Toning it down

Things probably won’t get that far, though. Advances in technology are pushing people to think. Instead of simply using the new generations of video carts to crank out way-cool-looking gorefests where every second room is worthy of a centerfold in Fangoria, shooter developers are branching out. Today’s action games are more complex than ever before, in terms of both play mechanics and their treatment of violence. The blood and guts may look better than ever, but there’s more to the games themselves than building better gibbing effects.

Military and tactical shooters, so in vogue over the past couple of years, are now handling violence with a serious nod to the horrors of war. Pterodon Team’s Vietcong does a fantastic job on the realities of close combat, complete with soldiers who occasionally nudge dead enemies with their feet to convince themselves of the reality of the situation. The Medal of Honor series is getting more realistic as it goes, with the Spearhead and upcoming Breakthrough expansion packs focusing more on historical realism than the “Quake with Nazis” style of the original. Splinter Cell goes out of its way to provide alternatives for bloodshed, and even includes special rounds that let you incapacitate enemies rather than kill them.

Developers are also moving into different areas. No matter what you think of violence in gaming, this is a real positive. We’ve been stuck in a rut the past few years with little but realistic and semi-realistic military and tactical shooters, so it’s great to see designers getting back to good old demons and aliens. Doom III looks to feature the old-school mob of blood-splattered zombies, flying heads, and monster spiders. Half-Life II will pit Gordon Freeman against an occupying alien army. And Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy will certainly be more creature cantina than commando.

But no matter what, the question of violence in games is only going to assume more of a prominent role as technology improves in the future. Gore will be a bigger and bigger issue, even if the blood being shed is green. Right now, we take extreme violence as a given, especially in shooters, where the body count for a single level typically exceeds anything that the U.S. military has experienced thus far in Iraq. With games getting better and better at bringing this sort of real-world violence into our homes, that can’t be the case any longer.