Gearbox Carefully Defends 'Brothers In Arms' Extreme Violence

REALZILLA - 459 days 16 hours ago

This game is going to be very controversial and it going to make GTA4 look like CookyMamma.

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bomboclaat_gamer - 459 days 14 hours ago

gears of war done it, lots of games done it before. its nothing new

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imprisoned243 - 438 days 11 hours ago

Just because there is gore in a game doesn't automatically make it wrong. In my opinion, Brothers in Arms is *not* just a video game. If you will pardon me for the cliché, Brothers in Arms is a remembrance of those who fought for the freedoms people take for granted today. The 1998 movie "Saving Private Ryan" was the first movie to really open the eyes of the world to what the Second World War was like for those men, fathers, brothers, and sons in the military; its purpose was not to have a bunch of cool special and graphic effects, but to make people finally understand what those soldiers felt. Gore should be made as realistic as it can be made for a "game" like this. To me, the gore is *not* meant to make you say, "Wow! That was cool!" When you see a grenade blow apart the upper half of a soldier's head, a rocket sever a limb, or 88mm shell rip a man in half, it *should* make you feel sick to your stomach; it should make you understand and feel what it was like for that soldier's best friend - his brother in arms - see his only family stripped away from his life.

I'm an interesting individual, and take pleasure in finding literary values in any story I hear or read. For example, while playing Brothers in Arms series, I noted to myself, as a teacher would to a student, that the reason Gearbox induced comedy in the Brothers in Arms series is to make you become attached to the characters and like them, so when that new and likeable soldier is killed, you gasp and say, "They can't kill him! He's was too likable!" and feel down (maybe even depressed) about it. When I play a video game's story campaign, I don't want some shallow plot with shallow characters. To be honest, I personally feel that the Brothers in Arms series has been the only game to date that has succeeded in getting the player involved on an emotional level. Almost every video game's story won't even attempt to get the player emotionally involved, and the few video games that do make an attempt fail at it, usually due to a lack of tangible characters, although, I know that a large reason as to their failures is because they are a video game, a type of media meant for entertainment, not for shock and enlightenment of the brutality and ugliness of reality.

I was never enthusiastic with the Halo series because it lacked relatable characters (save Sergeant Avery Johnson, but his character wasn't as well established due to his unimportance) and a deep plot that could keep me interested; it lacked just about all literary value. I never thought twice when Miranda, or even Avery Johnson, died. Brothers in Arms, on the other hand, makes me stop, think, and say to myself, "I bet every man on Earth would weep if they had experienced what that character just experienced," and fine, I'll admit it: I cried at parts. But that's what the game is *supposed* to do: make you laugh when a soldier (and your friend) cracks a joke, cry when he dies, or even become [seriously] vengeful against the man who just killed that friend.

But I digress. I already stated my thoughts about how and why Brothers in Arms' gore should be made as realistic as possible. However, a game like Grand Theft Auto, which has no moral message, nothing historical that can be learned, or no real positive things in general that could be walked away with, should *never* be made as realistic as possible. This is because its purpose of the gore would just be for the sake of the gore, not for making the player realize how painful it would be to see a close friend die like that.

So, in summation, if the game's goal isn't to make you learn something [positive], gore should be kept to a minimum.

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Bathyj - 438 days 10 hours ago

imprisoned243 great post and have a bubble on me. I completely agree.

The gore in BiA is nothing we haven't seen before. Its the context its in that makes you cringe, and it should. Its not supposed to be nice. Saying gore is ok in Gears because its fantasy but not ok in a real war is backwards thinking. If anything Gears is worse because it desensitises the violence and lets you just shrug it off. It BiA its in your face and its real and you cant help but think about all those guys, kids really who saved the world.

I too got misty eyed at times during the game. In fact, so compelling were the characters and story that I started watching Band of Brothers, a fantastic series while playing through the game. They cover many of the same events and locations and it just maked me reflect all the more. And care all the more.

In Gears, I wouldn't have given a toss if Dom or my whole team had died. Generic meathead gets shot, who cares? BiA is way different and its the brutality and authenticity of everything that makes it so. You WANT to take care of your men in BiA. You WANT them ALL to complete each mission.

War is war. Don't try to sugarcoat it and take the voilence out so you can get a T for teen sticker on it. Show it for it brutal truth. Less we forget. I think even the vetrans would understand this transends being mearly a game for kids to play, but another medium that historys lessons can be passed down by. In a few decade there may be no more veterans left that were there. Without the stories, be they movies, books, songs or games how are we to remember?

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