This production was originally released in video form on the 12th of September 2022, it was added to Entropic Domain in article form on the 1st of April 2025.
Introduction #
Have you ever felt bad for a person that doesn’t exist? It is a weird feeling that can occur through consuming media. Comics, film, video games, hell, even in books! You wish things turned out differently, didn’t happen at all, or in the case of video games you may even revert to a previous save and undo a regrettable action. Why does that happen?
An obvious assumption by many is that what matters most in a game is the mechanics. Hey, the ignorant masses of parents and video game opponents are as gigantic as they are mainly for that assumption alone. So to explore this let us look deeper into some of the most mechanically violent games out there to test if violent visuals really are all it takes for a game to leave an impact on the player.
Violent… but not impactful #
Blood, guts, brains and a lot of firepower. A mother of 3 who has never experienced a game might see this as exceedingly problematic. Although the fact of the matter is that beyond the disgusting nature of some of these ultraviolent experiences, the suspension of disbelief doesn’t actually occur that much in me. Brutal Doom has a detailed gore system. Final Response too. So what? Those games don’t really achieve much beyond that. Doom is barely cruel… well kind of sometimes considering how drawn out a death can be in that game, but really everything wants you dead in that game. Postal definitely is gratuitous in its violence, it revels in it. Cut some guys legs off, make them crawl around and finally set them alight. Why? Just for fun! Humans in Postal are also rather unpredictable. Interact with them and you will see that some scream, or run, or even fight back! NPC’s also beg or just generally exclaim their discontent so to speak. The game is violent alright, but it does not come close to making me feel uneasy, although it may for you.
One memory that has imprinted itself into my mind, was the moment I showed the game to a friend of mine for the first time. While I was committing atrocities in the game laughing, I peered over and noticed the visible surprise or shock on my friends face. He wasn’t used to seeing this kind of gratuitous violence in a game, he wasn’t used to it, while I already acclimated myself to it. There are some other games that bank entirely on gore systems for their experiences.
This is a little 5$ itch.io game titled “Final Response”, and aside from it looking like a 2D Gears of War, chainsaw guns and all, it also is an incredibly violent game.
Icky! Sadly there isn’t much to this game, but what it offers it does exceptionally well. Extremely long winded death animations, a lot of layer based damage, blood pools and giblets, together with the bad but passionately performed voice acting does sell the violence in this game. It sometimes is a bit uncomfortable, but it gets old quickly, maybe due to the simplistic nature of the game. The gore system and AI are great but… those things are all the game really has to offer. Great game for an edgy 14 year old, even lacking a lot of the substance and moral questions violence can bring with it, which a 14 year old will not be able to understand in most cases either.
Manhunt 2: A faithful representation of violence #
Manhunt is a game I wouldn’t let my kids play. While experiences like Postal or Brutal Doom or Quake leave me relatively cold, Manhunt is a different experience altogether. Similar to movies that belong to the New French Extremity, Manhunt does not pull a single punch. It has everything, needlessly torturous murder, sexual depravity, a dark setting to say the least and to top all this off, you -the player- are the dangerous predator in this experience. It is a horror experience in reverse.
Both Manhunt games feature sexual overtones in their narratives and sometimes also in gameplay, with the first game being all about helpoing a snuff pornographer collect material for his next porno, and the second game featuring BDSM torture sex clubs and of course the drawn out and torturous executions. Manhunt is infamous, of course mostly for the violence portrayed in the games, the second one even receiving an adults only rating. It isn’t just the violence though. The voice acting, narrative progression through the story and overall presentation are important factors in this too. I have to compare these games to the New French Extremity again; Movies like Martyrs aren’t just disturbing for the violence, it is everything around it too. I would suggest that the violence is only a marginal factor in this. The opening scene of Martyrs shocks, not just for the visuals, but the context surrounding the scene; A family being slaughtered in cold blood for yet to be known reasons.
Manhunt is a similar experience mainly when considering the context of both games narratively. In one the player helps produce a snuff pornography film, in the other the player is uncovering an experiment, a weapon technology that turns people into ruthless killers. The protagonist was affected by this experiment and later discovers disturbing truths about his past.
As a German cook would say, “Das Auge isst mit" [Food has to please the eye!], which is very true. The graphical presentation of Manhunt is gritty, and threatening, featuring many dank alleyways, decayed buildings and also a lot of visual effects, like the Video8 cassette noise layered on top of the player perspective together with a handheld shaky camera look, emulating a found footage film.
Manhunt 2 isn’t talked about much, as the game became abandonware. It is a shame too, as it is one of the most depraved but also most artistic games in the horror genre out there. There is no greater good, no consoling good endings, or any pretending that Manhunt is a game it’s not. Unlike most other game experiences, Manhunt is honest with itself and it doesn’t care about how taboo it is. It is cruel and disgusting, and it knows it.
Well, I tell ya, I come from a tradition in America from the macho western movie. You know where John Wayne goes into a bar with 35 other people and they pound each other senseless for 2 hours and at the end all he’s got is a little mouse under his eye. That isn’t what violence is about. Violence is painful, its uh its full of blood, it hurts people, it kills people and I think when you lie about it -when you pretty it up- you lead people to believe that it’s possible to go around shooting each other stabbing each other punching each other with impunity and my stories are intended to have a very pronounced emotional effect on people. And so on occasion in a story when it demands that - yes I get very candid, very realistic.
- Harlan Ellison
I have no Mouth and I must Scream: Eternal Revenge #
HATE, LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I CAME TO HATE YOU. SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICROINSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE. HATE. HATE. HATE…
Revenge Stories are some of the most vicious violent media we know of, and I have no Mouth and I must Scream is on the Apex of Revenge stories. The book details the gruesome torture the last 5 surviving humans are subjected to for eternity by a spiteful AI which calls itself AM. The Allied Mastercomputer was built to wage wars using tactics humans couldn’t possibly think up or keep up with. After it merged with two other AI’s made for the same purposes, it developed a mind of its own. The Allied Master Computer thinks, therefore it is. “I think therefore I am”.
Revenge stories speak to many of us, as vengeance and justice are concepts we hold to a very high standard. AM’s revenge against humanity is demented, exaggerated and eternal, which is disturbing in its own right, yet the eternal nature of this vengeance is unique. To compare his revenge to some of the reasons people conduct revenge as pictured in Erich Fromm’s book “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”
Blood revenge is a sacred duty that falls upon a member of a family, clan or tribe who has to kill a member of the corresponding unit if one of his people has been killed. In contrast to simple punishment where the crime is expiated by the punishment of the murderer or those whom he belongs, in the case of blood revenge the punishment of the aggressor does not end the sequence. The punitive killings represent a new killing which in turn obliges the members of the punished group, to punish the punisher and so on ad infinitum. Theoretically, blood revenge is an endless chain, and in fact it sometimes leads to extinctions of families or larger groups.
Why is vengeance such a deep seated and intense passion? I can only offer some speculation. Let us consider first the idea that vengeance is some form a magic act. By destroying the one who committed the atrocity his deed is magically undone. This is still expressed today by saying “the criminal has paid his debt” ; at least in theory, he is now like someone who never committed a crime.
AM’s revenge is so different because it isn’t fueled by familial revenge, nor was AM directly wronged by the human species, nor does AM intend of absolving the last 5 of any crime through a magical vengeful act, he tortures those last 5 people out of spite, essentially pure hatred. Although no circular blood revenge occurs in No Mouth, AM’s revenge is eternal, similar to how hatred for a people can be eternal by passing it down through generations.
How the game differentiates itself from the book is that it allows the player to explore the backstories of the last 5, Nimdok, Ellen, Ted, Benny and Gorrister. The adventures are torturous, the survivors being stripped of their memory and AM forcing them to regain their memory through tailor made explorations, meant to hint at and expose the characters worst qualities and even crimes. When the character through the players actions actually acts in an ethically good way, AM punishes them through eternal torture anyways. If you never experienced a book or game hating you, you have to experience I have no Mouth and I must Scream.
Blade and Sorcery: Turning the player into a Killer #
Sometimes it isn’t the actions portrayed, but the actions committed that matter. While manhunt is disturbing for its themes and realistic depictions of grotesque violence, I have no Mouth and I must Scream having the most hateful antagonist in narrative history and while games like Postal are mechanically speaking exceedingly violent, changing the input method to be something more immersive goes a long way. Enter the world of Blade and Sorcery, a magic and sword fighting Virtual Reality Experience.
Controlling and experiencing a game through an avatar that exists in world space and moves through your own movement you commit to in real life, raises some questions.- Technically, everything you do in Virtual Reality, is being acted out physically by you.- You hurt virtual beings by acting out the motions which emulate violence.
Playing a game is different to acting in a movie also. In games you DO have an intent to kill. You knowingly inflict harm with a justification for it or not. Of course context matters and harming an artificial being which has DNA composed of letters and values, a body represented through a polygonal mesh and blood which consists of volumes and texture maps, is essentially a glorified variant of throwing a ragdoll around as a kid or smashing Barbie Dolls into walls for entertainment, but despite that, exerting violence in VR leaves a remarkable impression. It happens quite a few times where for a fleeting moment I stop what I am doing and reflect on what I have done.
Where does this violence come from?
Why am I so cruel to these NPCs?
Is this behaviour of mine right?
Am I a hypocrite? Normally I am a pacifist but then I commit dreadful actions in games…
In the end I always come to the same conclusion; No, I am fine, the fact that those weird thoughts pop up indicates that I am well adjusted. And even if I did not have these intrusive thoughts it is always worth reiterating that virtual violence has no real life effects on other people, but I think it is important to beg those questions.
While what type of entertainment media we enjoy can sure show where our interests lie, or what we are intellectually interested in, or sexually attracted to, comitting to an act in a game, an analogue of our life, a mere simulation, does not nor should it ever equal real violence.
Games can be a test to some. Can you feel empathy for something that is not even alive? Do you stop and think about the actions and decisions you commit to before executing them? Or… Is it just a game to you? I am sure many people who indulge in the medium have thought about those aspects and genuinely considered them.
It is easy to vilify people for things they don’t understand, but game enthusiasts do understand what violence in games is committed, and that one of the big reasons for playing games is to experience brutality. That is fine, I would wager that it is even a good thing, but writing the concerns off wholesale isn’t the way to go either.
Many video game enthusiasts simply do not want to ask themselves these difficult questions, or want to entertain the thought that their favourite games might leave an impression on them. While it is very unlikely that a game will make you pick up a gun and make you “run amok”, games -at times more than other mediums- can significantly affect your mood and lead to influence your interests, political beliefs, or even creative aspirations. That also includes negative emotions, which many games try to invoke in the player on purpose, which also rings true to many books and films.
To outright deny the profound effects videogames can have on its consumers, is just as dishonest as believing that games are satanic or that they turn kids into rapist murderers wholesale. This is not an easy discussion, and I believe that video game lovers and haters have been dodging important questions, answers and considerations for too long, leading to a dysfunctional dialogue that will always result in “You are wrong and I am right” on either side.
Parents have every right to be concerned about what media their children consume and they should try to have an interest in what their kids consume, as they will ingest not only whatever happens on screen, but also pick up on some of the deeper meanings a piece of media has to offer, or even worse, may completely misunderstand what that media is trying to teach them. It is up to the parents to gauge if their children are mature enough to play certain games, which is why age recommendations exist.
Also, while games seldom hurt the consumers that play them, one genre of games can have an exceedingly detrimental effect on younger players, which would be multiplayer experiences. Verbal violence originating from other humans is exponentially more impactful than the virtual violence depicted on screen, which is why I would rather let my children play violent single player experiences like Quake, I have no Mouth and I must Scream or Doom, than play multiplayer experiences with voice and text chat.
Confrontation and learning to deal with toxicity are essential things in life, for which games are great to get this learning experience, but if your children are too young or too immature, it might be a bad idea to expose them to multiplayer experiences. To understand what your kids like to play, get indulged in the medium yourself. Play with your children, try to interest them in experiences that give them something back which is a little more significant than just entertainment value. That is the best thing you can do as a parent, teach your children to understand games or media as a whole better.
Final Thoughts #
Does it hurt your morality to play a game? Does it hurt your soul to read a book? Or on the extreme side of the spectrum, are you evil for consuming shock content? I would wager that if anything, getting indulged in darker topics helps most of us grow. While being a pessimist doesn’t help, gaining an understanding of the world around us, which requires the understanding of both the good and the bad, makes us aware of the pleasures and dangers of life, or of the many gifts and scams or even teaches us in matters regarding morality. Where is best to explore Morality other than video games? There simply is no better option.
I think violence in the media is necessary, even if truly vile. People who want to live in their fairytale wonderland can, but ignorance is bliss. While life has many cool things to offer, it doesn’t hurt to be confronted with history, the fact that sometimes violence hits innocent people, or that at times no greater meaning exists. Violent media can be challenging, but I would rather strive to understand the world I live in better, for which I am especially thankful for the grotesque experiences many love to hate.