Poll: Which do you think did Violence in Videogames better? Spec Ops the Line or Undertale?

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

There's not a game out there that would convince me that it does something that Spec Ops The Line does thematically better.

Everything from the presentation, mechanics and dialogue to animations presents a slow spiral into hell. Whilst initially, you can "justify" your actions by saying there's no way to continue without doing horrible things, after a while, you really do reach a point where you can just stop doing them if you don't like them. But you still continue, and the game plays that like a fiddle.

Yes, I can concede that the extent to which this message works depends on your own perspective on violence, just war, degree of choice in videogames and free will, but even then it sparks a discussion on what these respective factors mean. A game that gets people talking about concepts that most other games just brush apart as part of the "greater good" is already a success in my mind. Spec Ops going that far that it destroys all notions of unabashed jingoism and dehumanisation can speak beyond just videogames.

Obviously I'm biased, but I truly believe it to be a work of art. From what I've seen of Undertale, it has it's charm, but I severely doubt that it or any other game in the next 5 or so years can even get as far as Spec Ops did.

 

[Rahkshi500]

Even though Undertale did it better, since it actually gave you choice, I hold to the opinion that neither of them actually tackled the issue of violence well. I found both of them to be flawed and not holding up.

 

[Skatologist]

That may be the gist of my view, but I'm prepared to write just a little more on the games if asked. Like which I think is a better overall criticism of their genre, or has the better morality, or is more applicable to criticize culture to outside of games, but I can't quite write my thoughts yet and OP only asked who did violence better so *shrug*.

Tell meh. Please. Give insightful critique.

I need to know.

Well that sort of put a bit of pressure on me to do this right. I'll just use spoilers because I'm going to use some for both games

Spoiler: Better critique of game genre

Spec Ops is quite obviously a criticism of many third and first person shooter games, primarily through putting on the mask of what seems like a rather typical game of its genre only to turn common actions in such games on their heads. In most of these games, there's no doubt that you are portrayed as a hero and aren't really judged for all the lives you killed(whether you needed to or not), while in Spec Ops forces you to deal with it. Your player character constantly tries to justify in the matter by saying "we had no choice" much like the player themselves would. But the player always had a choice of leaving the game and the character literally went against orders in order to feel like a hero and attempt to save people, only winding up killing likely killing thousands because of his ignorance and arrogance. I honestly don't think Spec Ops could work if a "good" option was capable just because it completely goes against many of the games themes of deliberately saying "hey, sometimes you aren't the hero, especially when you go about killing people you don't know".

Undertale deconstructs JRPGs in almost every conceivable way. It like Spec Ops seems pretty ordinary early on with Flowey and Toriel, but it switches things up considerably. You can't really sell your items at shops, the inn keeper gives you back your money because you only were in a bed for a few moments, and most of, killing enemies actually has an effect on how people treat you and how many enemies are presented in an area. Now those two things you can find in games from time to time, but never really to the extent Undertale shows you. No other item shop in a JRPG I know would close up their shops in one place because you killed off the neighboring town of monsters/people, but Undertale does exactly that. The permanence of your action also helps, considering Flowey will berate you if you kill Toriel, load up your save, then mercy her. Your actions in Undertale have weight on who you kill have weight, much more than almost any other game I've played.

Point here goes to Undertale, but only by a nose.

Spoiler: Better morality

Spec Ops is mostly just questions you on the morality of your actions, both within the game and games like it, along with something else I'll have in the next spoiler. The game doesn't deliberately say "killing is bad" or anything like that, but it questions if your desired ends justify your means especially when your ends aren't always obtainable. As Errant Signal pointed out, your moral choices are also left ambiguous and not a clear good/evil we see in many game, which again, some people don't like, but this game shouldn't make you feel good like so many other games seem to do.

Spec Ops doesn't really have a clear morality other than to question various actions taken both in game and in real life. I suppose another interpretation would be that the game also doesn't feel there is a right or wrong.

Undertale on the other hand almost plainly says "killing is wrong". Simple as that. I mean, I agree a lot with it, but it doesn't really get much more complicated than that. The only potentially perceived negative consequence of actually holding this views is when the true final boss says you just should have played the game and not cared about anyone else and inhaled all the souls from the underground (which wouldn't have happened if you were satisfied with whatever neutral ending you got).

Despite this being another close match up because I agree more with Undertale's style of morality, Spec Ops is more in depth with it and provides much more discussion on it.

Point goes to Spec Ops,

Spoiler: Influence outside of gaming

UnderTale is also simply, a game about gaming. Whether fourth wall breaking via criticizing let's play watchers for looking up the genocide run of the game or that SAVE and LOAD are in game plot points, UnderTale is a game about gaming and that is phenomenal, but there's little more than that. I mean, I do appreciate the fact Mettaton can be interpreted as paralleling a trans person from ghost to male robot and I think Undyne and Alphys are one of the cutest lesbian couples ever, but even with that and a few choice other things in the game that is arguably subtle social commentary, it's not earth shattering commentary on LGBT+ issues or anything else it touches upon outside of gaming itself. The greatest thing that is going for it is that your actions matter and they have permanence within the game, which is still the most phenomenal thing I've seen in gaming so far, but it doesn't really apply to the real world all that much.

Meanwhile, Spec Ops deals with a lot. PTSD, use of things like white phosphorus in warfare, the military industrial complex, imperialism, "America knows best" attitudes and questioning them as I alluded to earlier, along with inner demons and hellish imagery in general and quite a bit more for a game I completely in about 6 hours.

I suppose you can attribute this to the game being based of other works like the book Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now, as they both also show off the horrors of war, but yeah, no contest Spec Ops, I find, is vastly more relevant to discussions outside of gaming.

 

[Amur El Bey]

I haven't played Spec Ops, however I think Undertale brilliantly handled violence and morality. In Undertale, you're unstoppable. Even if you die, you can just LOAD and try again. If you're DETERMINED enough, you'll eventually beat any obstacle that you come across. This is pretty much like all RPG's, however what makes Undertale unique is that the game is aware of your ability and judges you for how you use it. You could use your ability so spare everybody and have a positive impact on that world. Or you can use your ability to do whatever the hell you want and cause as much chaos as you want. Now some people are resentful of the fact that the game punishes/judges you for trying to access all content by going the Genocide route. However that's exactly the point. You, the player, are willing to inflict so much pain and death upon mostly peaceful creatures, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. You aren't doing it because you're evil or because you have no other choices, you're doing it because it's all a game to you and you're just morbidly curious to see what happens if you decide to be a complete monster (no pun intended).

The final boss at the genocide route outright says that you don't have to do any of this, that you could just QUIT and RESET the game and make things right. The game warns you that abusing your power is gonna result in you having a bad time. Yet some players will still go through with it, just to see what happens. The ending of the genocide run is both unsatisfying and corrupts the ending of any subsequent playthroughs.

If you do the True Pacifist ending, a certain character will tell you that you shouldn't reset the game again. Everybody is happy, you don't NEED nor SHOULD you do a genocide run, otherwise you're just being cruel to all the characters in the game because now you're just manipulating their lives and own happiness for you own amusement.

The game is basically calling you out on your bullshit. If you really cared about these characters and about your impact on the world, then you SHOULD do the right thing. You shouldn't constantly putting these characters through happiness and despair simply for your own amusement or curiosity, otherwise you're nothing more then a psychopath. Which is why if you complete the Genocide run and later try and do a True Pacifist run, your character will be corrupted. Because in the end, you aren't a good person. Your supposed happy ending is hollow because you don't really care about the happiness of these characters or trying to do what's right, you're just fucking around with them for shits and giggles.

The game is telling you that if you truly were a good person, that if you truly cared about these characters, then you would do the True Pacifist route and then never play the game again. You should leave the characters to live out their lives in a happy timeline, even if you can't experience all the "content" that the game has to offer.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

snip

Theres a common critisicm with Spec Ops that it gives you no choice in what you do and then sjitting on the player when the choose to go on, to which a common reply is that you always have the choice to stop playing. This is always called out as being bullshit.

Everything you said about Undertale judging you is exactly what people who criticise Spec Op complain about. People payed for the game. To then chastise the player for wishing to see all the content is an incredibly douchey thing to do.

Undertale is still currently suffering from Flavor of the Month problems honestly. I really doubt people will remember it in 6 month.

 

[Panthera]

I haven't played Spec Ops, however I think Undertale brilliantly handled violence and morality. In Undertale, you're unstoppable. Even if you die, you can just LOAD and try again. If you're DETERMINED enough, you'll eventually beat any obstacle that you come across. This is pretty much like all RPG's, however what makes Undertale unique is that the game is aware of your ability and judges you for how you use it. You could use your ability so spare everybody and have a positive impact on that world. Or you can use your ability to do whatever the hell you want and cause as much chaos as you want. Now some people are resentful of the fact that the game punishes/judges you for trying to access all content by going the Genocide route. However that's exactly the point. You, the player, are willing to inflict so much pain and death upon mostly peaceful creatures, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. You aren't doing it because you're evil or because you have no other choices, you're doing it because it's all a game to you and you're just morbidly curious to see what happens if you decide to be a complete monster (no pun intended).

The final boss at the genocide route outright says that you don't have to do any of this, that you could just QUIT and RESET the game and make things right. The game warns you that abusing your power is gonna result in you having a bad time. Yet some players will still go through with it, just to see what happens. The ending of the genocide run is both unsatisfying and corrupts the ending of any subsequent playthroughs.

If you do the True Pacifist ending, a certain character will tell you that you shouldn't reset the game again. Everybody is happy, you don't NEED nor SHOULD you do a genocide run, otherwise you're just being cruel to all the characters in the game because now you're just manipulating their lives and own happiness for you own amusement.

The game is basically calling you out on your bullshit. If you really cared about these characters and about your impact on the world, then you SHOULD do the right thing. You shouldn't constantly putting these characters through happiness and despair simply for your own amusement or curiosity, otherwise you're nothing more then a psychopath. Which is why if you complete the Genocide run and later try and do a True Pacifist run, your character will be corrupted. Because in the end, you aren't a good person. Your supposed happy ending is hollow because you don't really care about the happiness of these characters or trying to do what's right, you're just fucking around with them for shits and giggles.

The game is telling you that if you truly were a good person, that if you truly cared about these characters, then you would do the True Pacifist route and then never play the game again. You should leave the characters to live out their lives in a happy timeline, even if you can't experience all the "content" that the game has to offer.

I hate to break it to you, but it's all just a game to the player because it literally is just a game. There is no world, these characters are not experiencing anything, it's a video game created for the sake of the player experiencing it. This is what video games are. And any game that whines at you for actually wanting to play it is full of crap and its writers need a good slap upside the end for being such pretentious hacks.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

None of them do a particularly good job. Undertale makes you want to kill things just to get them out of the way, or by self defence. Two "friendly" dogs come up to you and attack you and there's nothing you can do besides to kill them, and if you mess around too much playing with them they end up killing me. How the hell does that make me violent?

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

For me they both failed. I saw two games both telling me: "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS BAD". And then I went: "Well ok then. I won't play these two games, because I agree that violence is bad." So I didn't.

That is exactly not what Undertale does. I can't speak for Spec Ops, I never played it, but you seem to have been completely misinformed about what Undertale does with the subject. I would recommend actually playing it.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

For me they both failed. I saw two games both telling me: "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS BAD". And then I went: "Well ok then. I won't play these two games, because I agree that violence is bad." So I didn't.

That is exactly not what Undertale does. I can't speak for Spec Ops, I never played it, but you seem to have been completely misinformed about what Undertale does with the subject. I would recommend actually playing it.

It is exactly what it does. I played the demo and it was "hug and kiss through all of the game, or we will tell you that you're a bad boy later". Which roughly equals to: "Do not play a game, read it as a novel instead". Why would I?

The idea that you don't play participate in the game in Undertale if you don't kill things is ludicrous. Mechanically speaking pacifism runs are at least as deep as non pacifism.

Maybe the demo was different, I never played it, but I can tell you for sure the main game is not a series of text boxes if you don't kill.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

For me they both failed. I saw two games both telling me: "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS BAD". And then I went: "Well ok then. I won't play these two games, because I agree that violence is bad." So I didn't.

That is exactly not what Undertale does. I can't speak for Spec Ops, I never played it, but you seem to have been completely misinformed about what Undertale does with the subject. I would recommend actually playing it.

It is exactly what it does. I played the demo and it was "hug and kiss through all of the game, or we will tell you that you're a bad boy later". Which roughly equals to: "Do not play a game, read it as a novel instead". Why would I?

The idea that you don't play participate in the game in Undertale if you don't kill things is ludicrous. Mechanically speaking pacifism runs are at least as deep as non pacifism.

Maybe the demo was different, I never played it, but I can tell you for sure the main game is not a series of text boxes if you don't kill.

But Undertale does EXACTLY tell you that killing is wrong and you're bad for doing it. A character L I T E R A L L Y judges you at the end of the game based on how many thing you killed.

Saying that, it basically is a novel. The encounter rate is low enough that random encounters are barely a feature and only a few boss fights are worth mentioning.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

For me they both failed. I saw two games both telling me: "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS BAD". And then I went: "Well ok then. I won't play these two games, because I agree that violence is bad." So I didn't.

That is exactly not what Undertale does. I can't speak for Spec Ops, I never played it, but you seem to have been completely misinformed about what Undertale does with the subject. I would recommend actually playing it.

It is exactly what it does. I played the demo and it was "hug and kiss through all of the game, or we will tell you that you're a bad boy later". Which roughly equals to: "Do not play a game, read it as a novel instead". Why would I?

The idea that you don't play participate in the game in Undertale if you don't kill things is ludicrous. Mechanically speaking pacifism runs are at least as deep as non pacifism.

Maybe the demo was different, I never played it, but I can tell you for sure the main game is not a series of text boxes if you don't kill.

But Undertale does EXACTLY tell you that killing is wrong and you're bad for doing it. A character L I T E R A L L Y judges you at the end of the game based on how many thing you killed.

Saying that, it basically is a novel. The encounter rate is low enough that random encounters are barely a feature and only a few boss fights are worth mentioning.

So? I really do not see how a character saying "violence is wrong" makes the game a novel. Killing things =/= gameplay.

Undertale (pacifism or otherwise) is mechanically nearest a bullet hell shooter with RPG elements. You two must be reading some very strange books.

 

[EternallyBored]

None of them do a particularly good job. Undertale makes you want to kill things just to get them out of the way, or by self defence. Two "friendly" dogs come up to you and attack you and there's nothing you can do besides to kill them, and if you mess around too much playing with them they end up killing me. How the hell does that make me violent?

Self defense is a hollow justification in a game that gives you functional immortality by making the save/load feature an ingame story element, you can't really claim self defense when the story itself tells you that it's impossible to die and you have explicit power over time and space. Especially considering the game goes out of its way to make fighting incredibly easy by letting you one or two shot most things. I can understand being frustrated if you don't like the bullet hell stuff, but the game is pretty forgiving with killing as long as you aren't doing a no mercy run, the neutral endings are all pretty positive unless you did something like kill all the boss characters, the worst you get is mild chastisement from one character at the end, unless you killed his brother, which he's understandably pissed about, especially considering you have to go out of your way to kill him since he's an early boss.

Also, you can nonviolently solve that 2 dogs fight in like 3 moves, so it's barely faster to do it violently, that's hardly even a frustrating fight compared to some later game fights like the mettaton boss battle or trying to do the muffit fight without using the alternate method. Just roll around, smell, spare, pretty much every fight in the game can be done just by cycling through the act commands until their name turns yellow, only a couple fights require spamming the spare command or get tricky with doing things in a certain order or repeating the same act command multiple times.

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

For me they both failed. I saw two games both telling me: "DON'T PLAY THIS GAME BECAUSE VIOLENCE IS BAD". And then I went: "Well ok then. I won't play these two games, because I agree that violence is bad." So I didn't.

That is exactly not what Undertale does. I can't speak for Spec Ops, I never played it, but you seem to have been completely misinformed about what Undertale does with the subject. I would recommend actually playing it.

It is exactly what it does. I played the demo and it was "hug and kiss through all of the game, or we will tell you that you're a bad boy later". Which roughly equals to: "Do not play a game, read it as a novel instead". Why would I?

The idea that you don't play participate in the game in Undertale if you don't kill things is ludicrous. Mechanically speaking pacifism runs are at least as deep as non pacifism.

Maybe the demo was different, I never played it, but I can tell you for sure the main game is not a series of text boxes if you don't kill.

But Undertale does EXACTLY tell you that killing is wrong and you're bad for doing it. A character L I T E R A L L Y judges you at the end of the game based on how many thing you killed.

Saying that, it basically is a novel. The encounter rate is low enough that random encounters are barely a feature and only a few boss fights are worth mentioning.

So? I really do not see how a character saying "violence is wrong" makes the game a novel. Killing things =/= gameplay.

Undertale (pacifism or otherwise) is mechanically nearest a bullet hell shooter with RPG elements. You two must be reading some very strange books.

I played through the game in about 4 hours? Aside from bosses, I encountered maybe...15 battles, I think. Most of which were done in <20 seconds.

A vast majority of my time playing Undertale was spent walking from one location to anothet and then being spoken to. The fighting was a very, very minimal part of the game to the point where it may as well have not been in it. Also, if you don't want to kill bosses, most of them are just choosing ACT/MERCY until they are done talking. Choosing to do either on a several bosses doesn't actually change anything. You just wait until they've run out of alloted lines, then the fight ends by itself.

This is entierly my opinion and I know people will disagree with me, but that makes it clear that this is closer to a walking simulator/visual novel than an actual game. I really liked the idea if using the bullet hell stuff, but I felt like it was sidelined in order to deliver a fairly heavy handed message about how I'm a douchebag because I didn't spend 15 minutes on a date with a CUH-RAZEE skeleton.

 

[F-I-D-O]

The violence of Spec Ops is done better to me due to the subtle changes that happen throughout the game. Namely, the executions.
Early on, each execution is abstracted out. Camera doesn't zoom in much, the enemy kind of lies there, and Walker either delivers a quick punch or headshot.
As the game goes on, those executions get longer and closer. The camera takes pride in showing the squirming enemy who panics as Walker shoves his pistol in their mouth.
Spec Ops uses its intense and violent mechanics to highlight it's story. Rather than ignore the dozens killed every firefight, it embraces it and shows Walker fall.
Violence is a core component of that story. Fights feel weighty, quick, chaotic, and brutal. It's loud, thunderous, and difficult to think through. Violence isn't put on a pedestal, its dragged through the mud so the player can see the problems with each step through the sand covered city. Without the care put into the "feel" of violence, Spec Ops would have been hollow.

Undertale does choices better. The violent/nonviolent choice is well implemented and made a valuable part of the game. The violence isn't important - each battle is fairly abstract for defense/attacking, and you don't really have to think about the violence. You have to think about the consequences. Rather than tell a narrative through violence, it tells one through characters, who react to you. The player chooses whether those characters get to live. Because the characters are well formulated, their deaths feel more meaningful - the violence is more personal. But the act of violence in the game and narrative are less important IMO.

Each fight in Undertale is just a better version of Fallout 4s companion opinions, except they hear about you before you show up. Those choices (more accurately, the effects) are compelling, but the violence isn't.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

None of them do a particularly good job. Undertale makes you want to kill things just to get them out of the way, or by self defence. Two "friendly" dogs come up to you and attack you and there's nothing you can do besides to kill them, and if you mess around too much playing with them they end up killing me. How the hell does that make me violent?

Self defense is a hollow justification in a game that gives you functional immortality by making the save/load feature an ingame story element, you can't really claim self defense when the story itself tells you that it's impossible to die and you have explicit power over time and space.

In that case, Undertale is no different to any other game. All those Nintendo games where you have multiple lives? Murder, until you're on your last life. But even then you can just put another $1 in the machine or press "start" and play again, so it's still murder, isn't it. Any game where you can save at any point, you're committing genocide because you can just reload no matter how far back it takes you.

Also, you can nonviolently solve that 2 dogs fight in like 3 moves, so it's barely faster to do it violently, that's hardly even a frustrating fight compared to some later game fights like the mettaton boss battle or trying to do the muffit fight without using the alternate method. Just roll around, smell, spare, pretty much every fight in the game can be done just by cycling through the act commands until their name turns yellow, only a couple fights require spamming the spare command or get tricky with doing things in a certain order or repeating the same act command multiple times.

Just because you can doesn't mean everyone will know that. I tried all kinds of combination with the dogs and nothing worked. They attacked me no matter what I did. That is a hostile animal and I'm entitled to defend myself. If I walk past someone's house and try to pet their dog and it bites me in the leg, I'm not going to keep on trying to pet it and roll over for it. Maybe bringing it a bag of ostrich-flavored doggie treats and tickling its tummy right below the left nipple will make it calm down, but I'm not expected to know that am I?