Gore in games a lot less than before?

[Reaper978]

Is it just me or have they toned down the blood a lot since the old days of Blood and Duke3d? What happened to blowing up bad guys? It seems to me that a lot of games take inspiration from that xbox game Black, where there is no blood and gore at all, there's just a lame gray puff where the bullet hits. What happened to the violent days of Quake, Half-Life and Duke Nukem? I find the gibs and blood to be part of the fun.

I don't think gore has ever been done as well as in Blood. The blood streams off the enemies and contributes to the game's atmosphere a ton, giving it a bloody, visceral feel. It's so freaking awesome. I wish they would have that "blood streaming" effect in other games, and in modern games.

Also, I notice in modern games that the ejected bullet casings always disappear from the ground after a few seconds, why is it always like this? It would be so cool to see the casings realistically stay on the ground. I've only seen them stay like that in Blood and Shadow Warrior.

I wish there were more Build engine games in the Duke Nukem 3D style that are cool and violent. I wish someone would revisit the style of Duke3d, Shadow Warrior, and Blood, and make a new game with the build engine in the modern era. I've seen the new shadow warrior and think it looks kind of lame. Build is where it's at!

Since I like the build engine games and their style, are there any mods\maps\total conversions around (for doom or the build-engine games, or another game) that are definitely worth playing? Or maybe you've heard of other games like that I might be interested in?

[Clonehunter]

Somewhat relevant.

[Avoozl]

Reaper978 said:

Also, I notice in modern games that the ejected bullet casings always disappear from the ground after a few seconds, why is it always like this?

Actually I've noticed the shell casings don't even touch the ground at all and are merely 2D sprites which disappear when going off the screen.

I've only noticed what you said happen in much older games such as Quake 3 Arena.

[Aliotroph?]

Modern games are designed to run on console hardware from 2005. They can't keep adding shiny to the graphics and still keep the frame rate up with spent cartridges and gibs everywhere.

If you look at mod sites for Bethesda's games you'll notice gore mods are very popular on PCs. And yes, FO3/NV also have mods so you can have a million empty cartridges littering the ground when you get into a minigun fight with some super mutants.

[Doominator2]

Although there is still a lot of gore in modern games, (Fallout 3 for example) The reason Why we dont see disembowelment, ripping of skin or whatever is because the visuals in games are getting more realistic and the developers dont want to be attacked by politicians or annoying attorneys *cough Jack Thompson cough*. Although it has happened alot.

To answer your last question, there is redneck rampage that uses the build engine(although I found it kinda lame.)

[Da Werecat]

This thread reminds me of mid-00s.

[40oz]

This is part of the realism argument in video games. The argument being realistically armed forces would be wearing kevlar heavy jackets and helmets. Unless your target is inflated with blood like a water balloon you wouldn't see any blood discharge from a normal gunshot wound at the point of impact.

I do believe however, that this is one of the disappointing transitions from classic to modern gaming. That being by vibrant, colorful visual cues in gameplay. Like bad guys are red, good guys are green type stuff. In the case of gore, blood is the fun visual feedback that indicates the amount of damage being dealt. Unfortunately this is not the case anymore

[Da Werecat]

I wouldn't generalize. The main theme of the Dead Space series is dismemberment. And I still remember Dragon Age with its hilariously exaggerated blood spurts.

These are popular franchises, by the way, not some niche underdogs.

[Koko Ricky]

I wonder if you'll be able to stomp on the bladder of your fallen enemy before someone says, "Too far."

[General Rainbow Bacon]

No, I'd like to be able to scalp fallen enemies and hang their entrails on my castle as a warning to those who oppose me...

I went too far didn't I?

[Clonehunter]

I want a game where I can freely shoot up schools in highly realistic environments with very unrealistic over-the-top violence. I mean, why not, y'know?

[Quasar]

How about a game where you drive semi trucks through day cares?

[Aliotroph?]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

No, I'd like to be able to scalp fallen enemies and hang their entrails on my castle as a warning to those who oppose me...

I went too far didn't I?

I want to use their entrails to solve puzzles! I was saying things like this before Doom 3 came out. I was terribly disappointed, but not surprised.

[Jodwin]

Reaper978 said:

*whines about modern games not having any gore*

*says that the new Shadow Warrior is lame*

I don't even. :/

[GreyGhost]

Quasar said:

How about a game where you drive semi trucks through day cares?

Too tame, replace the trucks with combine harvesters and we might be getting somewhere.

[dew]

GreyGhost said:

Too tame, replace the trucks with combine harvesters and we might be getting somewhere.

Replace day cares with maternity wards and we're almost there.

[GreyGhost]

It's no fun if most of the enemies don't at least attempt to escape, so lets replace the maternity wards with aged care homes and the combine harvesters (which are a little difficult to manoeuvre in tight spaces) with sleds drawn by packs of ravening hounds with chronic diarrhea.

[lazygecko]

Doing good, detailed gore visuals in real time on 3D models takes a lot more work than doing it on 2D sprites. I think it's only fairly recently with games like the Mortal Kombat reboot that we got something that can actually compete with the 90's gore.

It's probably going to take a while yet (if ever) to see monster deaths with the same kind of detail you can see when killing cacodemons or barons.

[TwinBeast]

How about driving trucks through anything!

My thoughts about the gore are also that it takes longer time to make gore in 3D, even if they're just some random gore blobs.

[Clonehunter]

I actually want to point out that "90s gore" really isn't all that gory. I mean, there's a lot of blood being thrown around, and Doom 2 had some eviscerated humans here and there, but honestly, the comment of MK9 competing with 90s gore? No, I think MK9 surpassed "90s gore" with flying colors.

I mean, after sprites anyways, most of that gore was just clouds of blood followed by more often than not indiscernible chunks of meat flew around bouncing off of things, and some occasion these chunks being modeled or textured with organs or something.

[GreyGhost]

Jimi said:

How about driving trucks through anything!

Already been done but there's no gore.

[Kirby]

Reaper I just think you haven't been looking in the right places :|

[Koko Ricky]

The kind of gore I want to see in modern games is that of the highly realistic variety. You cap someone in the head with a smaller arm, then you shouldn't see blood spraying out, you should see a small entrance wound with blood slowly leaking out. If you shotgun someone in the chest, they character shouldn't explode, you should you see their chest cavity exposed. If you're firing a gatling/turret gun, you should see the enemy slowly tear apart depending on where each bullet hits. It's frankly not satisfying to see the slightest hits causing the body to split apart in completely scripted ways. I want to see dynamic violence, because that would provide the sense of completion one needs when cleaning house in a game.

[lazygecko]

I'm not so much thinking about Doom when it comes to the goriest games of the decade... Just brought it up as an example since the cacodemon and baron of hell have some pretty elaborate death animations with their still attached eyeballs popping out and the guts falling out of the baron as it falls apart. This kind of stuff isn't all that hard to do when you're just animating 2D frames. Doing it on the same level on a 3D model is a whole different story.

Fallout 1/2 and Crusader No Remorse/Regret are some particular titles I think of when it comes to 90's 2D gore. They have some pretty excessive death animations from the different weapons available. Really, I think a lot was lost when the leap to 3D was made in Fallout 3. Blasting someone into a meaty puddle or ash pile with laser/plasma weapons just isn't as cool as it was in the 2D equivalents.

[Koko Ricky]

As hardware becomes more powerful and the programming of physics more accurate, I think we'll see that sort of gore translated to 3D. Have you played Left 4 Dead 2? It came out like five years ago, and it's still insanely gory: Enemies react to where they've been shot, guts fall out and blood streams down rather than spraying out.

[fraggle]

I don't think there's less gore in games; gore is common in horror-style games and I think those are just less popular right now.

[Jodwin]

fraggle said:

I think those [horror games] are just less popular right now.

Youtube disagrees. Heavily.

[Kontra Kommando]

Clonehunter said:

Somewhat relevant.

video

Having a lot of fun with Happy Wheels now. Thanks for the video.

[Maes]

The Soldier of Fortune games had a realistic (for their time) wound & goring engine, but apparently gamers proved not to be particularly interested in this sort of thing, after all.

Quake 3-like heaps of giblets, OTOH, would look way too cheesy and out-of-place in a modern shooter. Come think of it, even Hollywood depictions of gore in multi-million $$$ production often come out as totally ridiculous butcher shop/ketchup fests. I don't see any reason why game studios should try to play catch with movie studios on this front, when the latter have obviously stumbled upon a block (or reached the maximum achievable perfection for actual movie production, depending on how you see it).

[Phml]

My Steam Library screenshot for Dishonored has Corvo holding a thug's head in his hands. Half of my time in Dead Space 3 was spent stomping scattered corpse parts on the ground for loot. Torchlight 2 has enemies exploding in bloody chunks all over the place. Then you've got the videos Jodwin and Kirby posted.

Granted, I don't like gore (I don't mind it, but I don't care for it either), but it seems we're fine on that front. I believe there's games similar to what GoatLord wants, too; i.e. the Sniper Elite series flaunt this x-rayish damage system where you see the bullet breaking the skeleton.