I’m talking more along the lines of, having simulator games where you work in a supermarket and you get to cause as much mayhem as possible. Not in terms of just simply killing, but more like, being a very disgruntled worker in a very annoyingly noisy environment with shitty customers. That game doesn’t exist to me and I wish it would.
Instead, we get more simulator games where you’re at the service of the people. That’s going backwards, if you ask me.
Also, I don’t remember asking for armchair psychologists to come here and start dropping unasked thoughts about how to best relieve stress. Check those at the door.
Lots of call outs to Postal 2, but not a lot of talk about the GTA series? Weird. Postal 2 was “3 edgy 4 U” and all, there were definitely some hilarious and violent things you can do. I remember pissing in somebody’s mouth and they started throwing up, so I hit their head off with a shovel, and the vomit continued to shoot out of their neck into the sky. But once you get past the shock value the game is pretty bland. I played the hell out of the demo back in the day, and eventually got my hands on a copy and I remember thinking “oh, it’s just the same thing but with more levels”…
Anyway. The GTA series are actually good games. Like the controls, physics, story, comedy, etc etc… But also, you can go into a boutique clothing store in a affluent part of the city and murder all of the patrons and then when the cops show up - shoot rockets at their cars. Then pull somebody out of a high end vehicle and beat the shit out of them with a baseball bat and escape a high speed car chase. You can even play it in VR. Never done it myself but I remember seeing videos of beating people with blunt objects while they attempted to put their arms up in defense but succumbed to the blows and went unresponsive on the ground and though “holy fucking shit, that was really violent”.
Anyway… That also lost its shock value pretty fast, but at least the games remained fun when playing the objective.
I see the Postal series has gotten some mentions, but where is my Carmageddon Crew?
CUNNING STUNT BONUS
Ha ha, it’s funny reading this immediately after a 4 hour long session of Supermarket Together. Chatting with friends, slacking off, causing mischief (like renaming the store, moving shelves), and being a menace in general - to robbers, innocent customers, employees, or other players.
There’s a whole genre of games you’re describing. Single and coop. Many are free to play.
given the history of video games, and video game censorship, i know this has a low likelihood of coming to fruition. however, i would adore a game where i massacre a bunch of capitalists like ultrakill
Warning : tasteless comment right here.
I found that one of the bars you go to in cyberpunk on a side mission, the police won’t enter no matter how wanted you are. It’s crowded, too. And it feels pretty therapeutic to do a mass shooting in there. Start with a grenade onto the dancefloor then pick people off as they panic and flee.
IRL I’m totally non-violent, but there’s something about doing this that takes the edge off my stress. I’ve returned to that save point several times.
I’m playing Postal 2, I think this is kind of what you’re looking for lol
Played it, beaten it. Gets a bit samey at times.
Yeah, I’m not even sure I’m enjoying it honestly lol
I don’t want to take my stress out on randos, I want to take it out on the ones responsible for my stress
Who Wants To Beat Up A Millionaire?
I want to make a game where you seize all the assets of the rich and need to make decisions on how to best redistribute the wealth to the people and/or public serving projects and infrastructure. Of course whatever you choose, there will be someone unhappy with it, so you have to try and balance things to prevent angry riots or being overthrown by some other group who feels they can do better, while the deposed rich class and their sympathizers keep trying to cause trouble and regain power. Kind of like a Sim Revolution. Hmmm
So…The Sims.
Luigis haunted mansion?
Haunted by billionaires
Exactly. I want a shopping sim game where I can stand in line and beat the shit out of the lady who’s dog pooped on the floor.
I think we all just destress differently & there’s some games where you can make a mess or cause chaos, but some folks like a challenge to overcome like souls games finally beating a boss, climb a leaderboard, get x rank elo, etc. Others build a farm or speedrun shooting demons or just keep replaying the same nostalgic games.
Also, I don’t remember asking for armchair psychologists to come here and start dropping unasked thoughts about how to best relieve stress. Check those at the door.
oshi-- you guys its the king of fediverse
I feel like this is what people do with the multiplayer games where they are allowed to be mean to each other
For the record, the science shows that Destruction Therapy is not effective at actually managing anger, and may actually cause more harm long term, as you’re normalizing that behavior in your brain.
But as for why we don’t see more games along those lines, I don’t know. It does seem like a genre that would sell well right now. I remember there was a series of desktop games when I was a kid called Stress Reducer that would give you a set of animated weapons to “destroy” your windows desktop (an image of it).
much like abusing animals doesn’t “get it out of your system,” it just makes your behaviour more extreme
That said, showing love to animals in response to negative emotions is an effective solution
Untitled Goose Game?
Goat sim is better.
Goat Simulator 3 has up to 4p split screen co-op, and it’s a big GTA-style sandbox game just loaded with hilarious stuff.
It also has better graphics and takes more than an hour to complete. Plus great cultural and gaming references. When I first heard about the first game, I was like no fucking way that can be fun but after reading reviews, I bought it as a game I could play with my son, and we love it. (He’s a jerk to me on it tho)
Yeah, it is a really good looking and really thoughtfully made game. If you have been a gamer for decades there are tons of references and jokes you will appreciate. I appreciate the Sweden references too. I’m an American but I’ve gotten to visit the real-world equivalent of Goatenburg.
It is really good to play with a group that includes non-gamers or kids, because you can’t really die but you can use overpowered abilities and items on each other and NPCs. It is damn funny.
Absolutely, there are references to IKEA, IT, fallout, evil Knievel, etc. it’s way more clever than I initially gave it credit for. When I first heard about it I thought it was like just running around on cliffs and eating grass. I had no idea you could be a total asshole in it and I love that about it.
Yeah, and you start AND end the game riding with other goats through the farm on a replica of the Skyrim prisoner cart from the meme.
It’s a very solid game that more people need to try. Especially as cheap as it is now.
Shoo! Shoo away from my garden, bird!!! SHOO!
If you want to shoot Nazis and klan members there are Wolfenstein games.
I bought just for some cathartic relief. Unfortunately the first person camera jostled around too much and gave me too much motion sickness.
Damn. Really needed that.
Here is a cool video from a small time creator about why we don’t get Nazi-killing games anymore.
In a similar-to-original-Wolfenstein way there’s Darkenstein. It’s a bit tounge-in-cheek, fairly silly, a lot of fun and free! Your dog has been stolen by Nazis and you have to try to rescue it. You gain health by drinking beer and eating sausage. What’s not to like?
One of us, one of us. The newer Wolfenstein games are fun as hell, but holy shit do they make me nauseous. I wish I could play them more, but that camera is awful and messing with the FOV only marginally helps.
Okay it’s not just me then.
I am a bit sensitive to motion sickness in games. So I’m never sure if it’s just me or the camera is bad.
Sometimes I take an anti motion sickness medicine before and it works usually.
But not for this game. And I got sick fast. Like 10 min.
I think a lot of game devs think camera bobbing around is more natural but it’s actually the opposite.
Visual processing in humans actually smooths out a lot of the jostle of walking. Plus the inner ear signals balance out whatever is left. That doesn’t happen with a screen image though.
I’d especially like to see more games making a modern take on this battle. We used to view Nazis as a historical, comically evil villain. I’d like something new that makes every one of them alive feel thoroughly unwanted in this world.
At one time it wasn’t controversial to make Nazis an unsympathetic villain.
Because Postal already exists.
And postal 2, 3, and 4What’s Postal 3?
Was after Postal 2
You mean the Postal 3 beta? The one that got cancelled so bad that its copy was worked into Postal 2 in the junkyard part of a level?
No, it was be4 Postal 4.
Naw, thats a blank. Don’t remember that one.
Assassinations aside, Hitman has loads of ways to mess with people.
