Games that make you really feel it when you kill

[MintyNinja]

Godfather 2. When you strangle someone, anyone really, the buttons required make you feel like your hands are around someone's throat. Coupled with the vibrations it gave me a disturbingly present blood lust.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

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...

It is available as a weapon in a number of mods. And if he was killing children in Fallout 3 he was clearly playing a modded version of the game since they are otherwise invincible.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Wow...looks like (almost) everyone has no idea what the OP actually means...

For me the closest is Deus Ex, not so much the act of killing people but knowing that the good guys are bad, the bad guys are good, the good guys are mislead and the bad guys don't know wtf they're doin'.

 

[Istanbul]

Gotta go with the companion cube on this one. Portal really plays with your head there.

 

[mjc0961]

Games where I really care when I kill? Not many. It'd have to be something like Heavy Rain, or one of the few times where a game like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect pulls out this really good scenario where it stops and makes me think about what I want to do, and if killing should be a part of it.

And although it wasn't really a moment where I directly killed anyone, the endings of Grand Theft Auto IV really threw me for a loop the first time I finished it. I was just like "Wow... Both of these endings stink." And I mean that in how things end up for the characters, not as in the ending itself was bad like in inFamous (my favorite example of what not to do because I feel they did everything wrong) where they went and pulled that

Spoiler

"lol I'm you from the future and I got all these people killed through my actions including your super-***** girlfriend in the worst 'moral choice' segment ever seen in a game so you could become a strong warrior to defend people, because killing a bunch of people is a great way to show I that I truly care" shit with Kessler.

It was just like "Damn, the shit never stops getting piled on these people, even when they try to get out of this life." I had a really tough time figuring out which ending to keep playing from, and I had to do it based more on gameplay perks than on which character I'd like to not be dead.

But nah, most games are generally "Kill these guys because they're trying to kill you and stop you from progressing" and so I don't really feel a thing for them at all when I kill them.

The only one that really comes to mind is the first Condemned, not in the sense of feeling compassion for the people I was fighting, but in the sense that the enemies in the game were so limited and so challenging that every fight felt like a real fight. It felt like Ethan (is that right?) was really fighting for his life every single time a crazed attacker came at him, and that means every encounter meant something.

I actually found myself sighing with relief a few times thinking, "Holy shit, thank God I'm still alive."

And I think that's what they're talking about with this article. If you can just easily gun down armies of faceless mooks really easily, then none of the fights stick with you, and you become very aware that you're playing a game. You never have any sense of being in danger, or like the enemies are actually a threat. And that becomes boring really fast. That had nothing to do with empathy, I know, but that's still pretty much the only game where the fights with random mooks legitimately stuck with me, because they felt dangerous.

Yeah that was Ethan Thomas. And good example, I hadn't thought about that. Probably because I wasn't thinking of the question in that way.

 

[JemothSkarii]

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

Well yeah but the Big Daddys and the Little Sisters have no way of knowing whether you want to save her or kill her for the ADAM, and they only attack if you attack first.

I didn't like killing Big Daddies; they looked so peaceful and docile, and the crying of the Little Sister's really didn't help (even if they were getting controlled by an evil slug0. When you DID kill a Big Daddy, watching them scramble away from you and plead was even more depressing.

Shadow of the Colossus was a great game, even if you were tasked by a god to murder beings that wanted nothing to do with you all to save one little girl. It's one of the few games where you get into the mindset of believing you're doing the right thing when in fact YOU are the bad guy.

OT: Two somewhat obscure things; First one is Haze, namely the last level...

Spoiler

After destroying the Nectar Injector (Teehee, it rhymes), the Mantel troopers start seeing ALL the bad things they've done without the veil of the drug. You are then ordered to attack their base and kill everyone on bored, most of whom are on their knees in shock, crying, or screaming...makes you wonder who's right

Secondly, The Darkness

Spoiler

You fight through hordes of gangsters to get to your girlfriend, remembering good times with her, only to be held back by the Darkness and forced to watch your Uncle execute her and hear her say she loves you. It doesn't help that you've been worrying about how to fix things to live with her and that you cuddled with her after she gave you cake for your birthday. It's a moving, horrible scene, and you were partially responsible for her death as you control the Darkness in game.

 

[Corkydog]

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...

It's like...you knew exactly what I was going to say.

Well, saves me the trouble of writing it. All those games make you pause before doing the neccesary.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

Killing Big Daddies in Bioshock.

Also that bit in MW2 where Colonel Shepard's pavelow crashes. In the aftermath you find the pilot crawling, painfully, to his gun, he then turns around and tries to fire it at you but it's empty.

I didn't kill him the next time round.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I only care when former allies start fighting you

Like Dragonage for instance if you fuck up the Urn of Sacred Ashes (best "let's fuck with religion quest" evar) Leliana just goes WTF and tries to kill you, had to kill my favourite character that day... Probably should have seen it coming though, but i like destroying sacred artifacts so that may have clouded my judgement.

 

[The Hive Mind]

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

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Bonesaw

Although in honesty when I said that I wasn't even talking about what the bonesaw actually is; I actually meant the ripper but got the name confused somehow

 

[DarthAchaeron]

I think one of the few games that made me connect emotionally with the game when I had to kill an NPC was Fallout 3. Having to react so quickly to Mr. Burke's deception after I turned him in really made me think of the consequences of letting The Sheriff die or killing Mr. Burke: Obviously I wasn't going to blow up megaton, because I loved the city too much, but at the same time it made me think "will I gain something from defending the sheriff, or will I merely be killing Burke out of loyalty? I know the sheriff is the only real law in the town, so should I let that collapse for a few extra caps?"

The other game that made me actually contemplate my actions in killing NPCs was Fable: The Lost Chapters. Honestly, I did play a good character the first time through, and actually played the character as too good to be true (paladin title, even ) But it still made me contemplate whether I eat a chicken to please one demon door or kill my wife or a random traveler to please another. Honestly, I'm a sucker for a good moral choice system, in both respects, so to me any NPC that doesn't need to die shouldn't

 

[Spark Ignition]

Mr House... If there was any other way to ensure personal victory... sorry House!

Oh and the foreman you have to bury in a portaloo in a pit of concrete in San Andreas. I know it's far from the only innocent you have to kill to proceed with the story in that game but damn it's a nasty way to go!

 

[General BrEeZy]

Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. only innocents do i feel like i killed a human being. bad guys need to die and thats all i see in it.
other than that, i really felt like I killed the Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3, it made ME press the button to pull the trigger...really quite sad.

 

[GiantRaven]

Wow...looks like (almost) everyone has no idea what the OP actually means...

For me the closest is Deus Ex, not so much the act of killing people but knowing that the good guys are bad, the bad guys are good, the good guys are mislead and the bad guys don't know wtf they're doin'.

The conversation you can have with the parents of a MJ12 soldier is really effective at making you feel bad about offing what potentially could be their child.

 

[Popadoo]

I was playing Demon's Souls, and all is well. Then I come upon a merchant in a dungeon in World 4-1. He mentions how killing the undead (This world's main enemies were skeletons) was much more humane than the insane soulless citizens in the other worlds. After that, I really felt sorry for the soldiers I were impaling in World 1.

 

[ImprovizoR]

GTA 4. As much as I didn't like the game I have to say that killing innocent NPC's was kinda terrible. I didn't like doing it. Also, Metal Gear Solid 3. Enemies were too smart for the time the game was released so that made them appear more realistic. And you felt it even more once you faced all of the enemies you killed and realized that you probably could have evade most of the kills if you were more stealthy. And of course harvesting little sisters just to see what would happen. It was especially bad in Bioshock 2 because they begged for mercy. I then reloaded the last save game and I always get the good ending. I can't harvest them.

 

[Ashcrexl]

heavy rain? does this even count? every single kill you make throughout the game just echoes dully in your skull, driving you mad.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

No game has ever really made me truly care about killing someone, but I feel that in condemned it really does feel like you are bashing somebody's brain in with a pipe.

 

[hermes]

Shadow of the Colossus... second to none in making you feel odd about your victories.

 

[Geekosaurus]

I have pride rather than grief when I pull of a rather satisfying kill - whether in single player or multi player.