For years and years I have played games where you shoot people, kick ′em, punch ′em, throw them into traps that kills ′em etc etc. I thought I was quite jaded at this point, but looking at footage from Doom 4 and Mortal Kombat 9 I can only say my limit for gore tolerance has been both reached and breached. For me it′s one thing to use force and another to see the detailed imagery of what happens when that force is applied.

You may call me a hypocrite and a sissy, but for me that′s more than I can take. It′s way too disgusting now. I could tolerate Doom 3 but just barely and I have no problem with Mortal Kombat 3, but the new games go way overboard with the detailed (not to mention realistic) gore. For me it doesn′t add to the gaming experience in any way whatsoever. I don′t need to see bodies being ripped in half even though I very much understand that′s what happens if you use a chainsaw. In Doom 3 there was just some blood and nothing more and I could at the very least stand it.

You may agree or disagree, these are just my own thoughts and reactions.

Manhunt was a bit excessive I think.

When you're able to skip rope with the intestines. Or whenever people start to get queasy.

Once upon a time I could barely play games like Fallout because of all the gore. But now games like Mortal Kombat, Manhunt, Doom etc. don't sicken me at all. I don't particularly enjoy the violence, it just doesn't bother me anymore. Guess I've been de-sensitized.

It's today's world and it svcks. I'm pretty sure many people search the internet for the videos that terrorist group put on line each time they decapitate someone. To them it's just a show.

As for myself, I cannot stand the decapitations in Skyrim; I've put the "decapitation chance" global to 0. So, playing the games you mention? Never!

to video game violence? Ya most likely.
to real world violence no way not from video games anyway. When looking at real world violence side by side to video game violence the video game violence looks comical and childish Ive been playing games for almost all my life and I still find some videos on youtube hard to watch.....well not harder to watch then the 2013 minecon awkward video.

I've become desensitized to both, but I don't think one cause the other (as in; looking at IRL violence desensitized me to it, not looking ad video game violence). Also some movies do a disturbingly good job of mimicking actual gore.

There is never too much gore.

But this coming from someone who praises things such as The Evil Dead like the holy grail. But I've enjoyed plenty of games that are excessively gory like Mortal Kombat, Fallout, Killing Floor, Gears of War and so on. Perhaps its the shock factor behind it that is so entertaining, but regardless, I've never been bothered by it. The trick behind it is simply separating it from reality, because it's not real. An issue much of the general public and news media seems to have when it comes to criticizing video games as murder simulators or something conjured by Satan.

Although I've never been bothered by gore, I can say that there can be too much gore in the sense that it's becomes too over the top, not because it disgusts me. One example of what I find to be an absurdly stupid amount of gore is the Bloody Mess perk from the Fallout games. I never take it because it adds way too much ridiculousness to the amount of gore that is already in the game.

Now, has it de-sensitized me to actual violence and gore? Absolutely not. I can't bear the sight of it, and I've even fainted at one point because of it. I don't know how anyone could watch real life decapitations, and I have no desire to see something so morbid.

I think for me, the "gore! Now with extra added gore!" option in FO3 was kinda too much gore. At the time I thought it was a laugh, but now, I just find it nasty. I guess in the same way I no longer really listen to The Macc Lads: there's such a thing as too much vulgarity and there's such a thing as too much gore. Maybe it's a hormonal thing.

Never too much gore. Though I don't like when it's ridiculously cheesy, like bloody mess in fallout 3 when you shoot someone in the head and their legs blow off. That just doesn't make sense.

But otherwise, I absolutely love gore (though I've never once watched those real decapitation videos that terrorists do), I know the difference between reality and fantasy.

When you can't click on the other dead raiders corpse to get the loot because it keeps bringing up the empty looted corpse on top of it.

I made the mistake of doing that once: morbid curiosity got the better of me. All I can say is, don't. Really, don't. It actually really seriously bothered me for months later, and even now, years on, I still really wish I'd never given in to my curiosity.

They're not that bad compared to the cartel executions.

Mortal Kombat 9 wasn't even that gory. Compared to the Original, it was toned back. Gears of War is more gory than MK9.

When I can use a Spinal cord with the head attached as a Flail, I'll call it. Until then, not even close.

I'm basically ok with Fallout 3/NV, or the Dead Island games. But the current MK, or those Sniper Elite games? No thanks, waaaay too much. (Thinking about Dead Island.... part of why I'm not interested in Dying Light - beyond the twitch-reaction-parkour-movement thing - is that it looks grosser/"more realistic" than Dead Island. A bit stylized, a bit cartoonishly-OTT, that's I can deal with. Not too "real" though.)

...it's not explicitly "gore", but the first-person icepick torture scene in Bioshock: Burial At Sea 2 was quite uncomfortable, too. Of course, that was their goal with it so... good job?

Yeah, I don't watch horror movies & splatter films, either. I prefer my action movies to be PG-13 or "light" R. (And again - especially not cringe-inducingly "realistic".... made the mistake of watching that Punisher short/fan-film the other year..... the excruciating crackle of breaking bones, with loose flopping and compound bits sticking through limbs? GAAAAAAH why why why did I watch that.)