Gore-less gamers left out in the cold.

[Rusty Claymore]

I was recently searching the web to find if it was possible to disable the gore in the latest fallout game. Having played a bit of the previous one, Fallout 3, I really enjoyed the gameplay and had a hankering for a gun based adventure.
Unfortuneately, the overwhelming voice was all attempts at cleaning Fallout Vegas up were sporadic at best. Besides the obvious "How hard could a no gore option have been to create originally for the game?"(esp. since the german version was clean), what shocked(or perhaps erked more acurately describes it) me was the responses of people who replied, "Why would you want to do that?" (Spelling, grammar, and basic english skills altered by me for understandablity.) Some even said that the gore was what made fallout attractive to them anyway. Downright sick, but whatever.

However, when the replies started trash-talking those who wished to turn off the gore, that crosses the line.

I'm fine with other people enjoying blowing the brains of someone's dad all over the place if that's how they get their kicks, but who do they think they are to tell me and the others who find such things distasteful that we have issues? 9/10 of all the responses were "wut u wanna do tht 4 idiot?" Or just downright rude mocking.
I don't see any point in arguing the consequences of gory entertainment, since if you want to try and change my mind about it we're going to have to take it outside, but to take an oppressive stand like that is unacceptable.

Why? Because that kind of "oppression" is what the pro-gore people whined about back when the general populace frowned upon destroying someone's body. They clamoured for "more realistic" games, and made a big fuss untill most games now on the market showcase brutal maulings and dismemberment. They got what they wanted.

So why the big immature fuss when a few people wish to play a clean version of fallout in their own home? Not even just making light of the issue, but going as far as verbally attacking?

*sigh* Anyways. In the future, if you enjoy a particular thing that others may find offensive, do not get combative when they seek out a clean version. Do not trash what they like simply because it's not what you like. Don't trash it for complicated reasons either. The only time to take action on such trivial things is when one's enjoyment infringes involuntarily upon someone else.

Not only is this basic common courtesy, but ultimately someone will eventually snap, and you will be snapped shortly thereafter.

Anyways, if anyone has any thoughts on the subject (or knows how to clean Fallout Vegas XP), feel free.

[Nate]

I just don't get it. To me it seems disingenuous at best.

You want to shoot people with a gun repeatedly but not be forced to see the consequences of your actions when you do such a thing? If the blood is what turns you off, why would you shoot people? When you shoot people, they bleed. If you don't like the blood, don't shoot people.

That's really my question. Why are you completely fine with wholesale murder of people in a game, but you don't want to see the portrayal of the consequences? Please note that I'm an avid fan of God of War, so I'm completely fine with wholesale murder AND blood and gore. To me, if you're going to accept one, you have to accept the other.

[mechana2015]

Fallout Vegas features the same engine as fallout 3, so violent death is still violent. It's essentially a really really big expansion pack and re-skin with a few new features such as making ammo and crafting and upgrading weapons.

[Rusty Claymore]

I just don't get it. To me it seems disingenuous at best.

You want to shoot people with a gun repeatedly but not be forced to see the consequences of your actions when you do such a thing? If the blood is what turns you off, why would you shoot people? When you shoot people, they bleed. If you don't like the blood, don't shoot people.

That's really my question. Why are you completely fine with wholesale murder of people in a game, but you don't want to see the portrayal of the consequences? Please note that I'm an avid fan of God of War, so I'm completely fine with wholesale murder AND blood and gore. To me, if you're going to accept one, you have to accept the other.

First off, I never murder people in the games I play. Definitly not on purpose, at least. So I am not fine with wholesale murder, and never will be.

As for shooting people repeatedly, it's a game. I like shooting, and I like simulated combat. The statement if applied to other games is somewhat rediculous. There are games where you can jump off really high buildings, but don't go splat. I haven't seen much of GoW, but I believe some of the moves performed by the main would rip his arms off. What about those consequences? The whole reason I'm playing a game is because it's fake. Being a gun owner myself, I would never point let alone fire my weapon at another person (or any living thing for that matter) facitiously.

Finaly, my issue is not with blood. How else would you know if you hit your mark? XP The "bloodsplat" effect doesn't bother me. What bothers me is punching someone and having their head explode. Or punching their arm or femur into pieces. And having those pieces go everywhere and stick around. That's just vile.

@Mech: PC versions of Fallout 3 are cleanable, but the same trick doesn't seem to work with Vegas. At the same time, the german release is clean, but I don't speak german.

[Nate]

First off, I never murder people in the games I play.

I don't see how you can play a game like that without killing at least one person, let alone a couple of hundred. Aren't there missions that pretty much require you to kill "bad guys?"

I haven't seen much of GoW, but I believe some of the moves performed by the main would rip his arms off. What about those consequences?

Fortunately that can be easily explained by the fact that Kratos is half god. ]The whole reason I'm playing a game is because it's fake.[/QUOTE]
Okay, but now you're contradicting yourself. If it's fake, the gore shouldn't bother you, because it's fake. If it bothers you, then clearly you are taking it as more than pixels on a screen. And if that's the case, why are you okay with shooting guys and killing them, but not seeing blood? It's still disingenuous. Either it's fake or it isn't. If it's fake, why are you complaining? If it isn't, why are you playing it in the first place?

What bothers me is punching someone and having their head explode.

But Fist of the North Star is a great series!

Or punching their arm or femur into pieces. And having those pieces go everywhere and stick around. That's just vile.

People have their bones broken like that all the time. 'Tis realistic. And what, you think it's better to have the pieces disappear after a period of time? Like in JRPGs? Actually I don't think that's limited to JRPGs. I think most games these days have people vanish when they die. Probably because if you leave every corpse and pixel of blood around, it slows down the game since the game has to remember all that stuff.

At the same time, the german release is clean, but I don't speak german.

So instead of learning German on your own time, you want to sit around and wait for someone else to fix your problem for you, then take it and use it without compensating them for their time or effort. Interesting. ;D

That was a joke by the way. I don't really expect you to learn German just to play a game. Though who knows, some people learn Japanese just to watch anime so I guess it takes all types. XD

[Rusty Claymore]

In your first point you answered your own question. Yeah, I've killed tons of bad guys in my gaming career. But that's not murder, it's killing. There is a difference.

I do not contradict myself, because by using gore the game is attempting to bridge the gap between itself and reality. If I play a game because it's fake, to have it designed for reality on distasteful(to me) levels defeats the point. This whole discourse misses my original point, which is what's it to other people how I like my entertainment in my own home?

I'm not telling you to stop watching FotNS, though by the sounds of it I may not enjoy it very much.

I am a martial artist, and I have yet to see an arm explode after being hit. That is unrelistic, because no matter how hard I try, my kick will never become a pnuematic drill. Breaks are different than exploding.

o.0 Now that I think about it, I did play a game in Japanese, so maybe I'll just get the German version... I never go along with the quests really anyways! XD

Ultimately though, this is a taste issue. I joke with my friends that I don't like gore in my blood. It's just my own quirky weird way. The whole problem is someone going beyond saying, "Huh, you're wierd." Because really, I could have told them that.

[Cloud500]

In your first point you answered your own question. Yeah, I've killed tons of bad guys in my gaming career. But that's not murder, it's killing. There is a difference.

I'm confused.

[Htom Sirveaux]

It's the Internet, bro. It's full of opinionated, argumentative twerps who would rather be mean and contradictory and run people down than actually be helpful. Don't take it personally.

[Cognitive Gear]

Man, that is unfortunate that they took out the ability to turn off the gore. It's not a feature that I ever use, but I think that it's a nice option for others to have.

I will say that I don't understand the need for it, but as long as it stays an option it's fine with me. Generally speaking, any game that would need to have an option to turn off gore isn't something that I would be okay letting a 12 year old play, gore or no gore.

[Nate]

I'm confused.

I'm seconding this. I'm confused as to what the difference is.

[MasterDias]

Killing in war or in self-defense isn't usually considered murder...in real life. I'm assuming this is what Rusty Claymore meant, but I'm not really certain what the point of making this argument about video games is, or if it would actually apply to Fallout 3. Seems like it's kind of just arguing semantics.

[Rusty Claymore]

@Cloud: I see where this gets confusing. Basically, Murder is the unsanctioned taking of life, aka killing. But you can kill someone without murdering them, aka sanctioned killing. Self defense, capital punishment, and Just warfare are pretty much the only sanctioned killing. That's at least what I have gleaned from the Bible anyway.

@Htom: Thank you for the marvelous example. XD

@Cog: Yeah. Some people just have different tastes where that's concerned.

[Nate]

Self defense, capital punishment, and Just warfare are pretty much the only sanctioned killing. That's at least what I have gleaned from the Bible anyway.

Last I checked you're not at war in a Fallout game, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince me you've never shot an enemy in this game until they shot at you first.

[MomentOfInertia]

Coming back on topic.

I would like to see more games offer options to reduce the intensity of certain content.

The best example of this sort of thin I've seen so far is Gears of War 2. Which had two options,one to disable the most over the top gore, and the other cut out the worst of the language by covering it with white noise from your radio and #ing it out of the subtitles.
I usually play with the language cut back (there is a lot of swearing otherwise,) I don't mind the blood though...I do agree that the gore in Fallout is a bit much.(I played 3)

[Shao Feng-Li]

I don't like tons of gore in games either. That kind of turned me off from playing Fallout 3. Bags of gore? Really? That's one thing I like about Infinity Ward's CoD games. There's blood and all, but not grey matter all over the wall XD

People getting on your case because you don't like an aspect of a game is just stupid. Nothing wrong with loving a game and wishing it wasn't so gory. I like games with gore reducing options. At some point, it goes from being realistic to just gross.

[Rusty Claymore]

Last I checked you're not at war in a Fallout game, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince me you've never shot an enemy in this game until they shot at you first.

There was that one time I shot the guy who was about to kill the Sherif. Which brings up the category I missed: Defense of another's life, which kinda falls under the self defense category. Otherwise I'm not hard pressed at all. Fallout is chalk full of things that want to kill you on sight. I don't kill anything that doesn't threaten my life first, or is garunteed to attack(for when I used a stealth char), and in the extremely rare case a quest related request killing. Of course whether you believe me or not, that's up to you.
Besides, being shot at was how I knew there was an enemy around in the first place! XD

@Shao: Exactly. I loved the actual gameplay and premise of Fallout 3, but the extent it took the gore was beyond what I want to put up with.

[Midori]

While I do not personally mind gore, I do mind it when my 9mm pistol bullet has the effects of a .50 caliber anti-material sniper round.

Actually, what bothers me most in these games is when you, like, shoot somebody several times and it splatters blood on the walls...but doesn't kill them. If you're seriously doing that much damage, they should be disabled, not running around and shooting back at you with the same vigor they always had.

[Rusty Claymore]

@Midori: Yeah, the intitial fistfight during the tutorial was really awkward because of that. Not only did you re-paint the walls a pretty red, but everyone in the vicinity was covered in blood and saying, "I hope I pass my GOAT!"

[Atria35]

Honestly, I find the exaggerated gore and the fact that few people notice/care rather hilarious. Of course, some of that that's probably because I read a certain cartoon that explained that the reason why there was unrealistic carnage was because the guns didn't shoot bullets- they shot invisible pink unicorns who's jockeys carried garrotte wire.

I can't see those heads go off without picturing those unicorns, now.

[Fish and Chips]

This'll probably sound jerkish, but I'm going to say if you want to avoid gore in video games you should probably not play M-rated video games, or at least not certain M-rated video games. That's what the ESRB description on the back of the box is for you know.

The German version's "Clean" because censorship regulations won't permit it otherwise. You'd be hard-pressed to find German gamers who consider this satisfactory, though I imagine a number of them might not care as long as they got the game.

I'm not saying M-rated stuff should be stocked to the brim with exploding dudes and crunchy injury physics - and not all of it is - but, if you stand up in the middle of an R-rated film and say, "I can't believe people talk like this!" nobody else in the theater is going to understand you.

[ShiroiHikari]

I'm not saying M-rated stuff should be stocked to the brim with exploding dudes and crunchy injury physics - and not all of it is - but, if you stand up in the middle of an R-rated film and say, "I can't believe people talk like this!" nobody else in the theater is going to understand you.

Pretty much this.

[Htom Sirveaux]

Midori's post reminded me of when I was playing Red Dead Redemption and outside the saloon in Armadillo, this drunk guy was wailing on a defenseless "lady of negotiable affection." I thought I'd teach him a lesson, so I shot him in the groin. I expected to see him grab his wounded area and limp away. Instead he just died. Then townspeople start running willy-nilly and screaming their heads off like I'm the jerk here. Hey, it wasn't my fault. How was I to know all of this guy's major organs were in his scrotum? Seriously, what the heck.

[mechana2015]

Well that actually would be fatal Tom... it would just take a bit longer, but thats a juncture of quite a few major blood vessels and arteries, including the femoral arteries. There actually should have been blood everywhere from that shot. They actually probably toned it down because the actual results from that would be pretty horrifying.

[Rusty Claymore]

@Fish: I don't think you sound jerkish, and for the most part I do avoid games that have content I find distasteful. Fallout is an exception because the gameplay is excellent and on a pc you can mod it to change things to your liking(well, attempt to at least according to my reading). If it turns out I can't mod it successfully, I will continue in my decision to not play it.
On more of a side not the ESRB rating is hardly even a guidline, since Strong Language and Blood and Gore are both on Fallout and Army of Two, but the differences are huge.
Also I agree that standing up in the theater like that is foolish, but the topic was someone talking about cleaning the R-rated movie for their own viewing at home and having people attack them for it.

@Htom: It's been proven that kneecaps and toes are vital organs. XD

[Atria35]

Bad analogy, since editing a movie, even for one's own viewing in your own home, could potentially be a copyright violation.

Since a majority of gamers seem to not want or care about the level of gore, I suspect that the company would decide it would be a waste of effort and money to put something in that would disable the gore.

[Shao Feng-Li]

Bad analogy, since editing a movie, even for one's own viewing in your own home, could potentially be a copyright violation.

Well, you do have TVG and the fast forward button. I personally hate TVG, but I happily skip past a sex scene.

could potentially be a copyright violation.

Only if you get caught

I'm joking... of course... >_>

[Rusty Claymore]

@Atria: I belive copyright violations are for when you market someone else's property. If I edited and then sold or made the edited version available for free, then yes I would be.

As for the option as a waste of time and money, I don't think it would cost anything and it would take very little time. They wrote the script for the gore, and can easily include one to disable it. Scripting an additional option in a menu would be no intense feat for someone in the business. In fact, for Fallout 3, if you open the script there is already a line variable for gore. If you just change a 0 to 1 it will disable it. New Vegas seems to ignore that scriptline even if you change it though.

[GrubbTheFragger]

While i was going to say "you know after a Nuclear enemies skin and bodies, ie mutants, might be softer so bullets do more damage or that the fact is its not current day its a fantasy scifi game and the guns in that universe could easily be more deadly therefore doing way more damage" and there was gonna be more stuff but what i will say try not to sound sarcastic or jerkish is. By the way that whole thing about being attracted to fall out because of gore thing being vile......yeah thats me its kind of a stress releaver to behead a jerk with a shot gun after a hard days work so yeah whatever apparently i am vile, but moving on

Fallout 3 is a M-rated title for more than gore, be it sex,language and your upset about the gore hmm, well okay passing that point, i'll say removing gore from fallout not only is imo defacing the artists vision, as dark as it may be. It would all so cut out ghouls the inhabitants of the fallout universe that have rotting flesh and exposed muscle because of radiation which has some bearings on the "real-ness" of the plot so my final word, go to Gamestop and say hey, i like fallout but not the gore, whats a game i can play that is like that they will happily help, and you know ignore the people on the internet who degrade you.

The thing about the ghouls kinda takes bearing out of this quote by the way

As for the option as a waste of time and money, I don't think it would cost anything and it would take very little time. They wrote the script for the gore, and can easily include one to disable it. Scripting an additional option in a menu would be no intense feat for someone in the business. In fact, for Fallout 3, if you open the script there is already a line variable for gore. If you just change a 0 to 1 it will disable it. New Vegas seems to ignore that scriptline even if you change it though

[Rusty Claymore]

@Grubb: First off, sorry for coming across as prickly by using severe wording while describing my frustrations! I am not calling people vile, I'm refering to acts I personally find vile in an exagerated manner out of disgruntlement about having people attacked simply because they prefer their entertainment presented in a way that isn't considered mainstream. It is the same thing as if I find eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes hard to stomach, but you find it delightful. Whereas I might complain eating it is a loathsome deed, I do not claim those who enjoy it are loathesome. n.n/)

The first line in your second paragraph brings up an interesting facet to this topic. You do not take any issue with gore in games, and it seems odd to you that I do. At the same time, I find it hard to understand how someone can be at ease taking out stress in such a manner(and bringing into play the earlier "bridging the reality gap" bit). At its simplest, it is just individual tastes. Tastes are complicated and usually don't make sense. An example being that I have little issue with the ghouls. What bothers me is the active destroying of someone's body. When the gap between the game and reality is wide enough that shooting enemies only results in unanimated bodies falling to the ground upon expiry, then it's essentially practice dummies not unlike those found in martial art schools (and one of which I own myself.)

I understand where you are coming from on defacing the artist's vision, but nobody has a problem with doing that if the artist's vision is contrary towards their own. I don't use this as an excuse, but when someone is in favor of defacing the original vision they call it parody. Many gore parodies have been made of otherwise gore free games. But none the less, as I said I get your point.

One last thing, just cause I haven't really come out and said it: I am not playing Fallout, and will not in the future. I played just enough to wish I could play more but know it strikes too hard against my personal convictions. Fallout itself wasn't ever really the topic of this thread anyways. XD

[Bobtheduck]

@Atria: I belive copyright violations are for when you market someone else's property. If I edited and then sold or made the edited version available for free, then yes I would be.

Yes. For your own purposes not to be shared with the public, you're allowed to alter or damage the thing to your hearts content, otherwise you'd be in copyright violation every time you scratched a DVD.

I can understand wanting gore-free versions of things. My Wife is incredibly squeamish, and it would be great to share some of my favorite games and movies with her if I could get toned down versions, even though those things don't bug me personally... Usually. There are exceptions.