RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS

[Monte Carlo]

There are plenty of non-violent games. Loads of them. I don't know what the fuss is about.

[BruceVC]

Intresting opinion piece: I’m a little tired of being a murderer

I've been having similar reaction of late and have been wondering why.

I think it's that technology has progressed to the point where games are so immersive that sheer amount of violence and huge bodycounts hurts the experience.

 

An interesting read but I question its validity. End of the day, as AwseomeOcelot mentioned, those games are shooters and are about killing people. The gratuitous amount of killing may be something to look at but I don't think so. Those games would lose part of there appeal, and sales figures, if you couldn't kill large amounts of enemies. And then when he gives examples of games where you don't kill people he mentions Arkham. Well Batman doesn't really kill anyone ever so that's not applicable.

 

Shooters are called shooters for a reason. You need to play an adventure game or an RPG if you object to the nature of a shooter

[alanschu]

I think it's an issue, as others have said, with the increased graphical fidelity.

 

People are more inclined for a "human" that is 8 pixels to behave like a mindless automaton and not act all that smart.  Take that same game character and create him in a photo realistic game setting, and people have different expectations.

[Bester]

Didn't read the article. Let me just say this. Those games are preparing us for the world war 3 where we will be killing civilians in the name of their freedom and all.

[Nonek]

I've got to agree this form of quite blunt protagonist empowerment is becoming a little distasteful. Personally I found it refreshing to play Thief on the highest difficulties where killing is seen as sloppy, the mark of an amateur and automatically fails the mission. Or Alpha Protocol where the mission stat summation include a tally of the orphans you have created, which brings home that however justified the slaughter, it is still not right.

 

Worse is the fact that our use of violence is so often clumsy and reactive, if we need to achieve an objective of elimination, why are we always tasked with trawling through endless waves of similar mooks guarding that objective. Why can we not plan, infiltrate, evade and eliminate without the inevitable mass murder. An anti material rifle from half a mile away, poisons, manipulation of dangerous individuals, exerting leverage through blackmail etcetera. We are almost always portrayed as hardly capable, and certainly not innovative.

 

There is a place for violence, and massively over the top bullet ballets as we see in the first two Max Payne games, and they are without a doubt satisfying and distinctive. Deus Ex Human Revolution missed out to my mind in only offering a smart player one path to gain the optimal amount of xp, that of non violence, when it was viable to play Jensen as an embittered and on the edge individual who was struggling with a life he neither asked for or wanted. Severance: Blade of Darkness gave us the best combat ever brought to computer games, but there was never actually that much of it, facing two or more foes was a rare thing and extremely dangerous. Which leads me to think that to make the combat more acceptable it needs to be rationed and improved, made dangerous and have far greater consequences in and of itself.

 

Vast masses of foes, all generic and basically lining up to be slaughtered one after the other by the self appointed messianic deliverer of justice just seems clumsy and nasty to me, whether it's in a shooter, hack and slash or rpg. I'd rather my opponent be humans just like myself, equally dangerous and equally interested in staying alive, life shouldn't be cheap.

 

There also has to be far more effective forms of protagonist empowerment, whether that be the perks of Alpha Protocol, the feats of New Vegas or the consequences being shown in the narrative. I sometimes don't mind playing as an idiot barbarian, in fact I enjoy it, but give me the option to play intelligently and with some degree of morality. If for no other reason than it would make a change.

 

As Kreia says: "Direct action is not always the best way. It is a far greater victory to make another see through your eyes than to close theirs forever."

[Raithe]

Catching up on a few things and got around to watching this:
 
http://youtu.be/kOyWwcg9Dcg
 
Yup, I think that wackyness is something i'll have fun with in a couple of months..

[Keyrock]

Catching up on a few things and got around to watching this:

 

http://youtu.be/kOyWwcg9Dcg

 

Yup, I think that wackyness is something i'll have fun with in a couple of months..

Man, that's one seriously ridiculous 'Murica **** Yeah Cannon.  What I love about Saint's Row is that after the first one they realized that if they continued to try to straddle the line between comically over the top and gritty realism they would just be another GTA knockoff and nothing else.  So they abandoned any semblance of relism and just went for ridiculous over the top madness.  Each successive iteration has just gone ahead and pushed the absurdity envelope further.  I pray they still have the female Russian accent voice option in this game.  The part where the protagonist and Pierce are driving down the road in Steelport and singing Sublime ~ What I Got in SR3 is so hilariously awesome with the Russian accent.

[BruceVC]

 

Catching up on a few things and got around to watching this:

 

http://youtu.be/kOyWwcg9Dcg

 

Yup, I think that wackyness is something i'll have fun with in a couple of months..

Man, that's one seriously ridiculous 'Murica **** Yeah Cannon.  What I love about Saint's Row is that after the first one they realized that if they continued to try to straddle the line between comically over the top and gritty realism they would just be another GTA knockoff and nothing else.  So they abandoned any semblance of relism and just went for ridiculous over the top madness.  Each successive iteration has just gone ahead and pushed the absurdity envelope further.  I pray they still have the female Russian accent voice option in this game.  The part where the protagonist and Pierce are driving down the road in Steelport and singing Sublime ~ What I Got in SR3 is so hilariously awesome with the Russian accent.

 

 

That's an accurate assessment of the Saints Row franchise . I don't think they are as good as GTA but still very entertaining

[Malcador]

Interesting description of 'hoops' in the article complaining about killing in games, at least for some - killing people sent to kill you isn't that bad. I guess I don't really play the kinds of games he's talking about that much, as I don't really have a problem with it. It is funny to think of how many people Max has killed in the two games I played (1000 or so?), but it is a shooter so comes with the genre.

 

Though it was satisfying in Dishonored to knife a guard in the neck, at least in the last mission.

[Amentep]

Man, that's one seriously ridiculous 'Murica **** Yeah Cannon.  What I love about Saint's Row is that after the first one they realized that if they continued to try to straddle the line between comically over the top and gritty realism they would just be another GTA knockoff and nothing else.  So they abandoned any semblance of relism and just went for ridiculous over the top madness.  Each successive iteration has just gone ahead and pushed the absurdity envelope further.  I pray they still have the female Russian accent voice option in this game.  The part where the protagonist and Pierce are driving down the road in Steelport and singing Sublime ~ What I Got in SR3 is so hilariously awesome with the Russian accent.

I'll be honest if they hadn't went crazy with SR2 I'd probably never have gotten it; I doubt I'll ever play a GTA game, for example. It was the more ludicrous stuff that I'd read about that convinced me to buy it.

 

I'm SO looking forward to SRIV.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Amentep

[Humanoid]

That singing sequence was my favourite thing in my attempt to play SR3. Might be somewhat of a case of damning with faint praise given I gave up not long after the first act, but still, it was a nice moment amongst all the psychopathy. Heck, it was better than the silly dates in Sleeping Dogs in terms of a character moment.

[Keyrock]

Another great part in SR3 is the protagonist doing hilariously bad acting during the alien invasion movie.  Also, rolling around town in a GARGANTUAN ball of yarn was a blast.

[Tale]

I'm sad that SRIV is requiring DX 11, despite III working fine with XP.

 

Guess I'll be buying it on a console.

[Humanoid]

Another great part in SR3 is the protagonist doing hilariously bad acting during the alien invasion movie.  Also, rolling around town in a GARGANTUAN ball of yarn was a blast.

Well I was referring more to it being sort of a charming moment, one of the rare few that showed these people were really friends, rather than just for the humour angle. It's kind of weird to say it in context of the tone of the game, but it was, um, really just a sweet moment (and hence the comparison to SD and all that).

 

 

...that, and I didn't get far enough to see either of those other things.

[Malcador]

Can't wait to buy SR4 on a Steam sale for $8.

[Humanoid]

Shame THQ can't come back and go broke again so we can have another closing-down Humble Bundle.

[Keyrock]

Shame THQ can't come back and go broke again so we can have another closing-down Humble Bundle.

I suppose there's always a chance that Deep Silver decides to bet their company and sink ridiculous amount of resources into a tablet peripheral with a pressure sensitive stylus?

Edited June 21, 2013 by Keyrock

[Amentep]

I pray they still have the female Russian accent voice option in this game.

After reading this, I searched to see who was coming back voice acting wise (I personally favor Rebecca Sanabria's Female 3 (Main Character Hispanic Female in SR2)) and while the idea of a Russian accented woman hasn't been dismissed the voice actor for Female 2, Tara Platt has confirmed she won't be back.

 

https://twitter.com/taraplatt/status/343605756240752640

 

Since you're supposed to be able to import your character from SRtheThird, I wonder then if they're planning on getting someone with an authentic accent to do this voice?

Edited June 21, 2013 by Amentep

[Keyrock]

 

I pray they still have the female Russian accent voice option in this game.

After reading this, I searched to see who was coming back voice acting wise (I personally favor Rebecca Sanabria's Female 3 (Main Character Hispanic Female in SR2)) and while the idea of a Russian accented woman hasn't been dismissed the voice actor for Female 2, Tara Platt has confirmed she won't be back.

 

https://twitter.com/taraplatt/status/343605756240752640

 

Since you're supposed to be able to import your character from SRtheThird, I wonder then if they're planning on getting someone with an authentic accent to do this voice?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

[Malcador]

Got a bit of a kick of this http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/community-spotlight-red-frog-freight

 

Would be surprised at people enjoying ferrying stuff around for people, sort of like UPS in space, but it is a pretty necessary service.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Malcador

[Amentep]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

So far Female Voice 1 is the only confirmed returning female player voice I've found.

 

There seems to be conflicting information on who is voicing Shaundi too.

[Keyrock]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

So far Female Voice 1 is the only confirmed returning female player voice I've found.

 

There seems to be conflicting information on who is voicing Shaundi too.

 

It they're taking away my female Russian accent, they better at least give me a female voice with a really over the top southern drawl.

[Raithe]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

So far Female Voice 1 is the only confirmed returning female player voice I've found.

 

There seems to be conflicting information on who is voicing Shaundi too.

 

 

Well, from what has been shown, there's going to be an occasion when there are two Shaundi's..  One as she is in SR3, and the one from SR2. From that video clip, it certainly sounded like the SR2 style of Shaundi was a certain returning voice artist who didn't do Shaundi's voice in SR3..

[Keyrock]

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

So far Female Voice 1 is the only confirmed returning female player voice I've found.

 

There seems to be conflicting information on who is voicing Shaundi too.

 

 

Well, from what has been shown, there's going to be an occasion when there are two Shaundi's..  One as she is in SR3, and the one from SR2. From that video clip, it certainly sounded like the SR2 style of Shaundi was a certain returning voice artist who didn't do Shaundi's voice in SR3..

 

I kinda liked hippie Shaundi, so I'm happy about this.  Will there be Johnny Gat?  At least Mutant Monster Johnny Gat or Zombie Johnny Gat or something?

Edited June 21, 2013 by Keyrock

[Amentep]

It they're taking away my female Russian accent, they better at least give me a female voice with a really over the top southern drawl.

IMDB says yes to that, but I wouldn't take credits there as confirmed until well after the game has been out.

 

I watched an interview were Gat was mentioned and they seemed a bit coy on the point.