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HATRED GETS ME EXCITED by Mr Biffo

30/4/2015

22 Comments

 
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So. Steam is getting its first Adults Only-rated game. 

Hatred - a title that has been surrounded by controversy since it was first announced (and not just for its content - there were also swiftly-denied accusations that developer Destructive Creations had links to "anti-Islamist groups") - will arrive on June 1st. 

In Hatred, players become a sociopath, who sets out on a "genocide crusade" to kill, well, everyone. In short, it's a mass-murder simulation, clearly inspired by far too many real-world shootings.

When it appeared on Steam Greenlight, the game was removed due to its content. However, following an almost immediate outcry, Valve boss Gabe Newell (who shall henceforth be known as "Billy Backtrack") intervened, reinstating the game and issuing a public apology. 

Now a new trailer for Hatred has been revealed, which will do little to quell those who feel that such overtly provocative and taste-befouling games should not exist. 

Here's the latest (obviously NSFW) trailer for Hatred - have a watch, and then we'll have a little chat:
So, what did you feel when you watched that trailer? No, no - not what you think you ought to feel. I don't want to know about your outrage, and I don't want your indignant rant about freedom of creative expression. I want you to ask yourself what you felt. 

Do you want to know what I felt? 

Excited. 

And I'm incredibly disappointed in myself as a result... but not for the reasons you might think.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
Recently, I wrote a piece for a Grand Theft Auto bookazine thing from Future Publishing. In that article, I mentioned how I'd finally come to terms with the misogyny and violence in Grand Theft Auto V, after grappling with it for months.

More specifically, I'd come to terms with the fact that - despite there being a part of me who didn't feel I should enjoy all those things - there was another part of me that did. What was the point in deliberately not playing the game, when - on some level - it was exactly what I wanted to play?

As I mentioned wankily in my GTA piece, it was the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung who first discussed all of us having a "shadow aspect" - basically, the unconscious part of ourselves that our ego doesn't acknowledge, because it contains all the bits we don't like about ourselves. In short: the ability to cheat, to lie, to hurt others, to enjoy Grand Theft Auto V... It's only in recognising it as part of ourselves - which must be a continuous process throughout any individual's life - that we are able to exert any sort of control over it. Otherwise - gasp! - it controls us.

All humans have a tendency to act in contradictory, hypocritical ways - going against our personal values, because life inevitably drives us into a corner and we have to fight to get out. The stress when that happens is called Cognitive Dissonance, and to lessen that stress we'll try to justify our actions or dilute them (such as, say, when we all pile on Peter Molyneux on Twitter for sheer sport, but try to pass it off as entirely justified, because he deserved it due to "reasons" - still, he's back now, so perhaps he enjoys it ).

It was that Cognitive Dissonance I was experiencing when I played Grand Theft Auto V; Well... I don't hate women and I support equality... yet I'm enjoying a game where women appear to be reduced to the status of bimbos, harridans or sex objects. 

COGNITIVE DISSONAAAAANCE!!!

It was only when I accepted the contradiction that I could finally enjoy the game, instead of scowling so hard while playing it that I burst a blood vessel in my eye. I still have the same issues with GTAV, but now I just shrug at them. Or try to anyway. It's much easier.

When I look at the Hatred trailer, I have a brand new struggle. Certainly I don't really want to get behind something that advocates mass slaughter as a form of entertainment... but at least there's an honesty about Hatred. Pick any game, and you'll probably find just as much death and destruction - albeit hiding behind some sort of character or story justification, or the sandbox antics of the player.
SOMETHING MORE
But there's something more about Hatred that I've struggled with that has nothing to do with its Adults-Only content - it just doesn't look particularly sophisticated. I mean, I'm actually surprised by how solid the visuals seem, but - let's face it - we're not going to get a game that's trying to make any sort of deeper point, beyond trying to entertain the player by allowing them to go on a rampage of killing. And the 14 year-old in me is well happy with that.

But - uh-oh! - here it comes... 

COGNITIVE DISSOOOoooOOoooOOONANNCEEE!!!! 

More than the content, more than the context-less violences - it's that which I find myself wrestling with: surely my palette is more refined? Surely, I seek out experiences that speak to me on a more profound level, and everything else is just popcorn fodder? I'm not some 14 year-old kid who likes shooting people: I'm an intellectual giant. 

But y'know... I've been here before, and I can't be arsed this time. I could try and debate whether a game like Hatred should exist, and whether its existence could be damaging or offensive, but I've actually reached a point where I don't care. It's boring, and I don't have the energy.

As I'm getting older, I'm becoming more accepting of my own tastes, more accepting of that shadow side, that hypocrisy, that contradiction that's in me - because it's in all of us. Newsflash: you're every bit as shit as I am.

I don't want to hide behind, y'know, what I think will make me appear more intellectual, or more quirky, or more moral than the next person. I spend my entire job using my brain - when I get to the end of the day, I want to switch off. 

Likewise my taste in movies; some of the more fêted films in the past year I actually cannot bear. I got 40 minutes into Birdman and had to stop - the skittish drumming and editing was giving me anxiety. Whiplash was alright, but nowhere near as profound and clever as the Academy would have us believe (oh, but it's got jazz in it - which obviously automatically makes it cerebral and meaningful). 

Give me Avengers 2 any day. Give me GTA V.

And - yeah - give me Hatred. Probably. I dunno. Typing that made my stomach do a somersault and tighten like a noose, so maybe I've got a way to go yet...

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • THE POWER OF NOWSTALGIA - by Mr Biffo
  • THE OLD MAN SMELL - by Mr Biffo
  • VIOLENCE IS GOOD FOR ME - by Mr Biffo
22 Comments
Mr Bob
30/4/2015 03:44:56 am

Lighten up, man.

Reply
Da5e
30/4/2015 03:44:57 am

The guys at Destructive Creations are well into Deathspell Omega and Portal, so they're all right by me. Apparently the vocalist from Infernal War worked on scripts for this game, too!

Reply
Cybernetic Ghost
30/4/2015 04:07:30 am

I've been looking forward to playing Hatred since the first trailer.

I like a good shooter and this one looks bloody, action packed and stylish. Could not care less about their deliberately offensive ad campaign.

Reply
Mr Biffo
30/4/2015 04:16:37 am

I dunno. Despite me deliberately Littlejohn-ing a bit in the piece, I still remain conflicted about it. I don't like the idea or philosophy behind the game, but it sort of looks fun to play when you strip it down to being a bunch of pixels on a screen. There's a wider debate, I guess, about violence which this article wasn't designed to address... but, well, y'know. Stuff. I continue to wrestle with it.

Reply
Zach Forrest
30/4/2015 04:12:15 am

Funnily enough, it's billed by the dev as a response to Games As Art, which, counter-productively, makes it sound like quite an artistic statement.

I would disagree that the game was in any way, 'honest' - it's simply a reactionary bit of shlock for young, angry, lackwitted men.

Reply
Bear_of_Justice
30/4/2015 04:12:51 am

I can only hope that Biffo's self-realisation occurred through delving into a Persona 4 style randomised dungeon representative of his psych, culminating in a turn based battle with a big apathy shadow, resolved by Biffo accepting it with a triumphant "Meh."

Reply
Mr Biffo
30/4/2015 04:17:39 am

EXACTLY that.

Reply
Bear_of_Justice
30/4/2015 04:36:16 am

This is the happiest day of my life.

dan de la peche
30/4/2015 04:14:20 am

What I genuinely thought was "I'm not fifteen anymore". I probably would have loved this back then, when I was wearing my Cradle Of Filth shirts, and telling the man to "just, like, fuck off, I'm my own person", but now? It strikes me as disingenuous, it's trying way too hard to be shocking, which renders it toothless. Welcome to your nightmare, MOTHERFUCKER yeah you heard me right, Mum and Dad have gone to Centerparcs so I can say what I like, DICKHOLE.

Reply
Mr Biffo
30/4/2015 04:18:13 am

Oh yeah. It's the personification of try-hard.

Reply
Jay link
30/4/2015 08:56:24 pm

How try-hard? It's the first "Adults Only" game for a platform with no rating requirements. They voluntarily signed up their game to a rating system just so they could brag about the "AO". The same nonsense CRL pulled for their Horror games thirty(!) years ago and the press still went for it. The old ones are the best ones I guess.

Wicked Eric
30/4/2015 05:52:18 am

To be honest I don't think I'd have a problem with Hatred if the main character wasn't a shit goth espousing 'edgy' philosophy.

Reply
Kyle "chip shop" Harris
30/4/2015 06:10:00 am

Even with the nazi stuff taken away. I look at Hatred and feel the opposite. Certainly, the 14 year old in me likes mindless action, and have never felt guilty about virtual killing (bar Bioshock and Shadow of the Colossus). But being in my mid-30s, the whole gritty, gray look and angry, butch bloke in a trenchcoat thing bores me to tears. The games that try to shock the most and be the most "adult" are often the most purile, I find.

Reply
Shish link
30/4/2015 06:40:32 am

Looks similar to left 4 dead to me, except the mobs are less green-tinted...

Reply
ChorltonWheelie
30/4/2015 12:37:30 pm

I'd hate everyone too if I had to dress like a clueless middle class maths student from 1989.

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Old Red
30/4/2015 03:45:23 pm

This game looks full of shit. From what I've seen it's pretending to be edgy and mega violent without actually coming out with the biscuits. I'm not really interested in a violent game for the sakes of it, but it does sadden me that people are getting exited about what seems to be noting more than a pea shooter. More fool everyone.

Reply
Superbeast 37
1/5/2015 08:10:18 am

This isn't my type of game (mechanically, not artistically) but I am interested in it as far as seeing adults-only titles is concerned.

I am nearly 40 and have been gaming so long that things are starting to feel stale.

Expanding into adults-only will remove a lot of creative shackles so that I don't have to tolerate the same, limited, teen-catering experience that I've been stuck with for over three decades.

I will pump my money into this title just to show investors that there is brass in supporting a mature audience.

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Old Red
1/5/2015 11:29:01 am

But this game is the polar opposite of mature.

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Reviewer 2457F
2/5/2015 12:47:17 pm

I know its a bit of a wanky point to make but... a game being rated mature and actually being mature (in the sense of not being facile and willfully button-pushing) are two very different things. Hatred is not designed to appeal to an emotionally mature audience, therefore pumping money into it will only encourage devs to go after the idiot pound. I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd encourage more games that deal with adult themes in an interesting way. But I fear supporting Hatred won't be much help.

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Vincent link
2/5/2015 05:52:23 am

Yeah, I was all indignant and self-righteous when I first saw a trailer for it, but now that Steam has officially Said It's OK...I'm just not impressed with how the game itself actually looks. Bit boring, actually. I must have Holier Than Thou'd myself out of caring.

Reply
Stuart N. Hardy
3/5/2015 01:55:04 pm

I'll stick with Postal 2 if I ever feel the need to regress to a murderous 14 year old state, at least it was OTT and funny enough not to make you feel uncomfortable.

Reply
Jabberwoc
6/5/2015 09:17:29 am

I'll tell you what I thought (in a VERY sarcastic mental voice); "OOOH!...Good use of cover!" and "Syndicate".

Reply



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