Just reading the words 'Would you kindly?' gives me shivers. Bioshock was a fucking good game.

Also, First on page 2!!!

War. Nothing compared to what might happen if things keep going the way they are...

That real picture almost made me puke! .. *Bleep*ing disgusting! ..

And Joe, would you be kind and never put in a real picture of dismembered limbs? :P ..

this is a great article i like it alot lots of deep stuff/thinking on the 2nd page here i like that kinda stuff keep up the good work and happy new year to ya'll at GR.

ya happy new year and great artical GR

ok. I am selfish if I drop 60 bucks on a mature rated game, I expected to see blood, guts, spit, and dismembered ass flying through the air. I'm a big boy. I know not to play gears of war in front of my kids. however, when it's just me, bring on the intense violence, strong language, drug and alcohol references (Fuck if snake wants a cigarette who am I to judge him?).

gamesradar is definitely right. games are bloodier nowadays. man i wish i had dead space..

nyef obviously didn't read the second page.

@MitsuharuSan,
The American's limbs can also be taken/torn off, not just the Japanese. So can the Russians, and Germans.
And in response to your comment "I'm sick of games portraying the Japanese as enemies": Name one game other than Waw that the Japanese are enemies.
But then again, it's not like the Japanese tried to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Oh wait, they did.
I'm sorry but the Japanese have not been targeted racially in any video game I've heard of, and if they were than that is wrong but in WaW they weren't.

However, that said I am 100% sympathetic to the amount of ignorance that the majority of Americans show and also the amount of "USA FTW" I think that racism is wrong and feel for your family that has suffered when those things were happening.
Nothing personal but you were playing it that WaW is racist, if I came off rude or racist I didn't mean it and apologize. No hard feelings.

Nothin' but bits.

M rated are M rated for a reason. if u dont like it dont buy the game. and people who think that us playing games will make us do it in real life should lay offand go live their perfect little, well behaved lives

It kind of pisses me off that some non-gamers and politicians are on a crusade (JACK THOMPSON) to get rid of these kinds of games, just because they think the people who play these are going to do things like this in real life. Violence, is unfortunately, a part of life, like it being in the news or even experienced firsthand.

When you look past the violence in a game, the stuff you see is great, like a story, and characters who are like real people, and not mindless killers.

I love it when something I've written stirs up passionate responses and gets people thinking and talking.

The point of the article is not to make a value judgment as to whether game violence is good or bad or causes real world violence. It's an exploration of how current events consciously or subconsciously influence game design choices. It's questioning why this year more than others we as a culture seem to crave dismemberment as entertainment. Not just gore, but specifically dismemberment. Sure, games have always been violent and gory. But games where you actively dismember your enemies have always been the exception not the rule, have stood out from the crowd for their ultraviolence. Now, its de rigeur.

I find it fascinating that we love to do things in games that we'd never do in real life. We (I say we because I do it too) justify all manner of sociopathic behavior in games by saying, "Well, its fun because it's not real," without ever taking the next crucial step toward self-awareness: asking why is it fun to pretend you're chainsawing someone in half, what psychological need is being fulfilled by that fantasy.

Gory movies used to terrify me - when Freddy Kreuger ripped that kid's tendons out and played him like a marionette, I didn't sleep for weeks! Now, I expect everything I shoot in videogames to fly apart in a bloody mess and I don't even blink. But yeah, it changes when its real people. We all know someone, a friend or acquaintance or family member who's spent time in Iraq, and we fear for what might happen to them while they're deployed. The news media purposefully doesn't show images like the one I linked to, because they know people won't support a war if they have to see the consequences. They're smart enough to have learned that lesson from Vietnam. I struggled over whether to include that link, and finally decided to because it was vital to linking real-world events with game content. I apologize if it grossed anyone out, but it was clearly labeled for what it was.

Ok, I've taken up enough comment space now.

@MitsuharuSan:
Much as I understand your sentiments and to some extent agree with them - the atomic bombings of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while possibly necessary for ending the war quickly, were nothing less than a horrific tragedy - I would like to point out that the Japanese were neither blameless nor exemplary during World War II.

Never mind Pearl Harbor; if you'd like to learn more about the fun atrocities the Japanese military thought it necessary to commit before and during WWII, Google "Korea Japanese occupation," "Rape of Nanking" or - my personal favorite - "Unit 731" sometime.

I'm not saying, of course, that Japanese soldiers weren't/aren't people, or that all of them were to blame for said horrors, or that we should exult in their destruction, even if it's just in-game destruction. (I also don't think modern Japanese should be blamed, as they still are in much of Asia, for war crimes committed more than 60 years ago.) But I can't help but feel that those outraged by the depiction of Japanese soldiers as enemies in a WWII game could use a quick history lesson before coming to that conclusion.

Love all dose games hurray for gore and violence :D

I'm only 13, and therefore i haven't played all of these games.i have, however, played enough of them to know what is tame, what is horrible, and what is downright disgusting.
call of duty 5, for example, is hugely violent, and very graphic in some cases, yet you don't hear any lawyers, or political parties, or even newspapers going on about it. they target games like grand theft auto. and they target these not because of the violence, but because of the freedom. you can do almost ANYTHING on that game, ranging from driving a car to dating a man via an internet dating site. violence is not usually the sort of stuff that gets people to shout out, not Dead Spaces dismemberment, or Fallout 3's blood splattering deaths.
the stuff that gets them worried, hell even scared, is the freedom we are given in today's games.

oh, and by the way, it just occurred to me that seeing as how so many people find the true war image excruciatingly painful to look at, we are not entirely de-sanitized by video game violence.
hell, it took me ten whole minutes to raise enough courage to click on the link!
and now i'm paying the price

all the good games are gory
Mortal Kombat v.s DC should have been bloodier though