As you heard this morning, EA’s Visceral Games is working on a game based on the famous 19th century serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Our sources dropped hints about the title to us back in May, and now is a good as time as any to tell you what we've heard about The Ripper.
When you think of Jack the Ripper, you think of a psychopathic serial killer, right? Well, what if everything we knew about Jack was wrong? What if Jack the Ripper was actually a good person, killing to save other people’s lives?
That’s the Jack our sources tell us you're going to meet in The Ripper. He’s a supernatural slayer protecting people from demons, vampires and other evil monsters. And seeing as how this is Visceral Games, don’t expect your typical, "played-out" demons. Instead, imagine a cross between the monsters from Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno. Jack will have an assortment of over-the-top weapons to take on these demons, and we're told gameplay involves a special ability that lets him slow down time, too.
That’s all we know for now, and until EA and Visceral decide to officially unveil the title, it may be a while before we get the official word. It's likely they're trying to space out their promotion, as the team just released Dead Space: Extraction and still have Dante's Inferno on the way. They still haven’t even confirmed Dead Space 2, even though we all know it’s happening.
What do you all think of this potential re-imagining of Jack the Ripper?
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Contest:
6:40 PM on 10.06.2009
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Otherwise this sounds terrible to me.
My excitement for this game just went from 60 to 0 almost instantly. I was hoping for a moodier, slower paced game and instead they're taking a cool sounding setting and making yet another Devil May Cry or God of War.
Besides, Jack the Ripper sent some some pretty nasty correspondence to Scotland Yard, so the whole "Jack the Ripper was good" concept just doesn't sit well with me. I guess I'll just have to wait and see more of it first.
But more than that, I'm just offended that a wholly interesting concept like Jack the Ripper (either playing as him or trying to catch him or both) was totally squandered by this completely generic idea.
On the other hand if it's completely ridicules and over the top as possible, then it'll be awesome.
I love Visceral, I really do. Dead Space was my GOTY, but really? I was honestly intrigued and excited by the idea, but did they really need to pull in the supernatual and stuff like that? I figured playing a serial killer armed with a knife stalking people in the darkness and brutally killing them set to a moody 19th century setting would of rocked, but... bleh.
A video game adaption of Alan Moore's From Hell would be awesome.* Imagine a 30 minute QTE of the dismemberment of his final victim? That would be some intense shit right there!
*Terrible.
C'mon, didn't some of you shrug when you first heard that Dead Space was more or less going to be Resident Evil in space?
It could be like Professor Layton in reverse! You sold puzzles to stop the detective solving the crime!
OMG IMAGINE HOW ACE IT WOULD BE!
"Oh no inspector. There are definitely no bodies in the cellar!"
(Do a word based puzzle to stop the police officer going into the cellar)
"Oh i take your word for it Mr West. I definitely wont go looking in your cellar"
Seriously though as a previous guy said whats to stop a Manson family game in a hundred years.
JEFFREY DAHMER: VAMPIRE KILLER
A new Devil May Cry clone. Jeffrey Dahmer hunted by the police has to stop the EVIL VAMPIRES TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everyone thinks its murder but he is saving the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you defeat the EVIL VAMPIRES and SAVE THE PRESIDENTS DAUGHTER?
I'd be intrigued if they made a game about Jack the Ripper as a criminal, you don't play too many villains in games. Killing for good could be an interesting Dexter-like spin, but do we really need DEMONS? It seems like demons would throw out the stealth and intrigue involved with Jack the Ripper, making him another low-voiced action game hero (I assume). A game based around hunting him down could be good too.
Oh well, I'm not picking up Dante's Inferno, and I probably won't get this either.
Right here.
Just drop the jack thing and make something good, like I don't know Dead Space 2.
Hell, they can even include the secret societies and conspiracies if they want, just let me be a villain in the game for once.
I'm intelligent and thoughtful because I used "a la", which also leads you to believe that I can speak french.
No one is is making a game like this, so I say run with it. Sure, it won't be long before someone waves that ol' controversy flag, but I still think Visceral should go ahead and run with their vision, just like they did with Dante's Inferno, when some people where moaning about that, like the book was touch by god or something.
Thing is all of you lot posting here have no vision at all, for what Visceral have planned. What makes you think you'll actually be controlling the Ripper? Just like with Dante, give it a chance.
Can't wait to see that trailer.
When I first read the post about Ripper this morning, I went on record saying that the idea sounded interesting. But this just sounds like shit. "Over-the-top weapons?" What over-the-top weapons existed in 19th-century England? And fucking slo-mo? I swear to god if they call it "Ripper Time" I'm going to rip my eyes out.
But i liked Naim Master idea, the player seeing the "regular" people as demons.
Nice.
Slow in a sense of Condemned where everything is just real quiet and the fights should be concentrated struggle between you and one or two more enemies. And they should be definite "struggles." No three stabs and you're dead shit.
Yeah...a game like that set in The Ripper would kick ass.
Osama Bin Laden working at a flower shop?
This guy was a serial killer...don't make a game with him as a good guy...I guess it's better than having him killing innocent people...but you shouldn't make a game about him in the first place!
Stupid game idea...
Why does everything have to be ruined by supernatural bullshit? It's such a cop-out. They couldn't think of a good design based on Jack the Ripper, so they decided to make him a demon hunter. What. The. Fuck.
I was allll ready for some kind of detective game, playing as a cop and tracking down Jack. Or even playing as Jack and your only combat would be the murders he commits. This could have been beautiful, but then they were like "oh wait we need to have the player kill something every 2 minutes or else they'll get bored! I know FUCKING DEMONS WILL SOLVE E\VERYTHING!!!!!!"
God damn it.
In before 4chan, etc
Of course, this could all also be him battling these 'demons' in his psyche, when in actuality he was viciously slaughtering some poor woman. Which may not be too remarkable on a gameplay level, but it'd tell a great story at least.
...Though, I do have to acknowledge that it could actually just be a history-altering straight-up action title that may or may not wind up sucking terribly. I personally am just gonna wait and see stuff that isn't filed under Rumor.
But plenty of movies, comics, etc have played with the legend of Jack The Ripper, why not games? The mythology behind the whole persona is what's interesting about it. He became larger than life. It's not like an Al Bundy or Bin Ladin game when we know who the killer was and their motives. Nobody knows Jack about the ripper, to use a pun. It's funny people getting offended when they have played videogames with recharging health bars in the most devestating conflict of human history, but with a persona nobody ever knew who they were, it's suddenly horrifying.
If people actually knew who Jack the Ripper was, that would be a different story. But these guys are homaging and using the legend and mystique, NOT celebrating the man behind the persona. How could they when no one knows who he was?
And honestly, if any of you doubt the team behind Dead Space, your taste sucks ass. Fact.
It's like, after they impressed the shitfuck out of me with Dead Space and got themselves on my radar enough to really want to care about what their next few projects would be, these developers just decide to make themselves TOTALLY irrelevant. Dante's Inferno is a bastardization of (I'm told) a great work of a fiction and a shameless God of War ripoff, coming out one month before God of War. I could begrudgingly accept that since I absolutely love God of War and since Dante's Inferno looks better than I think anyone expects, it'll push the developers of God of War even harder to create the best game they can.
But this?
What the fuck?
Way to take an idea that would make up for Dante's Inferno, that could be totally intriguing and innovative when done correctly, and absolutely just shit all over it by turning into the most generic sounding bullshit ever that literally offends on so many levels by trivializing the deaths of people who were brutally murdered by a psychopath in some back alleys in Britain with a goddamn knife (a terrifying fucking death) and painting that psychopathic fuck AS A GOOD GUY.
At this point, I'm just debating whether or not I'm willing to deprive myself of Dead Space 2 in order to boycott Visceral Games.
I think it'll be more interesting if you play as OJ saving America from a demonic invasion.
Devil May Cry + Max Payne against a victorian backdrop?
Will we get another Jim Sterling piece telling us why anyone who doesn't like the idea is a bit of a dick? Dante's Inferno makes sense, whether people like what they've done with it or not. This just sounds fucking stupid.