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."

Comments

Donnie Darko didn't disturb me...

[vertinox]

...it just pissed me off!

I sat 2 hours of this movie and he just dies at the end anyways so that nothing changes?

I mean he could have died at the begining of the movie and everything would have been peachy because none of the things he did mattered... ...because he was supposed to die all along.

The only other game that has disturbed me was those "You win!" ending screens on the NES after 36 hours of game play.