Has a game ever made you feel bad for playing them?

[Danny]

I was having this discussion with some friends about videogames. One pointed out that most videogame characters are killers in some fashion or other and this lead to talk about emotional impact in games other than fear in horror games and the generic exhilaration of a completed challenge. On the topic of a game making you feel bad for doing what the character can do. Theres two immediate examples for me, in spoilers of course for metal gear 4 and heavy rain.   In metal gear solid 4 you encounter 4 cybernetically enhanced imitations of snakes bast enemies, the four beasts. After defeating these beasts you face the pilot inside, each of which is a beautiful woman dubbed the four beauties. after beating each you hear their life story. all of which is of a poor woman put into a horrific war scenario that has traumatised them beyond repair. Even with them out and out trying to kill 'me' for the whole game up to those fights i still felt like i was the bad guy to a point for beating them. granted thats probably what kojima meant to foist upon you during play- that snake isnt some masterchief style white vs black hero and he does bad things as well as good things like any soldier but needless to say, when i learnt you could beat them without killing them on a replay i felt way better about those points in the game.   the challenges in heavy rain are meant to put you in the shoes of a father being tested to see what you would do for a loved one. each one gives you part of the address to find and save your son. I had no problem cutting off the tip of my characters pinky finger. No problem drinking what might be poison- of even barrelling down a freeway the wrong way risking a dozen lives in each half mile of road. However the more intimate challenge to go into a drug dealers house and point blank shoot him in the head in his daughters bedroom was something i just could not do. I know it was making my game harder and risking a bad end but i plainly said '**** you' to the game and the killer and spared the guy. Does he matter more than all the faceless drivers on the freeway? not really for the characters in the world. but to me it was making the character i enacted all my choices with become imbibed with some shameful stain that would alter my opinion of the game had i no choice to do otherwise. Theres a few things that left me feeling less than cheerful in other games, finding doms wife in gears 2, a quest in world of warcraft that has you torture an innocent preacher for information with hot pokers... im sure there are a fair few more im missing but what about you guys? ever had to push pause and ask yourself if you aren't quite playing as clean cut a 'hero' as you first thought?

[Tricky]

I remember when I got GTA3 when it first came out, and everyone was raving about how you could kill prostitutes etc, but it just felt morally wrong playing the game in that way to me. I rarely went ploughing through hordes of pedestrians in it either for similar reasons. Despite the main character being a heartless murderous criminal, I still always tried to play the good guy wherever possible. Arma 2 has made me feel guilty at times too, you can call in CAS strikes on some missions and after dropping bombs on villages that I was taking fire from, I've then moved in & found dead civvies there, its like "oh shit, didnt mean that!". Ive also been firing away at enemies before & one of my own team has run across my line of fire (stupid AI occasionally) and I've killed them, that usually results in a pang of guilt and a click of the "restart mission" button!

[CoinReturn]

Nope. Stiff animation and dead eyes in 99% of games leave me with a sense of disconnect as far as emotion.

[Danny]

I remember when I got GTA3 when it first came out, and everyone was raving about how you could kill prostitutes etc, but it just felt morally wrong playing the game in that way to me. I rarely went ploughing through hordes of pedestrians in it either for similar reasons. Despite the main character being a heartless murderous criminal, I still always tried to play the good guy wherever possible. Arma 2 has made me feel guilty at times too, you can call in CAS strikes on some missions and after dropping bombs on villages that I was taking fire from, I've then moved in & found dead civvies there, its like "oh shit, didnt mean that!". Ive also been firing away at enemies before & one of my own team has run across my line of fire (stupid AI occasionally) and I've killed them, that usually results in a pang of guilt and a click of the "restart mission" button! military games bug me a bit too, especially world war 2 ones. i was playing one where you shoot a bunch of japanese soldiers with a friend whos parents emigrated here from japan and he went "you know, for all we know i could have just shot my great granddad.." that was super awkward. after that i tended to favour shooters set in sci fi settings like half life or resistance when you are killing some facsimile of real people, it just left kind of a bad taste in my mouth from then on.

[AcesandEights]

I probably shook my head at half the stuff I was asked to do in the GTA games, but that was more out of pity for the younger kids who were, no doubt, being allowed to play the game by their parents.

[Mr. Clean]

I've connected with a few of the Final Fantasy games when they caused emotion to stir within me but no feelings of guilt that I can recall. I was playing hitman once and sneaking around with a claw hammer planting that damn thing into the back of random people's skulls and never felt anything. Pretty sure the wife was though. She kept bitching about it being morbid as I repeated just beat the shit out of some body guards.

[MinionZombie]

Hellsing - the situation you described with Heavy Rain was perhaps more due to the faceless drivers versus an actual character in that particular context and situation. Like, with GTA, the pedestrians only number a certain amount of "types" and they have set things they do, so they don't feel particularly "real" for a fair amount of time, so I don't mind ploughing them down, however when it comes to an actual character - even one of the random meetings on the street - I'll feel, due to the characterisation that is unique to that character, more connected to them and have a sense of connection, even loyalty, to them. If I fuck something up and something happens to them that I didn't want, then I oftentimes restart the mission and do it the way I wanted. So, in GTA IV, even though Roman was a total oaf, I felt sorry for him and felt a connection to him (perhaps it was all those times he rang me up bleeting "COUSIN! WANT TO SEE SOME AMERICAN TITTIES?!" ) so I wanted to see him alive at the end of the game, but at the same time you have to lose another character, and I felt a connection to her too. There was a mission in GTA IV where you had to choose who to kill, a regretful ex-con living in the projects, or the arrogant rich guy who was promising you money for killing the ex-con ... now, the choice isn't all that complex (indeed if you kill Playboy X, you get his apartment and his car, which are far more useful to you), but even still. Same again with Packie's brothers - one a corrupt cop, the other a pathetic drug addict - I sniped the cop and let the pitiable one go ... another fairly binary choice, but still... Then, for instance, Red Dead Redemption - that did a very good job of connecting you to the characters, or the core ones anyway, particularly John Marston. Then with the likes of Bonnie MacFarlane, I felt a sense of duty and loyalty to her, so when she got in trouble with a gang it was like "you leave my Bonnie alone" and I wrought swift justice upon the no-good bad guys. Likewise with the random events, I'd always do the right thing - someone's stolen a horse, I get it back, someone's stolen money, I get that back, someone's being unjustly hung, I do what I can and try and save them (and when I fail, I feel sorry for the person who ran to me looking for help). John Marston was a good character, and a morally complex one at that, so I got very connected to his story, and I always looked to do the right thing by those seeking help - and if someone wasn't deserving, then they'd receive some swift justice from the buttons of my joypad - just like with Fallout 3, I always helped everybody out, and if I fucked something up I'd restart from a save point before the fuck up and do it properly. However there was one time when I'd made too much progress since the last save, so I didn't bother - but a young boy I had been escorting had died at the hands of an enemy attack, and I felt sorry for him and felt bad as I'd failed in protecting him, as I'd said I would do. So when you're connected to your player character, and indeed those you are completing missions for, you feel a connection. However if you don't have that, then it's much more game-like, and you don't give so much (if any) of a shit - such as with peds in GTA. Nice mention of that moment from Gears of War 2, that was nicely done ... very touching, and really quite tragic ... and indeed afterwards I felt very loyal to Dom, as Marcus Fenix, in that "I'm right beside you, buddy" kind of way. So it's all about characterisation, individuality and context, but so often anyway my default position when it comes to missions, is to do them right and help and seek the positive outcome. However if it's just some generic peds, then pfft, they'll meet the grill of my muscle car as I hoof it around a corner firing on the generic police that are shooting at me. Good thread, hellsing. ... Mr. Clean - interesting you mention Hitman. On the most recent one, Blood Money, I'd have no problem, time-and-again, just going around massacring, like Jason Vorhees (but with a range of guns), every single NPC. Like stalking from one room to the next taking them out with my laser-scoped pistol, or kicking in doors and blowing them away with my SPAS-12 ... this coming after doing the missions "correctly" so-to-speak, or with as little bloodshed as possible. Blood Money was a kick ass game, but there was pretty much zero connection to any of the characters.

[Mr. Clean]

Actually, The wife reminded of one. The airport massacre of Call of Duty MW2. I had forgot about that.

[MinionZombie]

Actually, The wife reminded of one. The airport massacre of Call of Duty MW2. I had forgot about that. Ah yes. With that I always shot around the people - even though they're merely NPCs, a bunch of data appearing to do human things. In the context of who you, as the player, are being (a US solider undercover with a Russian terrorist group ... laughably after less than 24 hours ), I didn't fire upon the civilians. However when it came to the police and swat guys that rolled in shooting at us, I was a bit confused to find you had to kill them in order to proceed. I had hoped I didn't have to fire upon the innocent police (even though they're just data on a videogame), but in order to proceed I had to shoot them down, and that was a bit "hmmm" to me, particularly after easily being able to not kill the civvies inside the airport.

[Mr. Clean]

... Mr. Clean - interesting you mention Hitman. On the most recent one, Blood Money, I'd have no problem, time-and-again, just going around massacring, like Jason Vorhees (but with a range of guns), every single NPC. Like stalking from one room to the next taking them out with my laser-scoped pistol, or kicking in doors and blowing them away with my SPAS-12 ... this coming after doing the missions "correctly" so-to-speak, or with as little bloodshed as possible. Blood Money was a kick ass game, but there was pretty much zero connection to any of the characters. lol I use to do the same thing. That game had ALL KINDS of replay value.

[rongravy]

Geeez, it smells like Massengil's up in here... Anybody need an FDS spritz?

[MikePizzoff]

Geeez, it smells like Massengil's up in here... Anybody need an FDS spritz?

[SymphonicX]

In a word, no....! I don't know if this speaks volumes about me, but personally I had no qualms with killing anything that can take a shot in a game...I'm surprised some people said they weren't bothered about mowing down pedestrials in GTA games, I thought it was 99% of the fun of the game. I also had a hankering, as I'm sure almost EVERYONE here did back in the day - of finding a rooftop and sniping as many pedestrians as possible until 6 stars were achieved and the army were called out. That was a blatant disregard for breaking the rules and being a merciless killer in one's head. I thought it was quite fun. Where I do draw the line, and this is something that all games do too, is the killing or hurting of children. Technically you could kill kids in Fallout 3 (for instance, detonating the megaton bomb would certainly have killed the little girl and little boy in that town) but you don't outwardly see it, and you don't get the opportunity to shotgun the little kids in the face, it doesn't work - its as though its a law that's unbreakable, it won't receed and allow gamers the chance to slaughter kids - and I'm comfortable with that. Anyone else in a game is fair play! The woman helping you out, the mechanics, any kind of NPC whatsoever deserves a shot in the face just to see what'll happen -that's the beauty of saved games. But the inner devil in me still takes a shot at the kids just to see if the bastards have allowed it to be there. lol. I don't care really, its a game, and can be reloaded. When I'm in my car, driving along school routes, I'm Mr Law Abiding, I also open doors for people and treat them with courtesy and respect - as you'd expect. So my alarm bells aren't going off too much in terms of being an inner sociopath. Most "bad" characters in games have a noble agenda, are confused, or fighting a greater evil - even the GTA games, you are fighting a greater evil for a lot of it. What was controversial so to speak were the times when you were specifically charged with killing innocent people - context is important to society at large, which is a good thing. We still analyse it, like this thread, and try to ascertain how we feel about it all, and how it affects others. When that stops happening, I'll feel more uncomfortable. ---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:56 AM ---------- Ah yes. With that I always shot around the people - even though they're merely NPCs, a bunch of data appearing to do human things. In the context of who you, as the player, are being (a US solider undercover with a Russian terrorist group ... laughably after less than 24 hours ), I didn't fire upon the civilians. However when it came to the police and swat guys that rolled in shooting at us, I was a bit confused to find you had to kill them in order to proceed. I had hoped I didn't have to fire upon the innocent police (even though they're just data on a videogame), but in order to proceed I had to shoot them down, and that was a bit "hmmm" to me, particularly after easily being able to not kill the civvies inside the airport. yeah interesting in that you don't even need to fire a shot in the civvie sequence. but you can theorise this: You're an undercover agent trying to prevent in some sense the deaths of millions and millions of people - your mission at that point is to maintain cover whatever the cost because the real cost will be far, far greater for the world at large. It's actually in some sense (and I HATE to add intelligence to this game if it never existed) quite clever at putting you in an awkward position - as war would most certainly do - positions in which soldiers are forced to take lives and make decisions on the spot which have far reaching consequences both morally and socially. Just a thought... ---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 PM ---------- military games bug me a bit too, especially world war 2 ones. i was playing one where you shoot a bunch of japanese soldiers with a friend whos parents emigrated here from japan and he went "you know, for all we know i could have just shot my great granddad.." that was super awkward. after that i tended to favour shooters set in sci fi settings like half life or resistance when you are killing some facsimile of real people, it just left kind of a bad taste in my mouth from then on. I think your friend was surely taking it lightly? I dunno, can imagine that'd feel a little awkward. I'd always felt "what if my grandad saw this game" - i don't think my grandad was in world war 2, but you know - you can imagine a grandad sitting at christmas time with his family, one of his grandkids has got COD2 and plays it in front of the grandad, who suddenly either has flashbacks (bearing in mind the realistic gun noises and commands on the field etc) or even worse still, sees a mission that he was perhaps a part of (beaches of normandy, operation market garden etc etc) some of which were mapped out almost exactly as the battles occurred, I always felt that was a tad much in some senses. But then I think, the disconnection between that generation and this one is probably enough for it to have less impact. Now with Vietnam expansions....that's a different story. SURELY those here who've seen the horrors of war don't like the idea of those exact battles being mapped out and recreated for fun, with the addition of score points for headshots and shit? I mean...I don't know if I'm making my point well, but I know we have combat veterans here - what would they make of a battle in which their best friend was killed being recreated with NPCs getting blown up all over the place? I sound like some kind of stick in the mud about it, but as i'm not affected by it, it's never been an issue and I'm part of the collective majority who can enjoy war shooters - but this kinda thing is far beyond the entertainment of Band of Brothers or whatever, and more in line with just enjoying yourself - the only real tangiable positivity I can give it is that it can be percieved as quite a valid educational tool in terms of understanding the restraints and problems of the time period at war. But really, that's thin on the ground...

[MinionZombie]

Symph - seeing as it wasn't necessary for you to shoot civvies in the "No Russian" mission, I didn't do it - and indeed that would never be the case as the non-gaming morons and reactionary nutjobs would have a field day with it, and the videogame industry wouldn't want the shit storm connected to a AAA title sold to countless millions across the world. However, if it was an actual part of the game, I would play along - go all Jack Bauer in 24 about it. ... An interesting one has just sprung to mind - the Postal games - particularly Postal 2. I would go absolutely mental in that back in the day, torching and shooting everyone in sight, hacking them up and all sorts - it's kind of the main thrust of the game really ... but seeing as there's no children in the game, and the peds are specifically there to be cannon fodder, and it's all super-tongue-in-cheek, then you're fine to get stuck in. Like you say, in normal life I'm Mr. Law Abiding - because real actions have real consequences, and I'm a nice guy anyway - but in a game, well, it's just a game. Real life can't be reloaded.

[slickwilly13]

The only game that made me feel kind of bad was when Aeris on Final Fantasy 7 dies. She was my main healer in the game. I bummed out, because I used her a lot. Yeah, I know. I did not use spoilers, but if you do not know who this character is and what happened in FF 7, then you are not a true gamer, poser. Btw, I shot up the airport in CoD. No mercy.