Poll: SPOILERS Dead Space 2 has gone too far.

[Candidus]

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

you have been warned.

basically, im playing thorugh Dead Space 2 now, im about 3 hours through, and i'm shooting babies. i've already shot about 60 children no older than 12, but im now walking thorugh a nursery, listening to crying children and shooting mutated babies, which explode.

fuck MW2's airport scene, fuck Medal of Honours Taliban, this strikes me as over the line. had i known in advance there was this sort of content i would probably not have bought it.

The idea of a censor of media- any media- intended for adults makes me sick. You and I are adults. My first line of defense against things I don't want to see is my own scrutiny, and that's the only defense any of us ought to have.

Occasionally making an error in judgement (pre-ordering a survival horror game before reviews are available, for example) and choosing to see something which is beyond your own tolerance is part and parcel of being an adult. You'll get over it, and it's a small price to pay for the freedom to share any idea you like, in any format you like, and to partake of ideas conceived with the same liberties. Adults who say they need the protection of other adults from the *possibility* of making a bad decision represent the lowest common denominator. We cannot build society around their many, many special needs.

Deadspace 2 crossed an internal line that is only relevant to you and others with your views. You have a right to alter your own purchase patterns from now on. That's all.

 

[Exile714]

The most offensive part about Dead Space 2 is the ending. And no, I don't mean "cross your heart." I mean, the actual ending. Just awful.

That scene where they introduce the exploding babies was a little distasteful, but honestly it's what I expected from this game.

 

[chunkeymonke]

i think they've gone to far in their ad campaign
5 out of 5 mothers disaproove?
thats in no way helping video games at all making it seem lke YOUR MOM DOESNT LIKE IT SO YOU WILL LOL

 

[Mikkaddo]

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

you have been warned.

basically, im playing thorugh Dead Space 2 now, im about 3 hours through, and i'm shooting babies. i've already shot about 60 children no older than 12, but im now walking thorugh a nursery, listening to crying children and shooting mutated babies, which explode.

fuck MW2's airport scene, fuck Medal of Honours Taliban, this strikes me as over the line. had i known in advance there was this sort of content i would probably not have bought it.

Honestly, I'm wondering why you choose to keep playing at that point. Is it really that valuable a game to you that despite the masses of children you've murdered and now the exploding infants . . . ?

I have to say, I usually rent games before playing them (with the exception of some that don't go to the rental service I use) however honestly I've always felt that if it offends a person that much they should just stop.

If a show is so bad it offends you, change the channel. No one is forcing you to play Dead Space 2 . . . so if it's that offensive to you then trade it in, or sell it to someone.

 

[saintchristopher]

for fuck's sake, why do you think they included it in the first place? It's supposed to be over the line. It's supposed to make you sit there and go "what am I doing?" it's SUPPOSED TO FREAK YOU OUT.

Besides, you don't know if it's even actually happening...

 

[scar_47]

there toddlers the babies were in the first dead space, I don't think its going to far there meant to be creepy and scary and boy does it work.

 

[FoolKiller]

Its sick+amusing at the same time, I wince then laugh then feel a bit guilty. Tbh i think maybe they did go a bit too far but at the same time fair play to them for having the courage to break the 'Infant Immortality' that so many other mainstream games buckle to (Fallout 3, i'm looking at you).

At the end of the day its just pixels, no babies or children were harmed making this game.

I agree... and frankly I was more than creeped out when there were toddler ghosts in Silent Hill that I couldn't shoot. Ironically it makes it a little less scary to be able to shoot them.

 

[Ashsaver]

No it hasn't gone too far,because deep down inside,i know i did those children a favor:They're turned into a monster,and i did what i could to stop them from hurting other people,and end their suffering.

When i killing these things,I'm not thinking "I'm killing babies" I'm thinking "I'm euthanizing them"

 

[oblivionenigma]

Certainly you're entitled to your opinion, and I think it's reasonable to dislike the concept. First, for full disclosure's sake:
I have not played the game, though I really found it tasteless that their selling point was that moms hate it...because, you know, parents don't have enough to deal with other than advertisers mocking parental disapproval.
That over with, I cannot exactly disapprove of the game itself. The reason is simple. It is not real. You are not shooting up nurseries. No one is actually dying. There are no consequences. Nor is THIS going to be the line that is crossed that will throw our societies into chaos and make mothers smother their infants. THAT spiral happened way before video games. Or Marilyn Manson or Alice Cooper. Or comic books. Or pulp fiction. Or Mozart. Or anything else that has been blamed in the past for going over "the line." (not saying you were saying this; just figured that the Thompsons of the world are going to say this is the worst evil out there)

 

[Tinman_1993]

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

you have been warned.

basically, im playing thorugh Dead Space 2 now, im about 3 hours through, and i'm shooting babies. i've already shot about 60 children no older than 12, but im now walking thorugh a nursery, listening to crying children and shooting mutated babies, which explode.

fuck MW2's airport scene, fuck Medal of Honours Taliban, this strikes me as over the line. had i known in advance there was this sort of content i would probably not have bought it.

Try Condemned 2 where you slaughter hundreds of anthropromorhic dolls that look like toddlers that might be over the line but a space virus makes now exception

 

[Free Thinker]

Is it wrong I laughed a bit when picking up their re-dead body and shoot them at enemies? On a side note; Dante's Inferno was pretty fun with the little unbaptized babies. Never once freed their souls. Always reaped them for some reason.

 

[Caligulove]

It's an action-horror game. It's meant to make you feel uncomfortable and terrified, even horrified in the things you have to do to survive. It's not 'too far' though, technically even the regular enemies aren't humans anymore.

It's the same kind of terror that was central to Night of the Living Dead and zombies in general. The zombies still look so much like humans, but they're neither living or dead- but it's hard to kill something that still looks so human. Dead Space is basically the same, except the zombies are weird space satan zombie things.

 

[giggetygooo]

see theres the thing..for me i'd be sickened if watching animals getting tortured, but apart from that anything goes; exploding babies, having sex with necromorphs, its all good.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

....This isn't even a new thing, Dante's Inferno had you stabbing babies for a good couple of levels. Those babies aren't human anymore, they want to kill you. Just like every other Necromorph in the game, they only resemble their former self. They take something you once new as happy and joyful and turned it into a mobile time bomb. That is pretty fucking creepy in my opinion and it fits perfectly.

Edit: You know what actually, you're forgetting a very important. You killed hundreds of babies on the Ishimura in Dead Space 1. What the hell did you think these things were? [http://deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/File:Concept_crouching_lurker_download_052308.jpg]

 

[Croix Sinistre]

I dunno, it's not shocking, or offending, or the least bit repulsive to me...

However, I do think it's really low to resort to portraying violence toward a likeness of a human child purely for shock value.

I guess it can be argued that like the No Russian level in MW2, in which you couldn't grasp the entirety of the Russian's being pissed without actually seeing the tragedy; you can't grasp how insanely devastating the baddies are in Dead Space without seeing even children being affected. (or maybe you can. Personally I think Doom 3 would have been just as unsettling without the cherubs, just like DS2 can be without having to have exploding mutant babies)

Anyway, on a side note, I think its funny that we at the escapist rail on parents who fail to research games that their kids might want while at the same time forget that there is another population who fails to do the same for themselves, like our OP.

EDIT: I also wanted to quote this grand post. Putting games off as 'Just a game' is a pretty big double standard with us "games are art" crowd.

So you're upset that pixels were rearranged in a different fashion?

You do know that no babies have died from you shooting pixels, right?

No! Bad Escapist!

You can't claim games are art and are a legitimate form for expressing ideas and then fall back to "It's just a game"!

It's always 'just a game' or never 'just a game', they don't get to be deep and meaningful and evocative only when it suits gaming. Over three decades of increasing realism to bring the player closer to the action invalidates the claim of it just 'being pixels', that's not how the developer intended it to be viewed.

 

[Rabid Chipmunk]

I didn't find the exploding babies to be distasteful, I found them to be unfortunately hilarious. Bloated, glowing babies crawling on their backs that explode? That's funny beyond the point that a horror game should be.

Regardless, as has been said, the point of this is to shock and unnerve the player by forcing them to do something they'd rather not. The Pack is just a bunch of squeeling 10 year-olds, but I didn't have a problem with them (probably because they were fucking annoying, though).

 

[winter2]

Burn the Heretic!

Purge the unclean!

Suffer not the Alien to live!

 

[Whodat]

I think its the funniest thing ever to 1. Throw headless exploding babies at people, 2 To be able to stomp, and or kick a dead baby, and 3. Punch of small childrens heads while they are in stasis. Not to mention the plethora of dead baby jokes that can be made from Dead Space because of that.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

It amazes me that contemporary audiences can still get offended by things like this. It amazes me even more that said easily offended audience would even consider such a product. You don't even have to have done your research to know it would involve something horrific. Aside from that 18 rating, surely you must've known what the original was about. And that the original involved shooting new born babies as well, called Lurkers.

You beat me to it. Dead Space 1 didn't scare me. The closest it came was the section in which you killed your way through a lab full of the test-tube babies. It was creepy but not scary. Kinda funny.

You make it sound like you're playing through the prologue of Max Payne from the perspective of the men who broke into the Payne residence. You're attacking things which used to be babies but which have sense grown tentacles and a liking for human flesh (or possibly just murder) It isn't as though you enter a maternity ward and toss babies, soft-spot-first, into walls, doors and, floors...although that does sound kinda entertaining in a twisted way...

As was also said above: It's just a game. An M rated game (though that doesn't mean much: Fable 2 and 3 are also M rated for some reason). The game taking place in a fictional place during a fictional time featuring fictional people doing fictional things. Fictional, not factual.

 

[teebeeohh]

i had exactly two more refined thoughts during the nursery scene:
1. Why did the mother get to survive and go crazy while her kid was turned?
2. Got damn this stage is set up as an arena and i am low on ammo and healthkits