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 >.<
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I think I am embraced the complete opposite. Even when I'm playing against human players, I know their avatar is not them, and thus feel no remorse for making them die in anyway possible. It's a release of anger, of frustration, and entertainment.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with singleplayer game is that indeed, I often feel -little- for the being of others, as they are just arbitrary challeges and small nuasances I need to get past to find the next piece of scenery, story or goody. That's what I play games for, I think, to find interesting stories and pieces of art, even though the game itself sometimes has no merit other then the style it is made in. Game developers lack inspiration or the time/capability to make these "enemies" interesting, intelligent or just worthwhile. After a while, in most open world games I've played in, I feel as though I've grown bored of the game's concept, and any piece I haven't found gets lost. Simply because I am done dealing with the combat/gameplay because it's stopped being interesting
In my eyes, games should re-invent theirselves throughout the course of the game. I'm not talking powerups, harsh weakening of the player (though can be done well) but the switch up of gameplay: interposing the game to be different and captivating again at the
moment people stop finding it interesting.
Rambly post....
You hate humans, presumably because of their capacity for stupidity, ignorance and genocide. Yet your solution is genocide. Does this make sense? Have the thousands of simulated murders, snuff films and torture porn desensitized and dehumanized you, or did they merely stimulate your nihilistic leanings? Did you create the environment you swim in, or was it created for you.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thoughts, either way.
Jonathan, did you actually read this post before you commented? It was about game design, not genocide ._. With a bit of tongue-in-cheek Terminator reference.
ReplyDeleteI don't particularly care for games in which you "grind" your way through killing your opponent. One of my fav all time games would be "Devil May Cry" ~ it enhances both gameplay of hack and slash vs puzzling your way through with clues along the way. As you travel, your monsters and bosses continue to be different and more challenging. The storyline keeps you going. It's very well thought out. I've never been a fan of recapturing wartime sequences as a "game". I think it crosses over sacred ground of all those who lost their lives. It's a profound thought to consider that these opponents who you are blowing away with grenades and shrapnel are actually real people depicted in history who died just so. To be so callously thrust into a "point system" of winning a game just seems disrespectful to me.
ReplyDelete