T w e n t y S i d e d
 |
| Left: Little girl. Center: Little Boy. Right: Totally uncalled for. |
I can’t recall ever seeing a child die a bloody on-screen death in a horror movie. Maybe it happens, but if it does it must be rare. No matter how evil the foe, there is usually an unspoken agreement with the audience that the kid lives. Barring that, they die off-screen. This is supposed to be entertainment, after all. The moment a kid dies it stops being entertaining or scary. Our instincts to protect children go too deep, and when the audience sees something like that they are going to be yanked out of the story. They are no longer frightened, because they are no longer taking part in the experience. This is particularly true of people who have kids. Kids might die in a drama, but creating nameless underage “extras” to be slaughtered is a major violation of the viewer’s expectations and they will probably rebel by disconnecting from the story if they don’t quit it outright. As a storyteller you can break or bend this rule if you like, but you had better be careful and you had better know what the hell you’re doing.
And more to the point, you shouldn’t need to kill children to make your story frightening. Once you establish your foes, creating fear is much more about pacing, suspense, the threat of harm, and fear of the unknown. If your story isn’t scary, you don’t need to have your monster kill kids, you need to figure out why the audience isn’t connecting with your protagonist and vicariously experiencing their peril. Introducing kids is a ham-fisted solution to the problem and if you’re using it you’ve already messed up.
Later that ghostly little girl showed up again and I was obliged to fight her. I’ll give the designers credit: It was indeed shocking, but man, what were they thinking? Yes, she was a ghost, but shooting guns at kid-shaped targets wasn’t what I signed up for here. I found it revolting.
Later there was a scene that perfectly illustrates how “less is more” when it comes to scaring people:
The aliens in the game are harvesting people for food. They just teleport handy containers of people like planes or buildings onto their spaceship. (It’s really big.) They take the people out and leave the Earth junk laying around. This is a great device, since it lets the viewer see familiar objects in the alien setting, which creates a nice contrast to remind the viewer of how strange their surroundings are.
 |
| Wow. Yikes. If they’d stopped here, they would have been way better off. |
I think using children like this was a major miscalculation. Nobody wants to gun down kids. At all. Not ghost kids. Not alien kids. Not virtual kids. It’s just a terrible move. I don’t care how ugly you make them, how many hit points you give them, or what weapons they have, nobody is going to derive satisfaction from overcoming child-like foes. There is a reason we’ve spent the last twenty years of gaming doing battle with Zombies, Orcs, and Nazis instead of fighting the cast of Romper Room.
I haven’t seen anyone else complain about this, so perhaps I’m alone in my thinking here. Maybe it bothered other people but they muddled through without making a big deal out of it. I’m still playing, but for me the sense of immersion is gone and I’m viewing the game with a far more clinical eye.
UPDATE: Steven has several great thoughts on this.
UPDATE UPDATE: Enough anklebiting. Comments are closed. If you have mean things to say about me, do so on your own space. If you want to drag me into an endless cycle of insulting nitpickery, then don’t be surprised when your comment gets nuked. I do this to have fun, and you’re making it non-fun. If you don’t like my website then piss off.
(Just for clarification, the anklebiting comments are deleted, just so everyone doesn’t look at what they wrote and wonder what led to this.)
The Biggest Game Ever
How did this niche racing game make a gameworld so massive, and why is that a big deal?
The Mistakes DOOM Didn't Make
How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
The Strange Evolution of OpenGL
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
I don’t think you’re alone in your thinking, not by a long shot, but I do think that statement that “nobody wants to gun down kids” is gonna be hyperbole. There’s gonna be a small percentage of people out there who might enjoy it, and another small group who won’t distinguish between kids and adults. They may be aberrant, abnormal or sick, but they’re still there, and they probably buy video games and watch horror movies.
Nonetheless, it’s probably going to far to be acceptable in just about any society, and as such, it’s probably not a move that contributes to profitability in the long run, so you’ll probably see less of it from the developers in the future. To be honest, I’m surprised they got it made. What’s the game rated??
I agree 100%.
That is, as long as this is supposed to be a serious and scary game. In a game like Timesplitters: Future Perfect you gun down some kid zombies that are more of a joke than an actual opponent. In a setting where this is serious, I’d just put down my controller and stop playing.
I’m sorry you had to experience this in a game. Just for a quick reference, what is this game called? Just want to know so I never accidentally pick this up.
– Ace
Okay, my interest in Prey just dropped below zero. The puzzle aspect of the game intrigued me, since Portal won’t be out until later this year. Now I’m back to waiting for Portal. Is it weird that I’m drooling like a maniac for the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 when I consciously plan to toss aside all the Half-Life 2 stuff and just play Portal?
Though I’m curious if you saw the pilot miniseries for new Battlestar: Galactica; and, if so, what you thought of the little stuffed-animal-toting girl and her fate.
That is one of the reasons that I am so glad that the GTA series don’t put kids in the game. I wouldn’t say that a game should NEVER have kids dying, but the developers should think long and hard about whether is it appropriate to the feel of the game.
I’m not going to argue in defense of Prey, since I know nothing about it. For all I know, it very well might be tacky, or over the top, or badly executed.
I am, however, going to argue against the “the kid lives” rule. As you say yourself, “as a storyteller you can break or bend this rule if you like, but you had better be careful and you had better know what the hell you're doing.”
The concept of children as victims and/or children as monsters is intensely strong and disturbing one for very good reason–and IMHO one you should use when such use is warranted and effective.
Some of the most creepy and disturbing horror experiences (games, books, movies, what have you) I’ve had have been children-as-monsters stories. Done well, of course. (Horror done badly inevitably ends up cheap, whatever the topic.)
Not to say that YOU would or should necessarily like or enjoy any of those stories. That’s taste. One person’s creepy-in-a-good-way is another person’s gross. (Horror being also, of course, a very personal thing.)
So I’m just sayin’, “[…]a major miscalculation. Nobody wants to[…]” seems a bit too broad of a statement.
I agree that most horror films, despite being about the breaking of taboos, still treat small children as off-limits. The recent horror film Feast played on this and other genre conventions by introducing each of its characters with an on-screen graphic describing their odds of survival. The kid in the cast was said to be guaranteed to live a full and happy life…yet he was one of the first ones killed and eaten. My point (if indeed I have one) is that such fictional deaths can be effective just because they are so unexpected, but that they need to serve a purpose (in this case, ironic commentary) other than perverse gratification.
I think that one of the reasons that nobody have said anything would be that it’s so unusual. In my experience, not even the GTA-games went over that line, right?
I don’t know that fighting child ghosts would really bother me all that much. If a game forces me to kill children it might bother me, but a ghost? Not so much. As for the child dying on-screen, very unusual and risky because most people will have a problem with it, but if it is well handled, it shouldn’t be a huge game stopping issue…It obviously wasn’t well-handled judging by Shamus’ reaction.
I’m in the minority, I’m sure, but I don’t see why this sort of thing can’t be dealt with in a video game if that is part of the story they want to tell.
Any kind of medium that pulls out the “let’s threaten the kids!” card immediately hits my “off” button. It’s a cheap, brazenly manipulative tactic that I find disgusting and reprehensible, and not at all effective.
Which is not to say that people shouldn’t kill kids by the score if that’s the story they want to tell. I’m just not interested in partaking of it.
I am glad that you wrote this post. I will not be playing this game.
Hah! I so remember that. I was getting kinda used to seeing all this violence, and suddenly the ghost girl puts the boy on pike and I just stop in my tracks. I think I stopped doing anything for around 5 minutes, walked into the next room, quicksaved and went to bed.
When I woke up, I completed the demo.
Hmmm, my interest in this game just went *negative*… as in: “I’m not sure you would enjoy this” anti-recommendations to those I suspect would be offended by this.
Bleah.
Count me in the apparent minority who doesn’t really distinguish between gunning down adult shaped blobs of pixels and gunning down child shaped blobs of pixels. I’m assuming they’re just normal enemies who happen to be shaped like children, btw. If there’s some additional sadistic flourish I’m not aware of, then my perception would, of course, change.
If the children are fleshed out characters, that’s something else. Even when I tried to play through Fable in as evil a manner as possible, for example, I couldn’t bring myself to beat up the kid with the teddy bear in the opening scenes where you play through your character’s childhood.
~~~ minor Battlestar Galactica spoiler follows ~~~
The little girl from the Battlestar mini is a good example of effectively using a child’s death for dramatic purposes, IMO. It gives Laura’s decision a much stronger emotional kick in the gut than just “Oh, she sacrificed X ships to save Y ships.”
I agree with the first poster’s remark, that it pretty much will be hyperbole to say that no one wants to, and I’ll play the devil’s advocate by saying there’s a good portion out there not likely to be as off put as you are in this instance. It honestly wouldn’t bother me to fight kid ghosts, I’ve done it in lots of video games and it never has before. In horror games it hasn’t even struck me as particularly uncommon, just moreso than adults because it wouldn’t often make sense. In Resident Evil, for instance, there’d be utterly no reason for little kid zombies. In two however, taking place in Raccoon City itself, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised by it.
To be quite honest, when gaming my sense of reality warps a bit. If it’s threatening my in game characters life and has a viable reason for its presence, then I have a good enough reason to fight it. A sociopathic child coming at me with a knife would be unfortunate, but I wouldn’t pull any punches. On the other hand, I tend not to go out of my way to kill people in games, particularly so if there’s no in-game gain.
And of course, this is not reflective of my real life behavior. In general principle I don’t like and tend to avoid most children, but that’s just preference. I hardly do anything harmful towards them, and with non-obnoxious types I usually will smile and wave back at them as I pass by. I just avoid more extensive talking to and general contact.
TL;DR?
It’s just a video game. If there were nuns, you might see catholics getting uptight. people with kids, don’t like to think about kids getting hurt. That doesn’t mean that it’s off limits material for designers or that it necessarily should be, just that it’s going to be unappetizing or outright detestable to some of their audience. And to be clear this post is not an endorsement for the aforementioned game or an argument truly intended in its defense, I haven’t played it. the scene in particular you describe at the top sounds like gore pretty much for the sake of it, which I do tend to find unappealing, though not for the reasons you mention.
I’m amused by this. It’s perfectly acceptable to kill all the adults you want, run over hookers in GTA, and slaughter folks by the thousands in other video games. But once kids enter the picture, it crosses the line? What about the elderly? The mentally ill? The handicapped?
Where do you draw the line, and why?
Personally, I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to be playing a video game that features you delivering a gory death to ANYONE, than ANYONE should be free game. To think otherwise is just hypocritical.
“I can't recall ever seeing a child die a bloody on-screen death in a horror movie”
From the top of my head:Last Destination 2.
“Nobody wants to gun down kids.”
I do.Zombified children add to realism,and I do care about that.
All I know is that whenever I see that one commercial for that Star Wars videogame that shows an Ewok through a sniper scope getting shot, I laugh.
Butchering attacking children in video games has been around for a good long while. Ultima V, anyone? I still wouldn’t recommend Prey to anyone, though. The portal trick is neat for about ten seconds, then becomes as deadly boring as the rest of the game. That the developers felt that they needed to put the “OMG I have to kill kids WTF!!!11!” stinger in there reveals more of a lack of imagination to me than anything else.
I have to agree completely, Shamus. I’ve been making the argument for years that Rockstar Games has made their limits clear – you can kill nuns and hari krishnas, but no kids.
On the other hand, somehow _this_ manages to be funny: http://youtube.com/watch?v=D3Lr70lwaVg
I’m sorry if you disagree. :)
“Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to be playing a video game that features you delivering a gory death to ANYONE, than ANYONE should be free game. To think otherwise is just hypocritical.”
I don’t think hypocritical is the right word to use here. Different people have different emotional reactions to different things. To state that I enjoy playing games where X is depicted, but games where Y is depicted make me uncomfortable is just a description of my reactions. Hypocrisy doesn’t enter into the picture unless I argue, for example, that game designers ought not be allowed to produce anything I find uncomfortable, but it’s fine for them to produce something that you find uncomfortable.
“Where do you draw the line, and why?”
Small children and obviously pregnant women are the most protected (psychologically speaking) of people. Even in the hardest of prisons, someone who killed a pregnant woman or molested a small child is detested, even by the other inmates… you know, the people who gunned down others in cold blood and other happy things like that.
For whatever reason, that’s part of the (normal) human psyche. That is where you draw the line, because that’s where the vast, overwhelming majority of PEOPLE draw the line.
I don’t claim to know why.
Okay, I can vibe with that. Let’s see if I understand, though. Speaking hypothetically, you’re totally okay with playing video games that completely trivialize the horrendous and soul-warping acts of violently ending the life of other humans, but you’re shocked when one of those humans is younger than the norm?
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both approaches equally. But I long ago made the distinction between pixellated morals and those of reality. I could NEVER murder a child (or anyone) in the real world. But when I kill things in games, it doesn’t phase me. I once played a game where I slaughtered pregnant teenage runaways. Damn that was fun.
Oddly enough, this has been a factor in a Dungeons and Dragons computer game as well. From what I’ve read, the computer adaptation of the Temple of Elemental Evil game as originally designed had children NPCs. The problem is, all NPCs in the game are attackable, and turning the townspeople hostile would, inevitably turn the children hostile, necessitating the wholesale slaughter of children. I think there might even have been a side-quest involving the murder of children. Whatever the case, when test marketed, the whole thing provoked so much negative reaction, that the designers were obliged to remove all of the child NPCs from the game at the last minute, which resulted in at least one broken side quest.
Nathaniel,
I assume you are not a parent. What Shamus is saying has very little to do with a moral line and everything to do with ingrained nature and instinct. Prior to having kids the idea of one getting hurt (as in maimed or killed, not a knee scrape) was a merely uncofortable thought…. post kids something changes in the psyche. The drive to defend and protect your child and, to a lesser though still powerful extent, other children is VERY strong.
I’m talking about no thought whatsoever to injury to yourself in the process strong. As an example, I acutally broke my ankle (knowing I would likely do so) in order to catch my toddler son when he was about to fall and impale himself on a spike in a neighbors garden. Didn’t even hesitate. When I hit the ground with my son on top of me I was also hit by my neighbor – who’d had the same reaction as I and ended up with the spike in question through his hand for his trouble… and it wasn’t even his kid. It’s this drive, this need, to protect our children (and by extension, other kids too) that makes things like this in a game so jarring – for me at least. It’s not an instinct that can be turned off. The level of immersion and reality presented by digital media these days is more than sufficient to fool whatever part of the brain handles that protectionary instinct into reacting… the result is a feeling of shock often followed by anger and disgust – especially if the puppose of the display was purely for the gore and shock value of it.
As to whether “anyone should be fair game”… I can’t really argue with that and won’t try. I will however say that I won’t likely be playing a game that features realistic and pointless killing of children. The same cannot be said for the killing of adults in a game (even the elderly or disabled) as my brain is not setup to have the same automatic reaction to that as it is to scenes of child death. Maybe it should be, but it isn’t.
I’ll also add that I don’t actaully have a problem with a developer choosing to make a game that features this – it probably won’t be a game I’ll play but a developer has the right to make whatever game they want to make. If they come out with Kid Hunt(tm) that’s fine… tasteless in my opinion… but it’s still their right to do so. As Voltaire said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
There have been kids killed on-sceen in Final Destination 2, at the very least. And I wasn’t much bothered by that. Killing people, for me, is so far off the mark in real life that doling so in a game, or watching it being done in a movie, is kind of surreal to me anyway. And therefore, it doesn’t make any difference at all to me whether the person being killed is 4, 14, or 40.
And yes, this also holds true in real life. I am not in any way more shocked to learn of a kid’s death (accidental or whatever) than I am to learn of an adult’s death. I realize that I am in a tiny minority here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m alone. Or am I?
This is exactly what I meant when I said “incredibly unpleasant” later. It gets worse later on in the story, but the incident in which I am refering to is better done than the schoolbus scene.
In fact, at that point in the game I happened to be completely out of ammo, and down to the infantry “rifle”, since its ammo regenerates.
So I’d shoot her a few times, get one shotted, go through the spirit shotting thing, spawn back in, shoot her a few times, get one shotted, rinse, repeat.
For maybe ten minutes I chipped away at her health with the weakest weapon in the game, until she died and I finally got to go do something interesting.
This is the sort of thing that destroys replayability.
I'm amused by this. It's perfectly acceptable to kill all the adults you want, run over hookers in GTA, and slaughter folks by the thousands in other video games. But once kids enter the picture, it crosses the line? What about the elderly? The mentally ill? The handicapped?
Where do you draw the line, and why?
Who said that it was perfectly acceptable to do those things? I find games morally problematic that encourage or reward the player for doing evil things to people. I’m not going to say that games like those are bad, but I think that it’s difficult subject matter, and I’m more likely to be annoyed with or disgusted by a game that, for example, has you beating up defenseless people, or picking on people who are innocent.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you're going to be playing a video game that features you delivering a gory death to ANYONE, than ANYONE should be free game. To think otherwise is just hypocritical.
I disagree. There are, I think, clear differences between killing something that is trying to kill you, and killing a helpless child, or an innocent bystander.
I think that a game can raise really interesting issues by allowing you to attack or kill any character, but I don’t think it’s hypocritical or wrong for a game designer to say “You know what, we don’t want the hero of our game to be able to do evil things.”
Am I the only one who thought they weren’t real kids? I always assumed they were aliens taking the form of children. My feeling were that the enemy was doing this simply BECAUSE you would be reluctant to shoot them. If I was an alien, it is a great defensive ploy. I know when I played through Prey, I did everything I could to avoid killing them, even attempting to retreat. I believe I even tried dying as a way out. I only killed them because I was left with no other choice (since they were attacking me). To me, it seemed a realistic ploy that an enemy would use, forcing a moral choice on the character. The idea is to show this as an enemy without morals, that will do anything to get you to give up and die.
My one complaint would be that the game designers only give you one choice. I would have gladly taken a more difficult path around that room, in order to avoid killing them children. Making it a true moral choice would be interesting, rather than forcing you to make a specific decision to the moral dilemma.
I actually tried to get as far through Prey as possible without shooting the kids. I operated on a retaliatory basis – I wouldn’t attack them if they left me alone. However, waiting for them to shoot first usually resulted in my health dropping quicker than usual…
I think the main theme here (and one usually avoided in popular games) is that games shouldn’t make you do things that aren’t fun. It seems shamus wasn’t offered a choice to kill all the children icons, but was forced to, resulting in him being forced into a simulation of an act that violates his moral stance, and possibly his primal instincts. That doesnt sound like fun to me, and games should be fun.
These are interesting points. Shamus, I noticed during the D&D campaign that there was a moment when a wizard kidnapped a kid to sacrifice (possibly to become a lich). What would have happened if the players didn’t care enough to get involved, or tried to barter with the wizard?
I have a feeling that it’s been done, but imagine what the players of a D&D campaign would do if the GM decided to take it to the next level.
“Your party walks into the tower as the dagger is being dropped” and then the descriptions after that. I believe it would be time to pack it in after that.
The “nobody wants to kill” line was said in the same way one might say, “Nobody wants to eat bugs.” Yes, there are people that do exactly that, but you know what I mean.
As someone pointed out – you don’t even get a chance to skip fighting the kids. You can avoid or ignore a lot of the monsters in the game by running past them, but the game ALWAYS locks you in a room with the kids until you’ve killed them all.
And just to be clear: I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t be ALLOWED to make games like this. I’m just saying it’s repulsive and a bad move on the part of the developers.
For a kid graphically dying onscreen in a “fun” movie, see (or don’t) the original Assault on Precinct 13.
“You know what, we don't want the hero of our game to be able to do evil things.”
So, murder isn’t evil?
Another question, perhaps it would help. These kids in this game, why are you supposed to kill them? Is it a mission or something? Are they trying to kill you?
Another question, perhaps it would help. These kids in this game, why are you supposed to kill them? Is it a mission or something? Are they trying to kill you?
I apologize for not making this clear: I think this is causing a lot of confusion. For the record, yes. The ghost kids are trying to kill you. They are really “kid shaped monsters”, not kids.
Just point out: the deaths in Final Destination 2 were so completely over the top they were funny! (And were meant to be.)
But if you want to avoid seeing kids die, I can recommend many Japanese movies to avoid.
One problem with kids in movies is that, as you say, the audience knows they will survive. So why bother putting them in? It’s just a cheap moment of emotionalism for the producers to have the kid be threatened. The kid has script immunity so it gives nothing more than a way to play the audiences emotions. *That* is bad writing.
If these things were “real”, then the kids would be just as much in danger as the adults. Not being so removes one from the experience as then “reality” stops.
As for this game… depends on many factors as to why the characters are the way they are, and I can’t comment on that. Bioshock looks to have the option to kill the little girl, but in that game it does indeed look to be an option up to the player to take on board.
“It seems shamus wasn't offered a choice to kill all the children icons, but was forced to, resulting in him being forced into a simulation of an act that violates his moral stance, and possibly his primal instincts.”
Not true.You always have a choice not to play the game.Its described as extremelly gory,and has 18+ tag,so if you dont like that sort of things,dont play,because youre not the targeted audience.No one forces you.
“The ghost kids are trying to kill you. They are really “kid shaped monsters”, not kids.”
Oh. Well, while I see your viewpoint, I can’t agree. If it is obvious that they are monsters, then I can’t see much of an issue. You’re not killing kids, but instead monsters that look like kids. Which in my opinion is a pretty effective battle tactic for a monster to take.
Another movie to check out is Screamers, in which the bad guys adopt this same tactic, and the heroes are forced to kill LOTS of kids, knowing they’re really monsters.
Re: ToEE, IIRC the situation was a little more straight-forward: Atari wanted a Teen rating for ToEE and told Troika to make certain changes – including removing the killable kids and a brothel (both of which got added back in by fan patches) – to avoid getting slapped with an M.
Shamus: did you ever play the original Silent Hill or the Suffering? If so, what did you think of the child-monsters in those games?
You’re basically talking about two separate but related issues: child-victims and child-monsters. Child-victims: well, either you think they’re fair game or you don’t. Our usual expectation is that children are supposed to be protected; so to have one killed is usually either horrifying or disgusting, depending on how tactfully it’s handled. More often than not, it’s just a cheap bit of melodrama to try to ratchet up the tension. [I was startled they hung a kid off-screen in PotC 3: not exactly light-hearted summer fare, is that?]
Child-monsters also go against our expectations – both that children are innocents incapable of evil and that they should be protected – and again, are either horrifying or disgusting. Complicating matters is that child-monsters are often child-victims as well: e.g., zombies, vengeful spirts, etc.; kids who have been wronged and become monsters as a result. There’s actually many shades of moral ambiguity and disquiet to the concept of child-monsters, which is probably why they keep showing up in horror fiction.
Unfortunately, Prey isn’t good enough to handle either child-victims or child-monsters with nearly the level of tact and subtlety they require. It ends up being a cheap shock tactic. I wasn’t offended enough to stop playing or be truly put off, but it did seem cheap and ham-fisted.
I’d be interested in knowing how the European (specifically German) version of Prey handled this, since it is againt German law to allow the killing of children in a game.
Reminds me of the comment available in Fallout 2 upon discovering that there are no children in Vault City: “Oh well, I thought there weren’t any children because this might be the European version of Fallout 2.”
I think a lot of people are missing the point, which is that it is generallyin poor taste to do these things.
I’m sure that anyone surveying B-grade movies and videogames can find hundreds of examples of bad taste.
And there are a number of examples where it is handled appropriately or gracefully.
Neither of these facts makes the situation that Shamus described acceptable.
I probably won’t say anything here that hasn’t already been said.
I was shocked when I saw the ghost kill the kid. I tried to avoid killing the ghost kids at first because they creeped me out, and then I swung the other way doing everything I could do kill them as fast as I could so I could get out of that scene.
I think that was the purpose. Personally I don’t have any moral issues against killing ghost kids, or kids in a game for that matter if they are attacking you. At that point they are no longer innocents. Would it bother me, sure, but only slightly more so than seeing any character that has been developed over time in dies. Kids just tie into that base instinct.
Everyone is perfectly capable of deciding whether or not they want to play a game with this type of content. It doesn’t affect my interest in replaying the game though. The creepiness factor and the puzzles is what drew me in to Prey in the first place.
Personally I found the introduction of children to be intresting, and provided a more horrific atmosphere, these aliens don’t care and neither do the spirits and you having to face the children presented an intresting moral question, you, the hero must save the world but to do it you must kill children at one point leaving you to decide how you will respond mentaly and physically and this further adds to the story as not being a story of a daring guy that will save the world, but a man who has the fate of the world tossed on his shoulders and although at first dosent want to accept it, must and take the concequences both physical and mental and both good and bad. So, was it necessary? probably not just as a number of things were not, but did it add to it? I felt it did.
“I think a lot of people are missing the point, which is that it is generallyin poor taste to do these things.”
I see your point, but again I don’t at all agree. Where are the definitions of this supposed “taste” and how is this breaking it? Apparently the monsters are evil, and they did something evil, and it seems almost as if the designers have effectively garnered the reaction they were looking for when they wrote that bit.
So some evil is good, and some evil is bad?
I still stand by my original point. I don’t believe that you can just “draw the line” with this subject matter. You can’t just say “some ruthless bloody slaughter is good and some is bad.” The boundaries of morality here have already been crossed by choosing to play a game of bloody violence. This reminds me of burglars getting hurt in the act of robbery and then suing the owners of the house they robbed.
I find the thought of having to kill children in a game very disturbing. None of the games I play that allow/encourage senseless violence require it (GTA: VC, GTA: SA, Hitman 1-4) and yet their still plenty of fun.
I was curious a couple of days ago, playing Neverwinter Nights 1, after I looted a home and killed the adult there, I decided to see what would happen if I attacked the child. I got whipped. The kid was invulnerable to all of my weapons, and to my unarmed attacks. I tried running away, and the kid followed me everywhere attacking me, killing me. I eventually had to give up trying to evade the child and reload a game previous to that bad decision.
I think the “gun the kids or you don’t progress” stage of the game would be the point where I stop playing, and employ my time more wisely writing a letter to the manufacturer asking them what the flipdigit they’re thinking, and what reason I would have for trusting them in the future.
On the roleplaying side of things, you don’t write out child NPCs just because they might get dragged into things. There are many more possibilities in a roleplaying game, including the kind of moral decisions and themes of responsibility that computer game manufacturers seem to find such a nuisance.
I’ve seen quite a few scary movies where kids are the “evil”, the Grudge for one. And I do believ that several asian movie do not regard children as protected, they drop of at an alarmin rate, usually when the whole family is being slaughtered for whatever reason.
Heroic Trio …. eh, 1 or 2, can’t remeber which has an infant dying due to two heroes fighting and they use that to enhance the drive of the main characters.
My point is that it seems like very much of this protected status of children in movies and games seems to be different for different cultures.
If ever there were a game that focused around close-up medieval pillaging, damn straight you’d be able to kill kids, and women too. After all, you don’t want some little punks surviving the raid, remembering who killed their father, and then gunning for you 15+ years down the road. In war, a few dead kids now are a few less enemies in the future.
I think it can quite easily be agreed upon that the developers included the ghost children for the impact and shock value that this would give to many players. Thus there should have been at least some appreciation upon the part of the developing staff given to the moral impact that could be expected. To this end I feel it would have been much preferred if the player had themselves been given the choice of how to proceed rather than being forced into taking a particular standpoint on the issue.
Personally I would have been shocked at first by the inclusion of violence towards children on the part of the player. However when playing games I tend to detach myself from any violence present at any rate so I expect that what at first was shocking and hard to deal with would quickly become just another part of the game.
Thad briefly mentions Bioshock giving players the option to kill children and indeed he is completely right. However it is ultimately up to the player whether or not to pursue this path. In the game killing the children will provide the player with access to a beneficial resource, however this resource is still obtainable to the player through other means. Thus the player can choose to either take the “easy” route in order to gain this particular resource, but in doing so have to attack children, or alternatively take the harder route avoiding this.
Though I should point out that in the game Bioshock the developers have provided these small children with giant robotic bodyguards. This adds an extra level to the moral decision faced by the players, they know it is going to be very tough to defeat the bodyguard and subsequently deal with the child but it will help develop their character more quickly and thus make the later game easier if they do so.
It is the sort of moral choice that is being put into Bioshock that I believe can make players truly connect with their in game avatar and lead to a much more rewarding gaming experience.
I’m the oldest of six children, and though I’m while I’m still 2 or 3 years away from starting to have kids of my own, I love my younger siblings dearly.
That said, this is one of the few times I have to say you’re completely and utterly wrong. There are no such imaginary limits on storytelling. If dead children are something the storyteller wants to include, then by all means they should do it. If anything, you’ve convinced me that this game (which I don’t know if I’ve ever even heard of before) is something very much worth playing.
I don’t revel in violence for the sake of violence, nor do I find breaking barriers to be artistic in and of themselves, but neither do I find barrier breaking or fake violence offensive in the slightest. So long as it’s not real, it’s fair game.
Is there some sort of lower limit to this theoretical restricted age bracket? Doom 3 had those nasty little demon cherubs/babies, and I don’t recall anyone raising concerns over that. Maybe I just didn’t see it.
Thanks dude you saved me from buying a game and saved from this type of cheap shlock. I Typically walk out of movies that do this kind of crap.
Nathanael,
As best I can tell, you’ve completely ignored what I said. People draw the line there because… that’s what the vast, overwhelming majority of people do. Even real-life cold-blooded killers take exception to killers or molesters of small children.
I can’t tell you WHY – it’s just the natural state of human emotion.
That said, historically, yes, war involved the intentional slaughter of your enemies, down to the last woman and child, and for exactly the reasons you mention. That doesn’t change the facts of how people feel about it. (That, and “war” is a very different state of existence than normal life – every major world religion takes that into account).
Deoxy, no I haven’t ignored your statements, and I’d appreciate it if we kept this as a civil discussion and not start any personal name-calling. I read what you said, and I’ve already stated that I understand where you’re coming from. Note that I’ve also tried to keep my comments in a hypothetical perspective when able (or when I remember to). Why the personal gripe?
“That, and “war” is a very different state of existence than normal life – every major world religion takes that into account”
I totally agree. So tell me, then… If we accept that War is a very different state of existence, what about running around on a rampage killing evil monsters? Is this not also a very different state?
When I first read Shamus’ post, I agreed, but I now find myself wavering. It was interesting reading the reasons why everyone felt we behaved in certain ways. I suppose it all depends on your perspective. Some people saw them as children, while others saw them as monsters or ghosts that needed to be released. It was obviously designed to shock and the risk the developers took was that some people would be turned off the game by it. I suppose we each have our own sense of right and wrong as to what we are comfortable or uncomfortable with. I read OOTS and enjoy it immensely, yet can remember feeling decidly uncomfortable with the episode where the party cast a sleep spell on the goblins and then killed them while they were asleep.
When Pirates of the Caribbean 3 came out, and its rating was still pending, a friend and I went to see it. Within five minutes, a child was hung at the gallows by the government for somehow being affiliated with pirates. (This is not a spoiler because it in no way affects the plot).
You see the noose being put around the child's neck, and you then see the child's feet dangling. Thankfully, they didn't show the neck-snapping.
I immediately turned to my friend with a shocked look on my face, and said, “they just broke one of the fundamental rules of movies: they murdered a child.”
Children love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and I don't know what Disney was thinking when they decided to add this in, for apparently no reason other than wanting us to hate the British Government. If this were a horror movie, or a “killing” movie, I wouldn't have been so shocked… but I've always regarded the PotC movies as being “family fun,” regardless of their rating. Hell, they barely show any gore!
Yes, movies and video games are pieces of fiction, and no real children are being harmed. But there is an unspoken contract between a gamer/moviegoer and a designer/producer that is practically a social norm: no one should experience the virtual death of a child unless it is conductive to the plot and there is advance warning.
For instance, for horror movies such as The Ring or The Grudge, the viewer clearly expects children to die. They make the choice of watching a movie in which children die. PotC? I didn't expect a kid to even be spoken to in an angry tone.
Actually, real-life cold-blooded killers take exception to killers and molesters of small children because a large quantity of them were abused as small children. Or so their questionnaires say. (This abuse ranging from the sexual to the physical, repeated beatings plus hostile environment, etc.)
As for me, I respond to:
“There is a reason we've spent the last twenty years of gaming doing battle with Zombies, Orcs, and Nazis instead of fighting the cast of Romper Room.”
with:
“What do you really think kobolds are?”
Not true.You always have a choice not to play the game.Its described as extremelly gory,and has 18+ tag,so if you dont like that sort of things,dont play,because youre not the targeted audience.No one forces you.
Of course! I hadn’t thought of that! Thats for pointing out the blindingly obvious and irrelevant fact.
When I said, “I was obliged to kill them” eveyone else was able to figure out what the hell I was sating: I was obliged to kill them IN ORDER TO PROCEED THROUGH THE GAME.
I’ll decide when I’ve had enough and put the game aside. In the meantime, I may or may not complain about parts I don’t like. Cope with it.
re Pirates 3
I’ve been complaining to my friends of ambivalent feelings about the end of that movie, on the same “why would Disney do that?” basis. Now that you mention this, I’m “happier” because such narrative approaches were foreshadowed.
At the time of watching that first scene, though, I was just pleased to see 10 year old ruffians being treated historically accurately. That’s how things were; we didn’t have child labour laws back then, and many youngsters did many professions both legal and non-. Same as how I liked that everyone gets muddy in these films, unlike in say, Errol Flynn.
“What do you really think kobolds are?”
Not kids. Small, but not kids.
Killing a kobold doesn’t disgust me the way gunning down a ghostly eight-year-old does. Maybe other poeple feel differently, but my paternal instincts don’t kick in when I see a little lizzard man.
Yeah, I have to say, having played the game, this part didn’t really bother me. In fact, it didn’t even give me pause (I’d completely forgotten about it until this post). As far as I’m concerned, it’s a game, and that sequence was all a part of the story they were trying to tell. This ship is a terrible and horrific place, so much so these ghosts are roaming around bringing violence upon each other.
Yeah, seeing a child hurt isn’t something most normal people want to see or deal with, but it does happen, so I don’t really see why it should be off limits.
That said, this is one of the few times I have to say you're completely and utterly wrong. There are no such imaginary limits on storytelling. If dead children are something the storyteller wants to include, then by all means they should do it.
And so begins the deluge of ankle biting idiots of the internet.
You just told me my own preferences were wrong. If you want to have a conversation with me, you could say, “I don’t react the same way” or “my experience is totally different.” Something along those lines. You don’t pound out some nonsense about how my own preferences and reactions to thematic elements are incorrect.
Geeze, I even gave you an out by suggesting that I was the only one who felt this way.
So, murder isn't evil?
Are you willfully misreading my comment, or did you really not get what I was saying?
Are you going to suggest that all killing is murder? Because that’s patently untrue. If a police officer is being shot at, returns fire, and kills the person shooting, are you going to call that murder?
If someone is walking in the woods and a bear attacks that person, and that person kills the bear, would you call that murder?
Sure, I’ll grant that murder is evil- but I don’t hold the view that any time you kill anything it’s automatically murder. Again: I don’t think it’s hypocritical for a game developer to say “We’re going to make this game such that we don’t allow the player to make the hero do evil things.”
I would be very disappointed, for example, if a Zelda game allowed Link to murder townspeople. Link is a hero. Heroes do not murder innocent people. Thus: Link should not murder innocent people.
After reading thru all the posts in here, I think I see why Shamus posted the blog entry regarding mayo on a sandwich…
“Not true. You always have a choice, to not play the game. It’s described as an extremely gory game and has the 18+ tag, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, do not play it, because you’re not the target audience. No one forces you.”
Fixed grammar. Apostrophe and spacing are your friends.
Now bear with me a bit. You’re saying the game is extremely gory, has the 18+ mark and that somehow indicates that murdering children is involved in it. Now, in my 13 years of gaming, have played my share of 18+ titles and 15+ titles. I’ve never drawn parallels between killing children and the age limit. In fact, most 18+ titles I’ve played that are gory have a lot of death involved, but rarely children. I assume Shamus feels that a LOT of these titles are fun to play and are usually not triggering anything bad to him. Yet now a cord was struck with him and he shared it, why attack him on it? He isn’t going to marshal all his bloggers to tell game designers to stop doing it, nor does he intend to change it. He just wishes there was a warning to what elements of horror were involved before they happen.
I’m no parent, but I can understand the shock of that scene. It came right out of the blue for me even though it didn’t scare me away. I am a very practiced empath, so let me present you with an alternative scenario to see through Shamus eyes a bit better: Imagine an indie game developer asks for photographs of people for use in their game. And they get their hands on your face and put it on one of the bandits that spawn hundreds of times. Now, imagine you sit down and play this game, and suddenly an NPC which has an uncanny similarity to you, charges at you and starts slashing you. You are forced to kill yourself. And these game developers are really active on the front of technology and make the damage you just did to yourself look very real. You see yourself on floor, in a pool of blood, with a gash across your own face. Your face pales, lips and eyes turn white and you look dead. Blood flowing your mouth, ears and nose. You suck it up and move on. Suddenly two more of you charge you and meet similar tragic death. You go on a bit and suddenly you meet another of these guys, this time in a scripted death. He gets a sharp pole jabbed into the side of his skull, and then a razor blade separates his head from his body. You now see a very realistic head of yourself on a pole bleeding like crazy, begging for mercy. And that’s not all, suddenly you have to fight them as zombies. With the injures done to them earlier still visible.
So, why is this comparable? Why so personal? Because Shamus wasn’t just killing ‘some kids’. He was killing his own kids (metaphorically). Over, and over. That’s why he objected, wasn’t it?
I believe at least one of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies broke the “kids live” rule, though I can’t recall which one. All of them except New Nightmare, if you count teenagers as kids I guess.
I can see how you’d be offended by this imagery, but it actually made my interest in the game go up a bit. I work in a hardware store where parents are constantly letting their crotchfruit run around unattended, which puts a lot of stress on the workers who are suddenly being forced to babysit these little demons in a space full of heavy and sharp objects. I think I’d get some catharsis out of targeting some ghost brats.
Shamus: What about BioShock? I’m guessing that it’ll be damn hard to get through the game without killing at least a few Gatherers.
luagha: I work in a correctional environment, and the reason for beating up child molesters and rapists is actually “because that’s what you do”. They’re generally not smart enough to worry about morality.
So this is where the “mayo” topic came from. Reading this reminds me why some people restrict comments on their blog.
Just to toss in my own two cents… I tend to think the game developers screwed up here. Killing kids is the sort of thing that will cost you sales without much in the way of benefits. For example, I’m not going to buy this game. If I wanted to see kids get killed in unpleasant ways there are plenty of war documentaries available.
Okay-
Someone hit the nail on the head already. What difference does it make the age / sex / species of what you’re shooting at on screen?
Are children any more important than any other living being on the planet ? Perhaps here, but there are some countries where children are participating in armed conflicts and I can tell you they have absolutely no qualms about shooting you.
But that’s reality. Let’s get back into the game world.
Children die quite a bit in games, we’re just not given
a front row seat while it actually happens. Any time a
planet fries, a nuke hits a city, alien invasion, whatever. The horror as a whole doesn’t give you time to realize that yes, children were in there too. . . .
Then again, why is it ok for kiddos to die in the background, but not out front like their adult counterparts ? I had more problems with the way the Grandfather died than I did on the scene with the two kids.
The children emphasize the brutality of the alien race. No
one is spared. To them, we are food. That’s all.
Don’t let the scene ruin the game for you. From my
memory of it, the initial scene, the bus scene and perhaps
one other involve the ghosts of children.
I won’t spoil the ending for you, but after you finish it think of what your actions actually do.
Damn.. Shamus scored my coveted 65th post.. anyway.. I play to escape.. sometimes to shoot something because I don’t REALLY want to kill the moron that cut me off in traffic.. and kids dying does set off buzzers and whistles.. even ghost kids… that’s why horror movies use dolls.. it implies kids.. and Damien-type kids.. creepy and yet unkillable..
But.. Daemian_Lucifer.. you have every right to enjoy killing kids.. Shamus hasn’t asked to take away you right to kill video-game kids.. Feel free… just know that you may not be alone.. but you’re pretty close to it.. and if you start feeling extremely isolated, please get professional help rather than killing real kids or your real self. .. because contrary to what our gaming selves may believe.. life is pretty neat and should be protected.
In Fallout, children were such an annoying thieving bastards that you probably would not consider them as something you want to protect despite image. Though I myself never killed them (I do not like killing civilians in RPGs), but many Fallout players did it without much doubts… Also, inclusion of killable children in Fallout 3 is one of requirements of “hardcore” Fallout community (along with “bad language”, sex references etc.).
It sounds like you’ve hit your barrier old chum, that line in the sand stating ‘This far, and no Farther!’. Everyone has one, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. My mother couldn’t take any “nice” person meeting a bad end in the movies, I couldn’t take some of the more ‘unusual’ entertainment that the fine Interweb provides (oh those wacky Germans…), and you can’t take popping kids. Fine. No need to rain on the rest of the game for it though.
Oddly enough, despite having a little’un of my own (he’s going on three this July) I had no problems whatsoever with the scene first shown up top. None at all. Okay, maybe mt eyebrow (the left one) rose when I saw that. But when it came to fighting them the first time all I did was aim a little lower.
When the school bus lit up, I thought it was a tad corny, but it again wasn’t a problem, as grenades (in mine mode) make great mop ups when you notice how they sometimes cluster.
Am I a horrible, evil and wrong sort of person? I probably am, but not for shooting video game characters. I must stress that. Video Game. In Postal 2 you can shoot a person to near death (using a cat as a silencer no less), then watch them writhe on the ground, begging for their life, then set them on fire, put them out by peeing on them, the take off their heads with a shovel and play fetch with a dog with it. Yet since these are ‘adult’ characters, this is all fine and dandy to all the people who’ve raised a fuss about killing children. Silly people, this is a game, thump your chests towards the REAL children being abused in this world. They matter. This is entertainment, for those who find shooting things fun. If you don’t like your choice of targets, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.
The way I see it, each generation of entertainment has to push barriers for it to have impact. Remember those 7 words you can’t use on television? How many remain? NYPD Blue had bare ass on public Television, and with Manhunt 2 on the Nintendo Wii, executions might take a whole new level of interactivity. Makes me wonder what taboos and barriers will be shocking when my kid is a teeny-ager and playing his XBOX1080 or GigaStation. Something involving puppies no doubt.
I should also point out though, that depending on your patch and version, you don’t necessarily have to kill them at all. I think it’s the European version though I’m not sure, but my friend (the ever so lovable pirate), when he met the kids, couldn’t kill them. All he could do was make them disappear for a very short while, and after a short time, the doorway opened up, and he made his escape. They couldn’t follow him after he entered the portal. Same with the school bus, all he did was spirit run, hit the switch, and duck into the portal without taking much damage.
Oh and for those thinking you have to wade through a sea of preteens to finish the game, the schoolbus is pretty much the last you see of them for the rest of the game, no doubt to ensure you don’t start taking them for granted. Wouldn’t do to give other ‘senseless, barbaric, xenophobic, masculine-agendum, murder simulators’ any ideas now would it?
Apologies for flapping me gums for this long.
Serr Schmidt.
(oh and the ‘senseless, barbaric, xenophobic, masculine-agendum, murder simulator’ came from a feminist that was complaining about Counterstrike Source, since there were no female models to play, and thus women were being discriminated against since you couldn’t shoot them. Wotta world!)
I guess everybody has their limits as to what they want to see in a book/movie/game, and for Shamus, it was the killing of children. I agree that for many people, the instinct to protect children is a strong one, and the resulting conflict of interests when one is confronted by child-monsters in horror games is an experience that can heighten the sense of ‘wrongness’.
As an example, when playing Doom 3, the monsters that creeped me out the most were the Cherubs (half-fly, half-baby monsters that have the most unnerving laugh that sounds like a baby laughing. And when they die, they sound like a baby crying). Perhaps it’s my Cthulhu-campaign experience speaking, but the realisation that you’re a killer of what are undeniably children, gets you wondering if perhaps you’re not much better than the monsters you face. That sense of introspection, at least to me, helped lend a new level of experience to the game.
To #47 ryanlb: Yeah, all of the children in the official NWN1 campaign had the ‘Invincible’ tag turned on. You couldn’t harm or affect children in any way, shape or form. This didn’t always extend to custom-made mods, however. One particular module was written for a blackguard character, and I remember one of the ‘tests’ given to you by your fiendish mentor was for you to go and murder 3 children in cold blood, purely for the pain and anguish it would cause to their families and their community.
I did it, but I have to say it left a sour taste in my mouth. There wasn’t any challenge or threat to the encounter, only the slaughter of three helpless children who couldn’t even defend themselves. It was a disgusting encounter, but I have to say that I do remember it for being an excellent plot scene. It really drove home the point that you were playing a man/woman of utter evil, who delighted in the pain and misery he/she caused.
If anything, it only strengthened my resolve to play more heroic characters in future.
Black and White let you make a moral choice about killing a child – there’s a scene where 2 zealous parents present their young son for sacrifice, you can take the sacrifice (evil choice), you can sacrifice the parents and let the child go free (evil, but maybe slightly less-so, choice) or sacrifice other stuff, like animals or trees or what have you until the same amount of life energy has gone into the sacrifice bowl as the child would have provided (good choice), or you can sacrifice the child and the parents and a couple of bystanders (super-evil choice).
The sacrifice thing in general was kind of a moral choice – the easiest way to generate a quick load of miracle power was to toss a young child on the altar, but doing that quickly turns you evil (your temple gets black and spiky and your hand goes purple and clawed), alternatively you can wait for worshippers to pray you up some power, but then you have to keep making sure they have food and it takes ages.
There was also the strategy of throwing a few fireballs at an enemy town (garnering belief in the process and advancing your cause) then gathering up the dead bodies and sacrificing them for the small amount of life left in them and using that to create more fireballs.
I just finished Jade Empire with Open Palm, and I’m replaying with Closed Fist. I’m finding it seriously difficult to do some of the things I have to to get Closed Fist points, like throwing Kindly Yushun to Miao. I couldn’t kill Ogre Zhong at all! OTOH I had no problem making Fuyao kill the slavebuyer.
As a moral experiment, this kind of thing is pretty cool. I’m not sure whether it’s science (or rather, could be applied in a scientific way) because it analyses ones squeamishness, or art because it makes me think about what I’m seeing and choosing.
I’m sure there are some people who enjoyed killing the ghost kids. I wouldn’t be one of them for sure, it’s ultimately a question of marketing.
Shamus: Introducing kids is a ham-fisted solution to the problem and if you're using it you've already messed up.
Link Skywalker: That said, this is one of the few times I have to say you're completely and utterly wrong. There are no such imaginary limits on storytelling.
Shamus: And so begins the deluge of ankle biting idiots of the internet. You just told me my own preferences were wrong.
Do we really need to call people idiots if they disagree? Link Skywalker’s response was quite civil, I thought. He merely disagreed with one of your opinions.
Grue:
Me “I don’t like mayo.”
Him “You’re utterly wrong.”
It wasn’t all that civilized, and more to the point it was meaningless. “There are no such limits on storytelling” is meaningless. I never claimed they shouldn’t be ALLOWED to make games like this. I wasn’t attempting to enforce any limits. I said it was a mistake and I didn’t like it.
This is a debate without purpose, leading nowhere, because the way I read it, it looks like he’s telling me my dislikes are wrong.
72 nehumanuscrede Says:
Children die quite a bit in games, we're just not given
a front row seat while it actually happens. Any time a
planet fries, a nuke hits a city, alien invasion, whatever. The horror as a whole doesn't give you time to realize that yes, children were in there too. . . .
Then again, why is it ok for kiddos to die in the background, but not out front like their adult counterparts ?
______
I like a good steak. But I would be very uncomfortable if I ordered one at a restraunt and they took me to a field out the back and asked me to pick which cow I wanted.
I know steak comes from cows, but I am happy to miss out the bit between the big brown-eyed grass eating animal and the juicy 8 oz piece of cooked meat on my plate.
I think child monsters are quite valid as a way to scare and disturb the reader/viewer/gamer. It has been the case often in folk tales, literature and various cultures.
Making a player gun down normal non-monster children and have no alternative does seem in bad taste, but then again I feel much the same about having to kill any innocent non violent NPC.
Oddly enough that scene worked for me. I’ve played the entire game and enjoyed it quite a bit.
The idea that something could corrupt a child’s spirit enough to cause it to attack another kid in such a way really affected me. And the funny thing is I don’t even like kids. But that scene made me go “holy crap! What’s wrong with this place!?!” The scene later with the bus was admittedly kinda eh. Too many ghosts and not enough room to move. Although, I did like the fact that your spirit bow affected them FAR FAR more than your normal weapons.
I am actually sometimes annoyed by the fact that creators of a game/movie/whatever decide to give children plot immunity. I’m not saying that every game should have “kill a lot of children” in it, but in some cases it would make a lot of sense for children to die. And in those cases the creators shouldn’t hesitate to make the children die.
Take the Blackguard example Zaxaras gave some posts ago. Of course a Blackguard will have no problem at all with killing some children. So the game shouldn’t give him any trouble killing the children. Of course there will be people who object to this. But they shouldn’t be playing a Blackguard then.
Or take the Hitman games. It would make sense that at some point, someone will hire 47 to kill a child, as revenge against the parents of the child, for example. While there is no reason to make the game all about killing children, it would help make it more believable if at some point a child has to be killed.
Of course I understand why creators of games/movies don’t do this. As shown above, a lot of people dislike it when children get killed in a game/movie. But my suspension of disbelief would be seriously shaken if at some point in a medieval setting a child who was caught stealing food is released with just a “poor kid, you must have been very hungry. Here, take this bread, so you don’t have to steal.”
Of course there are various ways of how to show the killing if a child. Personally I prefer it if no distinction is made between killing children or adults. If you show adults being killed on-screen, then have the guts to do the same with children. Of course there can be very good reasons not to kill children on-screen. Off-screen often being far more scary for example. But that is true for killing adults too. I see no reason (apart from keeping the crowd happy, which is a pretty good reason in itself when you consider sales ratings) to make the age of the victim matter.
Now, about Prey. I haven’t played the game myself, so I don’t know what the situation is exactly. So I’ll just pose two hypothetical options.
1) Prey often shows humans being killed on-screen. A lot of the killed people return as ghosts which the player has to kill.
In this case I would actually think less of the game if the creators didn’t include children being killed and returning as ghosts. I would be asking myself “Why aren’t there any children being killed and/or returning as ghosts?” And the only answer I could give would be “there is no in-game reason, the creators just didn’t want to take the risk.”
2) Prey doesn’t usually show humans being killed on-screen. No other victims return as ghosts.
In this case it would be the killing of children on-screen and the child-ghosts that would make no sense. I would be asking myself “why are the children the only ones being killed while I can see it? And why do they, but not any others, return as ghosts?” And the only answer I could give would be “there is no in-game reason, the creators just wanted to provoke a reaction.”
Whatever happens in a game should have a good in-game reason. Wether a child is killed or isn’t killed, it should fit in the game. If you really wouldn’t play a game where children are killed on-screen, the real question is: why are you playing a game where it makes sense that children would be killed?
(Of course in most games there is only a small part where it makes sense to kill children. In order to keep the game accessible to people who really don’t want to see that there should probably be a way out of the situation. Once you accept the situation however, there is no reason to give a way out of killing the children. For example, in the Blackguard example the choice is to become a blackguard or not. After you become a blackguard, there is no reason for a way out of killing the children. If you don’t want to have to kill children, don’t become a blackguard.)
What about the younglings?
Was anyone else creeped out by the wholesale slaughter of dozens of toddlers in the supposed escapist fun of Star Wars: Episode 3. I mean, I knew the new trilogy was dark but I found that to be a stretch in the credibility for Anakin’s rapid waterslide-fast dive into the darkside. It’s evil shorthand. “Oh, I get it. He’s ‘officially’ evil now because he kills kids.”
I encountered that scene in the demo, shrugged, and played on. I don’t really see a problem with virtual kids being killable, especially in a game that really doesn’t make a problem of blood and gore in the first place.
However, I’ll say this: It seems as it’s often an escape from having to do actual good writing, like in Star Wars Episode 3. Why show a reasonable decline to the Dark Side while you can have Anakin slaughter the kids and have everyone agree he’s definitely evil now? It’s the shock ploy, and right now I’m reading a book that pulled the same thing. The writer describes, well, every event in the book in very broad terms, so instead of building characters so the reader feels sorry when they’re killed he barely paints them as characters and just assures they’re killed in gruesome ways to ensure an amount of revulsion in the reader. This way he ensures the reader feels sorry for the main character, and understands why he does what he does, while establishing the villain as an unlikable sadist who must be put away.
Personally I find the use of this ploy more revolting than the shocking things themselves. Mostly because it takes a lot to outright shock me (because hey, I read newspapers) and, well, it’s just a cheap copout to having to write an engaging story. Shocking stuff works when done well, but for the sake of shock it just falls flat on its ass.
If you want to know what exactly I’m talking about, read an Andy McNab novel. The man’s sole purpose in his ongoing series is torturing the main character (and, consequently, everyone he’s fond of).
Well, the whole point was that it wasn’t supposed to be excapist fun. Ep. 3 was the point in the story at which the Empire and the Dark Side get to dance in triumph in the streets. It was supposed to be dark and depressing and, had George Lucas not been the one telling the story, the dead Younglings would have been a major impact point. Instead, it just kind of slid by.
For a good example, I think, of dealing with whether the kid dies or not, check out “Cujo” by Stephen King. Of course, he’s been a heck of a storyteller, too.
Yes, that’s precisely what bothered me in Prey too. I haven’t killed the girl-ghost btw, just ran away, she can’t follow after some wall obstructs the way. It definitely was not a good idea.
Lot: I couldn’t understand that either. When someone joins another faction *out of love*, it implies enough sensibility and tenderness in the character to make a slaughter of children seem impossible. But what am I arguing about, the entire SW III movie had a rotten script.
Background: When I played the older shooter Shogo, I was in the middle of blowing holes in enemies in a public location. I rounded a corner to see a child cowering in fear, with a mother protectively hunched over them. I actually paused, with my crosshairs over them, stunned at the presence of a child in the combat. It took a few rounds from an enemy to snap me out of it, and I resumed attacking the people who were shooting me. Looking back, I do feel that if I knew that child NPC was invulnerable, it wouldn’t have had the same emotional impact. I can only imagine if I’d simply chucked an explosive into the room then walked in afterward to see a dead child among the bodies.
I finished Prey. I saw the first child scene three times: during the E3 presentation, during the demo, and during my playthrough. It struck me as macabre, chilling, and an affront to innocence. But, I never considered it inappropriate. I can, however, see how a parent would feel that it elicits a reaction in them, one with which they are not comfortable.
The “Saw” films cross my personal lines of taste. I simply do not like them. They elicit reactions from me which I do not want while pursuing a piece of entertainment. However, I recognize that as my reaction. Yes, the creators crossed a line, perhaps even an important line, but it’s MY line. My mother’s line involves demons (at least the last time I played DOOM around her); mine does not. A postal worker’s line may be a gunfight in a government office; mine isn’t.
More importantly, my line in Prey was the one individual (near the end) whom the game requires you to kill while they’re down. The game literally hands you the gun and refuses to do anything unless you pull the trigger right then and there.
I wholeheartedly agreed with the “fish sandwich” comparison you posted later, Shamus. The thing is, you didn’t just say “I don’t like this.” You called it the worst thing you’d ever seen in a game. You called it a gross miscalculation in the designers’ judgement. You seemed to imply (at least to me) that since it wasn’t mandatory to create tension, that it was in fact completely unnecessary.
I’m not saying your reaction was wrong. I do, however, disagree with those statements as anything other than opinions… and I do have a slightly different opinion on the subject, based on my own views. You wrote a strong opinion backed by strong emotions on the subject, and that does frequently result in an equally intense response.
Commenters, sadly, don’t often take the time to organize their thoughts and try to present them in a less inflammatory way. I’ve tried my best here. :)
You’d think feelings like this would cause more of an uproar over what happens in the real world in developing countries every day, yet sadly the emotions are only provoked when consumers are disturbed by their entertainment.
I think if something is to be depicted, then the entire truth should be depicted. Not white-washed and turned into mass entertainment.
Space Ace: It’s not Mortal Engines you’re reading, is it? :)
Some anime feature the death of a child/children, sometimes in graphic detail. Since the tragic event ties in naturally with the flow of the story and isn’t simply mashed in by a sadistic writer, although it may be brutal, I don’t consider it to be in bad taste. Blood+ and Elfen Lied are examples, the latter being particularly violent. The stories told by each are still rather good.
Also, the game F.E.A.R. comes to mind with the main antagonist taking on the appearance of a young girl. During parts of the game you are forced to bear arms on her to proceed.
It is a tool sometimes used in the horror genre but it cannot be handled carelessly and must be approached with a mature attitude.
On a different note, consider that innocent lives, especially those belonging to children, are taken discompassionately during wars and terrorist attacks. It may not be wholesome or nice – and I don’t welcome the idea – but it’s a reality check that you cannot ignore.
For those not buying Prey: Don’t worry, you’re not missing much.
As for teh scene in question, I felt it fit in with the story, especially if you look back at the Villian’s overall goal. Alternatively, the child-killing-a-child scene could’ve been intended to show “Hey, these child ghosts are corrupted and merciless with no sense of right or wrong. They need to be terminated,”
And unless I missed an alternative solution, when you’re in the real world you beat some guys to death with a wrench just for hitting on your girl!
Plus our hero is generally a dick. He probably laughed while he gunned/ghostbowed down the ghost children.
On the schoolbus scene, because we’d already had murderous baby-ghosts it was liek a giant arrow saying “You have to go here. There will be children-ghosts.” I feel it could’ve been better used to have the school bus sitting there, and have children ghosts around for the next 5 minutes, rather than a giant “this way!” marker
Saying all that, it’s FINE for Seamus and the rest to disagree with the decision to have child-monsters in game. I could even agree, since it’s such a sensitive subject, that it might be worthwhile to have part of the ESRB rating be “Killable children” and/or “Children monster/opponents” cause while it’s a choice, it’s an emotionally sensitive choice.
I don’t feel there should be limits on what writers can or cannot do. But I see no harm in allowing consumers to be warned of what their entertainment involves.
In closing: I felt the child killing in Prey was justified within the story. I also felt the story in general sucked, and some dead children couldn’t save it. It is, however a valid storytelling tool when used properly.
Whether child-killing is fine or not in their games should be up to the consumer; thus they should to be warned if it’s involved.
(I am all for keeping children out of public entirely. Give me incubator pod technology and I’m happy. From seedling to 18 year old without me ever seeing them kthx go!)
Three words: American McGee’s Alice.
In that game you played an unhinged psychotic child (Alice) in a bloodstained tea dress with a dripping bloody knife and a skeletal Cheshire cat gave you hints.
That was 2000. Didn’t take too long for them to turn the whole grotesque thing around, did it? But this seems no worse (to me) at least.
But at least they advertised that one with copious pictures of a bloodstained child complete with knife. PREY doesn’t exactly advertise “Shoot the ‘little monsters’ as well as aliens!”
So while I understand your disgust, and would share your revulsion had I played PREY, there really isn’t an equitable solution beyond the “Add or Remove Programs” panel.
It’s rated “M,” and you bought a game you don’t like. Sucks, but what else can you do? I’ve walked out on movies, too. They don’t give you your money back unless the projector breaks down. :^(
I’m remembering your entry on “Running With Scissors” and am curious to know if your opinion has changed? Are you just trying to warn people off this game, or are you suggesting something more should be done?
Zerotime, it’s Avenger, by Frederick Forsyth, which makes it particularly strange. Normally he’s a competent author, and I do expect violent scenes from him. The Fist of God, for instance, has several centering around Iraqi torturers. That stuff was way nastier than the things in Avenger, but it fit in the story.
That’s the thing. It has to fit in the story, then I won’t mind. I don’t mind blood and guts. But if it doesn’t fit in the story and the context, I consider it to be amateurish.
For instance, the bit that bothers me most in Avenger is that, somewhere along the line, Forsyth mentions the protagonist’s daughter was raped and murdered, which is one of the things why he does what he does. Sure, it’s a bit of a cliché, but it worked for Charles Bronson. Then he says something that might as well have been “hey, but they made her fuck horses, too! Up her butt!”.
And that’s the Shock Ploy. It’s something that stands in for an actual villain and/or plotpoint and tries to compensate by trying to make it all more shocking.
But like so many people, I live in the real world. Sorry, writers, but this crap doesn’t work on me.
And at the same time Clive Barker manages to write a novel that’s a near-continuous, extremely graphic S&M orgy -with ghosts- that’s still a good read. Why? Because, in the world he has crafted, it makes perfect sense.