Violent Video Games: The Gorier the Better?

Realistic violence is a mixed bag. Immature dumbasses will just go LOLOLOL THATS COOL, so the point of the message is lost. GTAIV actually disturbed me when I randomly killed a guy and saw the blood slowly oozing out in a realistic manner. You can beat people, shoot them nonfatally etc and they'll lie on the ground and try to get up and run for help only to collapse again, but if you see those blood trials, they are dead and nothing can save them.

I didn't really go on mass civilian shooting sprees after that.

I wonder if the day will come when video game violence is so realistic, that corpes will release their bowels after death.

Here's some food for thought, imagine a game like Rome II Total War with realistic gore? It would probably require some serious computer hardware.

I like over the top gore, it adds to the hillarity of the situation at hand, it is just hillarious to see raiders (Fallout 3) fly across the room in pieces, with realistic gore it would make it less satisying and more disturbing.

Another example is SMOD for Half Life 2, it is hillarious booting the overseer Breen into a wall as blood and other things splay out, as well as amazing optional ragdolls (action movie is best IMO) allowing you to use a spade to send Breen flying or gibbing all over... Do not even get me started on the slowmo pistol Breen executions!

Now onto Dead Island: burning, bone breaking, mutilating, blowing up, running down... A mad mans dream! The scenes of combat are just drenched in blood, legs, arms and heads! It is brilliant to see that little douche that caused your last respawn in pieces or on fire... Or blown up... Or broken... Or crushed ect.

Then there is Brutal Doom, my proverbial wet dream...

I want a game with both destructible environments and people, but that'll never happen.

Mr. Freeze said:

I want a game with both destructible environments and people, but that'll never happen.

So you can blow up a house and marvel at the crushed peoplepaste inside?

I like to have at least blood decals forming on surfaces near the body I shoot per hit rather than just simple sprays.

Nice sharing.Interesting.

DoomUK said:

Well, compared to MK3, MK2 had some pretty realistic (or at least "essential") fatalities. Some, like Jax's skull-smashing fatality, were pretty realistic: reasonable amounts of blood, and those tiny bits of skull everywhere...



Compared to MK3's plastic mannequin fest, that's practically a special effects Oscar :-)

I could never get enough of that blob of blood that happens during decapitations in MK2, that makes a suitably cartoon sound when it hits the floor.

Perfectly synced with the action of Reptile's eat-the-head fatality, too. Probably why it's my favourite.

Mmmmmmm!

Gore itself is completely pointless and unnecessary. If your game needs to ride on ludicrous gibs to be successful there's something very, very wrong with the game itself. Similarly, if you need to have ridiculous gore in a game for it to be enjoyable, do yourself a favor and get an appointment at a professional shrink.

Gore in moderation is fine with me, though the more realistic it gets the less I like it.

I like gore but I think it has to be consistent with the amount of damage being done.

I've played games like Turok where shooting a guy with a pistol will make blood spurt like a fountain out of his neck, or in Cold Winter where a couple machine gun shots can completely sever a guys leg.

On a more relatable, doom level, I think Nash Gore, which is a very popular template for blood mods is strange, when shooting a monster with a pistol or a chaingun will have the blood spew all the way into the ceiling with a very low damaging weapon.

I'm much more attracted to the way an imp is thrown back when you take it out with a shotgun, or how a pinky demon stops dead in its tracks when its blasted with a super shotgun or berserk punch, or how zombiemen are thrown across the room into a gorey mess by an exploding barrel.

I feel as though the damage of a weapon or attack, corresponding to the physical display of pain is important to making a game's gameplay feel right. I think this lends to why people are obsessing over Brutal Doom, when a shotgun takes down an imp or zombie man in one shot, it seems appropriate that it blows their legs off, spewing blood everywhere, crushing bones, and making the ground quake with every shot. Even if the mod fucks up people's maps.

I remember people complaining that Heretic's weapons were too weak, and I think that is in part to how little weight the monsters had. Those axe-throwing knight things were thrown back pretty far by the ethereal crossbow, even though it took like six or seven shots to kill them. That seems strangely disproportionate to how hard it was to get a cacodemon on ground level to even move with the shotgun on doom, which helped to indicate how much of a meatshield it really is.

I do like my games covered in red, but if it doesn't have it that's fine. Blood/Gore isn't necessary for a good game. Does it help? Maybe if it's implemented right. Though granted I do like over the top shit whether game or film (like Planet Terror).

40oz has so far made the most poignant observations. Bravo! My take? Gore should be appropriate to the aesthetics and tone of the game. Bioshock doesn't need more than its sparkly blood globs because the characters are tragic and the setting is retro-futurism. In Left 4 Dead 2, the apocalyptic cities and grotesquely mutated people justify visceral death animations. In both games the act of killing is satisfying.

On a related note, I wonder if my three favorite shooters (Doom, Quake and Blood) would have had the same impact if the violence had been severely toned down. I imagine I would have enjoyed them plenty, but undoubtedly would have welcomed the gory versions, and probably considered then superior.

Realistic gore is a difficult subject to address. Let us imagine, then, a near future in which there exists a highly realistic game revolving around torturing and killing others, even innocents. The level of detail would allow you to say, hack up and mangle an opponent as you see fit; the countless ways one could go about this are clearly disturbing. But what if it's legitimately fun? The brutality could even be justified by saying, "People made the same objections 10 years ago, and clearly none of those games caused any harm." But if a game is nearly photorealistic and as brutal as the fictional one I have described, couldn't that potentially have adverse effects?

GoatLord said:

But what if it's legitimately fun?

Kind of a cop-out answer, but this really depends on the person playing. I'd say yes, but I don't think that means much, because fun is subjective. I'd recommend we ignore the question of legitimacy and focus on your closing question re adverse effects (e.g. corruption of youth, other impressionables, etc.):

GoatLord said:

But if a game is nearly photorealistic and as brutal as the fictional one I have described, couldn't that potentially have adverse effects?

Firstly, I find the idea disturbing. But I don't see a problem with its existence as long as it's contained to fiction; however, I do think children should be kept away from such stuff (as society already encourage parents to do). If only to keep them from getting nightmares, or becoming desensitized to real-life violence. I would need to read more research on this before I made a hard decision, but I would guess that violence that appears essentially photorealistic might be potentially more likely to lead to a kind of 'Brutalization Effect' (broad summary: perceived, legitimized violence increases violence by at-risk persons).

GoatLord said:

On a related note, I wonder if my three favorite shooters (Doom, Quake and Blood) would have had the same impact if the violence had been severely toned down.

I wouldn't say any of them has significant core as a response to player actions. Violence, sure, but gore...nah, it's still very cartoony. However, what gore there is is thematically important in both Doom and Blood. Especially in Doom the impaled troopers, wall textures with corpses on them and other decorations are essential in creating the oppressive atmosphere of Hell.

Would Doom's gameplay be just as fun without gore? Yes, since gore isn't a gameplay mechanic. Would Doom have been as effective of an experience without the thematically important, gorey imagery? No. That would have been like reading Divine Comedy without Doré's illustrations.

I enjoy the gore aspect of games perhaps because I have a sick fascination with death, I’m not going to lie. I don't collect b-horror movies for the stellar acting.

Similarly, pre-adolescent exposure to various r-rated films, and my eventual journey into death metal and grindcore, led to a strong fascination with violence that was elevated further by gaming. I think a game where an enemy can be killed in as many ways as reality would be extremely entertaining. Obviously, the other elements of gameplay would have to be strong as well. Technologically it's possible, though certainly not for at least another two decades at least, but whether a game of that caliber could ever be legal is questionable.

GoatLord said:

Similarly, pre-adolescent exposure to various r-rated films,

I'm happy that my mother and father didn't shield me from that too. I grew up watching action and horror movies on HBO. I remember when I was 7, my parents took me to go see Home Alone 2, but since it was sold-out, they took me to see Bram Stroker's Dracula instead. I played some awesome violent video games as well. Once I loaned my friend a copy of some game I can't remember, and his mother called my house all upset about it because it was rated M. I really felt sorry for the kid, because his mom was a wack-job, tight ass.

Hey, my parents were tight-asses until I turned 16 (didn't let me rent SNES Doom until then) and I turned out alright. But then, I think the kids who watched show wrestling were probably more violent than any of us who played bloody video-games.

I voted for realistic gore, in the context of games that have gore. Gore isn't a necessity, the same way that OTT gore doesn't bother me, but ultimately, as Phml said, it's a visual cue. Case in point: I'm a big Quake Live player, but it took me literally weeks to realize that the gibs had been replaced with sparkles (which behaved in exactly the same way as the gibs did). I only noticed this because I was spectating.

QuakeLive is an excellent example of a game's enjoyment not being tainted by a lack of gore. However, I'm always secretly wishing it was there.

I prefer gore on a realistic or semi-realistic side myself, specially with the amount of damage done. A shotgun blast up close taking off an arm or the skull being blown to bits is a good example, and maybe the Normandy scene at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan can do as realistic or semi-realistic too.

This guys does a better job of expressing my thoughts on this then I would:

Excellent video, though I'm surprised he didn't use say, Mirror's Edge as a example of making violence optional.

Blood like in "Half Life 1", "Quake 3" and "Doom 3" delights my day! Yay! Hopefully "Doom 4" has the same blood count as "Doom 3" and nothing less! ("More Gore the Better!")

Kontra Kommando said:

I'm currently playing Fallout 3 (or any of that series) for the first time. It actually motivated me to write this thread. One, because of the comparison to Skyrim. Two because of the Bloody Mess perk that I enabled in the game. I thought the game had a good level of gore prior to unlocking this. Now, if I pull off a head shot on someone, their arms and legs explode off their body. Though I can look past it, and keep on playing, I think this feature had a negative impact on my playing experience. Not because I'm offended by gore, but because it was just too silly looking, and less satisfying.

Yea...actually I have to agree with this, it sounded funny, but in reality its a bit false! It may not be too bad for me though as I went for a melee character and so if they do explode with a hit from a giant claw then fair enough.

Kontra Kommando said:

I enjoy the gore aspect of games perhaps because I have a sick fascination with death, I’m not going to lie.

<puts on FBI informer hat and starts stalking poster>