Video Game Cruelty Potential You DO NOT CROSS

Forgive me if there is already a thread like this. I'm still kind of Newb to the forum part of this site.

In another thread, I saw an avatar of Luigi dying in lava and it made me think of certain uncrossed lines I have when I am playing games. I don't have a lot of lines, actually. I tend to enjoy killing player characters on purpose just to see their various death-animations... (Link... does not like me). The chickens-thing in the Legend of Zelda games is funny... My favorite game is Shadow Of The Colossus and I have slain all the Colossi several times and have even gotten the exploding arrows through the timed-runs...(And then I accidentally erased/overwrote that file! Aarrrgh)! So, I can be heartless gaming goddess... Having become an expert on killing innocent, stately Colossi should tell you that...

But I have found, so far, two things in two different games that I definitely don't have the heart(lessness) to do. These are, as follows:

In The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess I absolutely DO NOT dunk Link in lava ON PURPOSE. I've done it on accident a few times. THAT WAS ENOUGH. I have drowned the poor guy just to see what drowning looks like, I've tried to run him off cliffs on speeding boars (they stop short at the edge of a cliff every time), I've put him in the Magic Armor and had him ride until he runs out of rupees and Epona bucks him off (not a death, just funny), but I will not, do not, cannot give him a lava-death. Having seen it from slipping up legitimately and having it be pure Nightmare Fuel - his face... I mean HIS FAAAAACE! He looks at the camera! Nintendo just really pulled some horror there... no wonder Skyward Sword Link gets the funny britches-on-fire that Wind Waker Link gets. Sheesh...

Link's lava death affected me so much I wrote a fanfic about it. It's a dark fic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6085397/1/Burn

The second line I do not cross comes in Kid Icarus Uprising. In fact, the thought to cross it came from reading around TV Tropes as well as a piece of fan art I'd seen on Deviant Art. I did not know that it was possible to kill Palutena during a particular spoilery arc I will try not to spoil. Just know this: There's a portion of the game where Pit fights his goddess. I've always managed to come out of it not killing her and even scored perfect once (meeting the in-game replay challenge of "do the thing you need to do without hurting her"). I had the thought that maybe I ought to purposefully beat her to death just to see what would happen / see the Non-Standard Game Over , perhaps gain some fan fiction writing research. I chickened out on it, and decided "No, not doing that." It's not that I have an all-encompassing love for Palutena. I like her, but if I can harm Link for farts and giggles, I can harm her. It's just the fact that the player character is Pit,and Pit loves Lady Palutena more than all the world. To make the poor little angel kill the person he most loves just "to see what happens" or "just to do research for dark fic") strikes me as just too much. Maybe I could do it to Paluena, but I can't do that to Pit. (And at least fan fic and fan art wise, I've actually done a lot to Pit...)

So, what kinds of cruelties afforded by gaming are ones you just don't cross?

Hello and welcome to the forums. I'll mainly cover a few from games made by Bio Ware and a few other relevant games elsewhere, there'll be massive spoilers for those games.

In Knights Of The Old Republic there is a huge revelation where you are captured by Malek and discover that you are actually the Sith Lord Revan that had been discussed throughout the game. Near the end you are given the choice to kill two of your Jedi followers and return to The Dark Side, itself an option that is particularly cruel that I had only done to see how the scene plays out but there is something you can do after this that is far worse. That is something I could never bring myself to do, even when my character is the most rough and tumble I can play as. In general Sith dickery is something I cannot do, wanton cruelty is not in my nature and something I cannot bring who I play as to do. Now in something like Saints Row 2 or Legacy Of Kain you play an out and out dick and are practically railroaded into being needlessly violent, petty or cruel. That is in tone with the games but there were certain parts such as the mission Revelations that is a hidden extra that makes me feel rather uncomfortable and for some of my playthroughs as much of a sociopath who you play is I felt did not fit the character and I choose not to play that particular mission.

In The Sith Lords you have the option of killing the Jedi, which I feel is maybe a touch too far even if they are somewhat deserving of it. Playing with mods I restore a lot of cut content including a scene where you find and confront Master Vash who was originally found dead, but I think there might be a bug where one of the non confrontational dialogue options has you fight her. I feel bad about it but if she's going to be a dick then I don't tear myself up over it. Basically if they're a dick then I don't have a problem with being as cruel as needed, if they are innocent then no.

In Mass Effect once you reach Virmire you have to talk down Wrex or if you can't kill him. On one playthrough as myself (I really wanted the romance scene with Ashley, up to that point the best I had seen) I had said or done something wrong and she kills Wrex, but all the other playthroughs I make sure I persuade or force him to realize that stopping the Krogan cloning is the only way. Other stunts like hanging up on the Council, punching out the reporter, I mostly don't do, but they do deserve it. Again as snarky or Bad Ass as I make Shepard she isn't needlessly cruel.

A lot of Mass Effect 2 revolves around making difficult choices where there is no right answer, like a scene in the first game with Samesh Batia and his dead wife. Is it better to let the military experiment on her to save lives or have her returned home? Now with Overlord the option is much easier in that not only were the results so needlessly cruel but the benefits would not be worth the pain, the Geth having already been established as a nuisance more that a real threat. In the first game I could see both sides of the argument but usually go morals rather than ethics. With torturing an autistic man to control the Geth, no question. Paragon interrupt every time, paragon interrupt every time. Other options are always siding with Samara over Morinth and always destroying the Collector base. Stopping that merc from signing up is another minor one as well. Then there's the side missions for characters like Mordin, Jack and Jacob. Was the genophage moral and the best option? I enjoy talking with Mordin about it and unless I play a pure paragon game try not to cast aspirations on whether it is right or wrong, same with saving or destroying the data, I choose what I think is the best option at the time. Or whether or not to kill the prisoner trying to start up the torture camp. How to deal with Jacob's father's a tough one, he deserves any renegade or middle of the road option, but at the time it's hard to choose. Ditto any form of executions or killing in cold blood, for the most part I play middle of the road and decide at the time whether or not these are right unless my Shepard is a particularly paragon or renegade one. Stopping Niftu Cal from killing himself I always do as well.

Mass Effect 3, I cannot allow Samara to kill herself, or ignore Jack or betray Wrex. Now if it were Wreav then it may be a different story, when I get to that point it would depend on if I could talk Mordin out of it. If it ended up with having to kill him then I highly doubt I could do it.

At the moment I'm playing through Jade Empire and I almost always go the open palm route, though in reality I would be more akin to a closed hand, again middle of the road. The closed fisted options are for the most part not my style, that ghost girl I may have let slide on killing the man who didn't save her, but he was genuinely remorseful and the whole thing creeped me out so I was happy to resolve that before turning the orphanage into China's biggest surf park. Or execute beaten foes, if I think it was warranted such as when Gao kidnaps Dawn Star. There is one option I haven't reached yet but after stopping slavers the choice I really want to use is to have one of the slave girls kill the slavers, she gets her vengeance and someone I would regard as beyond saving is stopped from hurting anyone ever again, to me that's a win win situation. But really mostly kind acts, and finding anyone I can to help, seeing how much she admires it I enjoy no end even if I do wish there was an option to react to such praise with something like, You think I'm some saint for doing the right thing? I feel that being nice in these games is so easy, and find it...humbling? That people react to it like something so natural, so right, earns such praise. A little embarrassing as well, being a good person is not rocket science, yet the praise for it is akin to brain surgery.

A couple other games, No Russian from Modern Warfare and White Phosphorus in Spec Ops: The Line. In the former I don't like that people too young to play the game legally like my nephew react to this scene in glee, but I understand the context behind it as well as some of the backlash. The latter on the other hand, you are railroaded into this and the purpose is to brow beat you over the evil of war, soldiers, and how much you suck for playing such games. It's for that reason I won't play it and if I could not take such an option in another game I probably would.

edited 23rd Mar '14 11:42:49 PM by tsstevens

You do not shoot in No Russian.

Shadsie, for reference's sake, if you want to talk about something spoilery, just use spoiler tags. [[spoiler:Like this.]] That would become the following: Like this.

You know that those were some good written plots if they made you care about thousand of pixels.

My standards are very weird. I'd gladly kill the Jedi, and Mission and Zaalbar in KOTOR, but I won't make fun of Maggie's father in The Wind Waker.

FUCKING. HELL MOOK. BABIES. JESUS CHRIST, WHICH MEMBER OF THE STAFF THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA?! AND THERE'S EVEN A TROPHY FOR KILLING ENOUGH OF THEM!

And I don't even LIKE babies!

...... <deep breaths>

Somewhat similarly, in Bioshock and Bioshock 2, harvesting the Little Sisters. I've never actually done so, nor do I plan to. 'Specially not after dat good ending to the first game.

The last thing that comes to mind is actually more like the Inverted Trope of this thread, being "Video Game Caring Potential YOU DO NOT PASS UP", except that I've never actually managed to make it happen yet, and that is to save Miyuki/Tekkaman Rapier from dying in Super Robot Wars J. But like I said, I've never actually managed it yet, so I always feel really cruddy about it....

I try to avoid shooting civilians if they're sympathetic. Civilians in Payday, on the other hand, deserve to be executed with prejudice.

I kept failing No Russian because I kept trying to shoot the bad guys.

Giving the wrong answer at the end of the Heart to Heart scene in Baten Kaitos Origins. My brother did it once out of curiosity, but I was way too attached to Sagi to do it myself.

For anyone who hasn't played the game (which is probably most of you), this is one of the most emotional scenes in the game. At the end of it, you are given a choice. If you choose right (which isn't hard, given the context), the game continues as usual. If you choose wrong, the main character dies, and it is your fault.

I generally try not to hurt allies or bystanders/civilians. The exception is in Pokémon, where I will totally make my own teammates knock each other out to gain or stop the opponent from gaining moxie.

One time I tried to do a Self-Imposed Challenge run in Fire Emblem Awakening where I didn't actively recruit anyone and had permadeath enabled.

I wimped out after Kellam got mopey about being ignored for too many turns in the chapter where you recruit him. I just like these guys too much.

I will never, under any circumstances, leave Zulf behind.

edited 25th Mar '14 5:08:25 AM by Ninety

Tried it once, didn't feel so bad.

I discovered the OP's will-not-do in Kid Icarus: Uprising by accident... I brought the Gaol Blade (whose projectiles can be a bit large) into the level at Intensity 7.0, and the splash (combined with the Chaos Kin stealing Palutena's health) ended up finishing the job. I did feel a bit guilty... that said, the victim there? Total troll. The only people in that game that I ever felt bad about attacking were Dark Pit and Arlon the Serene, because they never do anything to deserve it (though the latter does have a problem of We Could Have Avoided All This).

I'm a bit more sensitive to Video Game Cruelty Potential overall; I won't even play the GTA games because of the potential for it there (among other reasons). Probably the most notable for me is that I will never, ever do anything but my best at "You're The Inspiration" in Elite Beat Agents. I hadn't played Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan at that point, so I totally didn't see that level coming. It still gets me.

Another that I won't ever do is allow Cid to die on the abandoned island in Final Fantasy VI. I did accidentally once, before I knew the trick to keeping him alive, and even if you apply Like You Would Really Do It, the fact that they showed Celes attempting suicide if Cid dies was alarming, and it shook me for years.

edited 25th Mar '14 6:13:23 AM by 32_Footsteps

I agree with you on Cid's case and for the same reason. I also refuse to leave Shadow behind on the Floating Island, because by that point I'd found out through his dreams that he was Relm's father, and I couldn't bring myself to make her more of an orphan than she was. The point being that even if no one else ever knew the truth, I'd know.

I also never let my characters die for the lolz, which is apparently more common than I thought. Even Morrigan, who is such a bitch that I started a Mage Origin just so I could never have her in the party. Freudian Excuse be damned, woman, would it kill you to accept that helping others is the best way to ensure your own survival?

I can't do anything less than my ultra-kindest in Epic Mickey. I tried to do the Thinner path (that is, the "bad" path) and I just stopped after I defeated the first boss that way. This clock tower-a perfectly nice guy, basically brainwashed at the time, was mindlessly attacking me and I ate away at him with what is essentially The Dip. Then his arms just fell off, and his FACE fell off, and...my God...

Yeah, as I said, I don't have an all-encompassing love of Palutena, it's just the fact of who the player-character is. Pit loves The Goddess of Trolls and some of the things that happened just previous in the storyline just really make it too much for me. If the level let you play as Dark Pit, I could go all-out and see what happens.

Now that you bring it up, you remind me of of how bad I have felt about defeating Arlon. He's so... polite and dignified. I don't think I ever felt bad about beating the poo outta Dark Pit. He's a great character, but he made a jerkish first-impression and he doesn't actually die. He keeps comin' back for more in short-order. If you think of the Pits as brothers, then, yeah, brothers fight.

Even when playing a renegade in Mass Effect, I will never select the dialogue options that would contain Fantastic Racism. Could I be a bit of a jerk? Sure, that's allowed. Hating the Turians/Krogan/whatever? Not a chance.

Then in games like Grand Theft Auto V where nearly everyone is fair game, I won't kill anybody who isn't capable of fighting back or even running, unless it's a really bad person and/or I actively put them in that situation because they're bad. And unless I'm going for a bad karma playthrough (Infamous, etc.), I won't kill anyone if they're not themselves trying to kill me or badmouthing me in any way.

I have 3 solid, major rules (and a number of semi-permeable, minor rules) for playing Mass Effect:

• Do not cross the Moral Event Horizon.
• Do all I can to prevent anyone from crossing the Despair Event Horizon.
• ALL rules are void in the sole case of my Evil Shep.

I got nothing, hoepfully because I've never played Mass Effect and haven't played the Knights of the Old Republic games, or Legend of Zelda games very far. I can't think of too many games with cruelty potential that I've played recently. Most I've played are either fighters or the player character is fighting demons and undead creatures that want to get to their murder on.

I tend to play in-character. I roleplay. If my character is a thieving douche who robs orphanages, then I'm a thieving douche who robs orphanages. Like I'm playing Skyrim recently, my character is a thief who finds out he's Dragonborn. PROFIT. I went to the Greybeards and immediately stopped giving a flying fadoodle about saving the world. But in fact I got interested in magic, so I went to the Mage's Guild and did stuff for them until I became leader. But that experience made me a little more heroic, if not power-hungry. Eventually, when I encounter vampirism, I plan to become a dark, bloodthirsty monster who gets wrapped up in the Dark Brotherhood and other Daedric-related activities.

I could never side with Zathrian or Branka in Dragon Age Origins.

He'll I'm usually a anti-hero at best when given the option. Don't like killing 'innocents' much. Even in just cause 2 I usually try to avoid killing civilians.

In general my lines somewhere around ' wanton murder'. Unless it's 'bad guys'.

I always (try to) avoid Blue-on-Blue casualties when playing FPS games. No I don't care if the UNSC Marines carry enough ammo on them to level Grand Junction in a shooting spree and I'm out, I don't fire upon friendly forces intentionally.

Incidentally I do not run around trying to knife people all the time in Battleduty games. Knives are for folks with...issues.

Incidentally, if there are AI enemies who have wounded states before dying (think Call of Duty World at War) I will NOT fire upon them again just to finish them off. They are unarmed, you do not fire upon the unarmed according to The Laws And Customs Of War. (Same goes for any unarmed entity.)

But in World at War, the campaigns are in settings where the laws of warfare don't really apply. In the American campaign, it's the Pacific Theater, one of the worst slogs of the ground war, and it's supposed to be wearing down on your two invincible AI soldier buddies. In the Soviet campaign, you're basically using the war as a means to revenge and the battles are even more violent (your secondary grenades are molotovs, for example), and Gary Oldman keeps egging you on to commit atrocities in the name of the dead at Stalingrad. You do get called out on it, though.