Spookin' With Scoops: 05/22/2014

Had to come back and see it all again, post playing through myself. Nothing quite like finally getting around to trying something new.

Hello! my name is Andy and this is the first comment I have ever made on Giant Bomb! I would like to thank my parents for the internet and macbook air they have provided me and patrick for making this video and the whole Giant Bomb community!

nope nope nope

That WAS pretty disturbing. But a thought occurs.

We, society in general seem to be perfectly okay with one thing and just plain wrecked by another.

We even heard Patrick say he was fine with the guys head being rammed into a saw, but anything involving the dick area is offensive? That's where we draw the line?

A similar argument has been around for a while about how violence in media isn't as bad as anything sexual, even just plain nudity.

Something to think about.

You saw it, I saw it, we all saw it.

I agree with what others have said. The mentally ill are not the villain here. The villain is the corporation that wields its power, money and influence to do terrible things to non-terrible people. The mentally ill attackers in the game are symptoms of the villain, but not the villain. Never going through this game did I feel like the mentally ill occupiers of the asylum were evil, only that they were tragically twisted by their situation, one that they did not choose.

I agree, but if i said Nazis arnt all bad guys everyone would have a fit, because the only way they are ever portrayed is as bad guys. So while I understand the context, it still dose not mean it dose not influance anything.

Wait, isn't the premise of Outlast that these are mental institution inmates who have also been experimented upon in horrific ways (by Nazi scientists, no less?). I think that makes the general "mental illness patients aren't all psycopathic scary people" argument less appropriate.

While i dont think Outlast portrays mentally ill people in a 'negative' way. I can understand where Patrick is coming from. People fear what they dont know, and 'crazy' people are the most unknown right? I think thats what kind of goes on.

I half agree about the dick thing. when watching that scene the other night, when everyone was saying the dick was the worst part, i was posting how it wasnt so much the dick as it was the saw blade heading tward the dick.

I also think this game is actually a very interesting game because it actually turns the man into a victim of sexual violence, something that while happens more often then thought, you don't see much in games at all.

If there's one criticism to be launched at this game, it's that the unspeakable act of being gutted from the genitals or the entire body cavity would elicit much more guttural screams than a fairly calm "oh god, please no." It would be a level of pain you would quickly pass out from even before dying. That's all up to properly motivated voice actors being given context to their lines.

Also, fuck the camera. If I narrowly escaped a buzzsaw to the dick, I'd stop for nothing to be out of there asap.

Also also, says a lot that he was flaccid for said experience.

I agree with people saying that Outlast isn't portraying mentally ill people in a negative way.

I also don't understand why a partial dick is so offensive but boobs or extreme gore aren't.

I wonder if people are getting the same reaction seeing a dick in Game of Thrones. Because the first thing Patrick mentions after the scene in question in this video (except for the uncomfortable humming) is that we just saw a dick. That tells a lot about where the shock value was. And then in his show with Alex he says that it was so uncomfortable because he is a man. I don't think that is the case entirely, it is probably a combination of imagining pain, the atmosphere and the shock value of the dick. I know girls that have reacted the same way as well. But yeah, it might be easier to relate just because you are a man. With that said, I didn't. I just found it uncomfortable because I was imagining being stuck and someone torturing me. Like a nightmare, the dick was not the problem. It could have been my leg or eye or something else.

I think it is great that the developer goes there. People might say that it is unnecessary. But I say that it might be necessary. How on earth would you otherwise teach people (or maybe just Americans?) that nudity is not that dangerous. It has to start somewhere.

That and timestamps for dong. but yah, i agree, its amazing when the internet can work together.

I thought the Morphic Engine was pushing their mental illnesses to the extreme, not that they were just mentally ill.

@mathey: Incredibly well said.

You know what guys? At least we're all seriously discussing about how the mentally ill are portrayed in entertainment media. That's pretty cool.

They're making Fez 2, right?

I'm sure it is different when playing the game yourself, but the uncomfortable scene has been used how many times in torture scenes, the only difference was they showed a dick.

I don't know, I'm probably just desensitized.

Americans are 100% okay will full on violence but don't you dare show any skin!

@triviaman09: Does the word "context" mean anything to people who see a controversy around every corner these days?

You're not going to get me to disagree with you that the mentally ill get a bad reputation in a lot of video games (Indigo Prophecy, for instance, is wildly offensive in this regard) but if you're going to get up on your soapbox, you need to at least get upset at the actually offensive targets. Let me clearly separate why one thing is offensive and one thing isn't offensive due to the word of the day: context.

• Indigo Prophecy is offensive because it involves one of the main characters getting trapped inside a completely normal New York hospital for the mentally ill. The patients are then skulking the halls in the dark, making obscene and preposterous noises mere minutes after a power outage and immediately maul and murder you if you make any noise while trying to find help.
• Outlast isn't offensive in this regard because the patients in this instance are not in an otherwise normal situation, they've been funneled into a fucked up front-organization by the Murkoff Corporation and subjected to despicable science experiments because no one cares about the mentally ill once they've been sent off somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Due to this (the game literally involves nanomachines) they've become twisted and violent monsters.

Again, you're right that the bad rep exists and many forms of media do a horrible disservice to the mentally ill, most of whom suffer from non-violent conditions, and that's a serious shame. But simply because that bad stereotype exists does not mean any form of media that involves the mentally ill is immediately playing into those stereotypes. The context is what makes all the difference.

If you don't think a game where everybody is mentally ill and trying to kill you perpetuates stereotypes of mentally ill people as violent and dangerous, I really don't know what to tell you. That just seems like incredible unwillingness to confront the issue.

Congrats Whistleblower! You had me wanting to close my browser and crawl in a corner!

@seminormal: The perspective that this game somehow perpetuates negative stereotypes about mental illness is double baffling to me because if anything the game has done the exact opposite; it plays on how mental illness is viewed so poorly and approached so lackadaisically by society that some sort of evil cult/company/group can easily just funnel innocent people who suffer from mental illnesses into some fucked up science experiment and no one's any the wiser.

But I guess we all have to find something to critique these days.

@sammo21: I dont know, i think that jenna girl or whoever with the dog that keeps poping up is. Maybe thats just me wishing i could be a confident hot girl though. I dont know.

Ether way, i find her annoying.

Starting from about the 01:04:50 mark is the series of events that you all came to see

Glad to see the character in this DLC isn't slamming every single door shut.

Also, pewdiepie is the most annoying person on youtube. That's a fact.

@scalvin11: but what game is he referencing, I figured the dude was masturbating, just want to know the source material.

This.

Also, I don't hold to the idea that Outlast perpetuates stereotypes about people with mental illness any more than the idea that pornography perpetuates negative stereotypes about women.

We all know well enough that violence in media is glorified, but we know that this is wildly different from reality. Our own individual experiences of reality vastly outweigh any impressions formed by fiction.

In media (and specifically in this case, Outlast), the mentally ill are presented as terrifying, but only in the same way that a natural disaster is terrifying. We don't blame a volcanic eruption or tsunami on the earth, nor do we blame the mentally ill for their behaviour. They are simply a force of nature, to which no "evil" can be attributed. Granted, the very concept of "evil" could be considered the result of a mental illness, in which case, any villain could be considered as being a damaging stereotype or cliche.

Beats what I thought was happening. Originally, I thought he was stabbing a new hole in the 'taint' area to create a hole to 'push inside'. There was less chopping motions and more multiple stabs between the legs in the locker scene.

just saw that scene. that was just sick but awesome at the same time.

You know what Whistleblower, yeah. Yeah you got me cringing hard.

Castration is the last thing that can shock me. But that's just it, it's a cheap move.

It's not imaginative, it's not scary, it's just gruesome.

So bravo.

I'm upset that I missed most of this live. That's what I get for going to bed at a decent hour, I suppose.

Also, penises. I'm in favor of them. I don't think this game renders them very well, though. That's all I have to say about this (other than Patrick continues to be a wimp in these videos).

Patrick, this game doesnt perpetuate a stereotype of the mentally ill being scary. It perpetuates a stereotype that people being tortured by a company that has a quasi-governmental level of power are scary. I mean, sure the Murkoff corp were running a house supposedly for helping the mentally ill. But after you realize the company is throwing people in their crazy experimental machine all willy-nilly, how do you think its still a game about the mentally ill. Who's to say half the theoretical population of mount massive were ever actually mentally ill to begin with? They were human beings twisted and altered by some fucked up experimental treatment.

Man, I had a massive headache when I watched this live and ended up knocking out halfway through. All I remember is stuff I wish I didn't remember.

D:

Patrick didn't mention it (maybe he thought it was too obvious), but I thought it was pretty cool that the car you get away in is the guy's car from the first game.

Should have watched this live. Dang.

You know what bugs me about this game?

The need to make you sit through VIOLIN STRINGS when you die, but like... after you die. It no longer makes sense for them to be there! You're already fucking dead!

POOR MUSIC DESIGN.

Indigo Prophecy was rated M, not AO. I think what you mean to say is that it would have been rated AO if it wasn't edited, but it was edited before they even bothered submitting it to the ratings board. It was a publisher decision to tone it down for the US because the game was released in the still fresh wake of the "Hot Coffee" controversy.

I find the sex (or at least foreplay) scene in Heavy Rain to be far more risque than the awkward poly bumping in Indigo Prophecy, and it was rated M.

Getting a lot of Bioshock vibes from this DLC. Especially in the violin music.

@nightriff: Masturbation.

What was Vinny talking about when he replied to Patrick's tweets about the uncomfortable situation.

@aegon: Under the Skin and Holy Motors have an erect penis in them. They're movie, though.

Stranger on the Lake too, but I'm pretty sure it's NC something in the US.

I wonder if Patrick clicked that the character you play in the main game was in the building that was on fire.

Also I think the creepiest part is sneaking around Gluskin's lair and reading all the stuff scrawled on the walls and seeing the manikins in dresses while that record plays in the background. I wish Patrick had taken more time to look around that place.

So, what was behind him that caused the intro?

D- D- DO DONG DONG DONG DO DO DONG DONG D D D DONG DONG DONG DO DO DONG DONG

That was a lot more dick than I'm used to over at Giant Bomb.

Getting all worked up about uncensored genitals and not about graphic mutilation.

Just American Things

Wait, there was a controversy over The Groom?

I mean yeah it was disturbing and yeah it was gross and yeah, it was very unpleasant but, I don't know, isn't that the point of playing a horror game? You know, to be scared?

Well there's no need to get cut up about it, dick.

@brightside: it hurts to talk about it :/