When Does Gore Get In the Way of Gameplay?

News Bot · 05-22-2009, 11:20

Wired is running a story inspired by the level of gore in the recent Wolverine game that wonders: how much is too much? It mentions a study we discussed in February which indicated that violence tended to interest gamers less than other characteristics. "... the longer you play a 'twitch' action game, the less you notice the cultural content — the gushing blood, the shrieks of agony. You're too busy focusing on the gameplay. I noticed this with Wolverine. For the first hour, I found the deranged bloodshed both shocking and exciting; it made me feel like I 'was' Logan, the grunting, killing-machine character from Marvel Comics' X-Men universe. But as I became more expert, the cultural shell of the game boiled away. In a sort of staring-into-the-cascading-numbers-of-the-Matrix way, I found myself looking past the visible aspects of the game and savoring the underlying, invisible mechanics of play. ... The game became pure physics and algorithms: Vectors, speed and collision detection. The gore had become mostly irrelevant."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jambayze · 05-23-2009, 00:02

I was never attracted to "Gore" in any genre, movies, games, whatever. I'm not against it per se, just that I don't want to see it just for the sake of seeing it. I watch alot of realistic movies and don't expect or want them to tame it down to unrealistic levels, but games that feature gushing blood and guts and then tout "great graphics" just doesn't work for me.