The author mentions that many games now treat death as comedic or at least have backed away from in-your-face player death. I would love to see their take on death in the Dead Space series, where you are frequently treated to the sight of your character's body being dismembered by your enemies.
Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
21–30 of 45 posts
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#22[deleted]
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#23Movies, TV, games...they all desensitize us (everyday Americans, at least) to death, or a certain view of it, in so many ways. Yet, we're all (soldiers excluded) incredibly disconnected to death, to the point where we're actually trying to solve the problem of death. As if it's something we can logically reason out of our lives with science and medicine. Seems like 100 years ago, people were dying a lot, all the time…
> Yet, we're all (soldiers excluded) incredibly disconnected to death, to the point where we're actually trying to solve the problem of death. As if it's something we can logically reason out of our lives with science and medicine.
I disagree. We wanted solve death since time immemorial, and it's strongly reflected in our culture. What's different this time is that some of us look at our level of technology and understanding of life and realize that it's about time to finally do it. To kill Death.
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#24I'm not sure what this title is about. "Wrecked" has such a negative connotation attached to the word. Are you sure your view of death is worse than it was before video games? What are the implications of your view being changed and doo you behave in a worse way now than you imagine you would with a different view of death?
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#25Some of the single player parts of the Call of Duty series have featured you dying bad deaths.
The one that sticks in my mind is in Modern Warfare (I think) when the nuke goes off while you're fleeing the city. You assume you're going to survive. Then the nuke goes off, your helicopter crashes, everyone around you is dead, you stagger out, look around a little bit (still assuming you'll be saved), fall over, and die.
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#26I'll be perfectly honest...I found this article to be not only pointless, but full of false ideas as well. I'd rather read Elements of Style all over again than read that poor excuse of an essay.
One thing really irked me...the author states that initially "...death was a failure state because it required little explanation and was easy to quantify from a programming and visual standpoint."
Bullshit. Death is a failure state because it's a natural mode of failure for a hero on an adventure trying to fight off a horde of koopas/moblins/thugs/zombies/aliens/etc. Developers used death not as an easy way to signify failure, but as a sensible way to signify failure.
Sure, he can bring up games like Super Dodge Ball to illustrate his point that the mechanism of death was sometimes forced into the game to convey failure scenarios, but then what about games like Duck Hunt, Sim City, and Super Tecmo Bowl? In not one of those games did your avatar 'die' in any failure scenario. Failure was denoted in a multitude of other ways in those games.
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#27Some of the single player parts of the Call of Duty series have featured you dying bad deaths. The one that sticks in my mind is in Modern Warfare (I think) when the nuke goes off while you're fleeing the city. You assume you're going to survive. Then the nuke goes off, your helicopter crashes, everyone around you is dead, you stagger out, look around a little bit (still assuming you'll be saved), fall over, and die.
Yes, that was Modern Warfare 1. I remember that part; it felt both sad and disturbing. You weren't just fleeing the city, you just finished an emergency rescue of a single person from the battlefield. Then boom, 40 000 souls are gone. I think Modern Warfare 1 and 2 were the first games when during the plot your protagonist died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#28"FPS Doug" instantly comes to mind. "Sometimes I think maybe I want to join the army. I mean, it's basically like FPS, except better graphics. But, what happens if I get lag out there? I'm dead! I mean, I even heard there aren't any respawn points in RL." [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9qXbgrx9rg
uuuuuughhhh I completely forgot about those videos.
BOOM HEADSHOT!
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#29When are we going to accept the scientific evidence that video games (and movies before them (and books before them)) don't fundamentally change a person's philosophy? Books in particular are really good at helping you explore ideas and challenge your preconceived notions, but the subconscious effect is akin to hypnosis, completely incapable of making you do or believe something that you ordinarily wouldn't have.
Concern trolling makes for a good read I guess. People are wired to always be on the lookout for the next good thing to be concerned about.
Re: Death is not the end: video games wrecked my idea of mortality
#30Edge of Tomorrow, anyone? Heh.