'interactive and challenging' = 'simulated killing'
It's unquestionably one way of making a game exciting (to certain sorts of players), by tapping into the fight/flight reflex. A related technique is with sports simulations, although those have never held any appeal for me.
Hmmm, what games have I played and enjoyed that did not involve some sort of simulated violence? Precious few, I have to admit. Even if you disregard the first-person-shooters like Doom and its offspring, I have tended to play military flight simulators, military strategy games or combat-oriented RPGs.
An interesting philosophical point: which is the most disturbing form of simulated violence - blowing a single soldier into bloody chunks in Half-Life, or launching a salvo of anti-ship missiles into a frigate in Harpoon? In the first case the simulated experience is very different from the real thing. In the second, as you click your mouse on a stylized 'enemy' symbol on a synthetic radar picture, it is all but identical...
And how much is this a man/woman thing? There's clearly a strong bias, but one female gamer of our mutual acquaintance (Sue D) is a blast-em-to-bits fan who thought Deus Ex "didn't have enough action", whilst bugshaw was for a long time a fan of Age of Empires, which featured plenty of Smiting Mightily. [But in that case it might be a strategy as opposed to violence issue; she enjoyed the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers a lot more than she thought she would precisely because it was presented in terms of strategy and tactics rather than just Orc-bashing.]
However, my latest gaming obsession is unlikely to see me becoming a psychotic maniac. I've been resisting for years, but I've finally caught Solitaire Syndrome of bugshaw...
no subject
It's unquestionably one way of making a game exciting (to certain sorts of players), by tapping into the fight/flight reflex. A related technique is with sports simulations, although those have never held any appeal for me.
Hmmm, what games have I played and enjoyed that did not involve some sort of simulated violence? Precious few, I have to admit. Even if you disregard the first-person-shooters like Doom and its offspring, I have tended to play military flight simulators, military strategy games or combat-oriented RPGs.
An interesting philosophical point: which is the most disturbing form of simulated violence - blowing a single soldier into bloody chunks in Half-Life, or launching a salvo of anti-ship missiles into a frigate in Harpoon? In the first case the simulated experience is very different from the real thing. In the second, as you click your mouse on a stylized 'enemy' symbol on a synthetic radar picture, it is all but identical...
And how much is this a man/woman thing? There's clearly a strong bias, but one female gamer of our mutual acquaintance (Sue D) is a blast-em-to-bits fan who thought Deus Ex "didn't have enough action", whilst
However, my latest gaming obsession is unlikely to see me becoming a psychotic maniac. I've been resisting for years, but I've finally caught Solitaire Syndrome of
MC