Welcome to The Little Things. Here, I plan on writing a weekly/bi-weekly column on all the things people seem to glance over when reviewing a game. Nobody feels the need to delve so deep, so here comes me, Lord of the Nitpicks!

Firstly, let's go over blood effects. Blood is an integral part of a game, no matter what your local psuedo-Michael Atkinson crazy man says. Blood can enhance gratification to great degree; I mean face it, when you play Left 4 Dead 2, the first thing you do is make sure that gore is on high so that the baseball bat can knock the head clean off zombies. Mortal Kombat with no dismemberment is hardly Mortal Kombat (COUGH COUGH MK VS DC COUGH COUCGH) and the VATS aiming system from Fallout 3 just wouldn't be the same without the headsplosions.


Let me quickly say that blood is by no means a requirement in a game. Many games don't need blood, and having it around simply limits the audience. Warp, an indie game on Steam and XBLA, is very cute and despite some guns being toted by the soldiers, there was no reason that could not have been rated E10+. Then you explode your first soldier. Honestly, the game is simplistic enough in the core mechanics that my mum or little sister could very well play it but the unnecessary gore completely throws that out the window, technically sacrificing 1 or 2 sales from my house alone. There was a REASON turrets didn't cause blood decals on the walls when you were shot in Portal 2, it's because Portal 1 was great and eliminating blood (and simultaneously ramping down the rating from T to E10+) greatly broadened the audience.

So now let's get down to my core gripe of the subject: poor blood effects. You know what I'm talking about; that collateral sniper shot you got in Hitman: Blood Money was made all the more satisfying by the splash of blood on the wall and the pool on the floor. The rapidly growing amount of dismemberment mods for Gmod may seem excessive, but the massive amount of downloads shows that there is an audience. An example of poor blood effects from say, Fallout New Vegas, is actually a relatively large flaw. It's obviously trying to go all out, with the severing of limbs and decapitations, but when you look at the maimed corpse, all you see is a small decal that looks a bit more like raspberry jam than blood, and the thrill of the whole ordeal is somewhat muted. Skyrim, with its golf-tee warhammer head decapitations and "swoosh swoosh goes the sword, off with your legs" finishing moves fall under the same category: raspberry jam diminishes the overall satisfaction of a kill.

So I suppose the point I'm trying to make is if you're going all out with blood and gore, do it well. The blood flowing from a recently defeated victim can greatly enhance the thrill of the kill. But it's also important to set as little limitations on your audience as possible, and unnecessary blood or gore can not only get you paddled by some governments, but can also limit your overall sales with kids and older audiences.

Hope you enjoyed this. If you did, gimme some thumbs, bra ;D.