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Headshots making you hungry? Check out VICE's food channel, Munchies.
Manhunt, with its arterial sprays and gouged eyeballs, is a game that doesn't shy away from or try to clean up how disgusting violence is, which makes it a good sight more honest than most violent media. And if there's anything I want more of, it's games that bullshit us less. Death is not a clean affair and if we're going to play and create games mired in it, we should seek to reinforce that notion beyond inserting the occasional hypocritical cutscene that preaches about how War Is A Bad Thing before sending us off to shoot hundreds of enemy soldiers in a theme park version of war-ravaged lands.Of course, "better" violence doesn't begin and end with gore, and it shouldn't. There's also context to consider. So, y'know, "What's the reason I am committing violence in this game?" and "Is the violence here consistent with the world of the game?" The Last of Us understood this quite well. It makes sense for a game about surviving in a brutal, post-apocalyptic setting to let you bash someone's head in with a brick, to make gunplay difficult and desperate where each shot counts because every resource is precious. On the opposite end of the thematic spectrum, the recently released Splatoon channels the fun, playful spirit of paintball into a game where violence is far from fatal but full of delightful colours and loads of goofy customisation, which makes it immediately more interesting than the slew of grey, mostly mediocre shooters about tough men who kill people for what they perceive to be the right reasons released every year.
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