Gaming Moments That Made You Feel Awkward or Uncomfortable

Saints Row IV: When you go to rescue Matt Millar and Zinyak cordons you off in a room that presents the Boss with all of his past deeds, Zinyak delivers a The Reason You Suck speech to try and make you take the suicide option, therefore saving the human race.

The sad thing is, at the end of the day, Zinyak is right. You're just as much of a monster, if not even more of a monster than he is. And you'll prove this time and time again before the game is through.

A few animal related examples: Squishing the baby dinosaur in Conkers Bad Fur Day. It's necessary to progress, too! And as much as I love Duke Nukem 3 D, the flyers for seal meat, the dolphin in the butcher's shop, and the burgers made from dogs really disturbed me (even moreso since you can find a dog in a cage and shoot it).

Pretty much all of the sexual encounters in The Witcher I think. It was made worse by the Gotta Catch 'Em All cards they gave you for doing them. It's the only game that I can remember making me feel lousy about going for 100% completion

The general artistic design of Dante's Inferno creeped me out enough to avoid the game just on that, with Cleopatra right at the top of the list. I mean, I get that that's supposed to be the point (what with you being in Hell and all), but still.

edited 12th Nov '13 8:11:41 AM by Watchtower

Playing through a Half-Life 1 demo, there was this section where you went into an elevator and up to your first encounter with headcrabs. Everything about them disturbed me when I was a child and I always used to freak out upon seeing them. I always ended up calling my uncle to complete that section for me.

• In Amnesia: The Dark Descent: Lighting the brass bull. I may have actually screamed.

• Practically the entirety of the Deponia series, but especially That god-damn horrible, awful, disgusting, sickening "organ grinder" puzzle (you know what I'm talking about if you've played those games.)., and let us not forget deliberately bringing children to a pedophile. Jesus forgive me.

• Trying to be evil in Epic Mickey. I gave up almost immediately. I couldn't do it. I was heavily reminded of that shoe from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and I simply could not do it.

Thought of two more moments:

• Chrono Trigger: The part where you as Lucca venture into a red gate to save her mom from being crippled. Failure results in a sudden shrill scream and a scene showing the aftermath. I couldn't play the game for a week after that, mostly because I felt it was my fault, since I was stunned at suddenly needing to enter a code and couldn't figure it out in time.

• Legend of Legaia: Now, this was a long time ago, so I may be misremembering. Near the beginning of the game, your childhood friend (and essentially the girl who's the main character's Love Interest) makes you your first set of armor as a gift before you venture out into the very dangerous world to find a way to protect your hometown. Later in the game, you can return to your hometown to see how everyone is doing (at this point it'll be saved). I went back to see my childhood friend, and she suddenly asked me what happened to her gift. I sat there for five minutes, awkwardly dumbstruck, because not only did I sell the armor as soon as I found a stronger version, but I'm pretty sure the only answers the game presented me were to tell her that I sold it or it was stolen by a monster. I told her the truth and I can't recall exactly how she reacted, but I remember feeling pretty shitty about myself afterwards. Since then, I generally don't sell things given to me by other NPCs...^note Since I've never replayed the game, I don't know if she never bothers asking you about it if you never get rid of her armor.

edited 12th Nov '13 11:51:01 AM by Customer

as far as uncomfortable goes, having to fight a close friend to the death in Kingdom Hearts Three Five Eight Days Over Two.

edited 12th Nov '13 12:08:02 PM by crimsonstorm15

I feel dirty every time I finish MGS 3.

I took most of God Of War 3 in strides, not batting an eye over the horrible things Kratos was doing to the Olympians... Right up until I ran into Poseidon's wife. I thouht this was the obligatory sex scene of the episode, but nope, she's used as the solution of a puzzle... And ends up horribly crushed as a result. Did I mention that she's pleading for her life from the moment she sees you to the moment she dies ? Or that you previsouly solved a similar puzzle with a 100 % lethal method ? I didn't realize what was going to happen until she got out of camera focus and until I heard that horrible crushing sound. When I backtracked and looked to what happened... Well, I quickly ran to the nearest savepoint and stopped playing that day.

Also, playing [1]'s story mode was nice... And then, Evil!Superman kills Alt!Captain Marvel in cold blood. Just so you know if you don't read comics : Captain Marvel looks like a grown up man, but he's actually a teenage boy.

I know this sounds silly, but finding a beehive or a tarantula/scorpion in Animal Crossing. It's just... eeugh. It's much different than the normal routine for catching bugs. Even to this very day, I stop playing the game for a few days whenever I encounter bees. To an extend, when I was little, I even stopped playing the game for two years because of those little freaks.

Yeah, every God of War has something like that in it. I don't think there's a single installment of the series that doesn't force you to murder an innocent person in cold blood while they scream and beg for mercy to solve a puzzle, just to hammer home the fact that Kratos is an awful person and not at all a hero to be aspired to.

edited 12th Nov '13 3:15:03 PM by TobiasDrake

^^ Similar to that, spiders in Akalabeth World Of Doom. While it might be my arachnophobia talking, there's something about a GIANT SPIDER RIGHT IN YOUR FACE that's pretty dang uncomfortable.

yeah akalabeth is pretty bad about the spiders. so is daggerfall come to think of it. and oblivion. and skyrim.

the evolution of nightmare fuel...

@Customer: Oh hell I remember that. I chickened out and said it got stolen. She said "Oh, it must be such a dangerous world out there..." and I just kind of shrank into a corner and felt guilty.

It's funny how in a gamesphere that now uses "Big decisions!" as a bullet point the little ones like that still have so much more impact.

edited 12th Nov '13 4:34:56 PM by ShirowShirow

In Phoenix Wright: Ace Atorney: Justice for all.

Defending Matt Engarde in the final case, after you know he's guilty. Yeah, you refuse at Maya's peril, but wasting all that effort on such a scumbag is a terrible prospect. Not to mention that you have to falsely accuse Adrian Andrews and drag her name through the mud while stalling for time.

Seconding this one. The sole consolation was knowing that you're going to be facing Edgeworth, because if ANYONE can bicker like old women for hours on end and waste the court's time, it's Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth. There is no better adversary for a stalling bout.

edited 12th Nov '13 5:38:56 PM by TobiasDrake

Hotline Miami managed to make me uncomfortable in a really good way. Simplistic, retro graphics aside, the game really manages to impress upon you the severity of the violence you're inflicting.

If motion sickness counts as uncomfortable, then I say Hotline Miami made me uncomfortable as well.

I feel uncomfortable whenever a game forces me to kill a dog (like Fallout or Modern Warfare). Especially when they let out a whimper upon death.

Shadow Kanji and Shadow Rise.

edited 13th Nov '13 5:27:39 AM by TrueShadow1

Virtues Last Reward.

I haven't even completed more than a rough 9th of he game so far, and to go into details would be a spoiler minefield, but I'd like to say any story path where I choose "Betray". The game really manages to drive a nail right into the heart when you see the characters' reactions to betrayal.

Killing The Joy/Boss, again, in MGSPW and then mercy killing her horse. Kojima is good at these. The fact that you have to shoot them yourself is brutal. Snake won't move on untill you fire his gun.

edited 4th Dec '13 8:16:01 AM by LordofLore

Making the player pull the trigger was evil. My response was something along the lines of "Huh, nothing's happening. Has the game frozen? No, there's some swaying in the background. Why is nothing... Oh, you son of a bitch, Kojima."

Rune Scape had a couple puzzles similar to the God Of War one above, in the quest "Underground Pass." This was the first ultra-hard quest to be released in the game and generally considered one of the best, but some of the stuff you have to do to win... geez. Specifically, you have to horribly crush a unicorn to death under a boulder (which is portrayed as exactly the horrible sort of thing it is in Harry Potter), then butcher three innocent knights for their Plot Coupons. The dungeon is the home of the wickedest sorcerer in history, and it's implied that he deliberately designed the place so that anyone trying to reach him would have to cross the Moral Event Horizon to get there, but still. Other quests have an optional "Evil" path, but this is the only one where you have to do evil things to proceed.

edited 4th Dec '13 11:36:14 AM by HamburgerTime