Killing is Too Easy

[Jegsimmons]

I know right? there's no sport in it! I mean, shit, people crowd up and run for the same exit so i'll i have to do is keep stabbing or shooting and even when one on one unarmed it only take 75 pounds of force to collapse a throat or even pocket sand. Do people not understand the importance of being inshape and learning how to fight?
And don't even get me started on the how easy it is to enter city hall and-

*reads rest fo the post*

oh im sorry i was thinking of something way different.
NEVER MIND, NOTHING TO SEE HERE!!!

 

[DjinnFor]

And Yahtzee demonstrates yet again that he entirely misses the point of violence in The Last of Us. Case in point, he thinks that Joel is meant to be a likeable everyman character.

In order to demonstrate that the developers failed horribly at their task of making Joel out to be a pure-hearted and divinely sanctioned protagonist, Yahtzee references what is essentially the very first thing we see post-apocalypse Joel and his partner do, which is go hunt down a fellow gangster/smuggler who stole from the pair and brutally execute him.

Apparently, the idea that the developers set the stage with that piece to establish that Joel was NOT supposed to be a likeable everyman completely slipped his mind.

 

[EXos]

And Yahtzee demonstrates yet again that he entirely misses the point of violence in The Last of Us. Case in point, he thinks that Joel is meant to be a likeable everyman character.

I'll challenge your unfounded projection with my own:

Yahtzee demonstrates he got a firm grasp on the points of violence in The Last of Us. He doesn't think that Joel is meant to be a likeable everyman character. He's bothered by the fact that the Killing in the serious setting without anything changing.
Joel starts as an A-hole, is an A-hole in the middle and an A-hole at the end. Nothing learned nothing gained.

The walking dead was better.

Now prove me wrong.

----

I've seen several people saying that Joel wasn't meant to be related to. Then two posts after that there is someone that says he is.

In short Yahtzee didn't like Joel as a character in this setting and that is probably why he didn't enjoy the game.
The violence just got him doing a little re-evaluating of the use of violence.

 

[kael013]

Erm...yes he is. That's the entire point of the prologue section. It's a fairly short sequence, but crucial for exactly the reason that you described. Even if you don't think the sequence was effective (for some reason; it's one of the best scripted sequences in a recent game, IMHO), please don't pretend that they didn't try.

Unless, of course, you haven't played or watched the game at all and are relying on the incomplete information Yahtzee provided and out-of-context video clips to make your evaluation. That does seem to be going around on this thread.

Oh. I haven't played or watched gameplay videos (until just now), but I had watched a friend play. During that I asked him how far in he was and he said he was at the beginning - but he was obviously past the prologue and apparently didn't feel the need to mention it. So I went back and watched a walkthrough of the prologue (and up to Robert's death) and it kinda blows my argument out of the water.

That said I'm still on Yahtzee's side. There were parts where the game presented killing as the only option when others were available. Case in point: the guard in the beginning. He verbally threatens you. He ends up dead (he didn't even have a weapon that I could see, his friend did). The protagonists could have just wounded him, but instead they kill him. Why? Because he might have sought revenge by sending thugs after them (or coming after them himself)? His boss tried that and it didn't work. Another example: Later you run across two of Robert's guards on patrol. It's a stealth section where the patrolling guards are walking [i/]away[/i] from you. They get killed. Why? The first guard had buddies and may have been a threat, but these guys were [i/]leaving without knowing you were there[/i]. The game could have easily allowed us to let them go, but it had us kill them instead. And all for a stupid tutorial about stealth kills from behind. If they had put the guards in a place where it was absolutely necessary to kill them in order to proceed I could have let it slide, but it didn't. That right there cemented my loathing of the "everyman heroes" this game had (I actually wanted to kill Tess myself long before that to be honest. She was a pain). Then when our protagonists where threatened with death I was supposed to care? They killed people for just getting in their way(!) so I saw it as just deserts (desserts? I can never remember...). Plus, the world is presented as a place where "kill or be killed" was the top law, so why should I care when the nature of the world temporarily turned against the protagonists? In a serious character drama when you hate every side it just doesn't work.

All that just because the game forced you to kill. That's what I think Yahtzee was getting at.

 

[IronMit]

In a world where humanity is on the verge of annihilation, the idea that human lives would be even less valuable then they are in the real world is a worrying thought.

Why is this bad?-It's supposed to be worrying. They explained why society ended up this way. Not buying the explanation or arguing it's not convincing enough is one thing but to pretend they didn't even try to address it is misleading or completely missing the point.
And what a stupid argument anyway, for example during a war when law and order fall apart crime increases. Murder, theft, rape...criminals, opportunists, desperate people don't sit around contemplating the value of life.
See Mad max, reign of fire, fallout, Game of thrones, book of eli, three kings or any actual war in the middle east.

Joel himself single highhandedly kills more people than the infected that are supposedly the single greatest problem facing them in that time.

First of all the writers are aware he kills a lot of people, it's addressed, even worse Joel admits to being like those bandits. So killing bandits are the least of your moral worries.
As too the amount of people killed; That's called ludonarrative dissonance. I also have a problem with this in all games but it is particularly jarring here; So many other steps are done to show realism -in crafting, resources, healing, combat that it's a shame area's of the game have hordes of human enemies.
Counting the human enemies and saying Joel killed exactly '100' doesn't really reflect the story- you have to take into account that 99% of games use this trope to pad gametime& pacing.
Yes it's still a major flaw in this game/story and should rightly be addressed. but how does Yahtzee's positively reviewed Bioshock infinite get a free pass, when you are shooting authorities in the face. Or Spec-ops:the line (which I and Yahtzee both like) where you kill half of Dubai. Oh that's addressed in the narrative and themes you say? well so is TLOU.

Yet on he goes, executing people that appear to be innocent in the first 20 minutes.

Have you played the game. Joel doesn't execute anyone in a cutscene until the half way point. It takes 20 mins for Tess to shoot the first guy in the head. and when they finally get their man it is Tess who kills him again, but not before explaining to the player why she killed him. Moments earlier an official executes someone on the street. It's purposely done this way so you are introduced into this brutal world without having to initially kill anyone.

What this does is absolutely destroy the credibility of the world, and lessens the impact of the single most important point in the narrative; the infection.

I think the infection is the least important part of the entire story. The infection is just the setting, it is what sets up everything to be post-apocolyptic. There could of been actual zombies, or dragons, or the aftermath of a war. That same character driven story could work.

Naughty Dog wholeheartedly wants us to identify with Joel as the guardian angel of Ellie, the protector of the most important person to the world, who would do anything necessary to keep her alive because it's 'what we would do'.

Not every story is going to hit everyone's sweetspot. Something like 90/95% people identified with it or were able to emphasise.The other 5/10 could not. Seems about right. (meta-critic isn't the most accurate of sources but still)

I don't know about you, but shafting the entire human race because of the actions of a few in the American South seems like an ignorant and selfish act.

Well yeah, that's what we are supposed to discuss after finishing the game. Everyone has a different opinion.
Are you a parent yet...well when your 14 year old girl is the cure for mankind tell me how easy it is to send her to her death.

And this entire argument (maybe not you but other people) of the protagonist needing to be likeable or needs a ridiculous arc is lost on me.
In a story there's often a protagonist with a certain personality with motivations in whatever setting. It's interesting to see what happens, it doesn't have to be good, we personally don't have to like the decisions, as long as it's logical to the character


What should be being discussed is weather this can be relevant for games. Can controlling someone that is as awful as Tony Montana work in a character driven video game? (GTA don't count)
Not omg his not likeable (I'm going to ignore the fact his not supposed to be) so I don't like him and the game is bad.

And the reason killing is cheap is because it's easy to do. video game Stories are often made to somehow justify violence...not the other way round.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZM2jXyvGOc

 

[Bucketface]

The killing people in these games is not exactly what is being called out in these games, it's the sheer quantity of people you kill to the point that by the end of the game the protagonist is a mass murderer having killed so many it numbers in the hundreds.
The amount of killing in both Boishock Infinte & The Last of Us feels out of place (it is of course the easiest way to crate an obstacle to be overcome but it's a archaic piece of gaming that seems to persist) i can't see how either Ellie or Elizabeth could possibly sympathies with Booker or Joel. both BI & TLoU really needed alternative solutions to killing everyone that becomes an obstacle. They were brilliant games & i enjoyed the stories they told despite this problem but it is a problem in games like these. in COD or BF it's a core part of the game & makes sense given the setting, i can't say the same for bioshock infinite or the last of us, these games should have made us feel torn every time we killed. I'll leave a link to an Extra Credits episode that that covers similar problems http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzkS0mt3B50

 

[K12]

Snip

The point of any punishment including life and the death penalty for a crime isn't revenge, rehabilitation, victim compensation, or even removing a dangerous and/or disruptive element from society, despite what the people who are responsible for doling out these punishments tell everybody. The point of the punishment is prevention, it's about scaring people so shitless about being punished that they won't even consider performing a crime, much less actually do it. If tomorrow society collapsed and punishments like jail or the death penalty could no longer happen, despite what those same people would say otherwise if asked prior, the vast majority of people would start stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, raping, and killing everybody else (many post apocalyptic games like The Last of Us are built on this point). It's the FEAR of punishment that allows society to even exist to begin with, to avoid descending into anarchy. Sure, many people will be falsely convicted and punished, including being executed, but this is an unavoidable cost of something that society can't function without.

The point of the punishment isn't prevention because if it were then the statistics regarding the death penalty would mean that nobody ever used one. There is strong evidence that introducing the death penalty INCREASES the murder rate it doesn't decrease it.

Having the death penalty doesn't seem to make any real difference to the kind of people who commit cold blooded murder because it doesn't seem to stop them. It also promotes the idea that killing is a legitimate way of getting rid of a problem.

It's about revenge and vindication. "This person was a irredeemable bad and there's nothing we could have done for them, their crimes are nobody's fault but their own".

I don't know about you but no situation would ever make me go around raping people, I would steal to survive and possibly even kill for defense (though I don't think I'd be able to make myself do it if I had time to think about it) but rape doesn't get you anything. The law isn't the thing stopping me from raping, killing and stealing I simply don't want to!

 

[GamerAddict7796]

I felt the same thing while playing the Saints Row games. The PC kills tens of thousands of people. Which is totally fine. It's fun and is written into his character.

When I'm meant to give a shit that one of his friends is dead, it falls terribly flat.

 

[abdul]

And Yahtzee demonstrates yet again that he entirely misses the point of violence in The Last of Us. Case in point, he thinks that Joel is meant to be a likeable everyman character.

Joel starts as an A-hole, is an A-hole in the middle and an A-hole at the end. Nothing learned nothing gained.

People still keep forgetting that 20 fuckin years have passed,unlike in the Walking Dead.Joel starts off as a normal single father->20 years later he is a survivor (or an "asshole" if you can't grasp the fact everyone in the world has to be to a degree)->he becomes a father by the end.

Sure,there are lots of kind,selfless people present who weren't assholes during the 20 years,you can see exactly how they're living now:

Spoiler

i can't see how either Ellie or Elizabeth could possibly sympathies with Booker or Joel. both BI & TLoU really needed alternative solutions to killing everyone that becomes an obstacle.

Ellie doesn't know the world as we do,she grew up in the quarantine zone where people are being executed,sometimes on a daily basis (for being infected mainly),think she'd be more used to deaths by now.She's met the infected also before meeting Joel.You're right about Elizabeth though,she spent her entire life locked up in that tower.

 

[Lightknight]

Eh, I really don't have any kind of association with killing in games and killing in real life. No correlation whatsoever. I know from the start that it isn't real and so it doesn't translate into me walking into real life situations and considering choking someone out. If it did, then I'd agree.

As such, I realize that the character's motivations are real motivations. It's me controlling lines of code into changing the arrangment of other lines of code.

Of course, there are times when that control is taken from me and it's the character behaving that way (Hitman shooting his old friend before giving her a chance to talk). Then the blood is on their hands and I begin to not sympathize with them. But basic gameplay mechanics where you need to get from point A to point B with people in between trying to stop you with their gunds? I don't care. They are little more than an obstacle. I do not think of them as people and I doubt most gamers really think of it either.

Yahtzee, however, makes a living considering things like this. His poetic nature would also draw him to consider what he's doing on a higher level than just tearing down obstacles. So I understand why he'd come to this conclusion as well. But it isn't the same for many of us.

 

[Lieju]

Yeah, I feel the same.

I recently replayed Ace Attorney and went. "Damn, it's nice to play a game where the main character is a nice person and not violent in the slightest!"

I tried playing Skyrim like I would actually act, so I only killed in self-defense. And then I had random people attacking me in the wilderness for no reason. Come on, you have the 'Speech' skill, let me talk my way out of this.

 

[Hambers]

I don't think I agree

I've seen this attitude more and more of "Oh, why do games make me kill?" and I can never get behind it. Why? This is going to make me sound odd, but it's the gods honest truth. The folks over at Rage Select put it best: on some basic level, whether we like it or not, there is something intrinsically fun about killing in games. Maybe it's because we're used to it, but on some level there is some satisfaction in it. It's something that's easy to quantify as a measure of success, and easy to also understand the consequences of actions (not talking morally here, rather "What happens when I do X?") To me it's just something that I am willing to expect or accept if it is presented to me. You can have fun non-violent games, I'm not saying games are only fun when they're violent. I'm just saying that the intrinsic fun in killing in games is something of a shorthand for progression and success, sort of how a health-bar is a short hand for survival, even though in the context of the story it can seem ridiculous, even with in-cutscene deaths.

As for The Last of Us...I think this is because of the confusion as to what constitutes a regular protagonist. The folks over at Spill I think gave a good assessment in that "If you think of Joel as a traditional hero, you may feel off or angry during parts of the game. But if you view Joel not as a hero, not even as an anti-hero, but a borderline villain? That's where everything fits together." That's honestly how I look at The Last of Us. I understand Joel's situation, and I understand why he does the things he does. He's still a villain though, in so much as his intentions, while sound and understandable, are ultimately dark, and sometimes evil, in nature. I don't see the killings in The Last of Us as "Oh, in this world life is so cheap that you're lucky if you only get three near-death experiences a day." I see the killings as the means that Joel understands the world, and that for him it's not just what will you do to survive, but what will you do to live? The game has never been one about the survival of the human race for me, but rather an understanding of what one will pay in order to do more than just survive and actually live, to have a life, to feel alive.

At first I thought that the last Hospital section was your standard "Stealth game needs action section, RAWR!" but as I thought about it, I realized that maybe it's because it represents the very thing I was discussing, living over surviving. If all this ever was for Joel was a means to survive, he would've just left before starting shit, resigning himself to Ellie's fate. Let's say for arguments sake that he stays and wishes to save her, but is still concerned more on survival. His shoot-out sections would be considered reckless at best, suicidal at worst. I think, on some level, it sort of shows that for Joel he could simply sneak and survive, but it's no longer enough for him. If he does a shoot-out, he may be reckless, he may get hurt, he may even die, but at least he's living. I think, on some level, Joel enjoys the killing. I'm not saying he's a psychopath who gets a thrill from seeing people die, rather I think it helps him cope with the surviving/living conflict. I think when he's with people he cares for, whether it's Triss or Ellie, his purpose on living has to do with them, but when alone or his relationship with others starts to crumble, I feel that's when he becomes the most reckless and is more likely to kill, because for him, that's the only way he knows how to actually feel alive. It doesn't justify his actions, it doesn't make him sympathetic, and it doesn't serve to make him a hero. What it does do is show a villain that, on some level, disturbs us, and one we would be eager to call out on, if it weren't for the fact that, like Joel, things start to feel panicked, rushed, and tense when things get chaotic and we start having to kill. Like Joel, it can feel fun. Like Joel, we start to feel alive.

You sir, have nailed it.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Snip

And the reason you don't want to is because you were born and raised into a society where those things are harshly punished, if you didn't, you'd in all likelihood do so those things all the time, probably without even thinking about it. If you were suddenly thrown into a world where doing those things was necessary to survive, you'd do them. Reluctantly perhaps, but you'd do them eventually, or end up dead yourself.

 

[Animyr]

Oh. I haven't played or watched gameplay videos (until just now), but I had watched a friend play. During that I asked him how far in he was and he said he was at the beginning - but he was obviously past the prologue and apparently didn't feel the need to mention it. So I went back and watched a walkthrough of the prologue (and up to Robert's death) and it kinda blows my argument out of the water.
That said I'm still on Yahtzee's side. There were parts where the game presented killing as the only option when others were available. Case in point: the guard in the beginning. He verbally threatens you. He ends up dead (he didn't even have a weapon that I could see, his friend did). The protagonists could have just wounded him, but instead they kill him. Why? Because he might have sought revenge by sending thugs after them (or coming after them himself)? His boss tried that and it didn't work. Another example: Later you run across two of Robert's guards on patrol. It's a stealth section where the patrolling guards are walking [i/]away[/i] from you. They get killed. Why? The first guard had buddies and may have been a threat, but these guys were [i/]leaving without knowing you were there[/i]. The game could have easily allowed us to let them go, but it had us kill them instead. And all for a stupid tutorial about stealth kills from behind. If they had put the guards in a place where it was absolutely necessary to kill them in order to proceed I could have let it slide, but it didn't. That right there cemented my loathing of the "everyman heroes" this game had (I actually wanted to kill Tess myself long before that to be honest. She was a pain). Then when our protagonists where threatened with death I was supposed to care? They killed people for just getting in their way(!) so I saw it as just deserts (desserts? I can never remember...). Plus, the world is presented as a place where "kill or be killed" was the top law, so why should I care when the nature of the world temporarily turned against the protagonists? In a serious character drama when you hate every side it just doesn't work.

All that just because the game forced you to kill. That's what I think Yahtzee was getting at.

First of all, you keep saying ?forced? but LOU isn?t an exercise in player choice (though you can sneak past many enemy encounters) so I don?t think it?s fair to hold the lack thereof as an intrinsic fault in the story. It?s not the sort of game where you do as you would do in the situation. It?s a character study of Joel (and Ellie, but we?re talking about Joel) and while people often sneer at linear games, LOU is linear for the right reason: so we can experience things as the character does, and do as he does.

On that note, Joel is not an everyman hero like Drake, who is carefully designed?in his appearance, his speech, in the music that plays as he swings into battle-- so that we admire him and feel empowered by playing as him, yet still see ourselves in his down-to-earth temper. He?s a character we?re undeniably intended to root for in all that he does and all that we do as him. The character backfires when we can?t bring ourselves to root for him even though the game clearly expects?-indeed, needs, as escapist entertainment-- us to.

Yahtzee seems to be alleging that this is what happens in LOU too and the more I think about it, the more it astonishes me how thoroughly the typically insightful Yahtzee misunderstood it. Joel is given sympathetic traits and relatable motivations, sure, but the game never, ever demands that you support or applaud his violence (beyond perhaps, a baseline of being willing to play further). Instead it tries to show how he became this way, and why a person might come to do what he does. Yahtzee?s mistake, I think, is that he thinks the game is trying to rally support and adulation for Joel when all it really wants--indeed, all it needs-- from the player is understanding. Whether or not you actually support Joel as a result of this understanding is entirely up to you. The game itself gives no explicit judgment. It doesn't play triumphant music as he slashes somebodies throat open. Many characters feel uncomfortable or outright afraid when around him. Ellie, who Joel cares deeply for, winds up clearly damaged by her association with him, at least on some levels. Joel himself avoids talking about his violence, as if he doesn?t like to think about it. It?s an uncomfortable story that presents a deeply flawed character as he is, and lets you decide how you feel.

I?m baffled by this, really. Naughty dog, of all people, made a game where the violence of the gameplay is reflected in the character?s personality, and suddenly Yahtzee cries ?for shame? and says it?s only okay for protagonists in violent games to either be entirely justified or clearly evil/crazy? He actually kind of implied that the player should be explicitly told how to feel about the character, and he's is the last person I expected to balk at a violent game daring to have a morally ambiguous protagonist, especially after his reaction to Spec ops. Or that he?d at least acknowledge the attempt before explaining why he thought it didn't work. But instead he seems certain that Naughty Dog is certain that they made a slightly darker iteration of Drake in Joel, to which I can only respond with a really hard facedesk.

And you, it seems, have happily judged the game and its characters even though, by your own admission, you?ve only seen a few of the scenes and watched them out of order. I urge you to do yourself a favor and finish watching through the whole game, in sequence, before coming to a final conclusion, much less trying to persuade people. If you still think that Joel is an irredeemable monster at the end and you wish he died slowly, fine. That?s a perfectly valid response. Unlike Uncharted, LOU leaves you entirely free to conclude that. As it is, it seems to me that you (and others) are trying to convince people who actually watched/played the whole game that you actually understand it better than they do ?cuz you read a Yahtzee column. A disingenuous column which, I think, has done the game a disservice.

 

[M920CAIN]

World War 3 will probably start on the Internet as an online game between officials of several countries. Mark my words.

 

[gjkbgt]

fairness where it's due,

There's a video (two) of Joel torturing and murdering two blocks while making a witty quip on the same page you made that comment

To try and help you identify witty quips in the future i'll define them.

A stament who's presents ins unnecessary to the person it is being said to. With reinforces the sayer superiority in a comic (hard to define) manner
e.g. say good night before knocking someone out

 

[Azaraxzealot]

While we should eventually get to the point where we can have AAA games not focused on killing, I think it's important to not stop making the cathartic mass-murder games like Saints Row, GTA, Fallout, Skyrim, and so on. Because we LOVE violence. It's at our very core, and to not have those experiences will just repress our desire for inflicting violence. Looking at the crime rate as compared to the rise of violence in media the two (while not objectively related) show a trend that as one goes up the other goes down.

For me, at least, having that release of violent games made times when I wanted to lash out much easier for me. I think it may help many others as well.