It is interesting how removing a "justification" for killing people in a video game suddenly turns it into disgusting to people.

-Collateral innocent civilian damage in middle eastern wargame, or GTA, or whatev : OK
-Innocent civilians without any reason or purpose: disgusting 

There are innocents in the Middle East? 

But that game still looks like garbage and people who buy it should go on some watch list. 

The main difference between this piece of garbage that is Hatred and GTA is that the former FORCES you to kill innocents while in GTA, or any other open-ended game where you can kill people, you DECIDE to kill them. 

You are free to stand around and not kill the people Skacky :P
Its not a psychedelic drug designed by the secret services designed to send you on a killing spree. Its a game.

By the way the visuals don't look like garbage. The mental content is garbage, though, toal trash. Which is the point, just as it is in garbage trashy mean spirited horror movies and music. Just as many grindcore metal albums and whatnot are about raping and ripping apart the innocent for the fun of it...

Not sure they deserve money for the game though that is true. Who says it has to be bought to be played though? :D 

 

I had to kill the innocent Floyd in Rubicon 2 and I am still full of regret :,( 

This look inside your mind is a little chilling, Killes. Mass murder, hey great! Piracy, woo!

Ugh. 

Since it's up to the player what it does.
Call of Duty though? Battlefield? Indefensible! 

Putting justification in quotes doesn't invalidate it. Saying "Killes" doesn't make you not Killes.

Most games operate in a realm of willing combatants. Everyone, or nearly everyone, involved is armed in some form, and is an aggressor. When they are not, the game punishes certain behaviors - taking off health or a life count, summoning enforcers of some sort, a Karma system, or docking payment received for the task because you complicated it.

In pretty much every scenario where you've got unarmed individuals present, it is for the purpose of the setting: cities have people in them, especially when things are just getting started in a big event. They are there the same reason there are restaurants, even though your character doesn't need to eat. They can be killed because it is a matter of congruency with user input ("What do these guns shoot, bad-guy only bullets?") and the risk of that has more benefits than a barren city in the game design.

I'm not a fan of GTA actually because it doesn't seem to have any Good or Honorable paths (I may be mistaken in this, I also don't like the controls so I'd still likely avoid it). In Doom you are the good guy fighting aggressive willing armed combatants. In Quake you are the good guy fighting aggressive willing armed combatants. In modern military games you are usually the good guy fighting aggressive willing armed combatants, except in cases of changing perspective for dramatic effect - and usually this is lampooned as hamfisted and lame. In Blood, you are not the good guy, but you are seeking justifiable vengeance against very bad guys for the death of your wife and friends - none of which were good guys, but it still appeals to the rights of self-defense and the responsibility therein of a partner and friend.

All of these are for the sake of the thrill of competition, of resource management, of exploration, of drama and big stories, of witnessing grand events safely from your home. They aren't for the sake of killing, and the gore isn't for the sake of violence alone. Those are feedback systems, I like getting a kill in a game because it meant I outsmarted the AI, the mapper, or another player. I appreciate violence when it accurately reflects the activity and serves as a feedback mechanism, much in the same way I appreciate soft shadows with hard contact points - it draws you in all the more for the rest of the game's values. (It pulls me out when a military shooter does little puffs of blood for combat, it is dehumanizing to me).

So yes, there is a difference. In the same way that there is a difference between shooting someone on a whim and shooting someone when attacked, or when they are going to attack another. You don't hand wave those differences aside by using quotation marks. 

Having just finished playing spec ops, I feel that game addresses the stupidity of Call of Duty and Battlefield quite well. :) 

My ATAT Walker regularly trampled the innocent barbie tea party into a blood drenched holocaust.

Is anyone here really emotionally immature enough not to be able to make the distinction between real and not real?

Is this not the blinkered hubris that drives the 'Games Cause Violence And Are Against God' crowd?

You might find the contents of Game A or Book B or music C objectionable, and luckily the remedy is simple - ignore them.

The Hatred game play looks tedious to me. 

 

"luckily the remedy is simple - ignore them. "

That's actually a little flawed. If you just ignore something that offends you and you don't tell the author WHY you didn't buy it, then your silence may be sending the wrong message.

Maybe you didn't like the art direction. Maybe you didn't like that it wasn't on Steam. Maybe you wanted more gore. Maybe you really wanted to have an option to rape someone WHILE shotgunning someone else in the face. Maybe you wanted multiplayer. Maybe ... etc, etc.

"The content offended me" isn't the automatic message that a creator receives when you don't buy their product.

It helps to speak up. 

Which is what forums like this are for :]

However, I imagine there will be enough Internet Drama around the game that it will actually increase the game visibility, which isn't something I'd like to promote by posting elsewhere.

My opinion of the game is that I'm more offended by the mindlessness than the violence. It looks bad, I don't think they deserve to do well so will avoid talking about it any more.

But maybe there is more life in the conversation of talking about talking about it. 

I guess this game offends me because it looks boring? Do you just walk around killing for as long as you can? Is that really the entirety of the gameplay? 

I'm sure there's micro trans. Don't worry. 

man can handle. I can appreciate the thrill of being 'bad', and thus I have time for some games that plumb these depths. There is a line though. Some games are on the other side of that line. I heard about a Japanese game where the player had to rape young girls, for example.

I'll throw it out there though - as an atheist of sorts, I don't believe in your divine morality, I believe that if there is a god it's the god of 'self'. Sentience itself is something we all have, and it is both everything and nothing at the same time. It's also the thing that allows us to relate in any way to the idea of gods.
I am going somewhere with this....

Black humor! Unless you are prepared to trust yourself to make your own moral decisions you might find the idea of being the bad guy, watching digital people being hurt because of your actions to be frightening on some level. Or as something to be avoided. But there is humor in inappropriateness. I can sometimes 'get it'. But we all have our own limits. 

1. Please don't make assumptions about my views on games I haven't even played.

2. Scarecrow said it best.

3. What's an "atheist of sorts"? 

Thanks for pointing out our collective moral hypocrisy. Good to see that there are people smart enough to recognize it and to make us aware of it. 

it looks "boring" and "mindless" because of its central design (ie just kill people)? 

 

It looks boring... but there are probably other mechanics that aren't shown in the demo because game mechanics clearly aren't the selling point of this game. 

The press haven't had a really appropriate game to show footage of during their stories about how video games are intended to warp your children into psychopaths for a while now, I think this is a positive thing for journalism 

SleepwalkR : You said the game looks disgusting. Well it is.
Beyond that I did not assume anything from you. I am commenting on the general indignation in reactions.

Scar3crow
"All of these are for the sake of the thrill of competition, of resource management, of exploration, of drama and big stories, of witnessing grand events safely from your home."
I think these descriptors can be applied to the Hatred dudes killing spree.

"They aren't for the sake of killing, and the gore isn't for the sake of violence alone. Those are feedback systems, I like getting a kill in a game because it meant I outsmarted the AI, the mapper, or another player. "
-I don't know why it is assumed Hatred would be a simple walk in the park mowing down resistanceless civilians a la Carmageddon. Postal1 was fucking hard. -If that were the games idea they could dispense with it all and just put you in a room to execute civilians, or maybe Auschwitz or North Korean camp simulator 2015 or something.

"In modern military games you are usually the good guy fighting aggressive willing armed combatants, except in cases of changing perspective for dramatic effect - and usually this is lampooned as hamfisted and lame. "

You are American Scar3crow right ? I think that is enough said. Or maybe not. If you can convince yourself your virtual armys invasion of the country is "good and holy" I think someone could convince themselves virtual Hatred dudes spree is good and holy too.
We could also make him lie about motives to justify a murderous intrusion into other peoples lives. Or set up a true background story

It would be easy to introduce a narrative in Hatred for this.
Lets say his wife was a black woman lynched by this towns mob, and his retarded or simply different kid was mercilessly bullied at school and pushed to suicide, the bank repossessed his home, medial care was cruelly denied ultimately due to greed, letting his mental issues spin out of control - Not that by now people think he needs mental issues to be extremely pissed off. We can pile on that story and bring out the violins till a tear runs down your cheek for this guy before he goes on his spree.

I think its fascinating how at this time in point there is none of these justifications put forth. Fascinating is what it is bringing out in people.
Maybe there is a backstory in the game. Maybe there is none. Doesn't matter right now for the debates.

In the end of it all - any moral "justifications" for killing and severe violences are plain and simply TOXIC and you are just fucking wrong not to perceive that and to go on some crusade about this game or form of violence being worse than an another. Fucking. Hypocrite.


Live your life right, play and make whatever the fuck you want to matter how depraved. I believe its an outlet for our seriously fucked natures. It belongs best in a virtual world. This is where we need to compartmentalize the bad, not in the real world as you see it done. And that is what you are doing playing Doom, Cod, Battlefield, whatever the fuck. Telling yourself otherwise, that you are a "better" creature than another, PFAH!

Its how you behave that matters. Going holier than thou on people in this way scar3crow...just no mate.