HL2, a gory game?

nokori3byo

nokori3byo

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I found myself thinking about this the other day. I have always thought that the absense of gibbing and friendly fire in HL2 made it seem less gory than the original, not to mention numerous contemporary games (Doom 3, F.E.A.R.) which include these elements. But on further reflection, HL2 has a singificant gore element, including:
--The bisection of zombies with sawblades and traps.
--the presence of numerous limbless and charred torsos.
--Antlion gibbing.
--Grizzly evidence of human torture by the Combine.
--Realistic looking blood spattered on walls.
--Over the top scenes of horror in Ravenholm.
--The disintigration of human bodies (admittedly not very gory).

I think it's also true that gibbing can add a certain juvenile, almost campy feeling to video game violence that makes it seem less real than more restrained depictions of violence. Hence, its absence in HL2 can have the effect of making the violence seem grittier.

What do you reckon?
 
nokori3byo said:
I think it's also true that gibbing can add a certain juvenile, almost campy feeling to video game violence that makes it seem less real than more restrained depictions of violence. Hence, its absence in HL2 can have the effect of making the violence seem grittier.
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Well it depends, I mean... if the characters just exploded into chunks of meat after being shot a few times with a machine gun (like in Q3) that would be silly. However if the same thing happened when you used explosives it would be realistic. What's more realistic: you hit a guy with a rocket and the body flies through the air, or on impact his body is torn to pieces.

Also I think the fact that friendly units in the game can't be killed by the player is just stupid. Wouldn't it have been better if you could kill any NPC, but if you killed a friendly a mission failed message popped up.

The most realistic depictions of gore I've seen have been in Soldier of Fortune 2 and I'm surprised no other FPS has adopted that system...
 
Remus said:
Wouldn't it have been better if you could kill any NPC, but if you killed a friendly a mission failed message popped up.
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I ****ing hate that in games.

Why would the mission have failed? No where did it state that every one had to come back alive.
Accidents happen.
 
xlucidx said:
I ****ing hate that in games.

Why would the mission have failed? No where did it state that every one had to come back alive.
Accidents happen.
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No, I meant that that would happen only if you killed an Important character like Barney or Alyx, the rebels and the vorts however.... :sniper:heheheh
 
The invincibility of NPCs is good IMO. Mind you, if NPCs really bug you, manhack them.

I like the level of gore in this game. Gibbing seems more appropriate in TF2.
 
Remus said:
Well it depends, I mean... if the characters just exploded into chunks of meat after being shot a few times with a machine gun (like in Q3) that would be silly. However if the same thing happened when you used explosives it would be realistic. What's more realistic: you hit a guy with a rocket and the body flies through the air, or on impact his body is torn to pieces.
Click to expand...

OK, but I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that gibbing is an accurate depiction of what happens to the human body when exposed to grenade shrapnel or a nearby explosion. Dismemberment or decaptation might occur, and I'm kind of surprised they don't given that characters routinely lose limbs in the relatively sanitized Jedi FPSs from Lucas Arts (Outcast, and Jedi Academy). But would you really expect a soldier who had a grenade explode next to him to be reduced to a chunky pink mist with a bloody skull at the center? I wouldn't.

I'm given to understand that gibbing dates back to the Apogee FPS, Rise of the Triad, which implemented "Ludicrous Gibs Mode" as a winking acknowledgement of the fact that they were actively courting a "Mature" rating. It was supposed to be over the top, not realistic.
 
Remus said:
Wouldn't it have been better if you could kill any NPC, but if you killed a friendly a mission failed message popped up.
Click to expand...

No. Not after all the games that contain that mechanism. They make me incredibly frustrated.
 
Have you played Soldier of Fortune 2? In that game you can blow a guys limbs off with a shotgun, literally dissect someone with a knife. Like I said before it has one of the most realistic depictions of gore I've ever seen in a game period.

And yes throwing a grenade near someone and the explosion reducing him to a pile of meat and red mist is stupid, but then again if the grenade explodes and the body is just catapulted through the air and it stays intact, well excuse me but that's even more stupid.
 
Soldier of Fortune 2 wounds are exaggerated. And bisecting someone with a kinfe? That's not gritty; it's ghoulish.
 
Might be exagerated but it's fun as hell LOL

[youtube]pk7aTTnfPX8[/youtube]
 
HL2 isn't gory. I usually think of gore as body parts and blood flying everywhere. Granted the zombies chop in half, but there isn't blood spraying all over it.
 
Have u evr playd ubersoldier? its not that gory, but if u shoot someone, they fall over, and blood gushes out of the body!
 
If you want a gory game play Gun. HL2 is by no means gory.
 
PsychoFreak said:
No. Not after all the games that contain that mechanism. They make me incredibly frustrated.
Click to expand...

Actually Half-life 2 does have something like that.

If you wreck the buggy, drive it into the water, or let Dr. Breen escape, or let Alyx die, you get mission failure messages, of a tone vaguely similar to the end of Half-life, after you accept employment (or don't).
 
I've never has Alyx die on me. I thought she was indestructible.
 
You can fail if you let Alyx, Gregori (before going through the gate he opens for you) or Barney die or if you drive the buggy into water, or if you fall off a cliff in Highway 17 or if you let Breen escape you get a mission failed screen.
 
SF2 - The benchmark in Goryness.

If you Shotgun to the head ( aiming it towards a side)part of the face (including 1 eye) would just blow up. Shotgun to the belly and a big hole will appear. That guy in the video was just brutish with the knife. No skill at all. You could dissect the body and dismember it just with the knife... if you know where to make the cuts.

I creepth myself out.
 
In my opinion it just shows how bad the game is. That they resorted to that level of (not very well animated) gore to make the game seem good.
 
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