I think its great to have it.Its like a celebration and blood and limbs are confetti

I for one think it's cool. I do however believe it should be an optional feature in case it needs to be toned down in some cases

Okay, first point. Nobody, at all, NOBODY is corrupted by seeing a cloud of red pixels float across the screen. If somebody claims that video games made them murder their baby and shit on their dog they are a bunch of dipshit liars out to get a reduced sentence.

Having got that out of my system, Blood + Guts and/or Gore = Win. A few more animations for GOW chainsaw bayonet would be much appreciated.

I can see why some people would think that virtual violence would result in real massacres but that doesn't mean I agree with them. I am the kinda guy who can have a good time spraying alien viscera around but I can see why having an option to reduce the gore might also be important (like the graphic content option in Gears of War or the gore setting in UT).

Cab00se...that was hilarious, and I agree, I like a little gore in my games. Makes it a little more awesome, or a lot more awesome.

Cab00se206:
Okay, first point. Nobody, at all, NOBODY is corrupted by seeing a cloud of red pixels float across the screen. If somebody claims that video games made them murder their baby and shit on their dog they are a bunch of dipshit liars out to get a reduced sentence.

Having got that out of my system, Blood + Guts and/or Gore = Win. A few more animations for GOW chainsaw bayonet would be much appreciated.

Im not claiming to be so.For one I really enjoyed GeOW and Ninja Gaiden 2

Hey, the more blood the better.

It shows how grown up and serious a game is.

Your sarcasm sense is tingling.

I choose the third option, meh. I don't think gore adds or takes away anything from gameplay, and it's only really there for the "ooh and ahh" factor before you stop noticing it.

like blood....

Violent video games are no worse then violent movies. Of course kids shouldn't watch them, but it's all they want to watch. Hey I watched Terminator and other violent movies as a kid and I turned out all right, personally I don't see how that is any different from Today's youth playing Gears Of War. (expect for the part were they suck at it: and making me mute my headset)

it depends on the game;
puzzle games with random decapitations would be.... actually quite amusing, but just imagine mario or zelda with major blood and gore

Option to turn it off = everybody wins.

And yeah, it has to fit the theme of the game, obviously.

If thats all the game has to offer (SoF anyone) and have just added random evisceration for shock value then it soon becomes boring. However in a more adult themed war game it would be far from realistic to have someone thrown 50ft by a mortar round only to emerge with red stains on their unifornm instead of being transformed into a pile of unrecognisable mince. In the end I think that if the game is solid and entertaining you stop noticing the gore after a while.

RidleyValiant:
I for one think it's cool. I do however believe it should be an optional feature in case it needs to be toned down in some cases

Liero, for example.

Seriously, if you set the "blood" to 3000%, a single shot turns the whole arena red.

As long as it does not take away from the game. For instance dead rising needed gore but pokemon doesn't.

I agree with the option to turn it off, then nobody can bitch that a game is too violent.
I do however think it's weird that I can do terrible things to people in the force Unleashed demo and there's still no blood.

well it depends, sometimes it is just silly not to include destructible character models:
Case in point being Soul Calibur 4 where these massive shiny swords seem to be as blunt as cardboard as they have no effect. Though Ninja Gaiden II was criticised for the supposed leprosy suffering enemies who's limbs fall off frequently, but have you seen the size of that Ryu's weapons like the glaive? that thing could be used for butchering whales!

I think if we have destructible environments then it would be foolish for us to ignore destructible NPCs. It makes perfect sense that if you fire a circular-saw blade from the G-gun at a zombie that it would be decapitated or bisected.

But as a matter of taste, regardless of scaring away players, they do seemed to get overwhelmed by gore they can't control, going into a kind of shock which isn't fun. I think gore in games is so much more accepted than in movies as the player has full control of it and only takes it as far as they want. Plus, people don't judge their own actions as much as film characters.

Treblaine:

Case in point being Soul Calibur 4 where these massive shiny swords seem to be as blunt as cardboard as they have no effect.

Are you kidding me? If you carried around swords that big you'd dull them too, that's just dangerous and irresponsible. I bet Nightmare hits himself with that thing all of the time.

Depends on the game. It'd just feel stupid if a game went for realism or violence and didn't have it.
On the other hand, it's far from a staple.

a game that goes for realism will not have such excessive amounts of gore... yeah dismemberments and mutilations but not giant blood sprays ... any way Games don't NEED gore look at devil may cry it's not that gory but hell is it violent. And then there are games like resident evil.. they need gore, I mean zombies or parasite creature thingys without gore is like... having a pizza without cheese.
But DO find that gory games are not for the youngsters.

Telekinesis:
Depends on the game. It'd just feel stupid if a game went for realism or violence and didn't have it.
On the other hand, it's far from a staple.

Yeah, I saw this interview from the 70's of a US Marine who fought in WWII about how the movies never show how destructive rifles are. He recollects how he and several other Marines opened fire on a Japanese sentry with BAR and Garand rifles and he vividly remembers the entire upper half of the soldier disintegrating under the fire.

I don't think he was bullshiting, but I'd have thought that if a game designer put that in computer game that it would be exploitative and excessive. Maybe no matter how many games we play and movies/documentaries we watch well never know what it was REALLY like, and computer games will just be an advanced version of 'cops and robbers' of each other yelling "bang bang" and "your dead, no your dead!"

I like the fact that blood and gore are in games. It makes things more realistic at least in most games. This is part of the reason I don't play fighting games like Soul Calibur. And I understand why it can't be realistic like that because it would make the fights go to fast. And I was excited to hear about the losing limbs feature in Call Of Duty: World At War because I was told about how damaging weapons (M1 Garand, B.A.R, Browning M1919 machine gun) from a friend's grandfather. But I do think there should be an option to turn the blood on and off because I know a few people who get sick from seeing too a lot of blood. But I would have to say "yay" on this subject just so people understand how damaging the weapons really are.

I think it is a good thing to have blood 'n gore in any game that professes to to be realistic in any way. Like most people here, very realistic gore levels would aid any war game - unless the developer is wanting to make it playable by all. Geting the balance right is hard though - fully destructable people (and animals) would obviously be the ultimate goal in a contest of gore realism, but it would surely be difficult to replicate many 'effects' that occur in real life, eg. wounds - sometimes fatal ones - caused by being hit by fragments of bone blown out of someone else's body when they are shot (it does happen).
I think having the option to to turn the gore levels in any game down (or up) in any game would be good though. If you could put things like parental controls on to restrict levels, allowing more young'uns to play more realistic games, more casual gamers might enjoy the delights of a good shooter.

Yay...

Blood, gore and violence in video games are great, because you cannot do things like ripping someones limbs off in real life (except if you're a psychotic murderer ;d).

It relieves the stress, when you imagine your foe as someone you hate.

I like it. For certainly games it makes it more realistic to be honest. For games that base themselves in reality, it's stupid to have them just not react to being shot as if a real person would. It doesn't have to be over the top like soldier of fortune, but I really like to see it.

I like it if its done well. and it cant be over used or u dont appreciate it.

Ultrajoe:
Hey, the more blood the better.

It shows how grown up and serious a game is.

Your sarcasm sense is tingling.

You forgot swearing. Swearing a sign of fucking maturity.

Gore where it is now seems to be very gory, but not near as gory as reality can be.

I think that perhaps if someone were to release a game with fully realistic gore, it could be a way to dissuade people from killing in the game (and maybe in reality.) Current games' gore is such that it is satisfying, but not gross (mostly.) If someone were to see that what they just did made such terrible things happen to a person, and thought it was disgusting, the game would do better at asking "hard questions." Killing people in the game would be a much more regrettable event than in other games. If you saw that your last firefight left some guy lying on the ground in a sickening mess of blood, meat, and death, would you feel alright doing the same to eight other people?

You might not have to worry as much about players just going for the best reward. If a player is genuinely disgusted when he/she kills an NPC, they might not be able to go through with it, even though they get more virtual money or whatever in the end.

I think I would like a game that did this right. The game would, of course, have to be a game in which choosing not to kill is completely viable, but the mechanics wouldn't be too much of a diversion from the original game. Like an FPSRPG or similar.

EDIT: Also, with my idea, if there were an NPC that you knew about. Say, an ally or something, who was able to be killed without a game over, you might try to protect them more, so you don't have to see a friend get their arms blown off or some such. It would be a very mature game, and would definitely not be marketed to kids, but it would be perfect for people (like me) who like to play gritty, mature games like that.

Of course, now we're basing all of our moral questions on just gore, so we'd need more than just that. We'd have to have NPC allies that were totally against killing, or maybe have some NPCs vomit or break down crying at the sight of it and such. It's still based on the death aspect, though. This could work perfectly in a game where you and a group of NPCs have to get from point A to point B, but line AB is a warzone. You could sneak through, which is harder to do, but less disgusting, you could try and find ways around bad bits, which would require you to go through certain places and deal with some killing, but less than the third option, which is to just try and gun your way through. Some NPCs would slowly become less mentally stable throughout the game, until finally just losing it and going catatonic or suicidal. You would have to make sure as many NPCs as possible make it to the end in a healthy state of mind.

I am neutral. It gives games a darker tone, which fits some stories and makes them better. But I do not like it when developers put too much time into them, how it makes games a political target, and it gets little kids to beg their parents to get them mature games, thus ruining some game communities.

But in terms of direct impact on me, I dont care either way. I dont need gore to enjoy a game, but I wront get grossed out if it is added.

The biggest problem I have, is that when I get a headshot I want the victim to have something that doesn't resemble a head upon it's neck. But it should be toned for some gray area instead of fluffybunny or homicide/rape/hell.

Blood and gore is never a bad thing. Even kiddie games could benefit from it - imagine how much better Super Mario would be if everytime he jumped on an enemy, you could hear their backs break and fragments of brains splatter all over the floor. Just thinking about it gives me a hard on.

Gore, as in bodies exploding like in Half-Life and similar stuff. Fine.

Gore, as in real life... no. That would just be sick.