Hatred Released

[BvBPL]

Love it or, well, hate it, Hatred was released this week.

Hatred, for those of you who do not know, is a twin-stick shooter video game that is based around killing people in awful, brutal ways. For example, you can stab cops in the balls. There is an achievement, apparently, for killing hipsters (but probably not one for killing greasy-haired death metal fans).

It has a forty-eight on metacritic at this writing.

Any thoughts on Hatred? There was a lot of discussion about Valve initially permitting it on Steam, then taking it off, then putting it back on. That is one place to start the discussion. Is this a game that Valve should have kept off, or is it appropriate to sell it? Does a decision by a major retailer, like Valve, to sell or not sell a game affect a free speech interest as some have said?

Because the game is so brutal and, frankly, offensive to me, I have not provided a link to the game. However, it will be quite easy for your to find any information on it.

 

[warpus]

Is this a game which revolves around the idea of torture and hatred, or is it hatred and sadism mascarading as a game, or both? Because there's a right way to make a game about horrible things and a wrong way.

The game Evil Genius had torture in it as a game mechanic, but it was done rather tastefully. I mean, in the end one of your objectives is to catch people and torture them, and it did make me feel a bit uneasy to spend hours doing so.. The game Civilization has I think always had genocide as a victory type in a very unapologetic way, just short of calling it for what it is. At first it felt weird to raze entire cities and drop nuclear weapons on unsuspecting civilians.. but soon enough, after only several hundred turns, even genocide started feeling like a noble goal.

But the gameplay is very good, and the torture and genocide are very tactfully implemented, and there isn't too much that is too graphic. And in this case I'm guessing that isn't so, although I'm not about to check. If it's graphic and it's centered around being hateful rather than having actually good gameplay, then I don't mind Valve refusing to sell it. They after all have an image to uphold. Why associate yourself with a bad game that's also hateful and allows the stabbing of balls of authority figures in a graphic manner?

But if it has good gameplay and is hateful as well, that's a sort of middle ground I'm not sure about. It's probably on a "case by case" basis for me. I've seen worse things in games than getting points for killing hipsters, like I've said. It mostly depends on how graphic it is I suppose.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Well it's very graphic, that's the whole point of the game. Personally I'm not offended by it, I just don't think it looks like a very good game from the Youtube videos I've seen. It's something I might consider getting down the road just to say I tried it, but the gameplay I've seen does not look to be worth $20, so I'll be waiting until it's $10 or, better yet, $5.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Valve has an image to uphold?

 

[CavLancer]

All such stuff should not be allowed and people who make it should be given help.

 

[trader/warrior]

There is an achievement, apparently, for killing hipsters (but probably not one for killing greasy-haired death metal fans).

Apparently there's also a "misogynist" acheivement for killing a certain number of women and a "feminist" acheivement for killing a certain amount of men.

The whole game seems to just be a way to make a mediocre, boring twin-stick shooter sell by making it as provocative and edgy as humanly possible to get PR from all the outrage. The violence itself isn't really that explicit compared to the stuff people do in GTA and the like, they just frame it in a dumb spree-killer-glorifying way. Apparently the ending even involves sending a nuclear reactor into a meltdown.

I wish stuff like this would just not be picked up and sold by any major retailers like obscure gore movies and the like but Steam/Valve seem to have this weird idea that anything that isn't porn should be sold by them no matter the content or functionality.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Obligatory Totalbiscuit video with the correct opinion on the game.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You run around and shoot a bunch of people, then the police come and you shoot them as well. Not a lot more to say about it.

That is a classic line.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

All such stuff should not be allowed and people who make it should be given help.

Yes, we should definitely censor things that we don't like or agree with and submit those who deviate from the norm to re-education psychiatric help. That is a totally rational and reasonable thing to do.

 

[CavLancer]

Over the decades my opinion on this subject has changed and stuff like this has changed it. Plus, the US is not the only country on Earth. The Philippines censors nudity and profanity out of Hollywood movies and somehow manages to keep other forms of free speech. People fear that if we cut out stuff like this somehow we won't be able to speak freely but that doesn't occur here. Why this needs to happen is to protect people who haven't been alive long enough to develope the skills to censor their own selves. I was like that myself when I was young and would have revolted at any notion that someone else needed to make decisions for me but when I look back at the decisions I made for myself, might have been better. A lot depends too on the state of older people too, whether they have learned life lessons or cling to immaturity. If that's the case, not much hope. I think that may be the case because older people vote to keep laws which allow the making of such games, sooo...don't have much hope.

I said what I think should happen but is there vmuch chance? No.

 

[caketastydelish]

The OP has been quite vocal about his hatred for the video game industry and the first amendment in general, and thinks people in their 20's are not 'real men' anymore (as he's said many times) along with many other lame condescending opinions. Some people just think they're better than everybody.

 

[CavLancer]

Those people suck.

 

[classical_hero]

It looks like a stupid game and it's entertainment value will last only for a short while to those who might find it entertaining. It is just a shock game trying to gain followers by being shocking. This is hardly any different from many entertainers who use shock to get a following.

 

[Kyriakos]

"Hatred released" is a cool title

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Apparently the ending even involves sending a nuclear reactor into a meltdown.

That's actually pretty cool.

That is a classic line.

It's what made GTA great.


Hatred seems to mostly rely on shock value, but I think a game like this could work with the right sense of humor. More over the top violence and a whackier protagonist would be a start. Different skins, a clown costume, weapons like an acid filled super soaker...

The only think I like about the game as it is now is the black and white + occasional color art style.

 

[Borachio]

youtube.com/watch?v=qV3PhvCf_Jg

Well, I shan't be playing it, that's for sure.

When I first started playing Civilization I was quite alarmed out how casually the AI would attack me, and it took quite a time before I retaliated. And then I felt really guilty about it, especially as the sprites had this hurt look about them as if to say "Why did you do that?".

And I certainly only ever nuked them just the once to see what the effect was. All in all, I nurtured all my civilizations whether they were grateful for it or not - and often enough they weren't.

Spoiler :

(This isn't entirely true. I did eventually get into dispatching them all off the face of the map as quickly as possible since I discovered that was the only way to get a high score without spending months on one game. It was true at first, though.)

But still, maybe this game will prove cathartic in some way for some people, and allow them to be calm, kind, and empathic individuals in real life, when otherwise they'd be raging homicidal maniacs?

And in any case this is just taking games like Grand Theft Auto, and all the other shooter upperers, to the next level, I guess. And there's a torture thingy in Skyrim, too. Which kind of alarmed me when I saw it on youtube.

Does it feature any cannibalism? I feel this is the one and only burning issue about "Hatred".

And when can we expect the release of Concentration Camps: Dr Mengele?

Or the bone crunching fun of Killing Fields: Mr Pot?

 

[warpus]

Well it's very graphic, that's the whole point of the game.

The description kind of reminds me of the game Postal. I got one of the sequels I think, because I was curious.. It was supposed to be an edgy game where "you can do anything".. but the game really disappointed me. You basically just run around peeing on things and being a dick to everyone. The gameplay was abysmal. It wasn't a good game in any way, and if this game is any similar, then I wouldn't be against Valve not wanting to stock it either.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

The description kind of reminds me of the game Postal. I got one of the sequels I think, because I was curious.. It was supposed to be an edgy game where "you can do anything".. but the game really disappointed me. You basically just run around peeing on things and being a dick to everyone. The gameplay was abysmal. It wasn't a good game in any way, and if this game is any similar, then I wouldn't be against Valve not wanting to stock it either.

With regards to Postal, the sequels weren't really the same thing, they were more of a crude satire on that type of game. The original Postal was a sincere mass murder game but the sequels weren't. Hatred looks more like the original Postal. But really, Judging from the gameplay I've seen, the moral outrage being shown about this game in some places is completely ridiculous. Nothing that I've seen in videos of this game is more brutal than the fatalities in Mortal Kombat, a game that came out 23 year ago. This game makes up for it with a high volume of violence, but the sites and reviewers trying to pretend that this is the second coming of Hitler are way off base, it's nothing we haven't seen before, both in games and in other media. Hell, on this very forum is a thread 300+ posts strong about Game of Thrones, a TV show that's chock full of rape, torture, and murder. The hyperbolization I've seen occurring around this game is far more notable than the game itself, which aside from an interesting visual aesthetic and some truly impressive environmental destruction physics seems pretty generic really.

 

[warpus]

See, the difference to me is that Mortal Kombat is a fighting game.. for example. The gameplay revolves around that, and the brutality is added on top of that. Game of Thrones is a very well thought out and written story, which also happens to contain some brutality and rape. - In both of these examples the gameplay and/or content of the stories do not revolve around brutality or rape. In the case of this game, that seems to be the case.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

More importantly, the violence isn't so one sided. In Mortal Kombat you fight people that fight you, and kill people that try to kill you. Hatred has cops and the military, the "story" is just that you want to kill as many -preferably helpless- people as possible.