AC4... Am I being overly sensitive?

[Psychobabble]

So i'm playing Assassins creed and really enjoying it, what can i say, it's pirates with broadsides and the works, really well made too. Yay.

But I just can't bring myself to do the animal hunting stuff. Shooting helpless deer or harpooning giant beautiful whales.. I just can't do it. It just feels so wrong!

Now I know there's a lot of killing people in the game, but somehow that's an entirely different matter to me. The people you kill have guns and attack you and everything. Shooting animals just feels like shooting fish in a barrel. Pointless, cruel and just.. unnecessary. I don't even know why anyone would even put it in a game?

Is it just me? Am I being overly sensitive here?

Just wondering 'cause i don't know really.

Normally I'd say yes as it's just a game and no actual animals are being harmed, just like I would say about killing your fellow human beings in game. However, oddly enough I've been playing Skyrim lately and while I have no trouble hunting deer and elk, and those damned annoying wolves for hides, I've found I absolutely refuse to hunt foxes. So I guess to each his own.

 

[Legion]

Most games that involve killing people require you to do so in order to stay alive. Even if they haven't attacked you yet, most of the time they would if they spotted you, or else they are the enemy but do not know who you are (assassination targets for example).

Killing an animal involves taking the life of something that intends you no harm, so it isn't all that strange that you'd find it more disturbing. Even with animals such as wolves, that kind of thing is instinct and hunger rather than malice, they don't attack for any other reason than their own survival.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

The game allows you to avoid such hunting by giving you the option to just buy the resources animals yield in local fishing shops.
Understandably you would feel a little discomfort. I was not prepared to do any whale hunting on it until last night where i pushed past my ethical beliefs. I went for a white whale as it was the first opportunity that appeared, however, soon did i realise that me and sharp stick vs large whale does not end well for me (with hardly any hunting upgrades bought for fairly obvious reasons). This only led me to become more determined which led to even more failure. Now me and that whale have a bit of a rivalry going on and i STILL haven't caught the bloody thing!!

And...that was the end of my previously held moral high-ground.

So, yeah...it's just your personal ethics, which can change at any time for any reason.
Lastly, I think there was much less of a Whale-watch or RSPCA animal protection society influence back in that era. Most people were under the impression that anything not human, does not feel. Unless it was their pet dog, snuffles

 

[Drathnoxis]

Not really. Animals don't have a grasp on ethics and morals like we do, they operate on instinct. Animals won't just hurt you out of spite and cruelty, humans on the other hand...

This just isn't true, some animals can be very cruel and spiteful. My mother has 7 cats and certain ones will get all pissed off if you bug them and attack the first cat who walks by, that seems pretty cruel to me, taking out ones anger on the first innocent passerby. You can't really call it instinct because other cats won't do this no matter how much you annoy them. Or how about how cats will kill things just for the fun of it and not even eat what they've killed? And it's not even a clean kill, they play with it first, torturing it. That doesn't seem so innocent to me. Animals have a wide range of personalities just the same as humans do, so some animals are more cruel and spiteful than others.

 

[an874]

I don't think that's wrong. I don't mind the hunting in AC4, but I was occasionally sad at gunning down animals in Far Cry 3. Everyone has different buttons that they don't like pressed. For example look at the review for GTA 5 on this website. That game seemed to get marked down because the reviewer wasn't too keen on playing as really bad guys, and that's a legitimate criticism, as it does take away from one's enjoyment, your issue with hunting is the same thing.

 

[Krantos]

Why are you people so against clean burning lamp oil? (first person to get the reference without google wins).

Archer. Sterling Archer. I forget which episode, but I think it was either the one where he and Lana are in the swamp, or the Sea Tunt two parter.

OT: I admit, the whaling is something I had reservations about, however, after seeing it in action I actually really like what they did with it. Don't get me wrong, it's disturbing, but I feel like it was MEANT to be disturbing. Between the copious amounts of blood and the way they haul it up afterwards, it really makes you feel it.

I honestly feel like presenting it the way they do makes a much more powerful anti-whaling message than excluding it would have.

 

[subtlefuge]

It all depends on the context for me. I had no problem hunting in Far Cry 3, but I don't enjoy it nearly as much in AC4.

 

[WashAran]

Why are you people so against clean burning lamp oil? (first person to get the reference without google wins).

Archer

OT: If it isnt any different from the last game then you dont have to. There, problem solved!

 

[proctorninja2]

Ive been playing for a while now and frankly i have no sympathy for the large cats in the game, those guys are dicks

 

[elvor0]

its got whale hunting? wow thats disturbing. think they just lost a sale with that

It's also got racism in it. And Piracy. Y'know, cos it's set in 1715. When that stuff happened. There's loads of bad stuff that was historically accurate throughout the series, pillaging, raping, stealing, racism, sexism, indoctrination through religious brainwashing, incest and a whole host of other things.

Oh and they've all got brutally murdering people in them and a ton of other bad stuff.

Don't...really see how Whale hunting is the thing that everyone's getting up in arms about.

Captcha: Ham Burger. Y'know what Captcha? I don't mind if I do. Yummy.

 

[DarthSka]

In my personal opinion, yeah, I do think you are being oversensitive. However, if it does make you uncomfortable, that's your business and you should proceed to play the game however you see fit. I never did feel worse about killing animals over killing humans in games. I guess I just place more importance on our species than others. Plus, whaling was a more common practice back in those days, as they were used for lamp oil. As such, it makes sense that they would include it for historical accurateness.

 

[jdavies655]

its got whale hunting? wow thats disturbing. think they just lost a sale with that

Ya I dunno why Ubi included it. You're playing as a pirate, shouldn't he be I dunno pirating? Attacking other whaling ships and stealing their valuable whale cargo? rather than going through the effort of actually doing the work himself? It just doesn't make a lot of sense for me.

The whaling part was meant to be brutal and make you feel bad. i remember an interview with one of the lead devs saying that they wanted to show the brutality of the time and the lifestyle and whaling was a big part of this as it was one of the main fuels of the era.
But i haven't bought it yet(BECAUSE ITS NOT OUT ON PC) so i don't know if hunting has importance to the story but if like in AC3 it was just to earn money i would just avoid it again.

 

[II2]

For all their "true to history" "multicultural team of many faiths and please don't get angry at us" handwave, Ubi Montreal's games are pretty fast and loose with history, despite creating settings seeking to emulate it.

To be upfront, I haven't played any since AC3, which had some fucking whacked out misrepresentations of the details of revolutionary war... Stuff that I don't think can be chalked up to their alternate history authorial intent, so much as poor or absent research. It got on my tits a bit, but a friend who occasionally dabbles in historical reenactment couldn't even play the thing, for the idiosyncrasies and historical errors.

This is all a windup to saying, that I doubt that the 'Jackdaw' would even be capable of BEING a whaling ship. Historically, whaling ships were typically large frigates or galleons and rarely worked alone.

All that said; I haven't played the game, so I don't know how it plays out, mechanically, and further, while the historical inaccuracies irritate me, they're probably not going to detract from the enjoyment of players who really like AssCreed. I what I find frustrating is the the notion that they're putting that much time and money into recreating history, but not fussed about the details beyond the tits and lipstick, so to speak.

 

[nyankaty]

I think it's just human nature to get upset about certain things, whether it's killing animals, people, or whatever. So no, you're not being overly sensitive for having an emotional response to that! But as always, it's just a game and it's not causing any sort of real world harm, so if someone did really have a hankering for whale hunting, doing it in a video game would be the best place.

That said, if there was ever a game where to had to murder cats, I really don't think I could play it. Even knowing it's not real, I have way too strong of a response to seeing cats being harmed, even if it's not real. There's an episode of Looney Tunes where the cat gatekeeper to cat heaven sees a wet bag of kittens arriving at the gate of heaven and I still get nauseous when I see that part. And it's just a cartoon. A really dark, horrible cartoon.

 

[thiosk]

Some people found shooting the doberman zombies back in resident evil, or even rat clubbing, distateful.

Its a period piece, so I understand the harpooning, but I am not interested in shooting whales. I'm the sort that would call for harpooning poachers of megafauna (whales, elephants, rhinos, etc). Its not morally consistent but I hold that opinion.

 

[kasperbbs]

I'm having a hard time making sense of people having no problem with killing virtual people, but as soon as they see a virtual animal getting killed all hell breakes loose. Personally i wouldn't even kill a mouse in the real world, but who cares when it's fake? People have a right to be disturbed by different things, but saying that it's somehow wrong in a game focused on assasinating people is a stretch.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I was also uncomfortable with the hunting feature in Red Dead Redemption. I didn't mind shooting people - most of them shoot at you first before you try shoot them, anyway, and I'm morally OK with this in real life (shoot back if you're getting shot at). The animal hunting I was uneasy with. With the exception of coyotes, wolves, cougars and such, nothing really attacks you. I couldn't stomach skinning armadillos and shooting birds off the sky for a measly feather... until I decided to go with the role-play anyway.

 

[thibaut95]

Well, i do enjoy the minigame actually, and i do play it from time to time without feeling guilty. I don't feel guilty in any game for hunting really, but have to admit the whaling is on one side pretty disturbing. For me it's that final cutscene after the mini-game. seeing that huge beast being dragged onto your ship with like 20 spears poking out and covered in blood ,that makes me sad. But still I still nobody should think less of the game because of the whaling. As long as Ubisoft doesn't kill real whales, i'm on board

 

[IamLEAM1983]

So i'm playing Assassins creed and really enjoying it, what can i say, it's pirates with broadsides and the works, really well made too. Yay.

But I just can't bring myself to do the animal hunting stuff. Shooting helpless deer or harpooning giant beautiful whales.. I just can't do it. It just feels so wrong!

Now I know there's a lot of killing people in the game, but somehow that's an entirely different matter to me. The people you kill have guns and attack you and everything. Shooting animals just feels like shooting fish in a barrel. Pointless, cruel and just.. unnecessary. I don't even know why anyone would even put it in a game?

Is it just me? Am I being overly sensitive here?

Just wondering 'cause i don't know really.

It's your prerogative, really, but I think you could also consider the fact that you're not killing *actual* animals.

See, I hate hunting, myself. My grandfather used to take to nature preserves and government-sanctioned hunting grounds once a year, and he'd come back with enough venison for the winter. Sunday evenings at House LEAM were all venisonvenisonvenison until he died. He tried to introduce me to rifle hunting, but the fact is I'm not physically or intellectually inclined to like that kind of stuff. It's murder on the knees and I hate the idea of killing animals.

I took to FarCry 3 last winter, though, and discovered hunting was actually fun in a controlled environment. Seeing as the Rook Islands are fake, all the animals on them are also fake. I could slaughter every pig, every tiger, buffalo, shark or cassowary in Vaaas' nook of the Pacific that it wouldn't reflect badly on me.

Long story short? It's just a game. These aren't poor, defenseless animals. These aren't cutesy-poo bundles of scales, feather or fur; they're a bunch of vertexes, animation triggers, textures and sound bytes. All the dogs and wolves I've killed in Skyrim or FC3 didn't bother me in the least, but trust me when I say I have a hard time doing something as benign as yelling "No!" to my disobeying puppy. The thought of hitting him seems utterly ludicrous to me.

So, yeah. Hunt away, my friend.

 

[Baddamobs]

This does serve to highlight an interesting trend, though. In a controlled setting where in a player is given an optional (at least, I've been told the hunting sections are optional) option to hunt animals, many raise of objections to it. This wouldn't be a surprise in it self if it wasn't an established fact that you WILL be killing humans. This part is not an option: to continue the game you have to kill individuals.

I think that we humans just have more trouble being sympathetic to other humans then to animals: as humans, we know that other humans likely have the same thought pattern we do, including all the negative, hate filled and angry thoughts that we have likely had (as well as various other negative thoughts like greed). In that mind set, we have very little problems killing other humans: in a way, they deserve it much more then a whale. Especially since to us, animals are just...well, animals: majestic and cute, but also very often dumb, and a little helpless VS our freakin' guns. It just seems unfair to animals that, in our minds, likely can't even HAVE an angry thought (though there have been cases...).
Seems odd in my mind, since we should also be able to sympathise better to an animal who is both like us and can communicate with us.

Sooo, to answer your question, I don't think you're being overly sensitive: but I do think that you should look into why you're sorry for the whales and not the guard you stabbed in the neck, and then walked coldly away from, now just a piece of flesh that once had a name you never even knew.