So I just watched the latest gameplay trailer from the new game “The Darkness” and I have to admit that I found it a tad disturbing. Now, I want to preface the following comments by saying that I’m a huge first-person shooter fan. I’ve been playing fps games for over 10 years and I’ve played a wide variety of games in that time. Some of those games include the following (some of which may not technically be fps, but close enough):
Counter-Stike (all hail the headshot king)
Unreal Tournament
Goldeneye
Quake (all of em)
Doom (didn’t really like 3, but I played it a bit)
Max Payne (1 and 2)
Hitman (1 and 2)
Painkiller
And the list goes on. More than a few of those games could easily be considered pretty high on the violence-o-meter. However, in all the time I’ve spent playing them, I’ve never had quite the reaction I did to the latest clip of “The Darkness”. Hit the jump to watch the vid and get my thoughts.
So here’s the vid:
For those of you who don’t know, The Darkness game is based on the somewhat popular comic book from Top Cow Comics. Personally, I’ve never read this particular comic so I can’t really say how violent it is, but I must say that the gameplay footage in the video above is a bit much for me.
To be honest, I think it’s the whole “shoot you in the face Nazi execution style” thing this clip seems to have going on that really bugs me. I mean, not only have I played some fairly violent games, but I’ve also seen a few gore flicks in my day as well. I’m not talking faces of death here, but I’ve seen my fare share of zombie movies with plenty of zombie gore. Those types of things just don’t seem to bug me as bad as this game does. As one commenter on another site put it… “I think it was the part when when he stepped on the dudes back and shot him in the back of the head that did it for me.” I have to agree. There’s just a few too many horror stricken face shots in there. Of course, maybe that’s the reason this game bugs me on a whole new level. Until now, facial expressions in games haven’t been too “expressive”. I think that helps to keep a bit of the distance between the game world and the real world. I’ve got no problem blowing up an opponent in Quake III, because they just look like a big cartoony monster, but pushing a character with significantly more realistic movement and expression down onto the ground with your foot in order to shoot them in the back of the head seems a bit overly cruel for a game. I don’t mean to side with ‘ol Jack Thompson here, but I’d never let my kids play this.
Anyway… I could go on, but hey… it’s just my opinion. I don’t think I’ll be playing this one any time soon, which disappoints me a little because the early clips I saw made it look kinda fun. I guess I’ll just have to shoot combine when the next episode of Half-Life 2 comes out. They’re fun to shoot cause they wear those nice helmets that cover their faces. 
I read an interesting article on 1up a couple weeks ago about game devs and the affects their games have had on them in real life. You can skip the introduction and go straight to the dev comments for the most bang for your free dollar:
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3159237
I’ve definitely had this happen from time to time. The first time I laid my hands on grand theft auto I spent the entire weekend playing it. The next time I went out to drive I had all kinds of visions of hitting garbage cans with my car, making people jump out of the way, and driving on the sidewalk.
I was also somewhat of an unreal junkie, and there were times when I really wish I had a rocket launcher to lock in on a wayward helicopter and bring it down. I’ve also walked into buildings and imagined them as counterstrike maps. I immediately started looking for hiding spots and boost locations.
I personally don’t have much of an issue with the trailer. Sadly for myself the seciton you mentioned didn’t even stick out to me at all. Howeer, imagine what types of images would race through one’s mind after playing a game such as Darkness for extended periods of time. I can see myself sitting in the line at cafe rio wishing I could rip the soul out of the guy in front of me with my demon appendages.
Utlimately I think The Darkness is going to be a blip on the radar. The only thing it has going for it is its early release date. It won’t even be heard of during the holiday season when it has to compete with: Quake Wars, half life 2 ep 2 and Portal, Crysis, Halo 3, Unreal Tournament 3, and probably at least one more hard hitter I forgot about in the fps genre.
Jack Thompson is the epitome of inane. He is also a catalyst for good conversation. We definitely have to do what we can to keep such material away from the mentaly instable or impressionable. Kids are one thing and perhaps most important, but all you have to do is google “Nathan Martinez” to see how the Media may help trigger something horrible in adults as well. On that same note if you google “uvsc student arrested” you’ll also see how vigilence can help.
Some video games are headed down a dark path without question. After hearing all about the movie Saw I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to go see it, and yet it did so well they made a sequel. It did so well they are making a video game. Jack Thompson get your bib on, the feast is coming. Do us a favor and choke on it =)