IGN - The Year in Violence

[DArtagnan]

Well, I guess it's just one of those things that people react to differently

Personally, I think it's just as strange - if not more strange - that you can slaughter people and have their entrails splatter all over the place, and yet 2 seconds later no one in town bats an eye and all traces of combat is magically gone.

I think one game where the violence was WAY more gratuitous would be Fallout - where you see people's heads explode in fleshy bits, or incinerate before your eyes with quite realistic animations for the time. Didn't bother me though, because it was a harsh world and death ain't pretty.

That's very much what persistent blood in DA:O does for me - it reminds me that you don't slaughter endlessly without it showing somehow. It's true that it would be "better" or more realistic to have people react - but then we'd have to think about implementing deep-felt psychological effects of killing and how it numbs you - and eventually, we'll have games where post traumatic stress disorder is something that can afflict your stats.

I think of it as one more step towards depicting war as it is, rather than just shrugging that aspect off entirely, and I really don't think it compares in terms of being gratuitous with games that I consider full of gratuitous violence.

To me, blood is a lot less messy and has less "shock-effect" than guts flying all over the place.

Oh well, such is how we differ.

 

[txa1265]

What games would you personally rank above DA:O in terms of gore and decapitations and why?

- Blade of Darkness
- Soldier of Fortune 1 & 2
- Call of Duty (all of them)
- Pretty much ever war-related game since Call of Duty
- The Witcher

And all because not only is there blood spilled, it is put into some sort of context.

I see no evidence of anything - except something which you can interpret as you feel is right.

What I call 'evidence' is that all we have is blood spatter everywhere and nothing to tie it into the action or setting or story or characters.

It is simple - longer battle = more blood. One thing I haven't checked in any detail - is the bloodiness contextual? Does a melee warrior necessarily have more blood than an archer or mage who was never engaged directly? Is there no blood if the only damage was magical?

I'm not saying it is bad, by any stretch - I agree with what you and Dhruin are saying about showing the brutality of melee battle.

Personally I wish they took another small step and had enough occasional reactions either within the party or by NPC's to frame it better. To me that would have changed it form 'gratuitous' to 'monumental' with about 3 lines of dialogue ...

 

[Arhu]

I completely agree with Mike. The developers clearly wanted to give DA a particular artistic style with all the blood. Problem is, it all seems very superficial because it has no effect whatsoever on anything. You can even turn it off! Once one of my fighters was totally covered in blood from a fight and was talking to an NPC. Don't remember the exact conversation, but it was something like "my, do you look dashing today". . . . Excuse me? He was a bloody mess! There was nothing pretty about that!

The game has so many dialogue lines for everything, but there was never any mention of any sort of brutality I can remember that would have provided some context for all the gore. It's like it was entirely invisible for all the people in DA (or they were emotionally blunted.)