This post was originally ranted out at the Escapist forums, in response to Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s post/article about Splatterhouse and potential gore gaming mechanics:
I think what’s interesting about gore gaming is – the concept of sadism.
If video games are this magical invention that frees you to “do anything you can think of,” then why are you perpetrating all this gore?
Make the game focus on this. If you ignore this aspect of the experience (by making the game about a stylish world travelling treasure hunter, for example) then you’re robbing the gore of it’s punch. You’re making a different genre of game that happens to have some gore in it. which strikes me as lame/irresponsible. Continue reading “gore gaming (thoughts on the genre)”