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Hatred: The Most Despicable Game of All Time?

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That trailer made me nauseous in a way violence in video games never has before. And then it made me sad because you could totally argue that means it was effective.

 

(You could argue that, but I'd disagree with you. I think the sheer unstomachability of that trailer says some really interesting things about violence in escapist media and video games in particular, and about our relationship with that violence. But then I remember that it's a video game, and I try to imagine the type of person who would play that video game, for fun, and I can't think of the game as anything but harmful.)

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Meh, I just shrug this off as trying to hard, the same way I do to angsty teenagers listening to hilariously written music about death and scribbling skulls and knives in their notebooks.

 

I don't see why this deserves any more attention than the billion of other games with the same mechanics and the other handful with similar concepts. It's so over the top and eye rolling that I can shove it under the carpet.

 

Players have literally done every single one of those actions in nearly every modern shooter that has been released in the past 5 years at least. Changing the concept to someone with bad dialog and hate for the world doesn't really change how I view it because the 3d characters you are killing are middle class citizens vs. army dudes, zombies, poor people, animals, whatever...

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Nothing wrong with a game with excessive violence. However, this game does not present any reason for it. It's just kill everything that moves? There's no special gameplay mechanic.

 

I don't think this is the most despicable game of all time. Candy crush is much worse. Now if Hatred would give points for killing people, and points were required to unlock the next part (or you can fork over money to buy points), then it would be more despicable.

Right now, it just looks like a game trying to sell itself based on the outrage it should create, but lacking any substance.

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But then I remember that it's a video game, and I try to imagine the type of person who would play that video game, for fun, and I can't think of the game as anything but harmful.

Been thinking about this on and off all day.

 

To be honest, I might play this game for fun. It'd take a considerable amount of effort to divorce myself from actually thinking about what I'm doing, though.

 

I might also play it without doing that and be disgusted at myself the whole time, and that, you could argue, if they hadn't explicitly said otherwise, is sort of the point.

 

So I'm back to being conflicted again.

 

I sort of like that this exists. X:

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I think this game is disgusting, but I don't think it's anywhere near being outright-condemnable.

 

But (as has been touched on earlier) I'm not sure where that line is for me. I seem to be relatively ok with a lot of disgusting things happening in media, and happening for no reason at all, as long as those things are happening indiscriminately. So basically, since the hate-fueled rampage is against *everyone* I don't have a moral objection? I guess? (as much as I object to any violent game, anyway, which is maybe less than I should)

 

Although I suppose the player could be selective about which NPCs he/she targets. If there's actually no objective other than "indiscriminate" killing.

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Not to demean real issues, but this phenomenon always feels like crying reverse racism and other forms of privileged persecution to me. As soon as there is even the slightest hint that the status quo of video games being about unrepentant mayhem and violence is being challenged, it's time to double down on The Way Things Have Always Been on account of these encroaching trends and insist that this medium is for gore, which is fun, which is gore, which is fun ...

 

P.S. Is "opinionated in a way that is different from me" world-filtered here?

 

P.P.S. Yes. So, it should be noted for anyone who missed it, that, in their explanation, the developers had the gaucheness to invoke P.C.-ness.

I think you might be right, but that's just sad, because violence in games has barely been challenged at all. Do people feel threatened by Proteus?

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The idea of presenting this game without a commentary on its mechanics is itself a commentary on the game. It feels like it ought to be a parody.

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Through the whole monologue I kept thinking "no this can't be real, this has to be a joke, no one is this self-unaware...I mean the voice over, the dialogue, its all laughably bad in such an on the nose way that it has to be parody."

 

I half-way expected him to leave his hovel, and outside it would be a colorful bright 2d art landscape and he'd climb atop a unicorn and go flying through rainbows and smiling clouds fighting dragons just to fuck with the audience...but no it wasn't a joke.

 

The violence was actually disturbing and unsettling...and if they were actually going for that to make a statement in another sort of game that wouldn't be a bad thing...but in this context it feels more like it was just the sort of thing the folks making this thought people would enjoy somehow.  I think there is a difference between shooting rockets at a guy on a Quake Live server or gunning down guys shooting back at you on a battlefield in some military shooter and putting a gun in the mouth of an unarmed person begging for mercy and pulling the trigger.

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So then, isometric Hotline Miami-alike? The discussion it raises is interesting and relates to Chris' Orc talk on the podcast - if the protagonist was given a murdered family backstory or if the innocent people were terrorist or zombie fodder or they were obscured through a pixel art aesthetic maybe the sickened reaction I had to the video might have been different. Grim as it was, I loved Hotline Miami, and this shares most of the verbs. Hmm. More thought required.

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My hope for this is that its a huge bait and switch and the main character gets arrested in the first mission, and the rest of the game is a court procedural.

FROG FRACTIONS 2

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Hotline Miami itself feels winky and abstracted because of its pixel art aesthetic, and the people you kill are direct threats to you. Also there was a read of the game by Campster that was basically that in HL, you're not thinking about killing people you're focused on the synesthesia and abstraction of the gameplay because it's tight, cohesive, beautiful and challenging. One ending of the game actually points that out, and it's supposed to be reflective of the damage you're doing while in a gameplay induced trance. The whole way through the gameplay is unforgiving and a struggle, and the feeling is constantly that you don't belong in this space and that your perception is imperfect, that something is clearly wrong with what's going on.

 

So idk obviously Hatred isn't out yet but the comparison seems to be like...comparing a Tarantino exploitation film with an actual exploitation film. I dunno.

 

EDIT: ok I'm just gonna gripe about it. It's just dumb. It doesn't look like the violence has any intentionality or is a consequence of an artistic goal (which is what should be protected, not violence itself), and it doesn't looks like a formal exploration that hasn't been covered (there's been muslim massacre, postal, postal 2, that scene in MW2, and CoD is one big unjustified murder thing), so it just looks like a silly adolescent wet dream.

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Meh, I just shrug this off as trying to hard, the same way I do to angsty teenagers listening to hilariously written music about death and scribbling skulls and knives in their notebooks.

 

I had the same reaction until I read polygon's piece on the trailer, updated with the following comment in response to Epic asking their logo be removed from all marketing material.

 

"Epic Games has all the legal rights to issue such a request," Zieliński said. "They've contacted me in a friendly manner and asked for the logo removal. Following their request I've removed it from the YouTube version and will remove it from the press version of our trailer ASAP so everyone is happy. It was actually my oversight. I worked on titles and trailers in the past with the Unreal engine license, that is different from the current EULA. Putting Unreal logo at the beginning of our trailer was an obvious choice for me, as the engine is an amazing tool and in fact I considered it mandatory. So I guess I was simply wrong thinking it's a must."

 

Then I headed over to their website which they have decided to call their "web command" because they're so fucking high minded.  Hatred seems to be the video game version of people who say "words are just words", ignoring the fact that meaning is what makes a word a word.  The fact that anyone thought that something as powerful as UE4 was mandatory for a top down shooter calls into question not just the premise of the game but the sanity of it's creators.  UE4 is only mandatory insofar as it allows the devs to further outrage people.  Everything about this game seems to be focused on stirring up a shit storm the same way think tanks release articles that are little more than thinly veiled insults.  They may as well be standing on top of a building screaming "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" for all the difference it makes.  They make some claim about how society has somehow wronged the protagonist but are seemingly uninterested in addressing what exactly that means--almost like gamergate finally turned in on itself and morphed into an actual game.  I wish I could be more articulate about this at the moment, but I just really can not stand how absurd all this is, and I'm still hoping I'll wake up tomorrow to find out this was just an overly elaborate Onion article.

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I watched the trailer before reading any of these comments and seeing that the people making the game didn't like art games and actually assumed that it was an art game. In that context I liked it and now that I know it wasn't the intention of the developers I still like it, I just don't give them any credit. I find it more absurd that games exist that encourage players to do the same things that this game does, but they want you to empathize with the main character. If I end up getting GTA V when the PC port is out this will probably make me self-conscious about the way I play.

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Another thing that should offend all of us bachelor's in English types is that they've just repurposed the term "antagonist" in order to allow themselves to make a protagonist with no redeeming qualities, arc, motivation, or character whatsoever, because that's just video game license and nobody cares.

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I watched the trailer before reading any of these comments and seeing that the people making the game didn't like art games and actually assumed that it was an art game. In that context I liked it and now that I know it wasn't the intention of the developers I still like it, I just don't give them any credit. I find it more absurd that games exist that encourage players to do the same things that this game does, but they want you to empathize with the main character. If I end up getting GTA V when the PC port is out this will probably make me self-conscious about the way I play.

 

I understand the sentiment, but I feel as though it rings hollow.  The protagonist in the trailer makes some reference to the world having wronged them, which seems as an attempt to justify the players' actions which is common in games like GTA.  I don't feel as though the developers are being more honest about the game's content.  They are doing fundamentally the same thing as others, but just being assholes about it.

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I don't feel as though the developers are being more honest about the game's content. They are doing fundamentally the same thing as others, but just being assholes about it.

I don't think they are either, which is why I said I don't give the developers any credit. Regardless of how this game came about I'm still glad it exists, though glad is too strong of a word.

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I understand the sentiment, but I feel as though it rings hollow.  The protagonist in the trailer makes some reference to the world having wronged them, which seems as an attempt to justify the players' actions which is common in games like GTA.  I don't feel as though the developers are being more honest about the game's content.  They are doing fundamentally the same thing as others, but just being assholes about it.

 

Also (if this does end up being a game that in some way critiques, or at least tries to get players to think about their actions in other games) this is far from the first hyper-violent game to be about the fact that a lot of games are hyper-violent. It just seems to be doing it in a more artless way than something like Hotline Miami.

 

EDIT: Well, don't I feel stupid. I thought this was just a lazy, controversy-courting game that would follow the trend of video games that try to ask the question if you or your enemies are "the real monster." Turns out, it is made by actual Nazis, so thinking it is just stupid is being far too generous.

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there should be a super embarrassingly adolescent game that forces you to use Facebook integration

 

your grandma suddenly gets a message that you just murdered a prostitute

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there should be a super embarrassingly adolescent game that forces you to use Facebook integration

your grandma suddenly gets a message that you just murdered a prostitute

I guess it's a good thing I'm not friends with her on Facebook.

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holy living fuck

 

The bit about their use of the Unreal Engine and ESRB iconography being bullshit is just the icing on the cake.

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As far as I can tell (as far as my poorly researched perception tells me), neo-nazi or fascist elements in Poland are really wrapped up in nationalism and is part of a big wave of reactionism in europe. I don't know how much these people take those kinds of politics to heart but I can see its pathos being part of their worldview. It disturbs the shit out of me that the weird video game reactionism is coinciding with existing elements.

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