"I will not work for you!"

[Thaliur]

Hello Escapist forum members,
I recently played C&C: Red Alert 3, and met an insurmountable obstacle: The Japanese campaign (Empire Of The Rising Sun). Usually, I like giant robots and high-tech units. I also like George Takei.
During the campaign, however, these strong points got seriously weakened by the total dickishness of the Empire. While the other factions still seemed to make soem sense in their aggression (as much as there can be made in war), the Empire was a (seemingly) one-dimensional faction with nothing in mind but conquering the "inferior" rest of the world. The ridiculous "Angel" units and unfairly dorky engineers di not help either, I simply lost all motivation to further that campaign.

Am I alone in this? Has anyone of you ever stopped playing a game because you just could not empathise with the faction you were supposed to support? If so, in which games, and why?

 

[Rastien]

Generally the call of duty series i find... millitary realistic games, kinda dry : / its like there is enough depression with the wars going on why emulate that? I play games for escapism not realism, life is shit enough without emulating it further.

I guess thats why i love TF2, cartooney graphics decent balance and still pretty gorey

 

[Eve Charm]

Never been a fan of the Fallout series "You go save the valut full of whiney people that don't want you to leave anyway and come back a rad monster because we rather die then go out and actually help try and fix our problems" lazy vault dwellers ;p

 

[Lugbzurg]

Ehh... I haven't really run into that so much. I suppose the closest for me would be the Sonic series, as it's been dropping pretty much everything that made it Sonic over the years.

No more physics, no more challenge, no more intricate stories... I just don't understand the logic in why people do these things.

 

[Beautiful End]

I guess Skyrim. It's just that EVERYONE in the world is waiting for you to walk by and solve their lives. yeah, I know that's pretty much the point of a RPG. I mean, I love Dragon Age. But with Skyrim, it's just neverending. And that IS the point of the game. but that's just too much for me.

And yeah, also games like CoD that take themselves too seriously when you know its clientele is mostly made up of 10 year olds trying to act tough. This is why I love Gotham City Impostors.

 

[loc978]

*insert any Warhammer 40k faction here*
Also, the Aeon from Supreme Commander. I really do despise zealots of any stripe.

...not that I've ever actually stopped playing due to such a feeling.

 

[Soopy]

I guess Skyrim. It's just that EVERYONE in the world is waiting for you to walk by and solve their lives. yeah, I know that's pretty much the point of a RPG. I mean, I love Dragon Age. But with Skyrim, it's just neverending. And that IS the point of the game. but that's just too much for me.

And yeah, also games like CoD that take themselves too seriously when you know its clientele is mostly made up of 10 year olds trying to act tough. This is why I love Gotham City Impostors.

The problem with Skyrim is it has MMO quest styling in a single player game. It avoids every benefit single player affords a game in favor of easily accessible, shallow and repetitive game play.

 

[Beautiful End]

I guess Skyrim. It's just that EVERYONE in the world is waiting for you to walk by and solve their lives.

Worse than that is the primary conflict in the game world. Don't even bother trying to choose whether to side with the Imperials or the Stormcloaks. They're all a bunch of unashamed racists, and the soldiers under their commands seem more interested in just mindless killing of anyone on the other side than in any actual political change.

Makes me wish we could choose to play both sides against each other, or even better, to side with the Thalmor, and have the two sides go on killing each other, because it's what the assholes deserve. But, of course, the game is programmed in such a way that you can't even have a conversation with the Thalmor without the game triggering to have them try and kill you.

Not sure I made it that far into the game. Or did I...?

I actually remember something funny that happened when I first played the game. I remember the dragon attacking the village after you create your character and such. Then some guys tell me to go take cover from the dragon so we go to some house. As the house crumbles because of the attack, I decide its safer to be outside so I exit the house. Then everything went quiet.

I looked around and the dragon was peeking into the house but he wasn't attacking. The people had stopped running. There was only the sound of stuff burning. I carefully approached the dragon but he didn't react. Same with the people. I seriously didn't know what to do! After a while of trying a set of different things, I went back inside the house and stood on the dragon's face. Nothing. So I jumped off and decided to leave the village. As I did this, the dragon suddenly came back to life along with the villagers who started shouting about the eminent danger and how I should run away and blah blah.

Probably a glitch or something but I thought it was pretty weak to glitch so soon after starting the game. I think that's also why I didn't bother going any further.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

Skyrim, Blades/Paarthurnax. So much fuckery going on within the Blade's reasoning. I mean I'd pretty much come to the end of my time with Skyrim anyway but that just made me turn it off.

 

[keiji_Maeda]

The UED in starcraft Brood wars.

"haha, we're here to reclaim the people we originally banished for being criminally insane. You see, we noticed they're doing incredibly well ,and seem to have some jolly ho-ho's with some Aliens. So instead of teaming with them to fight enemies that seem vastly different than ourselves, we'll just start a five front campaign, because humanity as a whole has completely failed to learn our lessons about that sort of thing. Now, listen to the solemn monolouge of our saddened russian commander and sympatize with our cause"

No UED. Screw you. Gimme' back Raynor and Tassadar and the go hang.

 

[Gunner 51]

Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas for me.

Ever since seeing them in Nipton, I just thought "fuck these guys - fuck 'em with with a big plank of wood." Those guys were just plain unremorsally and and coldly evil - worse than the raiders, even.

When given a chance to go to Legion central to rescue Benny (and grab the chip) - I started shooting the place to bits.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Am I alone in this? Has anyone of you ever stopped playing a game because you just could not empathise with the faction you were supposed to support? If so, in which games, and why?

Even though the Empire tried to execute my Argonian for being found near a Stormcloack, I still chose to join them instead of the Stormcloaks because one of the higher-up ones said something racist at some point. I think...I remember talking to the Stormcloacks and they just seemed completely focused on Nord rights over other races. I don't think they cared though...Hell, I had done half of the Civil War missions and the Stormcloaks didn't even try to attack me on sight...but I've complained about the Civil War bit of Skyrim before...

 

[manic_depressive13]

I didn't quit, but playing Pokemon Black felt pretty fucking awkward because, as far as I could tell, I was the bad guy. If Pokemon and people love working together so much, why do we have to imprison them in Pokeballs and in the PC system? That hardly seems like a relationship born of mutual respect. Also, what's to stop Pokemon who cared about their previous owners from hanging around despite being free? You could say that the antagonists didn't really want to free the Pokemon- they just wanted to steal them so that they would be the only ones with power- but they only reason they were able to do that was because the Pokemon were imprisoned in Pokeballs. If they were free, no one could stop them from serving whomever they liked voluntarily.

 

[Dandark]

In Skyrim, I cannot help the blades with their messed up reasoning for why everyones favorite character has to die.

I also have trouble joining the stormcloakcs, I have a Nord character who I joined them with but they are so damn racist and wrong that I can't feel that good fighting for them. Fighting against them as the Empire however, then I feel like im fighting the good fight since im getting rid of the bigots.

 

[Zeckt]

The original starcraft campaigns. Duh, lets trust Kerrigan over and over and over and over again as she continously stabs us all in the back! You think they would get a clue after the 50th time she backstabbed everybody, it was pretty bad that the whole plot revolved around it.

 

[TJC]

In Shin Megumi Tensei: Devil Survivor 2, I just couldn't follow through with Ronaldo's ending.

As an FYI, in this game the party gets the chance to rebuild the world according to their wishes right before god destroys earth because we pissed him off (again) and two of the characters have very specific ideas how the world should look like.

In a nutshell, the game gave me the choice between Communism amped up to 11, nay, 12 (which is Ronaldo's choice) or taking survival of the fittest to a terrorist extreme. and between these two, I somehow tend to the latter one (though the game offers two other choices as well but they are sortakinda hidden)

Also, when are you allowed to be justifiably paranoid of the captchas (fair and square)?

 

[Soviet Steve]

While the other factions still seemed to make soem sense in their aggression (as much as there can be made in war), the Empire was a (seemingly) one-dimensional faction with nothing in mind but conquering the "inferior" rest of the world.

This is pretty much Japan of WW2. Japanese culture is very much on about loyalty to the head of state and if he's on about conquering the world then there's no questioning it, or at least there wasn't until 1945.

I work for anyone. Total quest whore. Doesn't even need to be for xp >__>

Quest log updated: "Polish spear". you'll find me in my quarters, cadet.

Generally the call of duty series i find... millitary realistic games, kinda dry : / its like there is enough depression with the wars going on why emulate that? I play games for escapism not realism, life is shit enough without emulating it further.

I guess thats why i love TF2, cartooney graphics decent balance and still pretty gorey

Eh, I kindof enjoy realism in games seeing how it's always bent to some degree and this time around you can shape it to your will. The problem I have with all CoD games is that the story would take a backseat to Alice in Wonderland in terms of realism when you start thinking about it, and I always do.

Even though the Empire tried to execute my Argonian for being found near a Stormcloack, I still chose to join them instead of the Stormcloaks because one of the higher-up ones said something racist at some point. I think...I remember talking to the Stormcloacks and they just seemed completely focused on Nord rights over other races. I don't think they cared though...Hell, I had done half of the Civil War missions and the Stormcloaks didn't even try to attack me on sight...but I've complained about the Civil War bit of Skyrim before...

Yeah there's incompetence on part of lower level officials, and then there's going to the stormcloak capital and hearing about them wanting to exterminate all non-aryan races. Racist nationalist fucktards vs. slightly incompetent higher authority is not a hard choice for me.

 

[Thaliur]

While the other factions still seemed to make soem sense in their aggression (as much as there can be made in war), the Empire was a (seemingly) one-dimensional faction with nothing in mind but conquering the "inferior" rest of the world.

This is pretty much Japan of WW2. Japanese culture is very much on about loyalty to the head of state and if he's on about conquering the world then there's no questioning it, or at least there wasn't until 1945.

OK, so it appears to be historically correct. I still do not like them.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

In Skyrim, I cannot help the blades with their messed up reasoning for why everyones favorite character has to die.

I also have trouble joining the stormcloakcs, I have a Nord character who I joined them with but they are so damn racist and wrong that I can't feel that good fighting for them. Fighting against them as the Empire however, then I feel like im fighting the good fight since im getting rid of the bigots.

Not going to blast your own take on it, but from my point of view the Nords have my sympathy.

The Nords are VERY traditionalist. They do things in honor of their ancestors at almost every level. This was challenged by the Imperials presence, which preferred progress over retaining history, which led to uneasy relationships before the war. When the war happened, and in the signing of the white-gold concordat, the Nords very own link to the "9" divines was made an illegal practice. The banning of Talos worship was the final straw, and such a massive insult to the very strong historical bonds the Nords have, that it just escalated to rebellion levels.

The Racism comes from seeing weakness in others. While that's not excusable, it's deliberately implemented to make no one side truly good. Regardless of how well Bethesda managed to convey this (not well) they wanted the war to be a lot less black and white.

The Thalmor, on the other hand, are basically TES Nazis, sooo... they didn't extend this grey area to everyone.

OP: In the Witcher, I came so close to siding with the Order of the Flaming Rose, after the fiasco at the bank. But when the one character that you could tolerate, who seemed like he could be more then the general bigoted mindset, decides to just blindly follow purely racist views, I had to pull out...

BUT, luckily for me, I had that option late in the game... unfortunately for me, I ended up with no allies. So I finished the game with odd sense of failure that didn't actually ruin my overall feelings about the game.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

Fuckin' Mass Effect 2. I now have to work for the crappy little sidequest villains from the first game? Awesome