Gaming discussion with CKeen

Discuss classic and favorite computer or console games here.
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Post by Dynamo »

Lava89 wrote:Well I see it like horror movies. Just because Jack the Ripper is the bad guy, doesn't mean I want to see him chop people up. In the same way, I don't like to surround myself in a hellish environment and play in such a world.
I don't think it's the same for a movie at all. If I have to be perfectly honest I dislike splatter/horror movies eavily. Said "bad guy" is usually the protagonist in a movie, but he wouldn't be in a videogame. In fact the bad guys in Doom are trying to chop you up and your mission is to prevent them from doing just that. And since they're very bizarre monsters (mechanical spiders with plasma guns), I still fail to see how they can be disturbing. It's nothing like killing sprites that represent civilians.

As for the environment I've always thought of it being extremely interesting. As most people here know I'm a doom mapper and I've experimented with environments in doom for quite a while, often mixing it up with techno or medieval/fantasy environments and they fit quite well. Again, I fail to see how the environment can be disturbing as I recall seeing only ONE satanic pentagram in the whole doom series (first and second games, that is).
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Ceilick wrote:The problem is your reasoning that "showing something as a bad guy makes it okay to to show it in the first place". Regardless of whether 'demons' and demonic imagery is shown as good or bad, its there, and thats where some people have a problem. Its dark imagery and some people find that disturbing, while others have a higher tolerance for being exposed to that kind of material.
I can actually see reason in this. I agree with CKeen in that I personally find Doom's environments to be really cool, in its combination of dark fantasy and tech/sci-fi themes, and I too enjoy mapping for Doom and creating such strange, surreal environments. But I tend in general to have a taste and appreciation for dark, twisted themes like those, and it's fair that not everybody think the same way. I don't personally understand the aversion, but that doesn't make it wrong. (And maybe CKeen doesn't think it makes it wrong either, I don't know.)
CKeen wrote:Again, I fail to see how the environment can be disturbing as I recall seeing only ONE satanic pentagram in the whole doom series (first and second games, that is).
There is a pentacle on almost every teleporter pad in E2, which puts a whole bunch in E2M1 alone. :P
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Post by Dynamo »

CKeen wrote:There is a pentacle on almost every teleporter pad in E2, which puts a whole bunch in E2M1 alone. :P
Lolz, this is actually true now that you mention it. I didn't even consider that. I was referring to a pentagram actually made with sectors that is in.... e2m7 if I'm not mistaken, in a secret area filled with cacodemons.

Also funny fact. Even though I've been playing doom since I was 3 I was never really scared much by it. I think this was partly because of the catchy music and the not-so dark atmosphere in a lot of the levels (even the hell levels do not feel scary). But I remember getting scared as fucl when I reached the fourth level in each world in super mario brothers 1. The music scared the fucl out of me. Also this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtfwbXMAFEo scared me more than any doom mod I've ever played.

Also, if there's a doom that is truly scary that would be Doom 64. The first time I played it (I was very young) I remember quitting as soon as I met the first zombieman. The music alone was just....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgjReQjFyA0

Compare it to the PC version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJzveo6IBsU

Well, you can judge by yourself. Good thing I didn't play that when I was 3 though :P Doom 64 is now one of my favourite games.
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Post by Ceilick »

I can actually see reason in this. I agree with CKeen in that I personally find Doom's environments to be really cool, in its combination of dark fantasy and tech/sci-fi themes, and I too enjoy mapping for Doom and creating such strange, surreal environments. But I tend in general to have a taste and appreciation for dark, twisted themes like those, and it's fair that not everybody think the same way. I don't personally understand the aversion, but that doesn't make it wrong. (And maybe CKeen doesn't think it makes it wrong either, I don't know.)
I actually enjoy those environments too (although I'm not really a doom fan). In my opinion, a person's aversion to that kind of material is going to depend on what kind of similar material they've been exposed to (desensitization) , how they were exposed to it (their age, their mood, other life experiences), and generally the level of immersion they experience while gaming. For some people its just not going to add up to enjoyable.
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Post by MOM4Evr »

Hey, guys, sorry if I caused this whole huge debate myself... didn't mean to...
Anyhoo, just to clear up a bit of confusion:
CKeen: I can understand where you're coming from. And I agree pretty much with what you're saying. Here's why I don't play "gory" games, even if they are "fun":
It's a matter of worldview and upbringing. You, as an Atheist (I take it), have no qualms about whatever games you play, as long as they seem "fun" to you. (Correct me if I'm wrong) To you, the games are there simply for the purpose of playing them and having fun.
For me, serving God is priority #1. You may think this isn't "fun", but sounds lame. Hence why you are an Atheist. But serving God gives me joy (Scripturally defined joy, not some kind of happiness or feelings as others may define it), and for me, this is more important than having "fun". To me, your definition of "fun" sounds shallow, but it sounds deep to you.

To sum it all up: I'm not saying Red Alert is bad, and I'm not saying Doom is bad. It may very well be that if I went back and played Red Alert, I'd decide that I was overreacting before, or I may still feel the same way. As per other "religious" people playing "gory" games and feeling "fine" about it, yes, I understand your point. (My uncle, who introduced me to Red Alert, is a chaplain in the army) However, I answer to God, not to other Christians. (As for the Mormon stuff, don't clump different religions together. Countries in the Middle East are at war with each other, even though all of them are "Muslims" ;) ) The long and short is that I'd have to play these games myself to get an opinion about it. You say Doom's artwork and music don't lend themselves to being dark, demonic, and scary. Ok. I might play Doom now to see, I might not. I do have a lot of homework and stuff to do.

Speaking of which, I'm in a group project meeting starting now. Bye.
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MOM4Evr wrote:You, as an Atheist (I take it), have no qualms about whatever games you play, as long as they seem "fun" to you. (Correct me if I'm wrong) To you, the games are there simply for the purpose of playing them and having fun.
For me, serving God is priority #1. You may think this isn't "fun", but sounds lame. Hence why you are an Atheist. But serving God gives me joy (Scripturally defined joy, not some kind of happiness or feelings as others may define it), and for me, this is more important than having "fun". To me, your definition of "fun" sounds shallow, but it sounds deep to you.
I'm not sure that this is what you're saying, but this reeks a bit of the "atheists have no definite sense of morality or life purpose" attitude I feel some Christians have, which in case that is what you think is totally bogus. I would never play games about things that I found immoral, even if they did have good gameplay or whatever. And by the same token, I get totally different feelings of satisfaction from doing things I just think are "fun", like playing computer/video games, versus doing things that I feel are for the betterment of the world, my own character, etc.

I'm sorry if that wasn't what you actually meant, but it really gets to me when I feel like religious people assume I'm an immoral or shallow person because I have no God.
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Post by MOM4Evr »

No indeed. I definitely didn't mean to come across that way at all. Just meant to say that different upbringings change your perspective on different things. Maybe Ceilick put it better above. ^^

In no way did I mean to imply that Atheists are immoral simply because they're Atheists. I'm sorry that you get that kind of impression from other Christians you're around. I'd also wonder where they got that theology from... the Bible says that everyone is a sinner, not just Atheists...
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Okay, cool. I was pretty sure that that wasn't what you meant, and given that your other post was also misconstrued I figured it might be the case here. :crazy There definitely are such people out there, unfortunately, and I certainly know plenty of Christians who find them embarrassing, much like myself and my reaction to atheists who are like "HURRR WORSHIPPING GOD MAKES YOU A STOOPID CLOSE-MINDED SHEEPLE PERSON" or anything like that.

Anyway, yes, back to the subject of gaming... :P
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Post by Dynamo »

MOM4Evr wrote:Hey, guys, sorry if I caused this whole huge debate myself... didn't mean to...
Why are you apologizing? Forums are meant to discuss things. That is exactly what we are doing here.
MOM4Evr wrote:It's a matter of worldview and upbringing. You, as an Atheist (I take it), have no qualms about whatever games you play, as long as they seem "fun" to you. (Correct me if I'm wrong) To you, the games are there simply for the purpose of playing them and having fun.
First, I'm not really an atheist. I'm agnostic (fucl typo). If I have to be honest although I think atheism is more plausible to me being atheist is just as arrogant as being christian (no offense intended to anyone, it's just what I think).

Second, that is both correct and non-correct. I do play games like Rayman and Keen that are light-hearted and do not feature blood or anything, but I also play more "violent" games like Blood or Shadow Warrior. But as I stated earlier in the thread I would also not play games that seem immoral to me. For example I wouldn't play a game where you take the role of a young nazi officer and must kill jews just because they're jews, or you have to torture people or something. I would never play something like that. In most games I play as I said, you're usually the "good guy" and even if you're evil you're usually going against an even bigger evil, so you are automatically not committing moral crimes in a way. Hell, even in GTA you're somehow the "nicest" guy around and in a lot of games like vice city stories and san andreas you are actually forced to kill people. In addition to this the San Andreas and Vice City Stories characters, as well as others, seem to dislike drugs and similar stuff. I know nobody cares but I thought I'd say it anyway.

However, the reason I like games like Shadow Warrior is because they're fun to play, yes. The combat system is kick-ass, the levels are well designed and fun to explore, the weapons are nice and varied, there are a lot of items and powerups that you can use, there are puzzles that give you a break from the shooting, and the monsters are challenging and sometimes hard to take down, and just fun to fight. This is why I like games like this one.
MOM4Evr wrote:For me, serving God is priority #1. You may think this isn't "fun", but sounds lame. Hence why you are an Atheist. But serving God gives me joy (Scripturally defined joy, not some kind of happiness or feelings as others may define it), and for me, this is more important than having "fun". To me, your definition of "fun" sounds shallow, but it sounds deep to you.
I still can't understand how God has anything to do with Doom. If you're a real christian you should know better than me that the christian groups that complain about violence in video games are not God, they're humans exactly like the ones who make violent games are human, the difference is that they do false accuses and can't mind their own business. I've been playing doom since when I was 3 and I never killed anyone, nor do I have the urge of killing someone (violence in real life in general disturbs me a lot, I actually think violence in videogames keeps real-life violence away. Plato or some of the other greek philosophies agrees with me as he once stated that *SIMULATED* violence in games (not video games obviously :P) kept real life violence away in kids). I also know a lot of people who play videogames and they are normal. If someone killed a person because he wanted to do what he saw in the videogame it's not the videogame's fault but the person's, since he just was mentally too weak to play a videogame. And if it wasn't the videogame that would have made him do that, he would have did it anyway sooner or later.

So yeah, I don't know why God should be disappointed if you play a game where you have to *fight* demons. Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know God doesn't want you to commit bad acts such as masturbating (and I'll never get what's wrong with it either, but this has nothing to do with our current subject), stealing or killing people. But if you play a game where you fight monsters or even real people you aren't killing people at all. So, what's wrong with it?
MOM4Evr wrote:To sum it all up: I'm not saying Red Alert is bad, and I'm not saying Doom is bad. It may very well be that if I went back and played Red Alert, I'd decide that I was overreacting before, or I may still feel the same way. As per other "religious" people playing "gory" games and feeling "fine" about it, yes, I understand your point. (My uncle, who introduced me to Red Alert, is a chaplain in the army)
However earlier you stated that "95% of the games aren't fun because they aren't clean" so that got me to assume you meant most games were automatically bad because they had blood. Thanks for clearing this one up I guess.
MOM4Evr wrote:However, I answer to God, not to other Christians.
Again, my above question still applies here. I'm not sure if the bible even says anything about games (not necessarily video games) with simulated violence. I think they really don't care. The anti-gore stuff was, as I said, brought up by christian and family groups who are stupid and have nothing to do in their sorry lives. Instead of complaining about every thing on earth they could maybe get a good game of Doom going and I'm sure they wouldn't criticize it anymore

I think some people in this planet are confusing first person shooters with the roman colosseum tournaments. Both are games, but in the former you don't actually kill people, while in the latter you do.
MOM4Evr wrote:The long and short is that I'd have to play these games myself to get an opinion about it. You say Doom's artwork and music don't lend themselves to being dark, demonic, and scary. Ok. I might play Doom now to see, I might not.
Nobody is forcing you to play anything. If you don't want to play Doom, fine. If you want, good. But please don't go saying that "95% of the games aren't fun" because they have blood and partially/fully naked women (what's wrong with being naked anyway? Most of those ancient statues feature naked men and women and they are considered masterpieces, so why do people get all that pissed about a naked woman on a game? there is a difference between naked and porn. I don't mind naked people in games as long as they aren't doing anything "heh", at which point I understand it might get on some people's nerves. Still there's got to be a good reason why naked people are there has having them just for lulz is kinda silly.) because it isn't true. I also still don't see how Doom can be considered immoral as it doesn't lead people to do bad acts (the game never says you are supposed to go people in real life, the game only says that *IN THE GAME* you must stop the monsters before they kill humanity).

Doom 2 definitely isn't scary and demonic. Doom 1 might be a little on a few levels though (mostly episode 2).
lemm wrote:I also think this topic was better as a 20-years-of-keen celebration rather than a gaming discussion
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Post by MOM4Evr »

CKeen wrote:But as I stated earlier in the thread I would also not play games that seem immoral to me. For example I wouldn't play a game where you take the role of a young nazi officer and must kill jews just because they're jews, or you have to torture people or something....If you're a real christian you should know better than me that the christian groups that complain about violence in video games are not God, they're humans exactly like the ones who make violent games are human...
Glad to see we agree with each other, even if we don't communicate so well. :P
You state here "Seem immoral to me." That's basically what I try to decide when I look at a video game (or any game in general). Granted, the Bible doesn't say anything directly about video games (Interestingly enough, it says nothing about Roman gladiator games either), but it does say "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Do any video games fit into this category? Well, yes, maybe, and maybe not. That's where personal opinion among Christians diverges.
CKeen wrote:So yeah, I don't know why God should be disappointed if you play a game where you have to *fight* demons...So, what's wrong with it?
Just kinda strange, actually. How are you supposed to kill spiritual beings with machine guns? :P
CKeen wrote:...so that got me to assume you meant most games were automatically bad because they had blood. Thanks for clearing this one up I guess.
Sorry, I thought that I had made it kinda clear before:
MOM4Evr wrote:I'm a Christian, NOT TO SAY that that means "Doom is bad, violent video games are of the Devil, yadda yadda yadda", but I don't PERSONALLY find any glory (as in, I don't PERSONALLY like a whole lot) in games that involve blowing other people up, killing stuff constantly, naked women, cuss words, etc. Games like that FOR ME just don't seem fun at all.
Please note that I wasn't trying to say games like that are all bad, I was just saying I personally don't like playing them myself.
CKeen wrote:Instead of complaining about every thing on earth they could maybe get a good game of Doom going and I'm sure they wouldn't criticize it anymore.
If you could get them over the initial hump, yes, they may quite enjoy it. :)
CKeen wrote:Nobody is forcing you to play anything. If you don't want to play Doom, fine. If you want, good.
Sometimes I wish that you could hear vocal intonation patterns in forum posts. :P Basically, I'm just thoughtfully considering whether to play it or not.
CKeen wrote:But please don't go saying that "95% of the games aren't fun"
Nope, that's definitely not what I'm saying. I just was saying that I personally don't play "95%" of games since they're either:
1. Not fun to play (As in Cake Mania -- "Bake cakes to serve your customers before they get fed up with you and leave" - Blah! How lame can you get? :crazy )
or
2. Let's blow these other people to bits (Just a personal opinion in this case-- I don't like war games too much)
In my opinion, there are far more of the former category than the latter (hence the "95%" deal). But in no way did I mean to attack games (such as Doom) that you hold dear.
CKeen wrote:I also still don't see how Doom can be considered immoral as it doesn't lead people to do bad acts (the game never says you are supposed to go people in real life, the game only says that *IN THE GAME* you must stop the monsters before they kill humanity).
A very good point.

P.S. As per the whole masturbating deal... that's a whole other can of worms. :crazy
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Post by Dynamo »

MOM4Evr wrote:You state here "Seem immoral to me." That's basically what I try to decide when I look at a video game (or any game in general).
There is still a difference between shooting civilians and monsters. Even in Duke Nukem 3D although the game technically allows you to shoot on women, Duke says "Damn" every time you make him do that and monsters show up if you do. The plot also is about Duke actually rescuing girls from the aliens.

I'd also like to point out that I don't think there even exists a FPS game where you are supposed to kill civilians as your main objective. And if it exists I'm not surprised nobody knows about it since only a fool would play it.
MOM4Evr wrote:Granted, the Bible doesn't say anything directly about video games (Interestingly enough, it says nothing about Roman gladiator games either), but it does say "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Do any video games fit into this category? Well, yes, maybe, and maybe not. That's where personal opinion among Christians diverges.
But if Doom doesn't fit in that category, then Keen doesn't either. I don't see it as "lovely, pure, admirable, noble etc", and if it is, then so is Doom, actually, as it says "anything excellent". Doom is excellent :P *hides*
CKeen wrote:Just kinda strange, actually. How are you supposed to kill spiritual beings with machine guns? :P
They're not really spiritual beings in the game except for the Lost Soul.

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Besides, it's a game. Satan is not even mentioned in Doom at all and the demons are often referred to as Aliens.
MOM4Evr wrote:.If you could get them over the initial hump, yes, they may quite enjoy it. :)
As would anyone :P
MOM4Evr wrote:Sometimes I wish that you could hear vocal intonation patterns in forum posts. :P Basically, I'm just thoughtfully considering whether to play it or not.
Have you ever played a FPS in the doom vein before? If not then Doom 2 is a good game to start with I think. If you can get over the "moral issues" (I still think there's nothing immoral about doom and its clones) you'll probably get the hand of it in no time.
MOM4Evr wrote:Nope, that's definitely not what I'm saying. I just was saying that I personally don't play "95%" of games since they're either:
1. Not fun to play (As in Cake Mania -- "Bake cakes to serve your customers before they get fed up with you and leave" - Blah! How lame can you get? :crazy )
Yeah that sounds awful haha. I used to play games like theme hospital and theme park a lot though.
MOM4Evr wrote:2. Let's blow these other people to bits (Just a personal opinion in this case-- I don't like war games too much)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrIEzY0P49E I STILL don't see what could possibly be wrong with games like this one.

I think it really is just a matter of habit. I've been playing both light-hearted games and more "serious" games since like forever, and I love both of them, I can't imagine one of them existing without the other. So yeah I'm not surprised you're skeptical about these games but I really suggest you give them a try anyways. They can be just as fun as the "soft" ones (often even better). Doom is extremely quick, simple and intuitive to learn, but it will take a lot of time to truly master, like every good game I think (Keen's included).
MOM4Evr wrote:In my opinion, there are far more of the former category than the latter (hence the "95%" deal). But in no way did I mean to attack games (such as Doom) that you hold dear.
Excuse me for misunderstanding then. Also there are more of the former category because it's games like call of duty that sell. Unfortunately.
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Post by MOM4Evr »

CKeen wrote:as it says "anything excellent". Doom is excellent :P *hides*
Hee, hee. :P
CKeen wrote:I STILL don't see what could possibly be wrong with games like this one.
As has been stated before, it depends on your opinion/upbringing/other stuff...

Anyhow, do we understand each other's point yet? :P
CKeen wrote:I think it really is just a matter of habit. I've been playing both light-hearted games and more "serious" games since like forever, and I love both of them, I can't imagine one of them existing without the other.
I think that sums it up nicely.


Interesting note: since we talked a bit about children and games a bit ago... I'm still under 18. :P
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Post by DHeadshot »

Interesting note: since we talked a bit about children and games a bit ago... I'm still under 18.
So the "MOM" in your name isn't the American colloquialism for "Mother"...?

As far as violent games go, my personal view is it's much better that people do their "violence" on games than in real life. Basically, people will be violent at some point - best to direct it agains imaginary monsters.

Oh and multiplayer FPSes are basically like playing It with guns - it's not about the killing etc but about chasing and avasionand sneeking up and other things humans have been doing for fun since the dawn of time...
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Post by Dynamo »

MOM4Evr wrote:Anyhow, do we understand each other's point yet? :P
From what I got you agree with pretty much everything I said that does not involve your religious beliefs. Seems logical. I'd like to see Lava's point of view now, though.
MOM4Evr wrote:Interesting note: since we talked a bit about children and games a bit ago... I'm still under 18. :P
So am I, if that's the case :p
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