Games that make you really feel it when you kill

[TundraWolf]

Playing through Shadow of the Colossus is an exercise in compassion for the giants you're killing. Especially considering some of them don't even actively fight back against you. I mean, let's face it: one of them is a llama. Since when are llamas aggressive? Really, you're just committing colossus murder. Tie that with the emotional story behind it all and it's a great example of caring when you kill something.

How about BioShock? The Big Daddies are just trying to protect the Little Sisters, and you're out for their blood. How is that justifiable? Everything was going fine until you came along. In all honesty, you're the kind of person that the Big Daddies were designed to fight. They're supposed to protect the Little Sisters against people like you. Monster.

Or how about when you kill Andrew Ryan with a golf club simply because he asked you to? That scene moved me. It was pretty insane, though I don't know if it counts, considering you don't actually do it yourself. Thoughts?

Also, obligatory comment about being forced to kill the Weighted Companion Cube in Portal.

...bastards...

 

[TundraWolf]

Heavy Rain. That scene where

Spoiler

you have to decide whether or not to kill Nathaniel. I didn't end up killing him, but the fist time I played it, man I was on the edge of my seat. I really had trouble deciding if I should but a bullet in him or not.

Quoted for truth. Man, I completely forgot about that. That game had a lot of those moments, I thought. I really need to play that game again...

 

[Judgement101]

So, I was reading this article:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/106647-New-Homefront-Dev-Diary-Talks-Massacre-Fatigue
which in summary is basically the developers of Homefront saying that they make you feel it when you gun a person down in their game -- they say you'll care when you gun down one of seemingly unlimited nameless-faceless-NPCs.
Honestly, I was a bit sceptical of the idea, but it did get me thinking:
Are there any games where you REALLY care when you kill?

It can be one specific character you kill or just nameless-faceless-NPCs in the street. You can also mention characters that invoked an emotional response in you when they died of causes that weren't you murdering them.


In terms of general NPCs in a game, killing children in Fallout really makes me feel bad -- its just so fundamentally wrong -- I think I cried after I took my bonesaw to the inhabitants of Little Lamplight.

Ummmmm......the bonesaw isn't a weapon in Fallout 3...

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

Personally, I've only felt bad at one moment for killing someone in a game. One was in Dragon Age when I (spoiler alert) killed Loghain to not let Alistair leave. I only really felt bad because you kill him in front of his daughter and because the story was immersive enough for me to get sucked in.

 

[Judgement101]

Heavy Rain. That scene where

Spoiler

you have to decide whether or not to kill Nathaniel. I didn't end up killing him, but the fist time I played it, man I was on the edge of my seat. I really had trouble deciding if I should but a bullet in him or not.

I was freaking out on what to pick, I just closed my eyes and hit a button. I miss him.....

 

[Estocavio]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATw6FAmeMdo

Yeah.
It loses its touch after a while, but for the first 3 missions the killing is very well conveyed - You feel like an absolute maniac, just breaking people apart if they so much as get in your way, progressively losing your mind as you do so. Then after a while it becomes weary work.
Just like real serial killing!

Oh, and how do you embed videos again?

 

[floppylobster]

Little King's Story because the NPCs hold a funeral for them, dress in black and mourn them for a day after they die (because you got them killed).

 

[Paulie92]

Every time I accidentally stab a civilian in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for some reason. Partially because the targeting system glitch pisses me off, and partially because I feel bad.

This happened to me, I was standing right next a guard and hit assassinate and apparently I meant to kill to two citizens standing next to me instead. (I didn't really feel bad and proceeded to destroy as many guards as I could find by taking their weapons)

I felt pretty bad when I killed Logain from Dragon Age: Origins. He just shared my iritation with all the whiners in that game and then died with some hardcore honour. There is another vague memory I have of a character (NPC on my team) who nearly died near the end of a game but ended up surviving, I remember feeling upset at the thought he might die and relieved when he didn't.

 

[TonyVonTonyus]

No one has mentioned Manhunt?

Mainly because most of the people in Manhunt games are trying to kill you. Secondly, I didn't want to feel remorseful playing that game. I specifically played it so I could feel like an evil bastard.

 

[Lullabye]

Dragon Ball Z budakai tenkaichi 2-3 and raging blast 2.
Really get the 'umfph' behind the kill when you blow up the world in the process.

 

[Boneasse]

I don't feel anything when I kill. Does that make me a bad person?

Kidding aside though, I'd have to say Hitman, Splinter Cell and BioShock.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Playing through Shadow of the Colossus is an exercise in compassion for the giants you're killing. Especially considering some of them don't even actively fight back against you. I mean, let's face it: one of them is a llama. Since when are llamas aggressive? Really, you're just committing colossus murder. Tie that with the emotional story behind it all and it's a great example of caring when you kill something.

How about BioShock? The Big Daddies are just trying to protect the Little Sisters, and you're out for their blood. How is that justifiable? Everything was going fine until you came along. In all honesty, you're the kind of person that the Big Daddies were designed to fight. They're supposed to protect the Little Sisters against people like you. Monster.

Or how about when you kill Andrew Ryan with a golf club simply because he asked you to? That scene moved me. It was pretty insane, though I don't know if it counts, considering you don't actually do it yourself. Thoughts?

Also, obligatory comment about being forced to kill the Weighted Companion Cube in Portal.

...bastards...

To be fair in Bioshock thats only if you Harvest the little sisters, if you save them your doing a good thing. Remember that the Big Daddies were actually usually Criminals that were forced into becoming a Big Daddy, and killing them and rescuing the little sisters is a good thing, not to mention either way if you remove little sisters then it would take away most of the ADAM production of Rapture meaning that the inhabitants cant splice up anymore

 

[amoamaremetallum]

Red Dead Redemption. Just during the free roam I was hunting and the auto-aim made me kill a mexican man on a donkey, and I felt so horribly guilty.

 

[LunaSocks]

Not sure if anyone's said this, but Assassin's Creed series. Especially when you do one of the special assassinations (like reaching up and shoving the blade through the archer's chin and pull them off of the roof).

 

[teutonicman]

Every time I accidentally stab a civilian in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for some reason. Partially because the targeting system glitch pisses me off, and partially because I feel bad.

What about the beggar women, or the minstrels? I know I felt something the first time I chainsaw a guy in 2 on gear of war. Also some of the interrogations/melee kills in SC: Conviction were pretty gnarly.

 

[Wallofseacow]

mass effect 2. i spent the entire game getting to know the characters got them all loyal to me upgraded everything and thought i made the right choices but jack still died just before the end.

 

[Ultraman950]

I really felt bad the first time I beat Iji (I took the, what I like to call, "Psycho-Run").

Spoiler

Dan's dead, Iji's insane, and an entire alien race is now extinct, due in no small part to Iji going insane.
It was mainly how Iji kept appologizing to the aliens she killed at first, then slowly started demanding they die, as well as reading their logs.

I'm working on a Pacifist Run now, hopefully I'll get a better ending...

And please don't spoil it for me. I'm serious.

 

[beema]

In terms of general NPCs in a game, killing children in Fallout really makes me feel bad -- its just so fundamentally wrong -- I think I cried after I took my bonesaw to the inhabitants of Little Lamplight.

This makes... no sense.

There's no in-game reason to kill the kids at Little Lamplight, and wiping out the whole town with a freaking BONESAW takes a lot of effort. Why you would take all the trouble to do something like that which supposedly makes you feel so bad is beyond me. It's so completely absurd that you have to be full of it.

It's hard for me to come up with an example, but as long as Fallout has been mentioned, when you HAVE to destroy the BoS bunker in New Vegas during 3/4 endgame quests, I felt pretty bad about that. Especially since I had already ingratiated myself with them and made friends with Veronica, whose "family" was living there.

 

[TundraWolf]

Red Dead Redemption. Just during the free roam I was hunting and the auto-aim made me kill a mexican man on a donkey, and I felt so horribly guilty.

Speaking of Red Dead Redemption:

How about the final scene with John? Y'know, the one where they make you walk out of the barn into a firing squad? You're effectively killing John by doing that and they make it abundantly clear that it's going to happen. He has to sacrifice himself to let his family get away, but damn if going out those barn doors wasn't one of the toughest things I've ever forced myself to do in a video game.

I know I felt that one.

 

[EHKOS]

This will happen to me randomly. I'll stop shooting for a second, look down and think "Gosh, I feel kinda bad." And then I continue upon my merry way destroying and killing everything in sight.