Actions in games you had to take but didn't want to

[Mirroga]

snip

Slap that in a spoiler, dude.

Can't really think of much. Maybe in Saints Row 3

Spoiler

Leaving Johnny alone in the plane. That sucked.

Thanks for the reminder. But IMO, everything about this topic is spoiler-heavy. Inhumane or hard-to-do acts in storyline has always been spoiler-heavy.

 

[Windcaler]

Dragon Age: Origins when you get into the whole thing with Jowan and the Arl of Redcliffs kid. At the very end Jowan' still alive and by god my mage wanted to conscript him into the grey wardens. It seemed like the only way to save his friend and you cant tell me the grey wardends couldnt have used some more help

Instead what happens to him is left largely up in the air. Most likely he was executed or sent to that mages prison but they just never make his fate known

 

[Sennune]

This is a minor one, but it happened to me today, again. There's a part in Modern Warfare 3 where you're skulking towards an African village with Soap and Price. On the way, you come across a bombed out hut, with four African "soldiers" standing around three civilians about to be executed. You hear truck sounds in the background and a couple pickups with machine guns mounted in the back park around the area with several patrols walking around. Price says, "Stay down and don't do anything stupid." While I understand that given the situation we're heavily out gunned and announcing our position would leave us with no where to run, seeing innocent civilians shot point blank in the back of the head leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[McMullen]

Many times in Red Dead Redemption. Wanted to injure or kill Nigel W. Dickens, Irish, Reyes, Sanchez, and McDougal, had plenty of reason to do so, and he wouldn't do it.

Also, in ACII and later, I kill heralds frequently even though I'm not supposed to. They're lying for the Templars, they're not acting as civilians, I should be able to do it. Besides, Altair killed every herald he interrogated, and Ezio has an assassination contract on at least one at some point for, yep, spreading lies on behalf of the Templars.

I sometimes spend more time wanting to slap Ubisoft employees than having fun while playing their games.

 

[gaiusimperator]

I guess there's a few reasons you might find yourself in a scenario like this.
For one, and I think this is possibly a mark of less effective storytelling, the game forces you to do something in order to continue but you don't feel it's necessary in terms of plot, or maybe inconsistent with your character. So in this case, you don't want to take the action because it doesn't seem like you should have to.
Another possibility is that you are emotionally involved in a way that makes it seem unpleasant et cetera. Here, the storytelling's more effective, the action has to occur for the gameplay to continue and it makes sense that this should be the case on a narrative level. The reason you don't want to do it in this case is that it'll make you upset, I suppose, although it's an effective storytelling technique and you accept that you must do so to continue.

For me, the end of Crisis Core had shades of this.

Spoiler: Well, if you played FF7, you knew this had to be coming...

I didn't want to march Zack out to his death, or face the Shinra army until he was inevitably killed. I knew that I had to, and I knew that it was necessary for him to die for the story to continue, but I was emotionally attached to him and didn't want him to die.

So yeah, effective and ineffective occurences of this?

I killed Mordin in Mass Effect 3. I had to. There was no other choice, and the game was incredible, in that it used that as a wedge to split my character apart and destroy his psyche.

I didn't want to, but my character knew the Krogan hadn't changed. Every second on Tuchanka was a knife in my heart, seeing the green grass near the temple, seeing the ancient Krogan art, knowing who they used to be. It hurt, but I did it, and I doomed an entire species against my will.

 

[MetroidNut]

The whole of Bioshock.

I tried to swim away from the island after the plane crash. I hit an invisible wall. I didn't want to inject plasmids. I couldn't progress without it. I didn't want to rescue some guy's family in a sub. I had nowhere else to go... etc, etc...

I really wanted to do all of those things for some reason. I guess it was because Atlas asked so nicely...

 

[Aprilgold]

Infamous 2 Spoiler

Spoiler

Killing Zeke in Infamous 2 in the "Evil" Ending.

Oh my god I didn't even bloody play that ending and watched it on youtube but I literally just wanted Cole to just sit there and die because it was just to bad.

___________________________

I'm pretty sure everyone is aware of the Lizard challenge in Heavy Rain. If you are not, in it you are playing Ethan Thomas who is undertaking a insane task of cutting off one of his fingers own fingers to save his child. The fucking tension, I almost could not look and the fact of just seeing this poor man go through with it brought me back to Buried... JUST CUT IT OFF IN ONE! OH GOD YOU FUCKING MISSED!? DO IT AGAIN AND OFF FOREVER THIS TIME!... AHHHHH! Fuck that must have been terrible. I didn't want to, but I had to for his kid.

I'll spoiler the next bit involving Heavy Rain involving the final challenge.

Spoiler

The last trial as Ethan is to take some very deadly poison that will kill you in a hour, which is just long enough to save your kid. You either take the poison or you walk away. I heavily did not want Ethan to die, similar to how I didn't want to drive several miles on the opposite side of the highway, or wanted to crawl through a tunnel of glass and limbo under live electric bullshit or even cut off his finger. But if I didn't his child would be left in the hands of a mad man.

I, however let the drug dealer live, and I hoped completing all but one would help me reach his child. I was so very angry to find out not only would none of my other characters be in reach of Ethan's child but he would be dead in a hour if he didn't do something. Listening back and forth to the audio tapes made me get very angry and I could just imagine a small timer in the back of my mind. Ticking away like a timebomb.

I decided to head to the docks, luckily finding his child and I swear I got the most overjoyed to save him.

Saints Row the Third. One of the endings.

Spoiler

I grew to love the entire crew from Saints Row the Second and at the end of the third when I found out I have to either choose to save shaundi or kill Killbane for bringing us to this hell hole I almost wanted to cry. I started driving, running and utterly trying to save Shaundi from her death. But right before I reached the mission marker, I stopped.

I don't know why I did but I just stopped. Olaf was right, if I do this now all they have done will be for not. The future Johnny wanted for the Saints would be non-existent. Not only in tears but I drove away, literally a inch from Kinzie in order to ride a boat to save them.

After getting Killbane dead as dirt, I sat, morning at my computer over Shaundi who I just lost.

Not catching Wheatley in Portal 2. You'll know when you get there.

Cave Story. Leaving Quote's partner in the Ocean with no chance of survival. I never did feel as bad as I did when I failed to save her at least.

And finally, something to round it up is another indie game. This time is Bastion.

Spoiler

Dropping the seige weapon at the very end of the game. I really didn't want to leave him behind just for a war that should have ended, but I really wanted to end this all with force. I dropped it and carried him. I felt pain for the Kid for the first time the entire game.

Finally the end of Peace Walker [not the true end] but when the Peace-Walker would just NOT ABORT THE NUKE! I literally started screaming with Snake as I pounded thousands upon thousands of bullets into it, all my rockets hell even a tactical strike and it would just not DDDDIIIIIEEEEE!

Also, yes I didn't want to kill a specific character in the true ending, but I had too.

 

[LtWigglesworth]

Killing Mr House in Fallout N.V. He just seemed so disappointed in me...

 

[Pink Gregory]

For me I think it would have to be in LA Noire, finding out that Cole Phelps had an affair with the singer, with basically no build up, pretty much ruined the entire game for me. It came out of the blue with no decision from the player.

I 'unno, ah reckon that had a certain narrative value, proving that Cole isn't the kind of squeaky-clean detective that he starts out as, but the main problem stems from him being the player-character: keeping the player in the dark about the actions of the player character? mmmshaky ground, really. Could certainly have done more with their interaction, he does question her on one case, but there's not really much foreshadowing, so I can agree with you there.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Dragon Age: Origins when you get into the whole thing with Jowan and the Arl of Redcliffs kid. At the very end Jowan' still alive and by god my mage wanted to conscript him into the grey wardens. It seemed like the only way to save his friend and you cant tell me the grey wardends couldnt have used some more help

Instead what happens to him is left largely up in the air. Most likely he was executed or sent to that mages prison but they just never make his fate known

He was to be a companion but was cut due to time constraints.

For me it's entering obvious boss arenas.

Seriously why can't my character just go around them?

 

[mooncalf]

Overlord; Choosing the people or the treasure.

It tells you that you only have enough time to save one of them, then it takes less than half of your minions to pick up either. So why couldn't I split my forces to grab both at once? A simple win-win solution was disabled because they wanted you to make a "good or bad?" choice which lost all meaning because of how arbitrary it was.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

The whole of Spec Ops: The Line. That made me feel deeply uncomfortable, from start to finsih. Really excellent game though.

Also, killing Great Grey Wolf Sif in Dark Souls...you invade his forest, walk into his home, stand on the grave of his fallen friend and comrade, and then he (justifiably) attacks you and you have to kill him! It's even worse when he starts limping towards the end...

Also, even more so, was killing...

Spoiler

Solaire, once he'd hollowed

That was heartbreaking, especially given how awesome and helpful he'd been throughout the game

 

[cognitively_deprived]

Shooting all those people...in all those games

 

[Redingold]

Being forced to work with Cerberus in ME2. You only work with them because you can't work with the Alliance or the Council, and you can't work the Alliance or the Council because you're working with Cerberus. It's stupid, stupid, unnecessary railroading. The dialogue choices are also horrible, pretty much every one that promises to say "I'm not working with Cerberus" actually says "I'm working with Cerberus for now, but that doesn't mean I answer to them".

 

[Galletea]

In MGS3

Spoiler

I left the controller for about 5 minutes, just hoping I didn't have to shoot The Boss. It was really sad when I had to pull the trigger.

Got me right in the feel.

As far as actual actions go, this is the one. Made my emotion chip twinge just reading it.
Usually though its just speech options. Like when there are two options, and one is overly formal and the other is rude, and I want one that doesn't make me look like an idiot.
Most game choices don't bother me that much, they tend to just distance me from the character more.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Betraying Gaia in God of War 3 just because Kratos was impatient. It's like... really? It's not enough to have the GODS after you, you have to make enemies of the titans to!? What's worse is I liked Gaia.

For me it was...

Spoiler

...using that poor slave girl as a doorstop, and hearing her get brutally crushed the moment I walk through. Not fucking cool, Kratos.

And...

Spoiler

...Killing Hephaestus. I know he tried to get me first, but I really liked the guy and I thought there was an interesting dynamic between him and Kratos, both being family men who've fallen from grace and all.