Nintendo's Miyamoto worried about industry's reliance on guns

Well, as long as we have guys like Miyamoto, we can at least have our fix on good ol family fun and great franchises that are not 3rd person shooters.

Posted:A year ago

"Sometimes I get worried about the continued reliance on making games that are so centered around guns, and that there are so many of these games,"

Oddly enough, that is how I feel about Mario games.

Sorry, couldn't resist. As a SEGA fanboy through and through it is my duty. On that note, there has never been a bad Sonic game :)

Posted:A year ago

Yeah... it's at the point where the use of guns almost defines what genre a game is.

Posted:A year ago

I do agree with Miyamoto's sentiments here, and with Spector's the other week too. There were some great-looking games at E3 but there was so much focus not just on guns, but on glamorising this ultra-violence, slow-motion kills and neck-stabbing. I really liked the look of The Last of Us but coming from Naughty Dog I was quite shocked at the level of brutality in the trailer -- maybe they could have juxtaposed this violent, combative course of action with a more stealthy one where Joel & Ellie avoided conflict.

I think The Unfinished Swan is the game I'm now most interested in. I'll still buy some of these violent games but I find myself more and more looking outside the mainstream line-up of shooters and 'stabbers' for interesting experiences which go beyond dudebros shouting "fuck" whilst shooting enemies' heads off.

Posted:A year ago

Completely agree with Terence. Hell, I write a bleak, violent, post-apoc series myself, and even I sat through TLoU thinking, "wait, why is this whole thing so unremittingly violent?"

Posted:A year ago

@ Terence Funnily enough, in the behind closed doors demo (which is now public knowledge I'm allowed to talk about this :P) they showed us a stealthier run through with much less killing (though still very violent killing).

The E3 conference did a very poor job of explaining The Last of Us. It's not a game glamorizing violence. If anything it takes violence more seriously than I've ever seen a game take it. It's a survival measure, and a last resort. Combat in that game is incredibly dangerous. There's no run up and execute button for melee like Call of Duty. Every conflict is with an equally powerful and deadly NPC. People react in a very human manner, and you're always aware that you're fighting people who, just like you, want to survive.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with Miyamoto's general sentiment, and I'll always be thankful to Nintendo (and a lesser extent Sony) for continuing to make games not involving guns, cars, or sports. I love those games, and there are not enough of them anymore.

Posted:A year ago

TLoU is a special case for me, as the violence isn't there to be glamorized or celebrated at all. It presents situations of extreme desperation and you're supposed to be unsettled at them. I thought the ending of the trailer was brilliant because it reminded me of some grindhouse trailers I'd seen back in the late 70's and early 80's where you'd get shock scenes that were there to disturb you, but that's the picture you wanted to see when it finally came to the theater.

If E3 would just be a trade show and stop allowing a certain crowd in, perhaps some of the sensationalism would be lessened. Then again, some of the younger games journalists I've run into seem a bit too hyper about this sort of thing.

That said, some of the Far Cry 3 stuff was a lot more disturbingly amusing to watch for me (and I'm no prude by a long shot). It's the first time I'd wised for a video as well as audio filter for live broadcasting, as I'd love to be sitting in some poor kid's living room as all those F*@K YOU TV monitors started flipping on and off in that one section inside the soon to go up in flames warehouse. Then again, it's an M-rated game, so that's something to consider...

Anyway, Miyamoto is right as is Spector, but as long as they're making the games they want to make and they're good, there will be that balance to keep things from getting to outrageous. That and I just hate games with relentless gore for the sake of a "cool" factor, as it stops becoming scary and interesting after too much of the same thing... at least for me.

Posted:A year ago