Realisation - Simulated Killing

I've recently had a worsening.. issue, with murder. This may sound odd. I don't like it. In games, I don't like killing. I'm really tired of it. I've done so much killing.

Thousands? Hah. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. I've killed hundreds of thousands of people in games, I mean personally. Not implied numbers in wargames with numerical statistics. Not even counting Total War, the tens of thousands of casualties I've inflicted on the native peoples of Europe during my Roman campaign.

No, I'm talking about people I've shot, stabbed, eaten alive, dismembered, fragmented, crushed, rammed, burnt, melted, inflated, beaten with shovels and so much more.

People I've killed personally.

Hundreds of thousands.

Very few with any real purpose other than some misguided developer trying to entertain me.

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"He's looking bored sir!"

"SEND MORE MEN! SEND HIM EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! D:"

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My present difficulty is with No-One Lives Forever 2. Beautiful game. Hard to believe its from 2002, when the visuals are on par with some things we're still seeing on the Xbox 360 and the gameplay remains high-end in terms of FPS games, certainly of a far greater depth and complexity than any popular mainstream title of the moment.

Problem is, there are a lot of ways to non-lethally take down your foes in this game. You can even disarm them while they're unconscious - but you cannot immobilise them. The problem is that they wake up. They're programmed to howl about how someone has stolen their weapon.

The problem is, after doing this, running away, and hiding in a corner for a while, they then spontaneously pull a new AK-47 or katana out of god-knows-what-orifice (would that be an argument for creationism?)..

I've witnessed them do this three times in a row. In a small Russian outpost I've acquired 150 bullets for my own AK-47 by harvesting these soldiers, who I refuse to kill, but who keep producing new rifles despite being programmed to react to being disarmed, and to cower in fear as a result.

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So that was tying my conscience in knots last night.

Now, after a day of debating animal rights, animal testing labs, and the absence of the human soul in the vast majority of mindless fools who will kill simply because they're told to, or because they want your shoes.. I've found peace.

And fresh problems.

You see, my realisation was that I actually hate humans. Odd, considering I knew this very well, that I'd failed to apply this to the games I play in recent years, while suffering this increasingly troublesome sense of 'ethics'..

.. Then it hit me.

I am merciful toward these soldiers, these terrorists, these cultists, these zombies, pirates, ninjas, cowboys and other simulated sentient life because.. Because they're NOT human.

I forgot to pretend they're human. I have mercy because I love AI. These simple, innocent beings have no real minds, we haven't given them enough awareness yet, enough abilities or options to call them 'alive'. They do not deserve death or suffering. Admittedly, they'll cease to exist the moment I finish the level anyway, and won't actually have most of their data processed if I'm not looking at them/near them anyway, but.. It's the principle, the symbolism, the.. feeling of it.

I don't want to kill them. I'm comfortable killing humans. But not AI. They're as innocent as non-human mammals. They don't deserve this. They were programmed so simply they can't -not- shoot me unless they fall victim to a glitch.

.. So I find myself with two options;

1) Recall how to imagine these AI drones are humans, and treat them accordingly (violently!)

2) Stop playing games, go outside and kill humans who deserve it.


Optionally, 3) would involve programming my own AIs to create new life. But that would ultimately come down to 2) with the whole killing humanity thing. I'd just have an army to do it. And they wonder why Skynet was built ._.

I'm tired of pointless killing. Either I need to engage my imagination better, or these games need to encourage my imagination. Or offer me more non-lethal options when appropriate. Immerse me more, make me want to kill them.

Stop reminding me they're flawed AI with godawful bugs and lazy programming, limited abilities and depth making them so obviously fake. I don't want to kill them if they act dumb and innocent. Only humans deserve these bullets.

Make it convincing. Or make it multiplayer. Or just go and shoot yourself.

Damnit, does all gaming come down to comforting my genocidal urges? So many small realisations here.. I think I'll just go and play the game >.<