In horror games, the player is usually either the victim of horrendous actions or the one who is committing them. How does this affect the experience of the game? As I discussed in my previous post, when the player takes the role of the victim, violent acts can often alleviate fear because they give the player some sense of control. Many online reviews say that Silent Hill 5 was not as scary as previous entries in the series, in large part because the effective weapons in Silent Hill 5 changed the gameplay dynamics; in early Silent Hill games, running was the only option, but in Silent Hill 5 you can easily shoot and (re)kill the reanimated nurse corpses.
On the other hand, though, are games where much of the horror comes from your own actions. In the Atari 2600 game Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you played as leatherface and you attacked and killed women. This was your goal in the game. There was no other way to play it. In games like this, user-generated gore is the source of the fear. What I find really scary about the game is that killing like this might generate the same adrenaline rush that killing zombies gives you in Dead Space. One reviewer on The Atari Times describes this feeling somewhat unabashedly, “there is just something gratifying in running around with a chainsaw hacking up poor young ladies.” This makes me wonder: if we accept that enjoying violence in games is okay, and that games like RapeLay are not okay, where is the line between the two? This question seriously bothers me.
There are certain groups of people/creatures that are apparently okay to kill. Zombies and Nazis are the most popular two these days (or in the case of CoD: World at War, Nazi Zombies!). Some killing, though, seems morally ambiguous or even downright wrong. The splicers in Bioshock are okay targets, mostly because they try to shoot you as soon as they see you. It’s a kill or be killed sort of thing. This is actually not the case with most Big Daddy fights, though. The Big Daddies protect the Little Sisters. If you leave them alone, they usually won’t pick a fight. Just a bit ago, I followed a Big Daddy and Little Sister around for a while without engaging in combat. From time to time, the Big Daddy would adjust his suit or shift the weight of the big metal backpack that he carries. He doesn’t say anything, but he makes these deep noises that remind me of whale song. After a little while, a splicer attacked the Big Daddy, yelling, “you fat whale!” I actually feel rather sympathetic towards the Big Daddies. They are protecting children from crazy drug addicts. I play as one of those crazy drug addicts, and this makes me feel guilty. After you kill the Big Daddy, you must decide if you want to harvest or to save the Little Sister. This is another difficult choice. Harvesting them gives you more atom, but saving them is the more moral option. I always choose to save them because harvesting them just makes me feel terrible.
It seems to me that horror games represent two ends of a spectrum; there are games where killing is totally morally unambiguous, like Left 4 Dead, and there are games that force you to kill in a decidedly amoral way, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (actually, I would put RapeLay at the “end” of the amoral side of the spectrum). A few questions that we can discuss in comments: does the dialectic of moral/amoral make sense in the context of video games? Where is the “line” for you? Where do you think that horror games fit in? Does killing Big Daddies make you feel like Captain Ahab? It makes me feel like Captain Ahab.
Since I haven't played many video games I can't exactly place where the "line" is for me. however, I can admit that when the option came up in Bioshock, whether or not to "harvest" or "save" the Little Sister, I was inclined to choose harvest. I guess part of it had to do with it being my first time seeing the game, I was curious to see what "harvesting" looked like. Also, I figured you kill everything else, why not? There is an obvious sense of morality in the game, for instance when you saved the girl, she kind of floated, there was a bright white light, with holy-ish music in the background. You even got confirmation that you made an honorable choice when they rewarded you with a teddy bear. I do believe there is a line, especially with games like RapeLay, but to be honest, if you had decided to harvest the Little Sister, I don't think I would have held it against you.
ReplyDeleteI often have a really hard time killing 'good guys' when I play a 'bad guy' in video games. I got all broken up over playing a Dark Side character in KOTOR once (Knights of the Old Republic) and I eventually stopped playing at this one bit where you have to kill this nice ol police officer guy. Then again, I harvested every one of the Little Sisters because I was all resentful at them after the Big Daddy fights, which I was particularly bad at. For me, the feeling of 'immorality' only comes when I have to kill someone or something that's important in a game's story as a 'good' character. If the game hasn't made me care about something enough, I'll shoot it in the face quite willingly. I don't feel bad working for the Black Hand in Oblivion because everyone they ask me to kill is kind of a mean and nasty person, in some way; I also don't feel bad about killing street beggars in that game because I see them as automated idiots, basically, who just walk in circles all day long and have no 'character' or role in the plot. But I've never been able to play Dark Side in KOTOR 1 or 2 and I can't bring myself to test my marskmanship on Alyx in HL2, even though I know she's immune to my bullets.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons why I think that we should acknowledge narrative in stories where it's particularly powerful: if narrative is the only thing that cam make me feel bad about blowing the digital face off of an imaginary person, that says something about the importance it might have in a game, right?
I agree with Laura. The narrative is the key to drawing a moral boundary in games. Take Counter Strike for example: anybody with a shroud or morality in them would have a very hard time killing the Counter-Terrorists while playing as the Terrorist team. However, in my experiences (which are brief) with Counter Strike, I have yet to encounter anyone who refuses to play on the CT team due to their morals. Without a strong narrative to set up the "good guy" and "bad guy," one cannot even begin to discuss morality.
ReplyDeleteHave you met many people who won't play as the Terrorist team? I played for a couple of years and I don't remember meeting anyone like that. I didn't have a very hard time killing CT as T and neither did anyone else. I always chose "auto-assign" for my team so that the game would stay balanced.
ReplyDeleteAs far as horror games go (not like I have a huge breadth of knowledge on different games) but it seems that Left 4 Dead (this is in agreement with Kent) does a pretty good job of showing that killing is only "OK" if it's to protect yourself against evil. You have to kill the mobs that are coming at you, and unlike in games such as Grand Theft Auto, it's not like you're really killing "people" persay, they're more like unlife-like creatures that are pretty miserable anyway.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you can't hurt teammates and if you do shoot at a teammate, the other characters controlled by the AI tell you not to. The game is very cooperative based, and therefore it encourages helping your teammates (bringing them back to life, sharing pain pills, etc). Killing in L4D isn't just for fun at times, but is in an effort for a greater good.
Kent, I wonder how you would feel about the execution style kills in the area mode present in Condemned 2. When you you have sufficiently pummeled an enemy to death's door, you can pull both the left and right triggers and enter execution mode. Grabbing the incapacitated enemy, you move them over to various objects with skull symbols over them. Once close enough to a symbol, your character will dispatch the meth-head brawler in a fantastically gruesome display of killing. Bringing the enemy next to a curb will allow you to stop on their head and break their neck (American History X anyone?). There are plenty of other flashy ways to butcher. Some that come to mind are putting the enemies head through a TV, crushing them in a dumpster and tossing them down stairs. What does it say about a game when gruesome killing is one of the things it advertises right on the box (or at least within the tutorial)? Moreover, you're right in asking, "what does it say about the type of person who plays this game?" I guess you and I are both sf's.
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