me@MTV: Proud of the pain -- Cory Barlog on making Kratos violent and on the time the “God of War” team went too far
This entry was posted on 5/21/2007 5:22 PM and is filed under PS2 Surprises,Games Journalism,PS3 Surprises,Violent Games,MTV News.
Going through my notes about Sony's San Diego Gamer's Day during my flight back to New York last week, I noticed two unusual things that may have been a coincidence but may also have been a sign in a changing attitude among game-makers about violent video games: they're proud of them and willing to talk about how that violence impacts the people who do and don't like such games.
Yes, the makers of "Postal" have been pretty frank about the friends and foes of violent video games before. And "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty Stories" was released with a promotional website that took shots at the best-known critic of violent video games.
But I don't recall commentary about the backlash against violent games being part of the promotion of a video game at a console manufacturer's E3-style promotional event. And I've certainly never had such level-headed, on-the-record discussions about the merits of video game ultra-violence like I did with "God of War: Chains of Olympus" Cory Barlog and Ru Weerasuriya.
To see what I'm talking about check out the piece I wrote at MTVNews.com.
Here's a tease of Barlog from the making of "God of War II":
"There was a moment with the Cyclops really early on. You rip the eye out of the Cyclops and then one of the animators actually went even further beyond and [allowed Kratos to punch the Cyclops'] head down and shove the eye in his mouth and [stomp] him with the eyeball [in the mouth] and it exploded. And that was a perfect example of going too far. You pop the eye out and that's a visceral, brutal exciting movement. And then when you kind of go to the popping the eye in the mouth sort of stuff, it gets to the place -- maybe some place 'Devil May Cry' would go -- but not necessarily where we're going to go."
More at the link above.
