Been talking to good old Zak about my review of the Chronicles of Riddick and he was asking about Enclave and what its like. This got me thinking (arrgh it hurts again !) when Severance Blade of Darkness got released (great game also mentioned !) and the hype about it being ultra violent and bloody. Being able to chop limbs off and enemies just keep coming back for more as long as they could still stand type of stuff !
Now this isnt something new at all, many of the old games had blood guts and gore in them albeit quite pixelated at the time of the good old Commodore 64.
There was loads of Karate sims (sim used in very loose sense !) Way of the Exploding Fist, IK and also IK+, Karateka, Yie Ar Kung Fu and loads of others (way to many to mention here). I remember my mother saying I wasnt playing stuff like that as it was to violent (always used to find a way one way or another !) These games admittedly were really tame, not forgetting the good old 64 would probably have a major heart attck if it so much as looked at the Doom 3 engine, yeah it was a great machine visually for its time but when it came to animated violence you were talking pixels the size of house bricks !
However there was one game that went a bit further, Barbarian by Palace (had Wolf from TV's Gladiators on the cover of Barbarian 2 ! very cheesy !) Hack at another barbarian in an arena with huge broadswords, kinda similar to Arnie in the Conan films. Now the thing with this game was if you timed it just right you could do a spin attack and decapitate an oponent, to a cheer and a green snotball of a goblin comes onto the screen, kicks the head away and drags off the corpse. Now then, (see where I'm going here yet ?) In todays market what would happen with a game that had graphic violence like that, say a new Tekken done it, being able to decapitate one of the characters with Yoshimitsu. It would either have an 18 slapped on it instantly due to ominous amounts of blood (come back to blood in a tick) and cranial matter that would be needed to create the effect or there would be an instant ban due to either public outcry or government legislation.
Now coming back to the previously mentioned blood, alot of you will remember the Mortal Kombat series of games on the SNES and Megadrive as the main formats. Nintendo didnt want to get involved with the fancy kills and all the blood so the programmers had to take it all out and instead of the slayings you ended giving you're victim a gift of some sort (This was MK2) ! Sega went all out and allowed a full arcade conversion. At the time games didnt really receive full BBFC certificates like we see regularly now on games like Doom3. I remember reading an article in one of the games magazines and all the hype the MK games were getting about the gore levels and particularly the blood. To cut a long story short the blood had to look pixely / blocky and not overly realistic, that was the top and bottom of it.
Can anyone remember the ill fated Thrill Kill on the PS1 ? Alot of people managed to get unfinished copies of this game, it was never released due to the violence, setting and surreal characters (A year or so later the engine for Thrill Kill actually did get used on Wu Tang Feel the Pain) I remember visiting a friends house and we all sat around and played it for a good few hours with all the different characters, must admit it was pretty disturbed with the setting being in a mental hospital of sorts. No surprise, a ban was slapped on it.
Lets come forward to today now after looking at some of the previous offenders when it came to violence (loads of other stuff was released between then and now, just wanted to point out some of the games that drawn mass attention). We are seeing more and more violence in media in general, some of the horror films that would have instantly had an 18 slapped on them 10 year ago are getting 15 certificates now, its quite odd really.
Look at Call of Duty, that was given a BBFC 15 cert, understandable as the subject matter being war and technology today being able to portray it. However, Medal Of Honour, opted out of the blood and the game didnt receive a BBFC rating at all, even though the subject matter is the same as CoD. Wolfenstein was another that received a certificate, due to subject matter of the game. It makes you wonder how some games get the cert and others dont.
There is no major blood guts and gore in Doom 3, yeah there is a few bits where walls are splattered and writing in blood but 18 cert, I wouldnt have gone that far with what is in essence a survival horror game with a good few scares. I know its aimed at mature audiences, but kids get stuff like that bought for them for christmas by parents unaware of the actual content and not overly understanding why a rating has been given to a videogame (either that or they arnt bothered)
All in all I have to say that violence in games at times can be highly overated, but in other cases not looked into enough. We had the media all over it again with Manhunt by Rockstar last year (famous for their Max Payne games and also GTA series). Way I look at it is why is it that games like Manhunt arnt stamped on sooner, that game took it a bit far to the edge of what is reasonable gaming (kinda like Thrill Kill), it did however recieve the right BBFC cert of 18, also on the GTA series gloryfying car crime and general crime. Games like this do have cult followings, and personally not the type of thing I like to play, I find the GTA series very boring to play in general, violence in these games dont bother me and I know my kids will not get their hands on them till they are old enough.
Where do you draw the line with something like this ? Is enough being done to protect children, why do the media blame games and movies for the decay you see in todays society. I dont think anyone has an answer to this 100% but its an interesting topic to follow as everyone that visits the gaming part of the board are gamers like me and it affects all of us in one way or another.
