Man… How bout something constructive?
Here’s a couple ideas.
A farming simulator souls like
A community service Metroidvania where the world becomes easier to traverse the more people you help
An RPG where you play a pacifist where the classes is negotiator, construction worker, delivery person, fire fighters. Instead of fighting the war, youre building a better world AFTER the wars.
Im looking at the ps store right now and 95% of the games on offer is about beating up or killing people or creatures in some way.
Im a HUGE fan of souls like games and Metroidvanias and I used to be into FPS games.
But Im older now. And Ive come to notice that maybe the violence wasnt why I liked those games but perhaps it was the “kinetics” and meat and potato mechanics that made me like them.
I think Im just tired of all the violence being pushed and marketed to me as a gamer. It’s over represented.
This is kinda where my head is at. Im not squeamish about violence. But Im starting to wonder if maybe the marketing around violence was maybe artificial to begin with.
Ive been a gamer for over 30 years now. And I see violence at the center of it all and I ask myself if this was REALLY what we wanted all along.
I just an starting to notice that MAYBE we are really overselling or overhyping our appreciation of violent content.
Like I said. I LOVE souls like games. But I dont think it’s necessarily the violence or the combat that makes me love them. I think it’s the kentetic engagement. The mix of spacial control, timing, and managing stamina.
I agree. I think that the bourgeois ideology is well-served by the pretty common trope of “solo, competitive, one man vs the world willing to do anything” video game. Cultural output is never neutral.
The idea that a kid can play violent games without being impacted by it is very liberal/individualist imo. I know, COD is an excellent propaganda and recruiting tool which normalizes the constant war of the West.
We need like a star trek video game of only limited violence, exploration and diplomacy… that isn’t trash lmao.
Also, my favorite part about the DS games is the ambience.
I grew up steeped in shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament-- which is why CoD pisses me off as much as it does. (And tangentially, why I won’t have shit to do with Fortnite anymore, either; but that’s less ideological.) I’d have significantly less issues with military spectacle as a genre if it was done like Ace Combat’s Strangereal is, but as it stands, the CoDs and Battlefields of the world are nothing to me but sloppily, blatantly blowjobbing the American military; and I fuckin hate it.
Yeah, for sure. I eventually got around to playing DS1 and I came into the series at DS1, went to Sekiro, and backtracked to 2.
Eventually saw DS1 and the first few scenes were jist so… Captivating. The climb to the top of that cliff, the giant crow, ect. I was like… This is so beautiful. WTF? This game is ancient, but it’s so nice to look at and just take in.
I mean, you can have all of those things without a character swinging a sword. You can have those things with a character swinging a paintbrush.
In fighting games we even have characters who are non-fighting characters, Phoenix Wright for example uses ““attacks”” that are things like words and the various gestures he does in the courtroom instead. These aren’t really violent, they’re animations that go along with hitboxes and manipulating spacing, movement and timing the hitboxes.
You can have all those things without actual violent attacks and still functionally have a game that plays the same.
Hell yeah, that is what I was thinking.