Poll: Have you ever experienced guilt in a game?
- Thread starter Kelbear
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Hmmm, well I can't think of any great "guilt moments" in games off the top of my head. Truthfully I usually can't get really 'into' playing an evil character that much, but yes I've done a number of fairly underhanded things in games. That includes doing the entire "Dark Brotherhood" quest line in Oblivion (more than once).
I think some of it might be that a lot of it is rather forced, and the nature of gaming is that even where there should be some middle ground, there usually isn't.
Also, while I feel good and evil are absolutes, I do not think someone has to be all one or all the other. I do believe people can do very good, and very bad things.
Let's take something horrible like rape, child molestation, murder for personal gain, etc. I do not believe that just because someone does something truely horrible, and might not regret it, does not mean that every thing they do must then be equally horrible overall.
Let's take for example a quintessential viking-type hero. This is a guy who might very well go out and slaughter villages, loot their treasury, rape their women to death, and drag the children back with him to be slaves. But at the same time this is also a guy who might defend peasants, heroically sacrifice himself, and risk everything to track down huge and legendary monsters. The basic logic of most games being that you can't be an ancient style conqueror, and good to your people and allies, but ruthless and merciless to your enemies. The moral scale doesn't allow for this kind of thing which in a lot of ways is realistic.
I guess a lot of it comes down to fantasy which is based very loosely around ancient legends and such, but tries to present them within the context of ultra-modern left wing morality, and in a lot of cases it just doesn't work. To be honest I don't even think you can get Arthurian in most cases where the greatest knighe of all (Lancelot) was guilty of horrible deceptions and adultory, but he manages to regain his honor and still remain a good guy who returns to whoop up on everyone in the land's hour of need (well in many versions of the story). About the time you said "yeah I'll bang Guinivere" the game is pretty much going to hardware your future progression and powers into the route of being a puppy kicking jerk. Basically if you sleep with your best friend's wife, your also going to be thus "logically" be willing to sacrifice peasants to demons or whatever, and if you don't you get gimped.
I'm rambling but the basic point is that I think the very nature of how they do things kind or removes a lot of the impact of things. Evil becomes a sort of interactive siteseeing tour of whatever sick stuff the game developer came up with.
Besides as a fantasy fan and a role-player, I can detach myself from characters pretty well. I don't agree with say the morality of Howard's "Conan" in the real world. However it can be quite fun to play in an appropriate RPG. Conan was oftentimes not a nice person, but he was undoubtably a hero. He slayed monsters and protected people, but he was also a pirate, a reaver, a thief, and a heartless mercenary. Through all of this he was pretty consistant within his ideals of right and wrong, which worked for the world he happened to be in. He was also quite bluntly a "Barbarian" as the text tells you, and ocasionally you get the message that civilized men with more complicated codes of morality were arguably worse and more brutal than he was at his worst.
Ironically even Conan inspired games, rarely let me act like Conan (and sadly this can include when you play AS Conan).
While not the oldest character, sometime roll say a Nord fighter in Oblivion with no magic and maxxed combat skills, or do something similar in a Fable Game. Then approach situations from the perspective of "what would Conan do here?". Watch how quick the quintessential fantasy warrior-hero winds up accrueing evil points compared to what he gets for his good deeds.
I think some of it might be that a lot of it is rather forced, and the nature of gaming is that even where there should be some middle ground, there usually isn't.
Also, while I feel good and evil are absolutes, I do not think someone has to be all one or all the other. I do believe people can do very good, and very bad things.
Let's take something horrible like rape, child molestation, murder for personal gain, etc. I do not believe that just because someone does something truely horrible, and might not regret it, does not mean that every thing they do must then be equally horrible overall.
Let's take for example a quintessential viking-type hero. This is a guy who might very well go out and slaughter villages, loot their treasury, rape their women to death, and drag the children back with him to be slaves. But at the same time this is also a guy who might defend peasants, heroically sacrifice himself, and risk everything to track down huge and legendary monsters. The basic logic of most games being that you can't be an ancient style conqueror, and good to your people and allies, but ruthless and merciless to your enemies. The moral scale doesn't allow for this kind of thing which in a lot of ways is realistic.
I guess a lot of it comes down to fantasy which is based very loosely around ancient legends and such, but tries to present them within the context of ultra-modern left wing morality, and in a lot of cases it just doesn't work. To be honest I don't even think you can get Arthurian in most cases where the greatest knighe of all (Lancelot) was guilty of horrible deceptions and adultory, but he manages to regain his honor and still remain a good guy who returns to whoop up on everyone in the land's hour of need (well in many versions of the story). About the time you said "yeah I'll bang Guinivere" the game is pretty much going to hardware your future progression and powers into the route of being a puppy kicking jerk. Basically if you sleep with your best friend's wife, your also going to be thus "logically" be willing to sacrifice peasants to demons or whatever, and if you don't you get gimped.
I'm rambling but the basic point is that I think the very nature of how they do things kind or removes a lot of the impact of things. Evil becomes a sort of interactive siteseeing tour of whatever sick stuff the game developer came up with.
Besides as a fantasy fan and a role-player, I can detach myself from characters pretty well. I don't agree with say the morality of Howard's "Conan" in the real world. However it can be quite fun to play in an appropriate RPG. Conan was oftentimes not a nice person, but he was undoubtably a hero. He slayed monsters and protected people, but he was also a pirate, a reaver, a thief, and a heartless mercenary. Through all of this he was pretty consistant within his ideals of right and wrong, which worked for the world he happened to be in. He was also quite bluntly a "Barbarian" as the text tells you, and ocasionally you get the message that civilized men with more complicated codes of morality were arguably worse and more brutal than he was at his worst.
Ironically even Conan inspired games, rarely let me act like Conan (and sadly this can include when you play AS Conan).
While not the oldest character, sometime roll say a Nord fighter in Oblivion with no magic and maxxed combat skills, or do something similar in a Fable Game. Then approach situations from the perspective of "what would Conan do here?". Watch how quick the quintessential fantasy warrior-hero winds up accrueing evil points compared to what he gets for his good deeds.
That one level of the Warcraft 3 campaign where you had to kill all the villagers before they got infected. I stopped playing after the first family cause i just couldn't take it.
it was my first real experience with the whole "next-gen" technology back in the day
I was playing a demo of Ghost Recon...2 I think it was at a Circuit City (oh dear what is that?)
annnd I had to leave midway through so I decided to just shoot my squadmates for the heck of it
well I didn't expect several to fall down mortally wounded but still alive enough to cry out in pain and agony filled with sorrow of the hurt and betrayal and...
well okay it's weird looking back but haha idk it got to me
I was playing a demo of Ghost Recon...2 I think it was at a Circuit City (oh dear what is that?)
annnd I had to leave midway through so I decided to just shoot my squadmates for the heck of it
well I didn't expect several to fall down mortally wounded but still alive enough to cry out in pain and agony filled with sorrow of the hurt and betrayal and...
well okay it's weird looking back but haha idk it got to me
Of course there are many times where I have felt guilt in videogames. For instance, the "stranger" girl Marnie in GTA made me feel bad for some of the people in the city I had killed. Not all, but some of them. Also, in Monster Hunter, I have felt remorse for some of the monsters I have killed, but that is a very rare one since that is all you do in that game anyway.
*edit*
I suppose what is more interesting is when they fail at guilt/remorse moments in games. Like in Fable when you can choose to kill Whisper. Even on my good play through I killed her, just because she was annoying.
*edit*
I suppose what is more interesting is when they fail at guilt/remorse moments in games. Like in Fable when you can choose to kill Whisper. Even on my good play through I killed her, just because she was annoying.
same goes for me...Pimppeter2 said:
Killing soul mates didn't feel that nice...
but aside from that I would do each and everything again...
I'm probably 5-6 game hours past that and I still can't look Da Vinci in the eye.Whenever you get him to decode codex pages, he just looks so sadCosmic Naginata said:
Yes. GTA, any of them. I always tried so hard to avoid killing people. However, every so often, someone will run up under my tire or get hit by a stray bullet. I always feel bad. Now, mind you, in my non saveing playtime, I run them over with abandon...but still feel guilty about it.
I'm with this guy. Or pretty much anytime I do a renegade playthrough and make Shepard a complete dick.Loop Stricken said:Mass Effect, any time I make Tali feel bad.
The first time I played through Heavy Rain, I made pretty much every good choice. I
chose not to kill the drug-dealer, forgave Madison, and ended up saving my son and getting the good endings. Then I played it again with my friend and ended up doing everything bad like choosing not to help Lauren in the Sleazy Place, killing the drug-dealer, and intentionally throwing Madison out of a window near the end of the game. I got some bad endings and I was devastated.
We should all go to the church together.
My most recent one, which is a few hours ago.
1.Killing the Gray Prince. But that wasn't what made me feel guilty. It was talking to that Blue Team Gladiator guy.
2.He was so nice to you, then after you kill the Prince he was like "You killed him.. You killed the Gray Prince.. He was my friend.. Congratulations, I hope it's worth it.".
3.I near damn reloaded the game, but I decided to kill him as well. Anyone who makes me feel bad shall die!
My most recent one, which is a few hours ago.
1.Killing the Gray Prince. But that wasn't what made me feel guilty. It was talking to that Blue Team Gladiator guy.
2.He was so nice to you, then after you kill the Prince he was like "You killed him.. You killed the Gray Prince.. He was my friend.. Congratulations, I hope it's worth it.".
3.I near damn reloaded the game, but I decided to kill him as well. Anyone who makes me feel bad shall die!