Winter Carnival of Gamers

The monthly roving blog-feature The Carnival of Gamers has pulled into station at the 'Kill Ten Rats' blog. This month offers up features about such diverse topics as MMOG holiday events, the first year of the DS, and the ambiguous morality of Shadow of the Colossus. From the latter article: "I absolutely loved Shadow, but to want more colossi? I actually made it all the way to the last colossus. The killing has to stop somewhere, people. If the price of love is my soul, I would gladly pay it. But was it love I was fighting for, or my own selfish desires I was commiting murder for? It took far too long, but I came to realize it was the latter. And that's not something I was willing to do any longer. Once I laid eyes on the final colossus, I just sat the controller down. And I turned the game off. I still haven't beaten that colossus and I don't plan to." Slashdot Games is playing host to the carnival next month. Look for the call for submissions in a week or two.

Comments

Quick, somebody call PETA!!!

[abramovs]

What about all those poor car owners whose ride is stolen in Grand Theft Auto?
Don't the zombies in DOOM have a right to shamble?
Should we be force feeding Pacman?

Seriously, what's next? Will we hear an argument from a Veegan that they can't play Mario because eating flowers is wrong?

Re:Quick, somebody call PETA!!!

[The NPS]

I think the significance here is that the zombies in doom are two-dimensional (literally and figuratively), and therefore it is easy to write them off. Likewise, the pedestrians of GTA are again, comical, two-dimensional representatives of real people, and are just as easy to write off.

But the world of Shadow of the the Colossus is vivid enough that it feels less like a video game, and more like a something real. It's easy to watch people die in Evil Dead, but terrible to watch it happen in Saving Private Ryan (which oddly, has about the same amount of gore).