I don't buy a game for the violence or gore, I buy a game if it's worth it. But for me true violence isn't decapitations, and lots of blood, true violence is when a game shows you psychological, emotional and/or cruel scenes like in Half Life 2 Ep2, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption and Silent Hill 2.

 

[FalloutJack]

So, as we all know, there are lots of people who like to harp on about violent video games and their terrible influences. But whenever I see this, I can't help but think about by own favorite games - games like Minecraft, Civilization, Mass Effect, Portal, TES... of those, only Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls are meaningfully violent, and even they barely feature any gore or totally senseless killing in the spirit of what Fox News seems to think video games are about.

I was wondering about the rest of you - we all know games like Postal or Mortal Kombat exist, but are those really representative of what we actually enjoy? How violent are your favorite games? Did you ever go through a phase where you enjoyed more violent games than you do now? What changed?

You're asking the wrong questions. I have Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and this can and will entale seeing your enemies blasted apart in slow motion especially if you have the Bloody Mess perk. You are asking how and what, but you SHOULD be asking why.

For me, the answer is simple: I like Fallout.

The end-result of this thread is not what you are aiming for at all. Who cares IF people like violence? It has its place, otherwise it wouldn't sell. You need to be asking WHY, or everything else becomes meaningless.

 

[New Frontiersman]

I'm not really that partial to super violent games. I'm okay with some violence, but I really don't like the super violent stuff.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Actually violence is not an issue I even consider when buying a game. I consider whether of not eh game will be fun. Of course to me violence can be simplified down to ragdolls, programmed mesh components, particle effects, gib meshes, etc. so maybe I'm just to programmer happy to get violence.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

I honestly have no idea what to put on the poll, but violence levels depends entirely on the game. Randomly throwing blood into a game where it's not needed is stupid and can just kill how the game looks.
But I myself have no problem with blood, gore, violence and all of that, so long as it's there for a reason.

 

[cgentero]

I more masochistic with videogame violence, I'm usually more entertained by the ways I can be killed.

 

[Reaper195]

Some games that I like a lot are incredibly violent (Gears of War series, Postal 2 (Yes, I like Postal 2. Abstract fun beats gritty military fps any day of the week), Prototype), while some games I love have very little actual violence in them (Portal, Just Cause 2).

It really depends on the game; I'm more of a fan of decent story and gameplay than actual violence.

 

[Insane_Foxx]

i enjoy non-violent as much as, if not more than violent, but as the poll is set up, I'm on the most violent setup, although i have games that fit into each of these answers. But with the most violent as opposed to most games, don't have much choice

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Gears of War is my baby. So yes, I like violence.

But I also like violence that doesn't need gore, like God Hand.

However my absolute favorite is when the violence is just plain over the top. Examples like Mad World, Ninja Gaiden, and No More Heroes are permitted.

 

[V8 Ninja]

One of my favorite games, Half-Life 2, depicts realistic violence and realistic gore.

My #1 favorite game, Super Mario World, depicts violence as enemies disappearing when you tap them with the bottom of Mario's shoes.

However, I enjoy both of those games because of their mechanics and not because of how violent they are. I play what I like, I don't play games for the joy of seeing living beings destroyed by my hand.