History Main / TheJoysOfTorturingMooks

** And for those whose tastes run to psychological cruelty as opposed to just physical violence, hours of fun can be had by very slowly picking off a gang of heavily armed psychotic thugs [[DwindlingParty one by one]], and listening to them very gradually be reduced to sniveling little cowards practically wetting themselves in terror over every little noise (bonus points go to the ones who fire off panicked bursts of machine gun fire at targets well away from you) and whimpering about how Batman's out there somewhere and that it's ''really'' not fair that that he's planning to beat the living crap out of them. ''It is so much fun being Batman''.

** A standard move for taking down a thug involves Batman kneeling over the thug and punching his face very hard. Occasionally, Batman gets flipped around during this animation, and ends up punching the thug very hard in a [[GroinAttack different, rather more wince inducing area]].

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* A milder, cartoonier form of the above can arguably be found in ''Game/LegoBatman'' - there are several spots where you can pick off Mooks with your super-precise Batarangs without them being able to do a damn thing to stop you.
* In ''[[GunstarHeroes Gunstar Super Heroes]]'', after the fight with Black, you can choose to either exit the level by walking into the beam... or you can choose to stay as long as you please and beat the everloving HELL out of Black, who is on his knees begging for mercy as you waste your fire on him.

** Or show a case of WesternAnimation/TheBatman style sparing where no mook is killed, but all of them are left in rather cruel torture traps, left at the mercy of whatever DeathTrap you placed them in. AFateWorseThanDeath if there is one.

* As quoted above, ''PennyArcade'' [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/20/ notices the particular cruelty potential inherent]] in ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'''s gameplay...

** Lifting a storm trooper, or other suitable enemy off the ground, and placing them in the path of an oncoming Fighter. Bonus points if you can have them holding someone. More points if they were just fighting that someone.

** On one mission, you have an old and blinded man with you. You are supposed to protect him, but nothing keeps you from lifting him up and throwing in the endless pits of the city in the clouds... Additionally, you can attack him and use him like Stormtroopers, but with his unusually huge health, he is in for some more fun.

** In a reference to the above quote, there is actually an achievement in Force Unleashed II where you [[spoiler:[[RasputinianDeath Force Grip a Stormtrooper, impale him with the Lightsaber, use Force Lightning on him,]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill and then throw him into an object.]]]]

* ''[[ChoiceOfGames Choice of the Dragon]]'': after defeating your rival Axilmeus, one of the choices for "dealing" with him amounts to injuring him repeatedly until he can no longer run away, then letting him bleed to death. Even the narrator will call you out on your level of bastardness.

* ''AliensVsPredator'', a game based around [[Franchise/{{Alien}} two of the greatest]] [[Franchise/{{Predator}} sci-fi movie monsters]] of all time, is high on VideoGameCrueltyPotential of the mook torturing variety. Playing as both the Alien and as the Predator involves large amounts of stalking usually terrified humans and mutilating them in a variety of [[{{Gorn}} gornographic]] and invariably fatal ways, several of which [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong deliberately evoke images of rape]]. Some of these include:

* While this is not explicitly a part of ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'', battles with Brutes often go this way. Brute squads are OneHitPointWonder groups of up to six basic mooks. Game mechanics allow players to defeat up to six of them per action. ''SeventhSea'' also encourages the GM to reward players with "Drama Dice" (extra dice that can be used to improve a role or hoarded for bonus XP) for good roleplaying and spectacular descriptions. You can see where this is going.

** In a reference to the above quote, there is actually an achievement in Force Unleashed II where you [[spoiler: [[RasputinianDeath you Force Grip a Stormtrooper, Impale him with the Lightsaber, use Force Lightening on him,]] [[NoKillLikeOverkill and then throw him into an object.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' uses this trope liberally, to the point that it almost seems like the game is urging you to do this to enemy (and [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential non-enemy]]) combatants. Aside from killing them, you can injure them enough to have them run around like headless chickens any time they come within eyesight of you, poison them (which accomplishes the same thing - except it makes them faint afterward), snipe one in the head and watch as his teammate loudly freaks out, hack security bots so that they pump thousands of rounds into everyone in the vicinity, cut them down with sentry guns, blow them to giblets with rocket launchers, blind them with pepper spray, drop heavy objects on them, convince ''other'' unkillable [=NPCs=] to do your work for you by luring the goons into their sights, chuck a couple of grenades into a closed room with an enemy inside (and prevent the door from opening when he tries to run away), etc.

** And then of course, there's the classic move of [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=48 delivering anal "surprise sex" to unconscious guards]]...

** In case you think the demons don't deserve it, the demons have special ways to torture ''[[InvertedTrope you]]''. For example, when a player is killed by a Baron of Hell in melee, the beast will grab the player by its arms and rip him apart. Even after the player is dead, he will continue ripping him until the torso becomes completely open down to the waist.

* And while we're still talking about games beginning with B, ''Franchise/BioShock''. 2k Games once held a contest for most inventive kill, advertising kills such as shooting someone with a rocket spear and having the spear light someone else on fire then explode. It seems pretty logical that the people working on ''Bulletstorm'' were inspired by it.
** You can also be cruel to your ''own'' mooks. If you've hacked one of the flying security drones, you can attach proximity mines to it. It will then fly off to attack your enemies, and blow itself up real good when it gets close.
** Put a proximity mine in a pool of water. Use napalm on a splicer. When it dives into the water to put out the fire...
*** Set a whole bunch of splicers on fire near a pool of water, then equip [[ElectrifiedBathtub Electric Buckshot]]...

* The ''SplinterCell'' games give you all sorts of means to do nasty things to the mooks you run across. For instance, you could whistle at a guard so much he starts freaking out, to the point where he may run off screaming. Or, once you are done freaking him out, shoot him with a [[StunGun sticky shocker]], watching him convulse before he falls unconscious, then carry him over to a nearby railing and throw him over it, watching him fall thirty stories to his death.
** Interrogation sequences in ''Splinter Cell Conviction'' give the player a lot of [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique creativity]].

[[quoteright:292:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mooktrap.png]]

** Or show a case of WesternAnimation/TheBatman style sparing where no mook is killed, but all of them are left in rather cruel torture traps, left at the mercy of whatever deathtrap you placed them in. AFateWorseThanDeath if there is one.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Deception}}'' series gives you several varities of {{Death Trap}}s to which to subject your hapless victims, among them lumber saws, wall spikes, electrified waterways, poison gas, and falling rocks. Games from ''Kagero'' on allow you to combo them together. You'd be surprised what the invaders can live through.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mooktrap.png


[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/{{Wild9}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wildnine.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:It's their selling point: ''[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Torture]] your [[{{Mooks}} enemies]]'']]

* In ''[[MegaManLegends The Misadventures of Tron Bonne]]'', you can do this with YOUR mooks. Your Servbots are invincible, so you can smash, squash, and incinerate them to your heart's content. You can even order all of your Servbots to attack one of their own! Not only do you have to exploit their invincibility during some missions where the path is too dangerous for yourself, but there's also a special torture room for beating the sloth out of Servbots that get too lazy.

[[quoteright:314:[[{{Wild9}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Wild9_8530.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:314:It's their selling point: ''[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Torture]] your [[{{Mooks}} enemies]]'']]

* ''JetForceGemini'' allows you to collect the severed heads of your foes (and the people you're [[TheScrappy supposed to be]] trying to rescue), and gives you rewards for every hundred heads collected. Bug soldiers typically flinch and squeal in pain when shot, so you can slowly shoot them until they die while they are helpless to defend themselves. Also, the Flamethrower and Shocker weapons seem tailor-made for this: neither is very powerful, but setting things on fire or slowly electrocuting them is just ''so much fun!''
* ''GearsOfWar'' has achievements and an entire multiplayer gametype based around this. Mortally wounded opponents drop to all fours, where they'll either bleed out or be rescued by a teammate. If an enemy gets in melee range of a downed character, he has the option to "execute" that character in hilarious violent ways. ''GearsOfWar 3'' actually gives each weapon (except the basic pistol) an unlockable, unique execution, in addition to the basic curb stomp. The pre-unlock execution for each weapon (and permanent execution for said pistol) is probably the best example; the human characters punch the skull of their opponent as long as the player keeps tapping Y, gaining bonus XP for doing so, until the character eventually just smashes the downed foe's head like a melon. The Locust version is even worse, having the character ''rip off his foe's arm and bludgeon him with it.'' Like the human version, this can continue for up to 30 seconds and the player is rewarded with bonus XP.

* ''{{Halo}}''. The grunts are portrayed as comical, cowardly goofballs, making the act of gunning them down seem, at times, quite sadistic. With the melee attack, you can splatter an unlimited amount of purple alien blood onto the floor. A number of opportunities are presented for the character to kill entire roomfuls of aliens in their sleep. Grunts occasionally cry out, "You killed my friend!" during combat. If you stick a plasma grenade to a grunt, it goes running back to the other grunts just in time for the pretty blue fireworks. Extra points for their anguished, terrified wails.

* As quoted above, ''PennyArcade'' [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/20/ notices the particular cruelty potential inherent]] in ''TheForceUnleashed'''s gameplay...

* [[VideoGame/UFOAfterblank UFO: Aftershock]] offers an unusual method to torture the enemies: if they have good medics, allow them to approach an unconscious or dead ally, revive them, then [[Main/BoomHeadshot shoot the revived unit in the head]]. Repeat ''ad nauseam'', at which point the player usually switches to shooting the medic.

'''Stormtrooper #2:''' He threw one at Bob.\\
'''Stormtrooper #1:''' Oh man. That's...\\
'''Stormtrooper #2:''' I'm not done. Then, this guy pulled a TIE Fighter into the ship '''''from space''''', through the window, and used it to crush Bob. Then he hit him with a lightsaber, and then [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill he put some lightning]] '''''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill on]]''''' [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill the saber]], then...\\

* And while we're still talking about games beginning with B, ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock}}''. 2k Games once held a contest for most inventive kill, advertising kills such as shooting someone with a rocket spear and having the spear light someone else on fire then explode. It seems pretty logical that the people working on ''Bulletstorm'' were inspired by it.

* While this is not explicitly a part of ''SeventhSea'', battles with Brutes often go this way. Brute squads are OneHitPointWonder groups of up to six basic mooks. Game mechanics allow players to defeat up to six of them per action. ''SeventhSea'' also encourages the GM to reward players with "Drama Dice" (extra dice that can be used to improve a role or hoarded for bonus XP) for good roleplaying and spectacular descriptions. You can see where this is going.

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* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'': One standard and effective melee attack in [[VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird the third game]] is a thoroughly animated GroinAttack, and that's just for the uninventive. Then comes [[VideoGame/SaintsRowIV the fourth game]] where you can [[LiterallyShatteredLives freeze enemies and shatter them]] and throw them with telekinsis, to name a few.