Extra Credits

Anyhoo, now I feel like someone should do a game about torturing for intel that might save your peoples lives in war or something

Not me though and I wouldn't play that game, but it'd be interesting examination on the subject xP

edited 14th May '15 2:32:02 AM by SpookyMask

Well, that's be doing the act for a purpose beyond the act itself.

Unless of course it turns into an examination of the character, in a "that's what he tells himself, but he really just enjoys the screaming" sort of way.

Didn't Wolfenstein: The New Order play around with that in a kinda different way? BJ has a hatred for Nazis and wants a free world, but his monologues admit that he's an Ax-Crazy who takes sadistic glee from killing (he tortures enemies with a freakin' chainsaw!) and he'll never have a normal life.

edited 14th May '15 8:48:35 AM by YoKab

No, I meant the Moral Guardian stereotype of soccer mom, the one that goes "WILL SOMEBODY JUST THINK OF THE CHILDREN?".

The story of GTA gives the player reasons to go on rampage, but the common player will still kill hundreds of civillians just because. How is that different from the protagonist of Hatred?

Is GTA about killing people in slow and painful ways while they are crying and begging for mercy? :p

It can be if the player feels like.

None of the arguments given as to why Hatred is morally wrong in this vid doesn't apply to other games.

GTA is a Sandbox game. Hatred seems to specifically be a murder simulator. Sure a good chunk of the GTA player base may senselessly murder people but that's not the only option available.

There's a sense of detachment with the violence of GTA. The hapless whelps that are the civilians generally come off as cartoonishly unpleasant, and the shit you can pull off on them is ridiculous at times.

Hatred is a bit more intimate than that. It's close up, visceral moider on innocent people, and that sense of detachment isn't there at all.

You can burn people to death with flamethrowers.

Also, how is being more to your targets not a bigger sign of sociopathy?

Hard to explain this, but there is that "video games" ridiculousness that usually comes with weapons like flamethrowers, while Hatred doesn't look like it will have that.

I will just let a guy more eloquent than me explain why they are wrong.

While guy did have some good points, concern troll part was just trolling and the guy seems to be on side that thinks gamergate isn't about misogyny, but can't talk about that since its banned topic :P

Well, I still have to admit he did have good points, but I still don't think EC were being "concern trolls"(aka manipulative on purpose) about the thing, it seems like they just hadn't been following on Hatred because they were disgusted by earlier "This game is so evil" hype that they never checked whether its completely accurate or not.

edited 14th May '15 1:05:01 PM by SpookyMask

I can see what Dan was trying to communicate. Killing enemies in videogames works as a form of catharsis because it's the same as punching a pillow. "Pain" and "Suffering" aren't important, they don't come into the equation. When I kill enemies in Zelda, they disappear instantly. When I punch faces and break bones in Tekken, the opponent just grunts and gets back up. If those games had different sound effects, maybe I wouldn't find them satisfying.

Mortal Kombat is a slightly different case, since it also revels in excessive gore. But it is also cartoonish gore, over-the-top gore, it's ridiculous and it knows it. If they didn't show blood and bones, those fatalities would be right at home in a Tom&Jerry cartoon.

Hatred is... much creepier. From what I've seen, it's about killing people in a realistic setting, in a realistic manner, and there's plenty of terror to spread, both to people in the streets and individual victims (who keep begging for mercy).

Unless the game itself acknowledges just how abhorrent these acts and situations actually are (and properly, not an half-hearted acknowledgement), then it is just as disturbing as Dan said. And even if the game does do it properly, we're still faced with a game where the gameplay itself intentionally rewards disturbing acts.

Someone who lightly calls another person "ignorant fuck" (among other things, at the end of the video) is not someone I'd call "eloquent". And then there's the part where he call an opinion a "lie", which also hurts his own credibility.

Asking for it to acknowledge it's monstruosity is missing the point. It's like asking the original Hotline Miami for a reason for why you kill people in it's arcade action setting. Also, what about Manhunt? Hatred is not some new thing either.

edited 14th May '15 3:05:10 PM by vandro

Yeah, I figured as much.

Oh yeah, Manhunt, I didn't even remember that game, but it involved killing gang members in unnecessarily gruesome ways, right? Hatred's nature of "killing innocents" in fairly realistic ways (complete with begging and screaming) might be the disturbing thing about it, though.

You were an actor in a snuff film, all the killings were not only gruesome, but personal and rather disturbing, the whole point of the setting is that your stealth approach is rewarded with executions.

Hotline Miami works because it's quite clear from the setup that the situation is disturbed. When playing through it, I always thought I was playing through a bad trip or drug high. It also has the moments after the level where you backtrack through empty stages and look at all the carnage you caused which gives a feeling of emptiness like coming off said drug high. There is also the juxtaposition when you play as at the Biker who provides a framing foil for Jacket (Keep in mind, the Biker parts of the game you don't have to kill anyone).

There is a lot more to Hotline Miami than mindless sadism, it's a disservice to the game as a whole to just brush it off as ultraviolence - though that is a key component in it's narrative. Similar to how The Binding Of Isaac tries to tell it's story (Though Hotline isn't nearly as reliant on Gameplay as Story Mechanic like Isaac is)

Hatred - as of yet - has yet to show any introspection outside mindless harm to others.

And where is this accusation that Extra Credits is a Moral Guardians going "What about the children?" when that wasn't even brought up in the episode? Hell, they even said kids CAN enjoy violent video games like GTA or COD AS LONG AS the videogames in question aren't being used as a substitute babysitter and the child is monitored . They also said it has the right to exist and are not campaigning for its removal from fronts everywhere. They said it allowing to exist doesn't give it free reign.

edited 15th May '15 1:30:28 AM by PippingFool

@Jonna S: Yeah, the guy has good arguments but insults and the part where he calls them liars do kinda ruin the video. Still, at least he had arguments themselves were pretty good...*sigh*

Also, I'd like to add that GTA civilians don't really react to violence realistically <_<

edited 15th May '15 12:40:47 AM by SpookyMask

I think the distinction probably lies, as some have said, in whether doing people pain is an option or the whole point of engagement with the game.

The Manhunt example was a good one; I don't care about that game either.

About Hotline Miami, the biker section is there to mock people who look for proper context in their virtual rampages. Saying it gets a pass for this is saying that as long as we have a purpose violence is okay. It is only in Hotline Miami 2 Wrong Number that the context becomes the focus of the experience.

I am not saying they are Moral Guardians, that's what the other guy said, but this sentence reeks to me a ton like doublethink. It has a right to exist, but "shows images of the biggest online retailers" it shouldn't get a free reign...It's saying You can make the game, but it is our sensibility that people should refuse to stock you, pretty please.

Well, there's a difference between "should refuse to stock" and "should not be obligated to stock".

They were referring to the massive backlash when Steam decided to not distribute Hatred so they definitely meant the latter.

It's still on the store, or do you mean when it was knocked off greenlight and brought back by gabe?

Yes. That incident.

The first episode of Extra History: Zulu Empire!

edited 16th May '15 7:52:25 AM by PippingFool