Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Zuljaras That's what I meant with "war and crime games", and I'm perfectly fine with that, because the games aren't built around violence, but around a story or period that simply contains violence as integral elements. And in GTA it's also over-exaggerated in most cases. In Manhunt however, it's just there for the sake of it. Just look it up on YouTube, and you'll see. Far as I know, there's two games in the series, and they appeared on last gen consoles, PC and on the Wii, where they also looked horrible...

And I also don't like horror movies that are like that. It needs to have some story, not just a body count meter and ever more gruesome deaths, but I guess there's a public for every type of "entertainment", but it's definitely not for me.

Definitely Manhunt, like Thanos said. On the Wii, it was nuts. Using motion control for garrote wire or stabbing with shards of glass... just nuts.

Unrelated, just got the message that my glasses came in!! Goodbye, six year old backup pair!!

@ThanosReXXX @HobbitGamer That really sounds stupid. Carmageddon was like that I think.
You just drive and you have to kill as many people as you can with your car.

@Zuljaras Those were mostly zombies but even so, that too, was a game that over-exaggerated things. No, Manhunt stands on a pedestal all of its own...

I played one of the Manhunt games on PS2, and it is indeed psychotic. State of Emergency was another game I played on that system that featured rioting and looting with absurd gratuitous violence.

@Anti-Matter - That was something I had considered regarding spurs. To make it fair, you could either wrap the spurs, or give metal spurs to the birds that don’t have them, but then it’s a blood bath. How do these kickboxing matches start when the bell rings? Are the birds standing in a ring, or are they already in the air?

@ThanosReXXX My favorite groups are the screaming ladies (to an extent; this appears how harsh they are on the eardrums) and the jumpy, weinie guys who sprint through the place at top speed and use other members of their group as meat shields. XD

Seems like we share similar opinions when it comes to violence, though the Mortal Kombat series has never really been my cup of tea. Part of that is due to the genre it's in though; like racing, I don't dislike fighting games, but most of them don't hold my attention long outside of Smash and the occasional Street Fighter itch.

@bimmy-lee It was a pretty cool place to hang out when I was younger, up until the ladybug problem got worse and my dad's pile of stuff multiplied. The bees didn't come along until my high school years. As far as stinging insects go, they're pretty gentle. Unless you're directly threatening their hive, they don't mind that you're nearby and just go about their business.

I was obsessed with kitchen sets and the fake food when pretending as a kid. I made quite a mean chef in my own head. I wonder if that set still exists. It's bound to be pretty old and faded out at this point.

I was indeed obsessed with horses at one point as a kid. I've always liked animals, but horses at the time were something special. I wanted a real horse but didn't know how much work they were; my parents didn't wanna deal with one lol. An aunt and uncle had a few, so that was the only horse exposure I could get. XD

@Tyranexx I once saw a funny home video, I believe it was on MTV's Ridiculousness, where a guy with a really low, manly voice entered one of these ghost mansions, and when the scares got to him, he turned into a little girl with high-pitched shrieks. It was simply hilarious. It was the epitomy of masculinity dismantled, or "the real you" revealed... True colors, as it were.

And yes, I do think we're on the same page, barring genres that we may or may not both like. I actually do like fighters and racing games, but then again: I'm a guy. Or perhaps I now need to apologize immediately, because you know, this isn't the 80's anymore and girls can like cars too...

But all kidding aside, as long as games do a nice job of over-exaggerating stuff and not taking themselves too seriously, then I really couldn't even begin to become offended or grossed out by it, which might happen if it was the exact opposite. And subsequently, I also shake my head at people who actually do take offense to these over-exaggerated games, because they are taking them WAY too seriously, and don't understand the thought or sentiment behind them.

@NintendoByNature So, how are you doing? Better already, or still under the weather?

@ThanosReXXX thanks for asking. Surprisingly better. Mild headache at worst today. A little bit if coughing here and there but nothing that's unmanageable. Been drinking alot of tea with lemon and honey 😉

@NintendoByNature Good to hear. Guess you'll be more or less yourself again near the weekend.

@bimmy-lee I agree mostly because I wore those records out and they don’t impact me the same way they once did when it was new. I had an older brother who was into alt-rock. He used to wake me up for elementary school blasting that stuff. That should’ve created a negative association but oddly it did the opposite.

In Utero is my favorite of theirs as well.

@ThanosReXXX Horror is one of my favorite genres, but there is a line between dread and depressing. The first two Silent Hills are a good example of the former and Manhunt 2 is an example of the later. Manhunt 2 just felt like it was a game that was shocking me out of desperation rather than being creative about it.

I also felt like Layers of Fear and Outlast were doing bad horror with desperate shocks and jump scares, but Amnesia and Soma were more atmospheric and smart about it. To each their own and I guess you need both to satisfy whatever people crave.

I like that Soma has the option of making you invincible.

You still get the same scares and creepy creatures, but without the waste of time of dying to them if they happen to catch up with you.

@ThanosReXXX Dudes screaming soprano doesn't happen often, but it's hilarious when they do! Usually it's a moment similar to "Huh. Didn't expect it from THAT guy."

I don't dislike fighting and racing games per se, it's just that the general repetition (at least in the games I encounter) after a little while causes me to lose interest. The only game genre I actively dislike and try to avoid is the sports genre. Wii Sports is the closest thing to that I do enjoy, but a little goes a long way. It's also better played with others.

I'm not really into FPS games either, though I'm not against playing games that incorporate some similar elements like the Metroid Prime games. A few of them are a bit too realistic for my liking, plus in many cases they look too similar to each other.

Agreed that some people take games way too seriously, at least the ones that aren't meant to be such. The attitude is nothing new, but it is the newest medium to be attacked. A couple that you mentioned earlier do have problems to be sure, and unfortunately it's games like that that concerned people focus on. However, I think some of this could be mitigated by people actually paying attention to age ratings and the actual content of the game.

@NotTelevision Yeah, horror done bad is also not something I like, but that's not really what we were talking about. Cheap or overly standard (or even nonsensical) jump scares are in an entirely different category than violence for the sake of violence, or as @bimmy-lee so aptly named it, gratuitous violence. And to emphasize: realistic violence. That is also why we mentioned the games we did. Violence in a horror or zombie game is completely fictional, obviously.

@Tyranexx Well, to be fair, games like the Mortal Kombat and Sniper Elite series already do have a higher age rating, so I don't think that's going to help all that much in that regard. What it mostly is, in my opinion, is people without sufficient knowledge about them, or about games/video gaming in general taking pot shots at material that's completely taken out of context. If you freeze frame a fatality in Mortal Kombat or a kill in Sniper Elite, then it probably looks absolutely horrifying to the uninitiated, but if you see it in the context of the game itself, then it's a completely different story.

If you're willing to look into it with an open mind, that is. Another problem that these "holier than thou" people often seem to have...

@Eel I know you're also an RE officiando. Are you going to check out that top down re clone Heaven Dust?
@ThanosRexxx I would think by Friday I'll 100% NBN 😉

First time I hear about it. Maybe one day.

@1UP_MARIO i never see Japan soccer anywhere on television. There team wasn't great in the last world cup. But I remember Japan teams 20 years ago were really skillful, I mean I didn't mention Japan because of computer games, I mentioned them cause there one of the best .I have sky sports but it's not on any of the channels they have, but if you ask they could get it for you. I mean I don't know if it's still good but I just said to heavyarsm55 to look at it as it might have better football..

@ThanosReXXX With the age rating thing, I was getting at the fact that someone like an eight-year-old shouldn't be playing a rated M game. Yet we know it happens. If not for the parents not paying attention to ratings or just not caring, or because a kid got a hold of or played a game out of their wheelhouse through different means. I'm not "to the book" to a T with ratings - I find it okay for an eleven-year-old to play a rated T game depending on their maturity and its content - but I do think they're important guidelines.

But yes, a lot of criticism with wider media is taken out of context. That's not to say that we shouldn't be critical of media, but evaluating something based on one piece of criteria vs. the whole game/movie/book is unfair and does an unbiased audience an injustice.

Granted, a lot of what fuels some of these debates - especially over here - is worth discussion and scrutiny, but I believe such problems that violent video games/movies/etc. are associated with are multi-faceted and don't have a singular cause.

@Eel https://youtu.be/Nkk0B-7IqxI

This is the just the trailer, and I've watched some gameplay footage. It's not going to win any awards but it looks like a decent RE appetizer. Theres herb mixing, codes to unlock, dresser pushing, etc. Just normal stuff you'd expect in an RE game. I might check it out one day when my backlog is completed.

@Tyranexx Oh, agreed on what kids of a certain age should be playing or not, and some criticism on certain media is definitely warranted, so no discussion there. Also agreed on there not being a single source/cause (aka violent and/or "realistic" video games) for a problem such as teenage violence, but then again: that's already been old news to us seasoned gamers for decades...

@NintendoByNature Don't you just hate these YouTube short links that don't immediately show you the video and make you go to another page again?