Jimquisition: Think of the Children!

Dreiko_v1legacy

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SonOfVoorhees said:
Irridium said:
Then Fallout 3's Little Lamplight happened.

Now every time I see a child in game I view it with suspicion and contempt. Either they'll use their perk as children to ***** you out knowing you aren't able to do anything back, or they'll be a cheap pull at a heart-string.
So much this. I really wanted to slap them to show them a bit of respect, mouthy little fuckers. So annoying and when you do shoot them, i feel that im entitled to and they do deserve it, no damage done. But they can shoot you and you have to leave....or be killed by the brats. I so wished i could lead a Deathclaw to their little hide out.

While you couldn't kill them, the game didn't actually make you have to save them or force you to care about them either, you could be pretty nasty to kids in fallout 3 and you could also be good towards them, depending on how you felt.


This one kid in rivet city especially, you could manipulate him into running away into the wasteland even. That's pretty much sealing his demise.



As for the little lamplight ones, the mayor was an asshole and so were a couple of others but I generally liked the rest of them, they didn't seem quite as annoying...and you could always extort the mayor by threatening to blow up their cave if you were annoyed by him XD.
 

DerangedHobo

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To be honest I hated clementine with a passion.
I actively tried to get her killed, I mean she's not as bad as "CARL STAY IN THE HOUSE" but the fact that i had to protect her at all times was annoying. I also disliked the fact that everything I did came up with "Clementine has noticed" or "Clementine is scared". I can understand the "actions have consequences" etc but she felt like some outside critic constantly judging me and to be honest not doing much.
 

BehattedWanderer

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I want to say that there's the reverse side of the coin, something like Little Lamplight, since I haven't played the Walking Dead games, that kids can have character outside of "help us, we're in trouble", and still be annoying pricks, but that's still better than being relegated to a plot device. All of the kids in Little Lamplight have somehow carved a life out for themselves, surrounded by deathclaws, yao guai, raiders, and the other horrors of the Capital Wasteland, and those that survive manage themselves quite well. They might be insolent little shits, but there's kind of a reason for that, and they're actually competent, training each other, helping each other survive.

The Jarl's kids in Skyrim, however, could do with a good "training lesson" with the legendary Dragonborn.

I'd start by teaching them about Shouts...
 

Kenjitsuka

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"Cuz of the baby"...
Yeah, because of that child I will and shall vote Sterling 2012!!!

On the subject: Ashly of RE 4 fame.
OMFG, she's supposed to be an older teen and cultured, but she's more like an infant that was unfortunately dropped on her head... Five of six times... :\

Well, at least she kept out of the way by hiding in a bin most of the time.
 

mdqp

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If we are having a contest for "worst children character in a videogame ever", I am going to vote for Hope from Dreamfall: the loungest journey. Never before I felt someone was using a child so poorly to get some sort of emotional response from me, and was left feeling hollow as the trick was way too transparent for me. Seriously, it's 100% manipulation, it adds nothing to the plot, it's just a diversion (but then again, I feel like Dreamfall is all about faking to have an idea, while you are just making stuff up as you go along, with this being just another example of bad writing while the game is full with them).

Edit: sorry, I meant Faith. I can't believe I called her Hope... But now that I think of it, I hate her, so maybe it's not that surprising.
 

Gearhead mk2

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While I am glad Jim talked about good child characters, I'm kinda dissapointed he didn't rip into the whole TINK UF TEH CHILDRENZ!!!1! mentallity and all the idiots who do stuff because of it.
 

algalon

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Best child actor ever?

Ya know, from the title of the clip I expected a rant about parents against violent videogames or Australians against violent videogames or [insert watchdog group here]. This was a pleasant surprise, and something I completely agree with. I don't play videogames so that a child can get in the way of my slaughtering the demonic masses. As a rule I simply cannot relate to children in any way, shape or form and so cannot play games where they are at the forefront. I don't want a little person to protect. I want to rip the evil slug from their chest to get my Adam and go on my merry way.
 

Legion

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Oct 2, 2008
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NinjaDeathSlap said:
Legion said:
Like the child in Mass Effect 3

What pissed me off even more with that was how ridiculously heavy handed they were with it. They even go so far as to make Shepard have nightmares over the kid. This one kid, amongst millions of deaths, including ones that were a direct result of Shepard's actions? It's just idiotic.
I think the dreams were less of a reflection of Shepard's grief over that one kid in particular, but rather what that kid represents. Shepard tried to save him, and failed. Now, he/she's tasked with saving the whole Galaxy, and is terrified they'll fail there too. The kid becomes symbolic of everyone who has died, and are still dying, and the hopelessness that Shepard feels going up against that when he/she sees themselves failing to save even a few individuals.

It's just my interpretation, but I don't think it was as simple as 'A child has died. You haz a sad now!'
If anything, that makes it feel even more idiotic to me. It feels like a ham fisted way to force emotion into the game, rather than actually giving us genuine reasons to care. Even with this interpretation, they are still trying to use a characterless child to create emotion and depth into the game, but in many cases they just succeeded in annoying people.
 

crimson sickle2

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Agreed, most child characters really need some work put into them. Luckily, for me I seem to dodge all children as support characters of late. When they're main characters, at least they try to be witty and independent.
 

Orekoya

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Frankly I just assume Carl Grimes got his stupidity from Rick Grimes, possibly the most idiotic protagonist I have ever seen.
 

Lord Doomhammer

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This was a very good episode, An 8 minute length made it a more in depth and well rounded.
 

DustyDrB

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It's a weird problem if you think about it. Think of media that revolves around children: The Sandlot, The Goodnies, Stand By Me. Those are all movies, but it still shows that you can genuinely love characters who are kids. It's simple: Make us remember what it was like to be a kid. Don't just show them as the mopey pet the parent has to make dinner for. Show them as the walking fount of imagination and enthusiasm that kids are.
 

Dangit2019

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Think of the Children!

Children are the holy grail of conflict.

Watch Video
Hey, Jim, what's your opinion on Carl in the season 3 premiere? I personally liked how he shot things and knew when to shut the hell up.
 

Weealzabob

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Jim you raise some interesting points, and it's got me thinking about the fact that children are so often just used as emotional Macguffin's. And how using characteristics of a child, such as their sense of fear, naivety, or selfishness, can make a character fantastic, but children only ever get those characteristics, and inevitably wind up as whiny, and insufferable little brats.

But all those ideas sort ran away from me when I heard,

"Carl Grimes: The one hundred fuck-ups of a four foot burden."

I was genuinely laughing out loud at that one.
 

Rawne1980

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There is one film I couldn't watch more than 30 minutes of because of those 2 annoying little fethwipes.

War of the Worlds, the Tom Cruise one.

Those 2 kids in that pissed me off so much I had to turn it off.
 

Darth_MAM

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Good episode as always, and certainly a good point. Now we can see why there's that mod for Skyrim where you can say: "fuck you, brat. I'm not going to let you become Conan". This anoying plage of small pricks have gone so far that they're in one of most beloved games; with this said I know that I'm going to get flames for what I'm going to say next.

DISCLAIMER: I love the Salient Hill saga as much as the next Australian game reviewer, but honestly I haven't seen an advertising for abortion so strong as the fact to interact with some of the children in that town(it's even worse when you read the comics). Silent Hill 2 is still a good game, every character made me feel invested in their own history, except for that twat Laura. Not only she was anoying on her own, but every time I had the bad luck to cross with her, she did every thing she could to piss me off; and Mary pretended to adopt her? Honey, if I did bring you to Silent Hill before you died, What makes you think that I would make my existance more miserable by living with that kid?

Phew, I feel like an elephant just fell from my shoulders.
 

Elyxard

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I have to give a shout out to another good child character, Nanako of Persona 4. Her personality is very well established throughout the course of the game (moreso than almost every other side character, actually) and she's far from helpless. If anything, she's more adult than her father half the time. She still has the quirks of being a child, but they never get to the point where she's annoying for it. She's a very sympathetic character.

But yes, nothing is more annoying than a story using a child as bait without any other justifications for it. Most horror franchises are extremely guilty of this.

Off the top of my head of a game I played for the first time recently, Parasite Eve has that extremely dumb kid of the police officer that kept literally throwing himself into danger over and over again. That is beyond frustrating and breaks all suspension of disbelief. Kids can be dumb, but not that dumb. It's just really lazy writing to get the protagonist in trouble.