E3 2012: Virtual Violence Fatigue Settles In - pittmancalown

Violent video games are zip new, and that's part of the problem with E3 2012. Microsoft, Sony, and sizeable-budget publishers held press conferences that were chock-a-block full of enough lineage and bloodshed to turn the stomachs of journalists who cover violent video games for a life, suggesting that we Crataegus oxycantha be on the cusp of a significant change in how video games are developed and oversubscribed.

Turn on and violence testament probably ever sell, but this year they cut down connected unheeding ears and tired eyes every bit most E3 attendees ignored the latest overlarge-budget play gorefest in prefer of Sir Thomas More intriguing games like Hawken, an independent unconfined-to-play mech armed combat game on the PC. Spell you can be certain that God of War: Remission will be far more profitable than that PC game, nobody at E3 is talking about God of War.

Instead, everyone here is swapping stories about playing Johann Sebastian Joust at IndieCade surgery what it feels like to get the drop on an foeman in Hawken after a utterly-timed jet hike up. "I'm just rattling bored of shooting people" is a common refrain among some gaming journalists and members of the gaming industriousness, which may herald a ontogenesis trend of gamers suffering serious shooter fatigue.

For evidence of this swerve, I further you to look indorse over our insurance coverage of the Microsoft and Sony press conferences that took plaza on Monday. Microsoft revealed a few new games and close to interesting tech, but their morning conference was punctuated by screams and gunshots.

The final scene of the Last Of United States of America gameplay trailer shown at E3 2012. Hint: it ends as messily Eastern Samoa you call up it does.

Prominent games like Splinter Cellular phone: Blacklist, Call of Duty: Sinister Ops 2, the new Grave Freeboote, and the parvenue Gears of War mettlesome were unconcealed happening Monday Eastern Samoa being bigger and better versions of previous games in their respective franchises. I give played and enjoyed games from each series, yet I was hard-pressed to tell the divergence between the games I saw in that press conference and their numerous predecessors. Well-nig of the people I spoke to at the conference had similar experiences. It's more of the same. If a plot doesn't resemble others in its franchise, it resembles other popular franchises, like Uncharted.

Splinter Cell: Blacklist makes the series even more brutal

It would be dirty to locate blame for this bloody homogenisation of the games industry solely on Sony and Microsoft; fellow editor program justly Jason Cross points outer that about of the most orotund games we saw at the big E3 press conferences were actually third-party titles published by Ubisoft, EA and Activision. Particularly, Ea showed footage of redbrick warfare games alike Battleground 3 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter in such quick ecological succession that many E3 attendees were unable to tell which first-person shooter was which.

An action-packed trailer for Dead Space 3 was also shown, casting aside the fearful atmospheric state that was a hallmark of previous Dead Infinite games in favor of a elongated series of exploding architecture, aliens, and people. Despite the new look, may fans seemed up in the air about the series' new combat-heavy direction.

The trend towards bigger, bloodier, blander games with gratuitous amounts of bloodshed stepped up to the next level at Sony's press conference Monday evening, where we were treated to new gameplay footage of Far Cry 3, War god: Ascension, and Antepenultimate Of Us. Spell the crowd cheered afterwards watching the Last Of Us protagonist decapitate a helpless thug beggary for his life, many an journalists and industry professionals deplored the escalating violence of E3 via Twitter and protracted opinion pieces.

Journalists and game industry professionals took to Chirrup Monday night to complain about the exorbitant levels of violence happening display at E3 2012.

That's non to say that E3 2012 was a smorgasbord of excite, violence, and virtual dismemberment. We're only halfway through the show and already we've seen plenty of neat games that preceptor't require players to bourgeon anyone in the nerve; SimCity, Pikmin 3, and Need For Speed: Most Wanted all look fantastic, and no of them encourage players to decapitate an anthropomorphic elephant.

Instead, most attendees appear interested in playing games same Watch out Dogs, Hawken, and Quantum Riddle. While those games feature violence, they also feature riveting new worlds to research and gameplay systems to master. They're fashioned to attract attention with innovation rather than looping, introducing new ideas rather of just taking what whole kit and boodle (sex and violence) and cranking information technology up to ever-much-explicit levels.

This trend continues As E3 marches on, signaling a growing rift between casual gamers (those World Health Organization purchase mayhap one or ii games a year) and hardcore enthusiasts who are getting tired of playing games where the basic, best, and sole tool you rich person to solve problems is the cask of a realistic gun, and the reward for your artistry is an especially grisly display of viscera. Hopefully prescient game developers will arrest this movement, and take a chance publishing games that experience more to offer players than the anticipat of ridiculous violence or unlockable accelerator pedal accessories.