We need less guns in games

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ieatlions

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Edited By ieatlions

After watching Anthony Burch's Rev Rant  I started to think about his points and that  he made and why  he thinks games schould be more serious. He talked about how  as a medium games need to advance and be more thought provocing and I completely agree but where i think that he goes wrong is that he stated that games schouldnt just be about fun . I completely dissagree because well i get the fun out of my games from the gameplay so schould we suffer through horrible gameplay mechanics to see an amazing story . In my opinion no we schouldnt give accept bad gameplay for great story. Imagine if we lived in a world where Braid a art game that i actually enjoyed and i think had a decent story where to have bad gameplay mechanics that made solving the puzzles unintuitve and boring would that take away from the story ? I think it would so please post your opinion if games schould advance as a medium or are we fine where we are. 

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ieatlions

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#1  Edited By ieatlions

After watching Anthony Burch's Rev Rant  I started to think about his points and that  he made and why  he thinks games schould be more serious. He talked about how  as a medium games need to advance and be more thought provocing and I completely agree but where i think that he goes wrong is that he stated that games schouldnt just be about fun . I completely dissagree because well i get the fun out of my games from the gameplay so schould we suffer through horrible gameplay mechanics to see an amazing story . In my opinion no we schouldnt give accept bad gameplay for great story. Imagine if we lived in a world where Braid a art game that i actually enjoyed and i think had a decent story where to have bad gameplay mechanics that made solving the puzzles unintuitve and boring would that take away from the story ? I think it would so please post your opinion if games schould advance as a medium or are we fine where we are. 

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The_A_Drain

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#2  Edited By The_A_Drain

I think games should, and can advance as a medium.


But I think this wall of text is hard to interpret, and that there is a lot more to it than simply removing guns. Stuff like braid is shortlived and interesting, but videogames are primarily about gameplay and always will be, so there has to be a balance.

I'm a big supporter of games as art, and advancing storytelling etc, but when you come right down to it, they are a totally different medium from traditional storytelling, art, or motion pictures, so have to be handled in a different way. Eventually we will find that, but the medium is still young.
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#3  Edited By CodeMcK

Well i don't see how we can't have both types of games, much like we see with television shows. Some shows try and get us to think while others are simply there for entertainment. However, I agree with you in that a game without good good gameplay isn't a game at all. I enjoy a good thought provoking story but without somewhat decent gameplay it might as well just be a movie. The Metal Gear series is close to obtaining that balance between great gameplay and great thought provoking story and I think its a great potential example of how we can have gameplay and story intertwined to create the pieces of art that convey something.

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JJOR64

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#4  Edited By JJOR64

I don't care if a game has guns or not.  As long as the game is fun to play, I'll play it.

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Pie

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#5  Edited By Pie

Go away

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squidgyboy

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#6  Edited By squidgyboy

games need action and guns are the source to action (and violence lol) but guns are always a great addition to great games. for example like the best games of all time have guns in the , games like: Half life 1-2, crackdown, COD4, goldeneye (n64) etc. GAMES NEED GUNS!!!!!!!!!

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Muttinus_Rump

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#7  Edited By Muttinus_Rump
@squidgyboy said:
" games need action and guns are the source to action (and violence lol) but guns are always a great addition to great games. for example like the best games of all time have guns in the , games like: Half life 1-2, crackdown, COD4, goldeneye (n64) etc. GAMES NEED GUNS!!!!!!!!! "
hahaha...

But seriously, if a game is fun, why not have guns?
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#8  Edited By SlowHands
@ieatlions:  Do you also think that there should be less violence in videogames overall?  Less swords, less aggresive driving?

@squidgyboy said: 
" games need action and guns are the source to action (and violence lol) but guns are always a great addition to great games. for example like the best games of all time have guns in the , games like: Half life 1-2, crackdown, COD4, goldeneye (n64) etc. GAMES NEED GUNS!!!!!!!!! "
Really?  What about games like Burnout Paradise or Viva Piñata?  Neither has guns but both are still excellent.  Though I suppose both have some form of violence...

@The_A_Drain said: 
"I'm a big supporter of games as art, and advancing storytelling etc, but when you come right down to it, they are a totally different medium from traditional storytelling, art, or motion pictures, so have to be handled in a different way. Eventually we will find that, but the medium is still young."
I allso like to think I am a supporter of games as art but then I though about it and most of the games in my current collection are grizzly man-shoots, so maybe I'm just a hypocrite.
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sjschmidt93

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#9  Edited By sjschmidt93

They amount of games with guns does not need to reduce, the amount of games without guns needs to increase.

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dethfish

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#10  Edited By dethfish
@SlowHands: Think about how awesome Viva Pinata with guns would be though.
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SlowHands

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#11  Edited By SlowHands
@Dethfish77:  Hmm... not awesome?  Paint me a picture with your words.
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#12  Edited By Griddler
@squidgyboy said:
" games need action and guns are the source to action (and violence lol) but guns are always a great addition to great games. for example like the best games of all time have guns in the , games like: Half life 1-2, crackdown, COD4, goldeneye (n64) etc. GAMES NEED GUNS!!!!!!!!! "
 How little you know..

Guns are a good gameplay ingredient but do not make a game and aren't certainly aren't needed.
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#13  Edited By Arjuna

Games are about conflict.  That is:  a gameplay mechanic wherein you have to defeat or solve something.  A simple way of doing this has been to shoot it.  I don't have a problem with the violent message this presents, but I do wish developers would come up with smarter ideas.

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#14  Edited By dethfish
@SlowHands: Ok, I'll try.

There's this Fudgehog sitting in the garden minding his own business when he sees a sour crowla drop some awesome looking candy. He goes to eat it but after he does he realizes it was one of those poisonous candies. The Fudgehog dies. At Fudgehogs funeral his brother/son Fudgehog 4 swears revenge on the crowla and his family. Fudgehog 4 starts training to get stronger and there's this awesome montage. 3 weeks later the sour crowla is back. Fudgehog 4 pulls out his deagle and a kick ass shootout ensues. After it's all over Fudgehog 4 is the only one left standing but he has been fataly wounded by the crowla. Knowing more of his enemies would arrive soon and that he wouldn't be able to take them all on, Fudgehog 4 puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Rainbow colored confetti and candy fly out of his skull.

End
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ieatlions

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#15  Edited By ieatlions
@Pie said:
" Go away "
y?


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#16  Edited By SlowHands
@Dethfish77:  What a beautiful, tragic story.  However, to take it in a direction without using guns I propose this:

You begin the game at the absolute peak of a Fudgehog's life, whatever that may be.  Maybe he defeated a bunch of interdimensional murderous bees or maybe he bought a fancy car, something real flash.  Whatever, it is irrelevant.  We see the final seconds of it when we gain control of the Fudgehog.

We start our new adventure of a mundane family life eventually discovering that our protaganist has Candy-cer (christ I'm tired) and dies an uneventful death.

There, no guns.
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YoConraaa

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#17  Edited By YoConraaa

Dude, that's BS. Where else can I kill my friends, drive wrecklesly without paying for the consequences? That's what games are made for. To escape from reality and live one that's not available anywhere else.

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Manatassi

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#18  Edited By Manatassi

LOL. Hey look here comes Borderlands. Gearbox does not agree apparently :P

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#19  Edited By thecleric

Most 'action' games that aren't beat em up or hack n slash don't really translate well with anything other than guns (though a point could be made with magic or other means ie InFamous)

Dark Messiah used swords, but it was incredibly annoying to do and pretty much resulted in you just kicking guys off stuff, it had bows, but where is it that bows aren't pretty much guns already? They follow the same guidelines, just different physics.
Oblivion used swords and it was.. terribly done, Fallout used guns and people loved it for the non-VATs part
Zeno Clash is the best example of first person melee, but, a lot of people still aren't that into it, hell even Riddick used guns to further the story.

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ieatlions

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#20  Edited By ieatlions

When i meant games need less guns is that games need different means to solve their own conflicts.

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ArbitraryWater

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#21  Edited By ArbitraryWater
@ieatlions said:
" When i meant games need less guns is that games need different means to solve their own conflicts. "
That's why you can talk people out of fighting in Alpha Protocol instead of just shooting them. But why the hell would you want to do that?
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#22  Edited By PureRok

Why do games have to be thought provoking? It's for entertainment. Something that entertains you doesn't have to provoke thought.

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ieatlions

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#23  Edited By ieatlions
@PureRok: Imagine if every single movie in the world was transformers 2
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#24  Edited By PureRok
@ieatlions said:
" @PureRok: Imagine if every single movie in the world was transformers 2 "
I wouldn't really care. And movies are completely different from video games.
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#25  Edited By Shermanator
@JJOR64 said:
" I don't care if a game has guns or not.  As long as the game is fun to play, I'll play it. "
Amen to that
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natetodamax

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#26  Edited By natetodamax

Video games are meant to be fun. There's no reason they need to be more "serious".

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Suicrat

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#27  Edited By Suicrat

Wait, was this guy talking shit about the gameplay in Braid? Or am I just illiterate? Or is he?

I'm so frickin' confuused right now.

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#28  Edited By Echoes221

Well, In the grander scheme of things, everything advances in new and different ways (not always good mind you) so it's only a matter of time depending on the technology at hand. I mean look at the games from last gen compared to this and all previous gens, everything changes, it's the  natural order of the world.
Where we stand now is good, but we need to prevent third parties shovelling crap onto the systems (I like to call it 'shovel ware'). Now, I'm not saying third parties are bad, as they do produce some awesome games (assasins creed, prince of persia (UBI I know) SSX and Timesplitters and Crysis(EA/Freeradical/Crytek) but you also get things such as Dogz and Catz (moreso on nintendo systems) but this is due to the fact that most of the world is really just discovering gaming as it becomes more accessable and many people are happy with this 'shovel ware' or must be as it sells as well as sandbox type and more violent games which are seen my many 'teens' as 'cool'. The more people game, the higher the standards will be and gaming companies will have to step up a level in order to meet the demand of the public.
So in a nutshell, everything changes, hardly anything in any industry ever stands still. The day Gaming stops developing will be when 'real life' graphics are possible and every type of game and concept will be available, as well as all games being consitently brilliant.

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grawly

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#29  Edited By grawly

I don't know why games shouldn't be about fun, the fun from games comes from immersion and you can have fun and immersive game while also having a great story. Besides, being immersive can make up for having broken gameplay elements, take Assassin's Creed or Fallout 3 for example. As for guns in games, in a game that is grounded in a real world situation it is really difficult to think of a compelling gameplay mechanic to replace combat. Go on, try it.

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Echoes221

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#30  Edited By Echoes221

Even though games are meant to be fun, I also find them as a way of escape and relaxing, alomst like a glass of wine when you get in from work etc. Catering to that need is quite formidable even in it's purest and simlpest form, It's getting it right which is the hard part.

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#31  Edited By CowMuffins
@Pie said:
" Go away "
Go watch the video, he described you in it.
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#32  Edited By c1337us

Call of Duty: Melee Warfare. All bitch slappin', all the time.

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Keyser_Soze

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#33  Edited By Keyser_Soze

It's all true, it's all true. What sort of a message are you sending when you have a problem before you and the only equipment you have to solve the problem is a light automatic machine gun.


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Griddler

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#34  Edited By Griddler
@Manatassi said:
" LOL. Hey look here comes Borderlands. Gearbox does not agree apparently :P "
Totally. Talk about going in the other direction lol
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#35  Edited By Pie
@CowMuffins said:
" @Pie said:
" Go away "
Go watch the video, he described you in it. "
Say wut?
Where's the video?
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CowMuffins

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#36  Edited By CowMuffins
@Pie:
  

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#37  Edited By dopeman

this thread is so up it self

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Azteck

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#38  Edited By Azteck
@Keyser_Soze said:
" It's all true, it's all true. What sort of a message are you sending when you have a problem before you and the only equipment you have to solve the problem is a light automatic machine gun. "
That you can only solve it by putting a bullet through someones skull?

After answering exactly like you want me to, answer me this. How  many will actually put a cap in some poor suckers head when they can't open their bottle of coca cola?
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deactivated-5a1a3d3c6820c

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In regards to the "message sent", chances are if someone was shooting at you, you'd either shoot back or run the fuck away. Running away isn't all that compelling as a gameplay mechanic... though Mirror's Edge does exactly this.

Fact of the matter is, combat is/can be fun. Usually you're presented with a challenge and it can make you feel good about yourself if you're able to out-smart or out-gun the enemy.

That said.. Shadow of the Colossus is, in my opinion, one of the greatest games ever created. And hey, Guitar Hero didn't do so bad either.

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manurok1

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#40  Edited By manurok1

I would like to see more variety on a console like the 360 but not to the point it goes all nintendofied.

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#41  Edited By GunnBjorn

All the games with guns in them (Okay, not al of them), should educate us that guns are actually bad.
We people shouldn't do something as to kill eachother.
War is complete and utter insanity!

But man, i must admit it's really satisfyind to blow someones head of with a shotgun in a game.
It's sheer anger management!

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penguindust

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#42  Edited By penguindust

First and foremost, a game needs to be fun.  If you prioritize anything else over that, then you lose the player and that's the end of that. Some games can be educational as well, but any good teacher will tell you that if you want to keep a student's attention, you need to make learning fun.  If a developer creates a game with all the intensity of Ben Stein checking attendance, no matter how important the lesson is, the game is doomed to failure and all the ideals will go unheard.

Games and sports usually involve competition and an element of risk/reward.  Gun play is probably the easiest way to convey that challenge to the player.  Shooters are really just a combination of the games "Tag", "Catch" and "I See You" presented digitally.  These are some of the first games we play as children and so we can identify the rules instantly when they are applied to a video game.  As little boys mature, games like "Cops & Robbers", "Army" or "Cowboys & Indians" are played out in backyards across the globe.  In doors, our toys became extensions to those games.  I doubt many kids had G.I. Joe serving tea to Cobra or the Autobots expressing their displeasure with the Decepticons through group therapy.  Combat, particularly pretend gun combat, is a known quantity of play.  I'm not going to argue the right or wrong of that attribute other than to say all of our ancestors were once hunters and the hunted so it's probably genetically hardwired to our instincts.  Children had to learn to hunt and defend with the tools of the period for the tribe to survive.  In modern society, guns are the tools associated with combat.  The first challenge of combat, survival is what is applied to games to introduce risk.  The second challenge, victory is what provides the reward and sets the parameters of competition.  Combined and presented under safe conditions, they have the potential to excite our base instincts and that creates fun.  An exciting shooter can be as thrilling as a roller coaster or a horror movie, where the danger is an illusion but satisfying just the same. 

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#43  Edited By angelkanarias
@SJSchmidt93 said:
" They amount of games with guns does not need to reduce, the amount of games without guns needs to increase. "
there we are

and why do you write ''schouldn't'' ?
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#44  Edited By TheSovereign

Yeah, people talk about games becoming some kinda deep cinematic experience, but the way I see it, they're just turning them into shitty hollywood movies. Either that it's shitty anime. Really, all we need to know is that there is an enemy and that they need to die.

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atejas

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#45  Edited By atejas

Hey, if Modern Warfare 2 or ODST were more like Dark Messiah or Zenoclash, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.

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#46  Edited By dethfish
@SlowHands said:
"@Dethfish77:  What a beautiful, tragic story.  However, to take it in a direction without using guns I propose this:

You begin the game at the absolute peak of a Fudgehog's life, whatever that may be.  Maybe he defeated a bunch of interdimensional murderous bees or maybe he bought a fancy car, something real flash.  Whatever, it is irrelevant.  We see the final seconds of it when we gain control of the Fudgehog.

We start our new adventure of a mundane family life eventually discovering that our protaganist has Candy-cer (christ I'm tired) and dies an uneventful death.

There, no guns.
"

Your game would win the oscar for best picture (if it was a movie), mine would just be referenced and quoted for the next 15 years.
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#47  Edited By RagingLion

Having watched the video I think I totally agree with him and wished more people thought like him.  Games can be many more things than they currently are and explore more subjects than they currently do - some people have already done but there is a lot further to progress.
 
@ ieatlions:  You are worried that games that don't have fun as their primary focus will lead to bad game mechanics - this doesn't have to be the case.  For an artistic concept to truly use what a game is able to provide then the gameplay must be engaging - otherwise it is a flawed game.  Games which focus on other things will not have to discard good and engaging gameplay to do this.
 
I think the key thing to get your head around is that media can be engaging even when not overtly fun.  Someone wrote here that teachers would say that you need something to be fun to engage people and I found myself initially agreeing.  This will probably still be the case for the vast majority of games that ever exist but I think of examples from film (yes they are different but similar enough to draw some parallels) and you have many compelling films which don't evoke fun and yet are engaging.  
I think the same can happen with games.
 
I'll add one more point which just comes to mind and almost seems to go against what I just said.  We seem to gain pleasure/fun from simply interacting with things and seeing them respond to us which is the very essence of gaming itself - I don't know if this can be separated from it.  So maybe a type of fun can never be completely separated from gaming even with games that might speak about the 'human condition' as Anthony Burch was looking forward to.  It might not be the overt fun we're all used to but maybe our definition of what 'fun' is is too limited.

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jeffgoldblum

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#48  Edited By jeffgoldblum
@ieatlions said:

"schould 
provocing
dissagree 
schould
unintuitve"

I cant take anyone seriously when they spell like this.
Watch this video:
 
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#49  Edited By demonbear
@SJSchmidt93 said:
" They amount of games with guns does not need to reduce, the amount of games without guns needs to increase. "
Thread won by this guy. Next!