Hatred Released

[Wolfbeckett]

That seems like a pretty arbitrary distinction to me, bro. The things don't have to be exactly the same to be compared to each other. My point is simply that people harping on this as being a terrible blight on human culture while then turning around and creaming their jeans over other media that has pretty similar content is absurd. It smacks of modern over-sensitive PC-ness, of people who have to have something to feel offended about or they just can't get up to face the day in the morning, of people who can't go a day with using the phrase "trigger warning" un-ironically. I played a game when I was 12 in which Johnny Cage can uppercut people's heads clean off their shoulders, Kano can rip people's still beating hearts out of their chest, and Sub Zero rips someone's spine out of their body through their head. Nothing in Hatred compares to that stuff in terms of brutality. The idea that this game is somehow breaking new ground in the realm of gratuitous violence is ridiculous.

 

[warpus]

It's not, but it seems to revolve fully around hate and horrific acts. Not many games are structured like that - usually barbaric/horrific/hateful/etc. content complements an already well fleshed out story and/or game dynamics. Now, I haven't played this game or researched it, so I could be wrong, but that seems to be the difference to me. Context is important, not only content.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

It's got a different vibe, for sure, but that difference alone doesn't seem to account for the massive overreaction in the games media. I mean, you slaughter innocent people, sure, but I could load up GTA 5 right now and do exactly the same thing, and gaming websites weren't reacting to that game is if it was developed by Satan himself. Now I'm not saying that had anything to do with the fact that Rockstar Games is a huge company with a lot of money while the people that made Hatred aren't but... actually, yeah, I guess that is what I'm saying.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

You can do that in every GTA game. You can also do it in every Elder Scrolls game.
But you don't have to. There's other things to do.

 

[Triewd]

It looks like a substandard GTA tbh

And those of you who think the GTAs are terrible - they are actually quite brilliant on several levels.

I have nothing against the makers of this game I just feel that they have made a slightly substandard game. I hope they get much better at it.

They made a murder simulator so? The Hitman series is a series of murder simulators! Hitman Absolution and Hitman Blood money are two very good games.

EDIT: as totalbiscuit says the physics engine is good. So okay for that.

 

[useless]

Obligatory Totalbiscuit video with the correct opinion on the game.

People still listen to totalbiscuit?

 

[Triewd]

People still listen to totalbiscuit?

Yes actually me for one (+ alot of other people)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

People still listen to totalbiscuit?

I think he's pretty funny when he gets hold of a bad enough game, so I do go see what he has to say whenever a real stinker comes out.

 

[BvBPL]

I mean, you slaughter innocent people, sure, but I could load up GTA 5 right now and do exactly the same thing....

Is it different that in GTA (and Skyrim, and most other games being compared) there are other things to do? The plot of GTA isn't to kill a bunch of random people just for being alive, that's just something you can do should you choose to. In contrast, that's all Hatred has going for it. If you're playing this game then that's all you're doing.

Hatred is also different in that the gameplay is apparently very poor. Do games that have good gameplay, like GTA or Far Cry, get a pass on this sort of stuff whereas games with crap gameplay somehow have more attention paid to their other weaknesses?

At the end of each level in Hatred you apparently advance by killing yourself. What do people think of that? Is self-violence fundamentally different from violence against others?

I think Hatred is fundamentally different than GTA in that Hatred draws attention to its violence far more than GTA. Not only is violence the only thing in Hatred, but Hatred thrives on the violence. If you find their launch trailer you'll see executions that are brutally, brutally violent, far more so than what is portrayed in GTA. Not only is violence is the only thing in Hatred, but the game is gratuitously grotesque in its portrayal of violence.

 

[Triewd]

I don't think it looks that grotesque to be honest BvBPL

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It is somewhat unique in that it does base the score directly on body count. Other games certainly have comparable access to random killings, but in those games it is at least gratuitous, as opposed to being the designated objective.

 

[shadowplay]

It tries to be dark, but it's inadvertently funny at points. I'm watching a video of it, there's a point where the dude storms a house party.

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.

I agree with this review.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am still waiting for the release of

JAPAN 731: CHRONICLES , where your goal is to unlock new tech to win the war, by experimenting on chinese and other POWs with chemical weapons.

But since it won't be sold to Japan that way, they could alter the history bit 'slightly' and 'for gameplay purposes only' and use Russia instead of Japan

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It is somewhat unique in that it does base the score directly on body count. Other games certainly have comparable access to random killings, but in those games it is at least gratuitous, as opposed to being the designated objective.

You obviously never played Operation Wolf then. Or a million other games from the 80s and onwards.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm amused that people felt bad wrecking the AI in civ. One of my favorite victory conditions in IV was nuclear diplomatic victory. Votes were tallied at the start of the turn...but the game counted based on the population after the turn ends. The OBVIOUS conclusion is to lock the world into having voted for you...then nuking the population that disagrees with your victory down so much that you win because of your overwhelming "majority" of people still alive.

But that's a bit role-play centric for me. Usually in Civ I just abuse the AI with war crimes like accepting AI settler --> worker donations or letting them capture my worker repeatedly in Civ V then killing the unit and recapturing it. The AI can't resist, it will even leave its garrisons to take that "free worker".

At this point I would find poor gameplay using the OP subject matter to sell more offensive than the subject matter's presence. Video game violence is very obviously disjointed from actual violence. I don't see eye to eye with Jim Sterling in some cases but one of this episodes I found really insightful was when he showed gameplay footage of wanton video game violence...then gave a warning and showed footage of a real person putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. I certainly felt the difference when watching the real thing, to the point of having to resist the urge to skip it. I felt no such discomfort using the chainsaw bayonet in Gears of War.

I still think poorly of developers that cobble together a product that plays poorly, so ultimately my evaluation of this one would come down to how well it plays, even if your sole purpose is to be as evil a criminal as possible. I don't have much interest in this type of game though, so I won't get it either way.

 

[trader/warrior]

I'm reminded of an AAR on the Paradox forums before they tightened up the forum rules where a guy decided to systematically exterminate an entire ethnicity out of the game in Victoria 1. He did it with Texans of all cultures I believe, due to being relatively small and localized then set about forcibly conscripting them and sending them off in unwinnable wars and death marches. Pretty grim really, but in all honesty very interesting as well.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm reminded of an AAR on the Paradox forums before they tightened up the forum rules where a guy decided to systematically exterminate an entire ethnicity out of the game in Victoria 1. He did it with Texans of all cultures I believe, due to being relatively small and localized then set about forcibly conscripting them and sending them off in unwinnable wars and death marches. Pretty grim really, but in all honesty very interesting as well.

In Europa Universalis you can easily remove cultures permanently if the "primary nation" is annexed, and while some are difficult you can completely wipe any religion too. For example as "The Knights" (aka order of Saint John) on ironman I have converted Greece, Georgia, Iran, and the entire middle East + Egypt to Catholic and am crushing into Orthodox Russia too (originally I started the game to get the King of Jerusalem achievement). But others have made the entire world Sunni or a Christian denomination. Non-Abrahamic faiths are much harder to spread due to the game's (often very biased) rules, particularly anything that counts as "pagan", though I did have a good time spreading the oddly-named "Nahuatl" religion (IIRC the religion of the are wasn't called that) to over 500 provinces in my co-LP with MaDDjinn/Josh127/ParadogsGamer, including the vast majority of China and an impressive chunk of Central Europe .

Both Civ and Paradox games allow for some pretty nasty brutality. You can wipe cultures and religions in Civ games too...and "all" it takes is to burn down the cities of millions of people. Good times.

 

[trader/warrior]

In Europa Universalis you can easily remove cultures permanently if the "primary nation" is annexed, and while some are difficult you can completely wipe any religion too. For example as "The Knights" (aka order of Saint John) on ironman I have converted Greece, Georgia, Iran, and the entire middle East + Egypt to Catholic and am crushing into Orthodox Russia too (originally I started the game to get the King of Jerusalem achievement). But others have made the entire world Sunni or a Christian denomination. Non-Abrahamic faiths are much harder to spread due to the game's (often very biased) rules, particularly anything that counts as "pagan", though I did have a good time spreading the oddly-named "Nahuatl" religion (IIRC the religion of the are wasn't called that) to over 500 provinces in my co-LP with MaDDjinn/Josh127/ParadogsGamer, including the vast majority of China and an impressive chunk of Central Europe .

Both Civ and Paradox games allow for some pretty nasty brutality. You can wipe cultures and religions in Civ games too...and "all" it takes is to burn down the cities of millions of people. Good times.

You definitely can in those games as well, but the POP system of the Victoria games is what really makes it quite grim compared to the more "low resolution" province or city culture/religion of EU and civ. Probably would be easier to do it in Vicky 2 as well with its more easily workable assimilation system, but in vicky 1 he had to literally make sure that all Texans died down to the last person and that no-one managed to escape by emigrating and so on.

 

[jackelgull]

I find civ4 to be way more disturbing than Hatred. In Civ4 the happiness and well being of your citizens are just a another method to squeeze as much production and commerce out of them as possible. War is not only inevitable but highly desirable. Exterminating civilizations to prevent their cities from flipping back is good game play, or you can vassalize the civ and crush it mercilessly in its helplessness. Also, the government exercises nearly complete control over the lives of its citizens assigning them their jobs and the sole purpose of these citizens is to create an elite that will be more valuable then them. Finally, slavery is op and cleansing the streets of your city with the blood of citizens is often strong game play. And I love and play this game a lot.

What does hatred have? Some misanthrope killing innocent people.

 

[Borachio]

Yeah. I guess. But the violence in Civilization is sanitized (mostly). The violence in Hatred is upfront and personal.

Still, any video game is just a matter of pixels.

While real life is just a matter of blood and guts, and images on the retina.

Hang on, pixels just form images on the retina too, don't they?