How common was swearing in videogames back then?
Modern games have characters going SHIT FRICK b***h every five seconds, but I don't remember back then having so many games having the characters saying naughty words, even M-rated games seemed less crass with their language.
I think it wasn't until 6th gen when I saw characters swearing more often.
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idk have you tried playing old games and counting how many times they swear?
fpbp, if you don't know, you probably don't know shit about retro vidya to be here
Swearing was next to non-existent on 16 bit with some outliers, but by PlayStation and the ESRB, T and M games pushed the envelope more.
This. By the 5th gen though, the only words that seemed to be acceptable in most M games were Hell, Damn, and Bastard. FFVII and Duke Nukem 3D were two of the funniest games ever made to me because they allowed more than the usual three (especially the former since it got away with a T rating).
I feel you nowadays though...that's how I know my gen is now in charge of writing in vidya, movies, or even startups nowadays with how much cussing my generation does on a regular basis (millennials). The reason why games took as long as it did to allow swearing by the 5th gen and the reason why millennials cuss like morons nowadays is a counterreaction to baby boomers having a meltdown if they saw or heard any cuss word in movies or games back in the 90s.
What's funny is at the time, FFVII's swearing was considered comically overdone at the time.
I don't have a problem with swears per se but when you use them nonstop it's both uncreative and the words lose their "power."
things like military shooters by and large had casual swearing once cd audio became a thing. im struggling to think of a single game ive played that had over the top, cringe levels of swearing but im sure theres plenty
I can only think of extra stuff like atomic bomberman's unused voice clips or the cuss pack from redneck rampage, maybe some japanese games since those could have words like shit or bastard regardless if they were aimed ar kids or not.
Wasn't the fourth Police Quest one of the first games that had characters say "frick"?
It's one of the most tiring things about the Resident Evil 2-4 remakes: characters are always saying shit this shit that. I get that they're scared, but them saying SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT doesn't scare me. It would be bad enough as a constant interjection, but they have to say outright comical phrases like "Are you shitting me?" which kills any tension in an encounter. Seriously, what got lost over the years?
My favorite is when you are in a small hallway where the lights still work and a single slow-walking zombie notices you
>OH FRICK!!!!
swearing was the player's job
it was so uncommon that I thought CBFD was the best game of all time when i was a kid
I think the first swear word I actually saw in a game was in DK64 when they said "this Kong's one hell of a guy"
isn't hell only a curse word in Christian families?
Shadow the Hedgehog is a good case study for how bloody mental prudes are: for years I heard about its legendary reputation as a game packed with swearing, and boy was I in for a culture shock when I actually played it. Over here schoolchildren could say "pig's arse" without getting in trouble, but online Americans found Shadow saying "damn" absolutely scandalous for some reason. I wonder how much Evangelicalism influenced the absolutely moronic epistemology of 2000's flamewars.
come on now, you should know it wasn't finna have that much cursing, it's not even M-rated.
There was no moral panic in the US over shadow the hedgehog. The phenomena was entirely localized to the fandom, it did poorly critically as well. It was less moral outrage and more just people being upset that it was really edgy. I mean even as a kid I could recognize this game is trying way too hard, for christs sake shadow pumps a fricking mp5 in the intro like a shotgun. So dumb. Anyway it was less "this will corrupt my children" and more "wow this is really cringe."
>that much cursing
Or fricking any. I refuse to believe "damn" is a swear word.
Only American christcuck homosexuals care
Like Robert Bowers?
Like how PG13 movies are allowed to say "frick" once and keep the rating, Shadow The Hedgehog originally said "hell" every second word until the E10+ rating came out and Sega made Sonic Team change the game to get the new rating. You can even see Shadow mouth, "Now what the hell was that all about?" in the opening cinematic because they didn't have time to re-render it. Ultimately the final game says "hell" twice in the dialogue, GUN Commander and Shadow saying they're going to send someone "straight to hell".
Swearing was pretty rare in NES games but Bionic Commando for the NES has Hitler call you a "damned fool" right before his head asplodes
First time I heard frick uncensored was in killer 7. At first I didn’t even believe it, but after the first 50 or so “you’re fffricked” and “FRICK YOU”s I kind of got used to it. But it was very surprising to see. After that frick became pretty commonplace
I remember hearing maybe one or two swear words across the entire SNES library growing up. Even something like Mortal Kombat didn't swear, which is pretty funny looking back at it that gore was more acceptable than bad words.
First time I really remember swearing was in FFVII, which had the full gamut of swears although certain ones were censored out. In some ways it felt more natural and in other parts it felt over the top. It seemed like the writer dialed it back after Midgar to some degree.
I think the key to using swear words in a game is to use far fewer during normal conversations (Unless the characters talking are normally crass) and to gradually increase their use as tensions rise, either during something that impacts the character emotionally or during high stress moments. An example would be Cid in FFVII trying to decide to launch the rocket despite his wife in the path of the ignition to launch to space or cancel it for her sake. He's torn between fulfilling his lifelong dream or sparing her life and he knows he's going to "lose" no matter what decision he makes. That's the kind of situation that justifies indiscriminate swearing as a sort of blow off valve for all the pressure building up.
I was legitimately shocked when they said, "frick" in San Andreas.