4 ms·

>For me i found Far Cry 2 spectacular, probably the best first-person shooter of all time, because it constantly makes you feel like shit about the fact you are

>For me i found Far Cry 2 spectacular, probably the best first-person shooter of all time, because it constantly makes you feel like shit about the fact you are playing a mass-murderer. That felt confronting and "real" to me. I hate when games do this. Far Cry 2 and 3 were really bad about it, as well as Bioshock. The game puts you in a situation where you have to react a certain way to play the inherently limited game world that was designed by a person, and the designers think they're like crazy insightful for pointing out that your character is killing hundreds of people. It's so tautological and annoying. "Oh my god, you just played this game the way we designed it and now your character is a mass murderer, how can you live with yourself?!" Eye roll.

lacker 7y ago
I imagine that is also how real mass murderers feel, that life forced them into it somehow. You are always free to stop playing the game.
alisonatwork 7y ago
I tried to play Bioshock and gave up after about an hour because i found all the mindless zombies running out to kill me kind of tedious. The story (if there was one) didn't capture me at all. Far Cry 2 was a totally different kind of game. Far Cry 2 wasn't leading the player on some voyage of self-discovery. There is no epic storyline. It is clear from the very beginning that you are a foreign mercenary coming into a war-torn country to kill people for money. You are a scumbag from the jump, and you continue to be a scumbag throughout the entire game. If you don't want to play that game, you don't have to play it. The thing i like about Far Cry 2 is that it never tries to shoehorn in some kind of redemption arc. It never tries to justify the violence. You take money from both sides. You double-cross everybody. Just like other first-person shooters, you kill pretty much everyone you meet. But unlike other first-person shooters, there is no implication that the people you are killing are "baddies". You are just a killer. The end. I don't think the designers are sitting around feeling smug about it. That's just the game. I thought it was a good one.
- baud147258 7y ago
  There's some kind of redemption arc during the ending sequence of Far Cry 2. But that's it and I agree with you.
leetcrew 7y ago
it's not "deep" or "thought provoking", but it's a breath of fresh air from the usual fps cognitive dissonance of being a hero who runs around massacring thousands of people. honestly I don't think FC2 even tries to make you feel bad; it just doesn't bother to shove some ham-fisted justification of your violence into the plot. it's nihilistic. spec ops: the line is a game that actually tries to make you feel bad about what you're doing. here's a collection of some of the loading screen "tips": https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/2596hq/text_spec_ops_the_line_loading_screens_spoilers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/2596hq/text_spec_o...
strken 7y ago
Funnily enough, I never saw those games as criticising me. I saw them as portraying a particular character, who I was playing as but ultimately had little control over. In Spec Ops: The Line, I'd go out of the way to check whether there was a way to avoid committing a war crime before taking the action the game was railroading me towards. This meant that I was able to prevent some things, e.g. shooting over the heads of a hostile crowd to drive them away rather than firing into them, but at other times the needs of the character's narrative drove the experience. It felt like playing as the remnants of a conscience, rather than controlling the whole mind.
dmos62 7y ago
As it explains in the essay, there is a system called Infamy, which is so subtle that I didn't even notice it. It assesses your cruelty in the game and the people in the world behave accordingly. Apparently, at the extreme they even stop trading with you. As the quotations in the essay try to explain, the creators of Far Cry 2 explicitly evaded embedding a moral story or judgement in the game, but rather created dynamic conditions for the player to form moralistic narratives himself.

lacker 7y ago

I imagine that is also how real mass murderers feel, that life forced them into it somehow. You are always free to stop playing the game.

alisonatwork 7y ago

I tried to play Bioshock and gave up after about an hour because i found all the mindless zombies running out to kill me kind of tedious. The story (if there was one) didn't capture me at all. Far Cry 2 was a totally different kind of game. Far Cry 2 wasn't leading the player on some voyage of self-discovery. There is no epic storyline. It is clear from the very beginning that you are a foreign mercenary coming into a war-torn country to kill people for money. You are a scumbag from the jump, and you continue to be a scumbag throughout the entire game. If you don't want to play that game, you don't have to play it. The thing i like about Far Cry 2 is that it never tries to shoehorn in some kind of redemption arc. It never tries to justify the violence. You take money from both sides. You double-cross everybody. Just like other first-person shooters, you kill pretty much everyone you meet. But unlike other first-person shooters, there is no implication that the people you are killing are "baddies". You are just a killer. The end. I don't think the designers are sitting around feeling smug about it. That's just the game. I thought it was a good one.

baud147258 7y ago
There's some kind of redemption arc during the ending sequence of Far Cry 2. But that's it and I agree with you.

leetcrew 7y ago

it's not "deep" or "thought provoking", but it's a breath of fresh air from the usual fps cognitive dissonance of being a hero who runs around massacring thousands of people. honestly I don't think FC2 even tries to make you feel bad; it just doesn't bother to shove some ham-fisted justification of your violence into the plot. it's nihilistic. spec ops: the line is a game that actually tries to make you feel bad about what you're doing. here's a collection of some of the loading screen "tips": https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/2596hq/text_spec_ops_the_line_loading_screens_spoilers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Frisson/comments/2596hq/text_spec_o...

strken 7y ago

Funnily enough, I never saw those games as criticising me. I saw them as portraying a particular character, who I was playing as but ultimately had little control over. In Spec Ops: The Line, I'd go out of the way to check whether there was a way to avoid committing a war crime before taking the action the game was railroading me towards. This meant that I was able to prevent some things, e.g. shooting over the heads of a hostile crowd to drive them away rather than firing into them, but at other times the needs of the character's narrative drove the experience. It felt like playing as the remnants of a conscience, rather than controlling the whole mind.

dmos62 7y ago

As it explains in the essay, there is a system called Infamy, which is so subtle that I didn't even notice it. It assesses your cruelty in the game and the people in the world behave accordingly. Apparently, at the extreme they even stop trading with you. As the quotations in the essay try to explain, the creators of Far Cry 2 explicitly evaded embedding a moral story or judgement in the game, but rather created dynamic conditions for the player to form moralistic narratives himself.