[Editor's note: We're not just a (rad) news site -- we also publish opinions/editorials from our community & employees like this one, though be aware it may not jive with the opinions of Destructoid as a whole, or how our moms raised us. Want to post your own article in response? Publish it now on our community blogs.]
In my mind, I try not to over think or justify why certain overused mechanics in videogames are adhered to like a good recipe passed down from some popular chef. I just accept it. I go with the flow because after all, this is videogames we are talking about here. For all intents and purposes this is for fun. We can make parallels to our everyday lives and can even try to find a deeper meaning beyond the surface of games but its almost silly to take videogames seriously when the majority of them, before they even begin to tell a story to you, outfit the protagonist with a lethal weapon of some sort. Whatever narrative that may follow next, however intriguing or touching, immediately loses validity because of what you are carrying in your hand.
You are carrying a sword, an explosive, or a gun that would make Richard Marcinko green with envy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that yes, you're going to kill people shortly and most likely with extreme prejudice. It may or may not be gratuitous, perhaps there wont even be that much blood to contend with, but lives will be taken and they will be snuffed out by you.
I find it odd that the majority of game developers stick to this I gotta kill formula for just about all of their games. Can they not tell a story with gameplay to match that doesn't involve killing someone or something? Or are the only stories worth telling the ones filled to the brim with death? What's odder still is not the frequency of theses games, because bottom line they're profitable, but the still ravenous appetite for them from gamers.
If you will permit me an analogy, that's like owning a restaurant that only serves one dish and one dish only, say a pork sandwich. That pork sandwich may be the best pork sandwich in the world, once bitten men drop to their knees weeping with satisfied delight. Yet how many days in a row of eating those sandwiches will be enough before it's time to move on to something else? Would you last a week eating the same thing no matter how delicious?
It's weird that as gamers our palettes are varied only when it comes to food and not games. How many Call of Duty games do you own? Personally I own four. I will pick up the next one too. Why? Because the next one's story will be significantly better? Or because it has snow? Is it because the multiplayer will be vastly different? Truth be told, It will be the same experience as the last one if you really think about it. It's all about the multiplayer and of course killing your fellow online friend.
At least the theme of killing works in CoD but does it have to be that just about every game have to have it? Really? I find that as hard to believe as gamers still not getting enough of killing in games. I wonder if you all took stock of your games, what would be the percentage of them where you are dealing death? Is it more than 40%? 50%? Is it 100%? Are you a psycho? Do game developers think we are?
Does the NRA infiltrate our game developers during their planning stages of games? That sounds comical if it weren't for guns being the cliche accessory that the latest game protagonist needed to sport. If you think about it, there's more thought into getting from "point a" to "point b" in a game then there is shooting thirty people in that same time span. There are no repercussions for shooting or killing no one typically. You'll probably have more of a game reaction to crashing a car than you are killing a pedestrian walking down the street.
The best game I've played all year so far didn't have the main character kill anyone in the game. When I realized that I internally did a double take because of how rare that is nowadays. That game being Batman:Arkham Asylum.Creating a game that's a blast to play and not kill can be accomplished folks. People often ridicule Nintendo but their first party games are crazy fun and don't involve a bloodbath to accomplish great sales nor exemplary gameplay. It's a philosophy they have, one that still they haven't abandoned. Refreshing.
Nothing is indeed sacred in videogames when the most sacred thing in our real lives, that being taking the life of another, is made a mockery and even a requirement in most of our videogames.
Contest:
7:00 PM on 10.05.2009
| 
Persona 3 :FES
Persona 4
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Dead Space
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaro's Treasure
Killzone 2.
Street Fighter IV.
Valkyria Chronicles.
SOCOM:Confrontation.
Flower.
Left4Dead.
Shadowrun.
Ico.
Shadow of Colossus.
Crimson Skies.
Crackdown.
Gunvalkyre.
Jet Force Gemini.
Pikmin Series.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Metal Gear Solid Series.
NFL 2k5.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
Otogi.
Front Mission 3.
Panzar Dragoon Orta.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Metal Slug Series.
Virtua Fighter 5.
Indigo Prophecy.
Dig Dug.
Mario Kart DS.
Advance Wars Series.
Tobal #2.
Animal Crossing.
Tecmo's Deception.
Manhunt.
Deathrow.
Deus Ex.
Street Fighter 2.
Half Life 2.
Dead Rising.
There's a WHOLE lot of killin' on that list.
But what I have found in my own gaming experiences is that I don't see killing is actually taking a life, as none of the real life consequences is there. You play a multiplayer game and no one stays dead. You cut through a pirate and another one pops up. Enemies simply fade from the screen--there's no counting the dead, notifying the families, attending the funeral. Sure, games have overcome this, but most don't. So if they won't treat death like it's actually death, nor will I. Because, really, it isn't.
I think death can be made sacred again, but it will require the right sort of game.
I really like your point on Nintendo games as well... I don't remember ever killing anyone in Mario 64 back in the day, and that game was fucking awesome!
I know, that's what I'm talking about.
@Kauza:
I see where you're coming from. This blog actually began because of Batman. I was knee deep in it and realized I hadn't killed a soul and thought "Whoah". But the thing is its a prerequisite nowadays to begin most games with the building blocks of killing 1st then everything else falls into place. I believe that could be changed a bit.
Whether they treat death like death isn't the point...its the necessity of it always being there.
I honestly think this is one of the best pieces you have written in a while Frank. I loved it! :-)
I hope you are doing well man.
If ya don't like it...don't support it.
Games I love in no particular order:
Persona 3 :FES
Persona 4
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Dead Space
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaro's Treasure
Killzone 2.
Street Fighter IV.
Valkyria Chronicles.
SOCOM:Confrontation.
Flower.
Left4Dead.
Shadowrun.
Ico.
Shadow of Colossus.
Crimson Skies.
Crackdown.
Gunvalkyre.
Jet Force Gemini.
Pikmin Series.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Metal Gear Solid Series.
NFL 2k5.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
Otogi.
Front Mission 3.
Panzar Dragoon Orta.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Metal Slug Series.
Virtua Fighter 5.
Indigo Prophecy.
Dig Dug.
Mario Kart DS.
Advance Wars Series.
Tobal #2.
Animal Crossing.
Tecmo's Deception.
Manhunt.
Deathrow.
Deus Ex.
Street Fighter 2.
Half Life 2.
Dead Rising.
In Deus Ex, you can play through the game without killing a single person. It is one of the few games that really enable the player to think about his actions. There are multiple times in the story where killing is discouraged and a lot of characters will openly despise you if you mow through your enemies like a nano-enhanced killing machine. Which you technically are.
Still, games are a sub-layer of our lives and as long as the consequences of killing and death in games bear no real life consequences, I don't think they should be treated the same. That's why it makes no sense to ban (strictly) violent games. It is no different to kids playing Cowboys vs. Indians 100 years ago.
nice work :D
There are only two indicators that you don't take all these lives: the (common?) knowledge that Batman never kills and the game telling you every body's current state in Detective Vision. Remove these two barriers and you have one of the most brutal melee killing simulators of all time.
It's what you already knpw that is the most shocking to hear.
Oblivion was interesting to me because even though you had to kill people you had to be careful because the city watch would hunt you to the ends of the earth if they caught you, even if you had a great reason for doing what you did. Granted you could pay off your bounty and go on as if nothing had happened, but at least there was some consequence to your actions instead of it just being assumed that nobody would notice.
Also, Batman: When you do an inverted takedown on someone, you can then proceed to batarang the cord that hangs them from the gargoyle. These people land on their heads at an alarming rate. Surely in real life these people would sometimes die, unlike in the game where the devs say everyone's knocked out.
But I'm just messing around. Good article, I agree to an extent. I admit, I enjoy me some killing, but if a game can be fun without killing I'm still interested.
Batman was an excellent game and also bucked the trend, as you mentioned. Excellent write-up!
Well said, as always.
fap'd.
The reason for the proliferation of games centred around violence is because it appeals to one of our most base instincts. Above all other emotions, those that are driven by our desire to survive are the easiest to appeal to and the most universal. The joy found in humour, the awe of discovery or appreciation of something are much more subjective and difficult to evoke. I'd rate procreation as a close second to survival, guess what we're seeing an increase of?
It's simply good business. Violence is violence, it appeals to most people on some basic level. It's the easiest thing to represent in a game and the thing that has the broadest appeal among the population.
However, it is possible to not kill a single opponent in the game, and you are actually rewarded for completing the game in this fashion, as it is a feat that involves an insane amount of difficulty to see through to the end.
That alone made playing the game worthwhile to me, as I will choose to spare a life rather than take one without regard for any immediate or future consequences. Again, the boss fight against The Sorrow in MGS3 is a wonderful reminder of the actual weight that burdens any soul with blood on its hands.
Rather than "morality-based" choices to make, I'd rather deal with some actual consequence to the haphazard application of violence from an in-game standpoint more often. I believe that would make some people think twice about their own violent tendencies more often than banning a title because of its content any day.
to each his own.
what if in a game each kill meant one less bullet you could carry, instead of rewarding players for killing how about punishing them?
God I'm hungry.
will have to find the percentage of my collectiion. And Always looking for something that not purely kill.
Thanks for the perspective.
Even Flower... have you purposefully hit those electric beams... and watched your petal count decrease? I guess you kill those petals off in a way.
I did buy UNO the other day though! No death in that game! LOL!
(and hopefully someone brings pork sandwiches, because the game itself isn't all that mesmerizing or exciting).
or pulling them off a ledge with the bat claw?
i do know they usually end up "unconscious" normally but they should be dead.
and didnt he kill bane or is he assumed dead??
Even on the Metroid Series things are quite soft on all that "shooting adventure"...
What's funny is that I came up with a interesting scenario that would treat killing differently while I was in the shower:
You play as an FBI agent (3rd person) searching for a runnaway/missing girl. You suffered a leg injury a few years back while in a Northern-Texas SWAT team, and was released from active duty, instead stuck at a desk job until your leg healed up. You were then assigned to the investigative unit of the FBI, working the Texas panhandle. Your search for the child brings you to a facility just outside Amarillo. This facility belongs to the local cult, which has been able to circumvent the system for the last few years thanks to the leader's Harvard Law degree. You enter the facility asking about the girl. The leader, hating the government, becomes hostile when he hears of the agent's arrival and sends his guards to escort him peacefully off of the premises. He has been shut down twice before by the government and has spent 20 years in jail thus far, he is not going back. The cult guards fear a government invasion similar to the Waco fiasco, and decide that this nosy government agent is going to suffer a car accident, they are going to find him, help him, and he is going to die from blood loss and shock inside the facility. Before they can do anything, the agent catches on to the plot, sensing something amiss. He is on the other side of the facility, being escorted out by guards with sidearms, when he punches one of them and runs away. He is stuck in a building lined with lead so he can't call for help (because this is one of those cults that are afraid of mind reading). He has to escape the facility, but he can't kill anyone; the leader would find a way to convict him of unprovoked murder if he does (or something like that). That and the paperwork.................oh the paperwork. He can kill if he wants to, but this isn't the only building belonging to the cult. If he kills anyone, including the leader and his men, the cult would start riots throughout the panhandle.
He can kill, but there would be repercussions throughout the rest of the game. By putting weight behind the act and giving the player more reasons not to kill than to kill, the game would be different in that respect. He could always incapacitate, but the idea is to get out without shooting anyone in the face; knockouts are OK, they already know you are there. The reason no one thinks twice about killing is that the game doesn't give us any reason not to, and until they do, we'll just keep killing.
Albeit, I understand, he who hunts monsters...
I think that for the majority of people who enjoy games as escapism, there is a definite desire for more well thought out, deep, less grey and depressing, more rewarding and uplifting games that don`t just rely on a tired, and somewhat morbid, gameplay mechanic. Putting aside any discussions of it being dark, emotionally numb, lacking in perspective and a bit psycho to want to mince up simulated humans for hours on end, it just IS an incredibally unimaginative thing to do in a game. Aim, fire. Or tap the button as the axe mashs back and forth into a less than pleased virtual human victim. I don`t know...when I was 17 it was hilarious and good fun, but, now, it just seems to be in bad taste - and increasingly so, perhaps as graphical realism ramps up. I mean, surely it is going to be questionable when graphics are REALLY life-like to be cutting someones innards out, nazi or not? I wouldn`t be interested in that, and would wonder about the emotional state of people who would. Maybe i`m just getting old.
Because,`mup for less killing and bloodshed - more fluffy, honey flavoured clouds and psyhedelic bon-bon dispensing bush babies, or the like...
And yay for Gunslinger Girl.
I'm not following you
Agree with you 100% on your opinion of Arkham Asylum. It was so refreshing to play a game where a good guy is defined by his beliefs, his obstacles and his will, not because he is the last man standing in a rubble full of dead bad guys.
But I'd rather be blowing shit up.
I disagree completely with your article.
http://bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/sick-of-being-a-virtual-killer.html
I completely agree that killing being the core of most games these days is quite disturbing even for someone who likes ye old kill-fests. Sad truth is sex and violence sells so that's what devs are going to do until you know, money stops being the main reason for making most games.
And yes Batman was awesome for many reasons, one of which was the lack of killing by the player.
Here's an idea for a game: you and one other person are stuck in a maze full of traps and things (sorta like Saw) and you should work together to get out. It's a lot more difficult to get out with this other person, and you have the option to just push him off a cliff or dispose of him somehow. Repercussions ensue. Think ICO, but instead of Yorda there's some paranoid redneck or something.
Thats what i loved in MGS...okay MGS not so perfect in this type of game...but except of some situations...you had the choice...of killing ppl or not