When Will Games Disturb Us?

Game Girl Advance brings up the subject of emotion in games, again, by going to the dark places. Jane talks about movies that are just plain uncomfortable to watch (shades of Donnie Darko), and wonders why when games will have the same effect. From the article: "Yet you could argue that Manhunt used a cheap trick - it set up the situation in order to exploit it for someone's idea of 'fun.' You could say that the developers did not mean to convey any message beyond entertainment. City of God was entertaining, in the broadest sense of the word, but it was also a portrait of hopelessness and a cycle that trapped its inhabitants; it was also in some ways a social history of gang violence in the slums from the seventies to the eighties. Manhunt does not have enough external references to be about anything other than what it is."

They already do

[Anonymous Coward]

The first that comes to mind is Alone in the Dark, that game had real atmosfear. Doom is another that was in your face..

Re:November 30, 1996

[Amouth]

seach the web .. you should see the video for the butcher that was cut out of the game but is still in the mpq.. it is an sfx file i think.. you can find it in the mpq tree..

now that video was more disturbing than all the others..

Re:Disturbing games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for a FPS where you can blow up a door if you have good enough weapons on you. It's completely illogical, you're loaded with explosives, rocket launchers and machine guns, and still can't get through a crappy wooden door by brute force!

Deus Ex (for the most part).

System Shock 2 enhanced.

[tjwhaynes]

If you are after the enhanced graphics for SS2, then you should look for the System Shock 2 Rebirth [fileplanet.com] or Complemented Version [schwarzsilber.de] mods. There is also the Shock Texture Upgrade Project [att.net].

If you want the original commercial versions, you are probably going to be bin diving at whatever game stores there are near you, raiding Ebay or cruising the darker side of the web.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes