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When Will Games Disturb Us?
Game Girl Advance brings up the subject of emotion in games, again, by going to the dark places. Jane talks about movies that are just plain uncomfortable to watch (shades of Donnie Darko), and wonders why when games will have the same effect. From the article: "Yet you could argue that Manhunt used a cheap trick - it set up the situation in order to exploit it for someone's idea of 'fun.' You could say that the developers did not mean to convey any message beyond entertainment. City of God was entertaining, in the broadest sense of the word, but it was also a portrait of hopelessness and a cycle that trapped its inhabitants; it was also in some ways a social history of gang violence in the slums from the seventies to the eighties. Manhunt does not have enough external references to be about anything other than what it is."
Whenever I think that EA games could eventually buyout and control ALL game development....
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
/catches breath
Man, that is truly disturbing.
Games have been disturbing us since 1982.
So in other words, you did shoot the stripper.
"This is the wrong demographic."
You're right. People here know the difference between a game and reality. You were probably looking for the 'man hating dykes who think everything is misogynistic' room. Its down the hall to your right.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I think you're highly overestimating the development process that went in to Duke Nukem 3D. I mean, have you played that game? Alien invasion? Pig Cops? Video porn booths? I see it more likely being brought up in a brain storming session or something.
Lead Designer: Okay, we've got the video porn booths in the game, and they're just looking great. Any other ideas?
Programmer #1: Um....strippers you can pay to dance?
Lead Designer: Yeah! Let's do that!
Programmer #2: But what happens if they get shot?
Lead Designer: Eh, just use the money graphic we already have; I want to take an early lunch.
Behold the awesome dev process of 3D Realms!
The most disturbing game I've ever played was one that borrowed a lot of ideas from Lovecraft: the original Alone in the Dark. What made it so frightening to play was not so much the monsters or the sound effects, although both were far ahead of their time - it was the fact that I was playing it on a 25 MHz 386SX. Whenever I got into a serious fight the action would slow down to a crawl; it would take a full second to bring my shotgun to bear on the zombie an arm's length away from me, and another half second to reload after overshooting and firing over its shoulder. None of this was intentional, of course, but it perfectly recreated the slowness and inevitability of a nightmare.