The Last Five Minutes Of Hatred, As Far As I’m Concerned

9 years ago

June 2, 2015 at 4:00 pm

The Last Five Minutes Of Hatred, As Far As I’m Concerned

Do I really have to do this? Fine. Let’s get it over with. Mind the foul language and overall lack of enthusiasm.

Purposefully controversial game Hatred is live on Steam today. In it players take on the role of a psychotic ’90s metal front man consumed by the teen angst that caused him to buy a leather trenchcoat and hide his face in his hair in the first place. Instead of making a couple of albums and then becoming a horror movie director, he decided to leave his mother’s basement and strike out into the world to find his fortune. It’s sort of An American Tail: Fievel Goes Batshit Insane. I’d probably enjoy it more if the main character were a mouse. Get on that DLC, Destructive Creations.

The official Steam description reads better if you sing it in a minor key.

Hatred fills your whole body. You’re sick and tired of humanity’s worthless existence. The only thing that matters is your gun and the pure Armageddon that you want to unleash.

You will go out for a hunt, and you will clear the New York outskirts of all humans with cold blood. You will shoot, you will hurt, you will kill, and you will die. There are no rules, there is no compassion, no mercy, no point in going back. You are the lord of life and death now – and you have full control over the lives of worthless human scum.

You will also run, you will need to think, you will need to hide and fight back when armed forces come to take you down. You will have no mercy for them, because they dare to stand in your way.

Only brutality and destruction can cleanse this land. Only a killing spree will make you die spectacularly and go to hell.

I could list a dozen other ways to die spectacularly and go to hell. Worst manifesto ever.

Remember kids, just because the game wants you to kill doesn’t mean you have to, except for that one guy in the tutorial. Sorry, that one guy.

Comments

58 responses to “The Last Five Minutes Of Hatred, As Far As I’m Concerned”

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roh

June 2, 2015 at 4:26 pm

The more I think about this game, the more I think they could have had the exact same gameplay and setting and graphics and everything but made it a million times better by giving it an interesting context or some kind of ‘spin’, or a point or a plot or ANYTHING.

But I guess that wouldn’t get as much press huh?

Reply
1. germinalconsequence
  
  June 2, 2015 at 4:38 pm
  
  The feeling I get is they wanted to make controversy first and the game itself was a secondary concern. There are many ways you can make a game that is fun to play and makes the statement they wanted to convey in a meaningful and thought provoking manner.
  
  Reply
  1. roh
    
    June 2, 2015 at 4:48 pm
    
    That’s exactly what I’m getting from this too.
    
    Reply
    1. keiranj
      
      June 2, 2015 at 5:11 pm
      
      I don’t. It has decent graphics, slick animations, a nice ambience to set it apart. If his weapon fired flowers, would you be feeling differently? If he tickled hostages to death? Or if you are looking for thought provoking, then maybe avenging someone? Fighting for a country or an idea? Strip away that stuff and you can still have a game.
      
      Reply
      1. roh
        
        June 2, 2015 at 5:51 pm
        
        That’s what I’m saying, it doesn’t any of that. No avenging, no purpose, no context, no nothing.
      2. weresmurf
        
        June 2, 2015 at 6:46 pm
        
        That of course can be a point in itself. A lack of a purpose or point in a story can itself be a driving motivation. Just because you don’t ‘get it’ or ‘agree with it’ doesn’t reduce its validity. I personally played it and found it very lacking in substance, but I don’t think the dev should change anything, I equate anyone suggesting that to the old cane waving Helen and Reverend Lovejoys of the world screaming ‘Won’t someone think of the children!’
        
        Hatred isn’t going to be the end of society, it’s a mediocre as hell game, but it does have some positive aspects as stated above, slick animation, good physics, a nice ambience and a notably good artistic style. However mediocre gameplay and a juvenile plot won’t save it at the end of the day.
        
        But I won’t be foolish enough to suggest the dev change it, or wish they would. It’s an artists vision, we should never tell an artist to change their vision, that’s how we end up with a society eager to complain, to demand apologies and willing to censor itself too much for no reason.
      3. zombiejesus
        
        June 3, 2015 at 9:14 am
        
        While I agree that artistic vision should be respected, I think it’s reasonable to criticise the substance of the work. People speculate on how games could have been made better all the time, it’s not like this one would get a free pass in that respect. I’d say that speculating on improvements leads to better games in the long run because the ideas either get brought in to the original game, or other devs take up the mantle to make that ‘better game’ everyone wanted.
        
        I can’t speak for the Hatred devs but from my own experience in game development, hearing what players think is lacking is invaluable. Granted, I doubt this particular title is going to lead to better attempts in the same vein, but criticism in the form “I would have liked it better if X” is almost always better than “I don’t like it”.
      4. losturtle1
        
        June 3, 2015 at 11:20 am
        
        Lovely, holistic and informed sentiment I couldn’t agree with more. Let’s raise the standard of our discussion instead of insecure reactions to questionable content. Just think, seriously.
      5. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:37 pm
        
        How the hell can a lack of a purpose or story be a driving motivation?
      6. clicker
        
        June 3, 2015 at 10:21 am
        
        clicker heroes has no context, no nothing.
        do we complain about its mindless drawl?
  2. braaains
    
    June 2, 2015 at 5:07 pm
    
    in a meaningful and thought provoking manner.
    
    That bit is much harder. Too hard, obviously.
    
    Reply
  3. korwin
    
    June 2, 2015 at 6:20 pm
    
    To be fair, it worked. The press is eating this shit up, even industry veterans are raising their pitchforks in moral outrage.
    
    Reply
geth

June 2, 2015 at 4:45 pm

Just another game to play the controversy card, gain notoriety when it otherwise would have gone unnoticed by the vast majority, then fade into obscurity when the hype dies down.

Nothing new here, people. Move along.

Reply
benredbeard

June 2, 2015 at 4:55 pm

Was Manhunt as controversial as this because I feel it should have been. If not more.

Reply
1. ross_co
  
  June 2, 2015 at 4:59 pm
  
  Yeah, got banned in a few places and there was a murder case involving the game.
  
  Reply
  1. weresmurf
    
    June 2, 2015 at 6:48 pm
    
    Personally, I feel Manhunt is far more ‘offensive’ than this game. Even now. I think Manhunt had far more to say, its observations on ultraviolence, the way it executes it etc were far more impacting and far better done.
    
    Reply
2. dnr
  
  June 2, 2015 at 5:36 pm
  
  Yeh, but that was before twitter/facebook….
  
  But i could totally go another Manhunt game
  
  Reply
3. roh
  
  June 2, 2015 at 5:54 pm
  
  At least it had context, you were trying to escape imprisonment. It was kill or be killed. This has none of that.
  
  Reply
4. transientmind
  
  June 3, 2015 at 8:14 am
  
  Manhunt was actually an enjoyable game, controversy aside.
  The mechanics were very solid, and aside from some shooting gallery sections and some escalation at the end, it was a pretty good stealth game.
  
  It did a lot of new things and treated the subject material more seriously than was expected (or tolerated) of games, at that stage.
  
  Basically, you play a criminal sentenced to death by lethal injection, only it turns out someone with clout has made use of police corruption to fake your execution and have you star in their novel concept of a lucrative snuff film with a plot. They hire dumb goons from street gangs to patrol areas that you sneak through, murdering them for the hidden cameras. The fucked up ‘director’ awards points for style and variety. The plot’s fairly simple and predictable, you play along with the killing spree on the promise of eventual freedom, until you find an opportunity to rebel when it gets to be too much. The Director makes it personal with family, you break free and try to turn the tables on the whole operation and get your revenge against the monster who set it all up. No surprises there. It was dark, it was depressing, there was no happy ending, and the worst thing that could normally happen in a game happens at the midway point. It’s like every other game story’s ‘fail state’ is just your half-way point.
  
  But even the simplest stories can be engaging when made human and believable, and Manhunt did surprisingly well at that for a video game about a death row inmate following an ear-piece’s instructions while starring in a snuff film about killing hired thugs.
  
  It made its violence… well. Violent. Not cartoonishly gory, like Killing Floor, and not an explosion-fest ultra-bodycount fiesta like Serious Sam, but actually shocking violent.
  
  Intimate and brutal. Some of your murder weapons are shards of glass, a house-brick, or a plastic bag… and it’s not just ‘press X to kill‘, either. The controls drew you into a brief struggle with your victims, every time. That was a real unsettling kick in the gut back then, and it’s rare to see a ‘violent’ game that doesn’t trivialize the violence of murder to a button-press, even today.
  
  Some people looked at Manhunt and only saw gratuitous murder-porn, tacky sensationalism, revelling in its sickening subject material for marketing effect, but the game was a lot more mature than wowsers gave credit for.
  
  Manhunt is a game the press was wrong about.
  
  Reply
  1. dnr
    
    June 3, 2015 at 9:36 am
    
    Cannot agree more on every account. I loved that game. Not because I’m a psycho or have dreams of murdering people. It was a game that treated the player like an adult and the that IMO for its time was the most overlooked aspect.
    
    Reply
keiranj

June 2, 2015 at 4:58 pm

To me its a deconstruction of the genre and works exceptionally well on that level. I don’t care how much patriotism, self sacrifice or even dogs you put into COD, at heart it is about shooting people in the face.

Reply
1. roh
  
  June 2, 2015 at 5:56 pm
  
  Shooting people on the street isn’t a genre.
  
  Reply
  1. weresmurf
    
    June 2, 2015 at 6:51 pm
    
    Activisions made a killing from it (heh) for over a decade now…
    
    Reply
  2. keiranj
    
    June 3, 2015 at 12:44 pm
    
    Shooting people definitely is. Changing the location doesn’t change the genre.
    
    Reply
    1. roh
      
      June 3, 2015 at 12:56 pm
      
      Ok so say it is a genre, maybe games like postal or state of emergency are similar when you kill innocent people (COD and Battlefield are NOT the same), how is it a deconstruction of that genre and not just another proponent of that genre?
      
      Reply
2. scrumptatoes
  
  June 2, 2015 at 6:14 pm
  
  Voted down for apparently not understanding what deconstruction is and for being incapable of making the distinction between an isometric third person shooter (Hatred/Postal) and a first person shooter (CoD series).
  
  Reply
  1. weresmurf
    
    June 2, 2015 at 6:50 pm
    
    Voted up because your assumption that he doesn’t understand what a deconstruction is, is just as presumptuous. As a person who teaches students daily about this sort of thing, I can fully see how it could be taken as a deconstruction. Sorry man, gotta call it as I see it. Art is all about personal interpretation, don’t tell someone they’re wrong with their interpretation, that’s horrendously arrogant. But do by all means offer your own interpretation.
    
    Reply
    1. scrumptatoes
      
      June 2, 2015 at 8:46 pm
      
      Damn your rationale.
      
      Reply
    2. roh
      
      June 3, 2015 at 12:43 pm
      
      Please explain how a game where you shoot innocent civilians on the street for no other reason than the main character who you play as hates everyone, is a deconstruction of the war shooter genre which includes games such as COD, Battlefield etc.
      
      Note: I don’t think they are in the same ‘genre’ as COD etc. Just because a game has a gun in it, doesn’t automatically make it a ‘shooter’, survival horror is a genre with guns that isn’t simply a ‘shooter’. The key distinction with COD is that it’s war, the people you are killing are trying to kill you, before you get a chance to, so in a way it’s self reflexive, also the context of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ comes into play wiht the people who are trying to kill you depicted as ‘bad’ ie Nazis being the easiest target, this adds context to the violence in an attempt to rationalise it in such a way that can be understood. Try as you might I don’t think you can rationalise killing innocent people for the sake of it. Even ‘No Russian’ had context, you were doing it to infiltrate a terrorist organisation so as to stop them from the inside, commit violent acts now for the greater good later. It’s tenuous at best but still it’s context like that that Hatred is lacking in.
      
      Reply
      1. keiranj
        
        June 3, 2015 at 12:52 pm
        
        I don’t think it lacks this. I think it purposefully has removed it. For example, if the story was that all these ‘innocents’ were aliens plotting to destroy humanity? According to most complaints about this game, that would make everything about it acceptable.
        
        As far as COD and war go, your insistence on black and white definitions of appropriate behaviour in a conflict is frighteningly simplistic. I can’t even list the number of games where you choose whatever faction and then fight other factions… simply because they are the other faction. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ there, just a game objective. Same situation here.
      2. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 12:58 pm
        
        I don’t think it lacks this. I think it purposefully has removed it
        
        That doesn’t make sense.
      3. keiranj
        
        June 3, 2015 at 1:56 pm
        
        They have intentionally removed the narrative. They are playing with the genre. I don’t think you are appreciating what that implies and what effect it has. But it is intentional and done for effect.
      4. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:33 pm
        
        They are not playing with anything, it’s just a shoot em up where you wear a trench coat and shoot people. It’s just boring. There’s no commentary, no parallels drawn, no reasoning, no anything.
        
        Which is FINE i never suggested it should be stopped or that it should be banned or whatever, I don’t care.
        
        I just don’t get how people are trying to justify it’s existence by saying it’s deconstructing the genre or some other bullsh*t it’s clearly not.
      5. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 12:59 pm
        
        You obviously have no idea what context is and how it is applied, so nevermind.
      6. keiranj
        
        June 3, 2015 at 1:59 pm
        
        I see you are not interested in a discussion, and instead resort to casting aspersions as the person making the post, rather than making a point. So yes, nevermind.
      7. weresmurf
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:18 pm
        
        You’re applying too much emotion to this and seem to have lost the ability to view this objectively. If we want to apply the same standards, COD MW2 had the ‘No Russian’ stage, where you do the exact same thing, the exact. The people in the airport were not trying to kill you, they were innocent. The fact you’re an agent is irrelevant, that’s extraneous plot. It was a shock tactic of a level. We cannot selectively rewrite history to suit our purposes. Art is subjective and just because you don’t like the message the developer is putting out, does not mean the message has zero artistic message in total. It just has zero artistic merit *for you*. I won’t be drawn into a Helen Lovejoyesque moral debate over who has the higher ethical and moral ground, those are ridiculous arguments that have zero winners, zero actual facts and quite frankly, sorry for the crudity, are only good for placing hands on dicks and jerking. But the truth of the matter here, is the key distinction here, is that the key depiction here, is the depiction of violence. Not war. The desensitization of society towards violence, the acceptance of it in various mediums, our acceptance of it and the ways in which we embrace it. I can justify Hatreds existence as an extreme critique on peoples acceptance of such a thing and our ever changing acceptance and over saturation of our society with such imagery and No Russian was one of the largest examples of it. You can’t seperate No Russian from it, because MW2 and No Russian while not the start of it, prior to Hatred, was one of the biggest examples of it.
      8. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:28 pm
        
        What emotion? I just asked you a question.
        
        A question you failed to answer I might add.
      9. weresmurf
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:29 pm
        
        I didn’t fail to respond to the question, I didn’t give you the answer you wanted, there’s a distinct difference Roh.
      10. roh
        
        June 3, 2015 at 3:44 pm
        
        for reference this is the question:
        
        Please explain how a game where you shoot innocent civilians on the street for no other reason than the main character who you play as hates everyone, is a deconstruction of the war shooter genre which includes games such as COD, Battlefield etc.
        
        You didn’t actually answer it. I was interested to see what your rationale was but you just side-stepped it completely. I’m not talking about 1 level of MW COD i’m talking about how Hatred is a deconstruction of games like that, and not just a juvenile shoot em up.
      11. weresmurf
        
        June 3, 2015 at 4:04 pm
        
        See the previous post Roh, again, you got an answer, just not the one you wanted, I’m not gonna be drawn into silly conversation based on conjecture and emotion when it’s over personal interpretation of art and artistic merit.
        
        But if we must, I’ll refer you to @keiranj ‘s response in regard to playing with narrative. They also play with the concepts of identity with the main character and instill ‘the fear of the other’, a common literary technique via this method. There’s ‘fear of the unknown’ and other methods at play in this. That’s a few things at play when a minimalistic approach is taken. It may not be the best example ever but it is present. Your answers in general are based on ‘I don’t understand’, and that’s fine, but always remember, it’s ‘I don’t understand’ that you’re saying, not ‘this is fact’.
    3. roh
      
      June 3, 2015 at 3:39 pm
      
      Voted down because you’re a teacher and you spelt ‘teaches’ wrong.
      
      Reply
      1. weresmurf
        
        June 3, 2015 at 4:36 pm
        
        Thanks for the tip, corrected it. After marking exams, the last thing I truly care about to be honest is my grammar being 100% on a gaming forum 🙂
        
        But sieg heil mein fuhrer, sieg heil!
keiranj

June 2, 2015 at 5:04 pm

Oh and Fahey, you won’t be Wichtowski. Ever. Give up now.

Reply
1. john_stalvern
  
  June 3, 2015 at 12:36 am
  
  Say, whatever happened to Leo?
  I forgot about him until now.
  
  Reply
cufcfan616

June 2, 2015 at 5:06 pm

If you don’t want to play it or promote it, why the hell are you doing a video and article about it? I’m sure there are other games out now you’d rather cover but by all means take the easy controversial option because it’ll give you clicks on your articles

Reply
1. letrico
  
  June 2, 2015 at 5:39 pm
  
  Well, they get paid from our views so…. they gotta do it. Sadly adblock is on and they wont be getting money from me 😛
  
  Reply
2. Jef
  
  June 2, 2015 at 5:58 pm
  
  Don’t care about the game, don’t see myself playing it, but I have to agree here. The lack of any enthusiasm in this vid kinda seemed disrespectful to readers…
  
  Reply
dvd888

June 2, 2015 at 6:02 pm

Totalbiscuit made a fairly good, unbiased video about this. At least he tried to deconstruct it, unlike this shitty video. Honestly I don’t think it’s that controversial. The game looks boring but I love they grey-scale visuals.

Reply
1. john_stalvern
  
  June 3, 2015 at 1:03 am
  
  Damn, I just watched that and I lost count of the amount of sick burns and truth bombs he dropped.
  He’s absolutely right about the moral panic and the games’ press making it more popular than it ever would have been, and he’s absolutely right with the games industry/film industry comparisons.
  
  Reply
fester

June 2, 2015 at 6:10 pm

HAHA It almost gives off the feeling that this game was secretly sponsored by church fairing christian American senators just so they can say that “Heavy Metal, Dark Things, and Video Games make people murderers, MURDER STIMULATORRRRRRRR”

Reply
riddick

June 2, 2015 at 6:35 pm

They should have made the main character a vigilante at night who goes around back streets fighting all the scum in horrendous manner. Oh cause allowing you to just go batshit and kill people also, just like GTA. In fact I really don’t see a difference to this game and GTA except GTA looks better doing it.

Reply
1. slyph
  
  June 2, 2015 at 6:46 pm
  
  Yeah, except I really haven’t felt comfortable killing civilians in a GTA game since GTAIV. It’s all a bit too realistic.
  
  Still occasionally run people over, though…
  
  Reply
2. roh
  
  June 3, 2015 at 3:42 pm
  
  The main difference is with GTA it’s not the point of the game to kill civilians, it’s just part of the sandbox world that you can do that. In Hatred the entire point, and the only thing you really can do, is kill people.
  
  Context is key.
  
  Reply
slyph

June 2, 2015 at 6:43 pm

I can’t help but feel that a “murder simulator” should make it more difficult and morally ambiguous. This is just an Arcade-y shooter with no narrative and a vague premise.

Reply
Ohm

June 2, 2015 at 7:26 pm

Everything else aside, at least it has a good art style.

Reply
dimsey

June 2, 2015 at 8:07 pm

I’ve been dabbling in it. I think it’s okay. Dumb fun.
Far too dumb for how serious people are taking it.

Reply
phlaiman

June 2, 2015 at 8:20 pm

So instead of giving us an informative video you decided to just use it to take some sort of bullshit ideological stand. This reeks of arrogance.

Reply
john_stalvern

June 3, 2015 at 12:40 am

My only complaint about Hatred is how the title seems to ape Doom’s title. Those slanty letters are very iconic!
That and the playing-the-execution-every-single-time is a bit much for my sensibilities (but you can turn this off in the options)

The corny dialogue is “so bad it’s good” territory, so at least there’s that.

Reply

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The Last Five Minutes Of Hatred, As Far As I’m Concerned

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