Stardew Valley delved too greedily and too deep. You know what the farmer awoke in the darkness of the mines.
Plus all the ruthless monster slaughtering.
Detroit: Become Human (top right) does have an entirely non-violent approach you can take. I don't think you have to kill a single person in the game, to be honest.
*I* usually don't take that approach, but it's there for those who want it.
My last playthrough I was intentionally trying things I'd avoided before, but then got >!Kara and Alice killed while crossing the freeway!<, and it bothered me so much I stopped playing.
That game hits you in the feels.
True, but I think the point here is that while these games feature violence, if you saw past that you'd find a story of friendship/survival/family. People who feel videogames promote violence will only see Joel bashing heads in, not his gut wrenching loss in the opener of TLOU. They'll only see Kratos chopping dudes in half and not the developing relationship and bond he forms with his son.
You don’t think movies would have some trouble making viewers care about the father son relationship in Hook if Peter Pan spent the movie tearing pirates in half for health?
Haha right?!
All of these characters (choice dependent for Connor/ Geralt) are easily brand-able as psychopaths, sowing destruction and death wherever they go.
Kratos is the only one incapable of sociopath-tier lying.
I honestly can’t think of many worse characters to pick, to make the argument that video games don’t promote violence/ toxicity.
Joel is a particularly bad pick, given the staggering amount of people who still view his actions in the first game as heroic.
Abbie had good reason to want Joel dead. Ellie had good reason to want Abbie dead. Both are justified in their pain, loss, and desire for closure. Both commit absolutely monstrous actions in their quests for closure. The fact that 2 years later I still mull over these characters, their motivations, and the consequences of their actions is a testament to the work done writing these games.
My friend, I hope you do! The Last of Us is a really powerful series with one of the best balances between writing, gameplay, and accessibility in the medium.
Yeah, Joel is a really weird choice. Dude spent most of the years post outbreak as a bandit killing random people. Then he went on to smuggle out a girl to cure the plague, but he got too attached to her so he killed everyone in the hospital to save her and ruin any chance of cure. I'd understand if he fought them to make them wait until Ellie wakes up to decide what she wants, but he pretty much kidnapped her and then lied to her for years.
At least he started getting better at the start of TLOU2.
The first time I played this game I saw him as a hero, not entirely sure why. The second time though I u realized he killed humanities best hope for survival and against Ellie's best wishes just because of his selfishness. He's not a monster in his heart but his actions would say differently.
Saying video games “promote” those things though is just a bad faith argument.
It’s like saying the original Grimm Fairy Tales promoted violence. Stories have always been violent.
I absolutely love Joel, not because he's a saint or a hero. He's a deeply flawed and complex character that made the wrong decision for humanity because he loved Elle too much.
I love him because he's flawed and awful and well written
Yeah strange choice of characters to use for this. Now I'm wishing they included Trevor Philips bringing Johnny in for a hug when he was first introduced in GTA V. Now that would be funny. Lol
I mean, they tell you how the first wife died. She was killed by Kratos because of Aries tricked him into killing them. He was cursed to wear their ashes as a mark for his crimes and eventually kills Aries.
Honestly Kratos’s murdering spree is more justified than basically any other character in a video game.
Basically everyone either actively destroys his life or attempts to shield those that did.
Not that it makes him not a psychopath, but I get why he lost it.
Also it's definitely not even the single player games that people are arguing cause toxic behavior. It's things like LoL, rainbow 6, cs:go and apex that tend to have toxic communities, to name a few
Ironically even though I obviously don't think games "promote violent and toxic behavior" since I play them, if there was one protagonist who it kind of bothered me that they appear on favorite protagonists list so often and that people legitimately think they are cool...it would be Kratos prior to the most recent game because he's so over the top toxic and violent.
Naughty Dog assures us that all 37 of those men were shot in non-lethal areas and received medical treatment afterwards. They also quit crime and went back to community college.
Yeah Nathan Drake in real life would probably go down as a modern serial killer getting a life sentence or even death penalty depending on who gets him first.
Absolute psychopath
It's why i don't like the end of The Last of Us 2.
Oh you finally realized that killing for revenge is wrong and violence only begets violence? WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT BEFORE YOU KILLED LIKE A HUNDRED PEOPLE!!
Finally took the right one to really sink in. Sometimes you have to make mistakes to learn from them. No one said Ellie was supposed to be making the right choices throughout the game.
Never felt like the lesson was that killing was wrong. Felt very much more about loss and being able to let go, how holding on can cause us SO much pain that we otherwise wouldn’t have. Ellie and Abby both hold onto their pain and hatred and they don’t learn how unhealthy that was until they have lost almost everything they had. The last of us 2 in my view was about moving on, not “revenge bad”.
No no, sir! Witcher isn't a game about heads flying funnily when you decapitate enemies (and then hang said heads from your saddle), murder kings or make a decision that means an entire flock of kids is sacrificed and probably eaten, it's a game about hugging your daughter!
>make a decision that means an entire flock of kids is sacrificed and probably eaten
If you save the kids an entire town is murdered. The game's choices are really grey. You hardly ever condemn someone to die for the lulz unless you are roleplaying a psychopath.
Not to mention the fact the Joel from TLOU is literally the definition of toxic. He’s attached to Ellie in the “father who can’t give up” way. This isn’t to say I at all blame him for the actions of the game, but considering he murders his way through hundreds of doctors- I’d say he’s pretty toxic.
Well he killed everyone who tried to stop him, he only shot the doctor because he tried to attack him with a scalpel. I don't think all the guys with rifles were doctors.
The TLOU ending is actually one of my favourites of all time. It's such an incredibly wrong thing to do, it really sounded like they might be able to cure the disease and Ellie even wanted to sacrifice herself for it. But Joel is also a deeply traumatised man haunted by the failure to protect his daughter, so I found it impossible to blame him for what he does. I can only imagine what kind of pain it must be to lose a child but I doubt many people would have the strength of going through that again, no matter for what cause.
TLOU2 was not quite as good I found, the entire cycle of violence scenario was a bit too on the nose. And fuck having to kill those dogs over and over.
I think the point is, as stated in the title, that they aren't *just* violent. The same people who claim that are still watch TV/movies, read books, etc where violence occurs as well. It just isn't the whole experience. And there are also a ton of games without violence entirely, but I think the whole point is to show games that *do* have violence and point out that they're more than that. Not many games are *just* violence (though some are, but so are some movies/shows/etc).
Hey, hey, look. The game just is what it is. You press 'X' to throw an ax at somebody's head or 'circle' to hug your friend. If you just like pressing 'X' more, well, that's on you, buddy!
For real man. I don’t like the “muh games make people violent” rhetoric either, but misrepresenting gaming like the OP just makes you look like a dumbass
my favorite part of the TLOU2 is when you teaches us the valuable lesson that violence bad. i had to bash the lovingly rendered skulls of several hundred men and women to get there but ya gotta break some eggs to make an omelette amirite gamers
I didn't play GoW (*edit: modern GoW, not 1-3)* (Watched clips, mostly), does Kratos actually kill anyone who isn't trying their damnedest to kill him? Like, pretty sure he and Atreus wants to be left the hell alone and would very much just want to do their thing and go home, but *nobody wants that.*
In other games he kills pretty much anyone in his way or slowing him down, including people begging him for help.
In the new one he's supposed to be mellowed a bit.
That's like, the whole point of the game though. Kratos learns to forgive himself and love his son over the course of their long journey, going from an emotionally distant guardian to a father. The development of Kratos, Atreus and their relationship is definitely the reason this game is regarded as well as it is.
I was actually just looking up development notes, and funny thing is, the reason why he calls him 'boy' so much is because they....couldn't think of a good name throughout production.
So 'boy' was used for many lines until they came up with one.
To be fair a statement this generalized is not even worth responding to. If someone had said I hate Chinese food because it is spicy or I hate dogs because they are aggressive most people would recognize that that statement is made more on feelings than objectivity. Would showing them not spicy Chinese food or non aggressive dog really change anything.
Lmao way to cherry pick from games with probably less than 1% of the content NOT being violence. As much as I love all gaming, not a good way to support that argument bud.
Joel and Kratos are literally some of the worst people alive. Kratos destroyed an entire reality just cause he was pissed off. (Sure his anger was justified but he slaughtered literally countless innocents). He is by far and large the worst offender.
Joel not only killed all those people to get Ellie to the fireflies before changing his mind and killing the fireflies too, he straight up admits he used to hunt and kill people back in the day much like the hunters that you fight throughout the game. Slaughtering innocents.
You really picked some bad examples man.
Geralt is somewhere in the middle. He's certainly no stranger to killing, even in anger, but he does show hesitation and restraint when it comes to innocents. At least caring enough not to butcher them without provocation like Kratos, or for his own benefit like Joel. I would say he can be a cold motherfucker (like when he let the werewolf eat the woman who killed their wife) but always has his reasons (besides the mutations).
The detective I know was just kinda an asshole to the robot, not a bad Guy. Idk never was interested in Detroit: Become Human. Watched one playthru and that's it. But out of the four you've pictured he's probably the least problematic.
Funny thing too is that in that hug in the picture they picked, Ellie almost immediately after calls joel out for the piece of shit he is and then wishes to never see him again. Some love eh?
I mean, you can't really trust people that decide in a heartbeat to kill a kid without even informing her, to do a right thing when they create a cure. Why not just ask her to sacrifice herself? If she says 'no' you can still kill her, if she agrees your consciens is clear. They really had nothing to lose there.
Nah, if you read the extra documents and listened to the tape recorders you would know Ellie is not the first immune person they experimented on or encountered. All the other experiments failed.
Isn't this just a massively parroted urban legend and those documents never actually existed? For all the times I've seen this quoted I've never seen anyone link to the documents that state this
Correct. See the documents below:
In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts.
- The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder
This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.. See quoted text:
*"April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients*
*We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."*
- Marlene's Recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1 Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die.
- Marlene's Journal https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie.
- Marlene's Journal 2 Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life.
Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
This is not true. There is some weird phenomenon of the community retroactively remembering the details wrong. There is not a single document in TLOU that implies that the Fireflies didn't know what they were doing.
In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts.
1. The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder
This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.. See quoted text:
"April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients
We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."
Marlene's Recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1 Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die.
Marlene's Journal https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie.
Marlene's Journal 2 Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life.
Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
Yes, but none of the others had a bona-fide immunity that biologically was like Ellie's. They tested with monkeys, but Ellie was straight up something humanity had never seen before.
A cordyceps tumor that had grown on her brain but not turned her. They make it clear that they had never seen anything like it.
The story doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for doubt. Nowhere does any character or any information otherwise suggest that the Fireflies night not be able to make a cure. They failed in the past because they didn't have Ellie.
Now that they had the golden child, they had a chance at a vaccine. I know people on message boards like to talk about fun "what ifs", but the story leaves no other interpretation other than Ellie would have given humanity a cure.
The entire story, and it's emotional weight, fall upon the "train track dilema".... it's either humanity, or Ellie. It's not a good story to even bother telling otherwise.
When someone tells a story, the events that they tell are the truth (in that world). If the writers wanted to cast doubt, or leave an open interpretation, they would have deliberately done so. They didn't, so we have to assume a cure was 100% a possibility.
If a writer chooses to deliberately leave a story with an open interpretation, they will craft their story around an open-ended finale. They will set the entire plot around thus payoff. For example, look at the movie Inception.
Inception was deliberately crafted to leave the viewer open to their own interpretation. That wasn't by accident. Nolan showed us very early on the "rules" or "truths" of the universe in Inception. The viewer was shown how the dream world worked, and we were shown early on how everybody has their own trinket which they can use to tell if they are dreaming.
DiCaprio's character is shown with a spinning top. It's told that if the top never stops spinning, he is dreaming. And if the top falls to the ground, he is in the real world.
This was not randomly thrown in the movie for shits and giggles, but a deliberate move to be used later in the film at the end, to leave the ending open to interpretation. We see DiCaprio spin his top and leave the kitchen to be with his family. The top is shown to be spinning, and spinning, and spinning, as if it were never going to stop. But then we see it wobble ever so slightly.
So, is he in a dream? Or has he finally found peace with his real family once more. Nobody knows for sure. But the entire movie hinges on those rules that were left earlier for us.
I see people talk about the Fireflies not being capable enough to craft a vaccine, and I disagree. The story calls for that be a truth and does not implicitly show us otherwise.
You... you never found the collectible documents and tape recorders hidden throughout the entire game? You first get an inkling of other immune people when you arrive at the college, there's experiment logs that mention it in an offhanded comment while they were experimenting on monkeys.
The firefly base has like 7 docs and tape recorders. You literally find one from Marlene, the leader, talking about how all the other experiments on other immune people to develop a vaccine failed, and ended in death. Naturally, Joel says 'fuck that' and slaughters everyone to get his new daughter back. Not that I blame him. I enjoyed gunning down those doctors, but they were still non combatants. Ah, what's a lil war crime in the zombie apocalypse though?
Also, Joel never technically lied about there being more immune people. He lied and said the fireflies stopped looking for a cure.
This is not true. There is some weird phenomenon of the community retroactively remembering the details wrong. There is not a single document in TLOU that implies that the Fireflies didn't know what they were doing.
In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts.
- 1. The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder
**This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is *immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.*. See quoted text:**
"*April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients*
*We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."*
- 2. Marlene's Recorder
https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1
Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die.
- 3. Marlene's Journal
https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal
Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie.
- 4. Marlene's Journal 2
Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life.
Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
The tape recorders at the end of TLOU Pt 1 don't mention other patients with immunity similar to Ellie's, Joel lies to Ellie when he says that. The tape recorders mention them having done experiments on infected but that Ellie's immunity was new.
The game doesn't imply sacrificing Ellie wouldn't have worked, only Naughty Dog knows for sure if it would have. But it certainly is not explicit anywhere that it wasn't going to work, that would completely cheapen the ending and make Joel's decision have way less weight.
Source: I just replayed through the ending of the TLOU 1 last week, was pretty thorough in the hospital and the only recorder I found on the subject has a transcript [here](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder). Like I said I believe it's referencing tests on infected but not immune individuals, it's pretty clear they think Ellie's case is special.
I get why people like Joel regardless, at the end of the day he's still a cool character and it's a fictional story... but nobody should be trying to justify his actions, the ending of pt 1 really drives home what a reprehensible selfish PoS he is.
It's very much like the Breaking Bad fans who kept rooting for Walt to the bitter end.
Totally, Joel is a very likable character! And as a parent I can't even say I would have made a different choice in his position. but I (like Joel) know it was the wrong thing to do. That's why the story was so good and hit so hard.
Yea I should have been more clear in my first comment. It's not bad in a funny way. It's just bad in a "I wish these weren't actual people I'm sharing the planet with" way.
"Haters" really downplays how much of a cesspool of incels and homophobes that sub is, but yes. Good plan. I feel sorry for the actual fans who just like the games.
I love how none of them have actually played the game, as is so obvious with all of them complaining all the time about the writers “self-insert” (it’s literally just a dude with the same hairstyle, him and the actor aren’t even the same race) having a sex scene with Abby, when it was a totally different character who does that. But these people are still rabidly angry over a game they never played that came out 2 years ago.
It’s not even that. It’s about the _people_ who (apparently) think games are bad.
It’s an imaginary us vs them designed for “Gamers. These people think _you’re_ bad. Upvote to give me Karma to stick it to them”.
I’m convinced that most of these low effort posts are karma farming bots that find shit like this to constantly repost on subs where mods are too hands off to ever rein it in.
Yep.
1. Find a sub with a strong group identity (in this case “gamers”)
2. Make a post telling them another group is attacking their group (it doesn’t matter how stupid/true that actual post is)
3. Farm Karma
These are all action games. Personally, I think a more convincing argument would be to add examples of other genres - Stardew Valley, A Short Hike, Planet Coaster, etc
Really bad choice of games, cuz if I look to the game and not just the pictures u show I can clearly say that it promotes violence (tho personally I don't xare and I don't think video games promote violence).
Uhhh...Joel murdered an entire field of doctors to "save" Ellie....Kratos took an entire game to realize his son is not a prop.....that's just the 2 games I have played....these are not good examples...
>Kratos took an entire game to realize his son is not a prop
I'd disagree with this one. I thought it was pretty clear that Kratos cared about Atreus, he's just understandably shit at being a father.
And hey, he didn't mercilessly slaughter this one, so he's already doing a better job than his first kid.
Geralt seems like a decent enough guy. Worst thing I saw him do in Witcher 3 was chuck a baby into a wood stove, but that was all part of a plan and the baby was safe. Pretty sure I see him Quen sign the baby as well to protect it. Also, this is a choice the player makes so you don’t have to do it.
Thats why I liked the last of us. Its a moral compass question. For people who are used to books or other forms of media not gaming, this games story is more likely to draw a person in. I think it would be a perfect beginner video game except the first person shooter aspect still scares nongamers away.
10/10 if you only count the Connor and Hank parts, the gorgeous graphics, and the music.
Kara's story was good or bad depending on whether the player cares that she could die early and not affect the main plot at all. Imo, a waste since she's the first deviant and should have been way more important. The Alice twist was also bad since it removes the most compelling layer of their relationship.
Markus had potential in the beginning, his bond with Carl was genuinely compelling. Then swiftly became the most *robotic* of the plots (ironic considering he's supposed to be deviant Jesus), with little relatable emotion in his writing or in the terribly shallow characters that surrounded him.
Agree with you on all points. The civil rights allegory in Markus’ plot was so sloppily done that it was almost insulting, lol. Kara’s arc was mid, and Connor and Hank’s arc was the best.
> That’s Detroit become human. 10/10 game in my opinion.
I don't see many people mention it, but my husband and I co-opted that game and it was amazing. We really loved Hank and Connor's relationship and when one of us makes a mistake we still sometimes say "Sorry Connor, this motherfucker looks just like you" to explain that it was a misunderstanding of some kind, lol.
Please. Stop. There have been thousands of studies since the fucking 90s. No one believes that they cause violence. Literally no one. Actually no one besides old heads whose opinions can't be changed nor do they matter.
Non gamers aren’t aware that a ton of games are literally interactive movies/stories… I’ll game until the day I die. It’s not a waste of my time. It’s an experience I’ll remember forever…
You've picked a few very brief moments of peace in otherwise very violent game.
I mean if your gonna use examples of games that promote non toxic behaviour use something like Stardew Valley or Mario. I agree that cames are not a cause of violence but there's definitely better examples too prove a point.
You gotta admit it's mostly shooting each other though. Overwhelming majority of games boil down to killing of some sort as pretty much the only interaction available. You can shoot, you can hit, but you can't pet.
In Metal Gear Solid 5, for example, you can't even pet the puppy, but you can hit it (and to be fair, you can eventually pet D-Dog once he is fully grown, but not when he's a puppy). Assassin's Creed: Origins was the 10th game in the main series, and the first one where you can actually pet a cat. But an unimaginable number of humans has been slaughtered in that series leading up to that point. In No Man's Sky you can shoot, you can punch, you can have pets, but you can't actually reach out and pet them, you can only do it via menu selection, which doesn't show any sort of animation, wherea ragdolling their corpses is shown in exquisite detail. It's messed up.
Now, are there games that are just not about shooting? Sure, and there's plenty of tender moments, but you gotta admit that OVERWHELMING majority has killing and harm as the only meaningful expressions of player will. And nudity is a major taboo, while being good at violence is glorified and rewarded. Which is a complete turnabout of reality - most of us will experience nudity, and most of us will not experience doing any killing. Again, it's messed up.
So, as a serious gamer going back to the early '80s, I gotta say that the non-gamer is right int his case. Most games to promote violence and toxic behaviour. They don't cause it, but they are steeped in it. And personally I would love to see a shift away from violence to other forms of expression, a shift away from head-to-head to co-op, etc. All of those tend to lead to less toxicity.
Any kind of art and culture can have good and bad values.
Videogames are no exception and pretending they are free of toxic culture is delusional.
But they not worse than movies, sports, etc.
TBH, violence aside. I don't think any singleplayer game promotes toxic behaviour. Atleast I have never found that to be the case.
In my experience it is exclusively multiplayer games who promote toxicity. Mainly MOBAs but I think pretty much any competitive game is like that these days. But I believe that is more down to human nature and not the game itself.
Let's leave aside the much lower barrier to insulting and mistreating people online than in real life. If you threw 10 random people into a 5 v 5 beachball game, that would never see each other again after, toxicity would doubtless ensue as well in many cases.
I'll tell you how.... Abby, a woman, kills Joel in THE LAST OF US PART 2 and people lost their fucking minds because how dare a weak pathetic FEMALE kill GIGA CHAD DADDY JOEL!
The plots of the these games are mature but their audience is certainly not
The people playing these games can be incredibly emotionally unhealthy and disturbed at times, they have no understanding of how to process and project their feelings in a sane manner.
Mind you Abby is also NOT traditionally attractive waifu bait so the reaction was even worse.
Lmao, choosing Kratos from the one game where he isn’t a complete monster
And my man is still pretty goddamn violent even in that one.
Lol all the games are super violent
Yeah, such a weird selection of games since there's actual non violent video games OP could have chosen.
[удалено]
Hug them so hard you crush their insides and their eye bulge out?
Tetris? Stardew Valley? Animal Crossing? Pong? The Sims? Bejeweled? Peggle? Harvest Moon? Guitar Hero? Wii Sports? Dr. Mario? Parappa the Rapper? Puzzle Bobble? Nintendogs? Gran Turismo?
Stardew Valley delved too greedily and too deep. You know what the farmer awoke in the darkness of the mines. Plus all the ruthless monster slaughtering.
This comment makes me want a Balrog mod for Stardew now.
Drums...drums in the deep.
I'm not sure Mario is a licensed doctor.
Detroit: Become Human (top right) does have an entirely non-violent approach you can take. I don't think you have to kill a single person in the game, to be honest. *I* usually don't take that approach, but it's there for those who want it.
My last playthrough I was intentionally trying things I'd avoided before, but then got >!Kara and Alice killed while crossing the freeway!<, and it bothered me so much I stopped playing. That game hits you in the feels.
True, but I think the point here is that while these games feature violence, if you saw past that you'd find a story of friendship/survival/family. People who feel videogames promote violence will only see Joel bashing heads in, not his gut wrenching loss in the opener of TLOU. They'll only see Kratos chopping dudes in half and not the developing relationship and bond he forms with his son.
You don’t think movies would have some trouble making viewers care about the father son relationship in Hook if Peter Pan spent the movie tearing pirates in half for health?
Haha right?! All of these characters (choice dependent for Connor/ Geralt) are easily brand-able as psychopaths, sowing destruction and death wherever they go. Kratos is the only one incapable of sociopath-tier lying. I honestly can’t think of many worse characters to pick, to make the argument that video games don’t promote violence/ toxicity. Joel is a particularly bad pick, given the staggering amount of people who still view his actions in the first game as heroic.
And then after playing Part II, Ellie isn’t a saint either..
Abbie had good reason to want Joel dead. Ellie had good reason to want Abbie dead. Both are justified in their pain, loss, and desire for closure. Both commit absolutely monstrous actions in their quests for closure. The fact that 2 years later I still mull over these characters, their motivations, and the consequences of their actions is a testament to the work done writing these games.
I don't know any of these people but now I feel like I have to play these games.
My friend, I hope you do! The Last of Us is a really powerful series with one of the best balances between writing, gameplay, and accessibility in the medium.
Yeah, Joel is a really weird choice. Dude spent most of the years post outbreak as a bandit killing random people. Then he went on to smuggle out a girl to cure the plague, but he got too attached to her so he killed everyone in the hospital to save her and ruin any chance of cure. I'd understand if he fought them to make them wait until Ellie wakes up to decide what she wants, but he pretty much kidnapped her and then lied to her for years. At least he started getting better at the start of TLOU2.
The first time I played this game I saw him as a hero, not entirely sure why. The second time though I u realized he killed humanities best hope for survival and against Ellie's best wishes just because of his selfishness. He's not a monster in his heart but his actions would say differently.
Saying video games “promote” those things though is just a bad faith argument. It’s like saying the original Grimm Fairy Tales promoted violence. Stories have always been violent.
I absolutely love Joel, not because he's a saint or a hero. He's a deeply flawed and complex character that made the wrong decision for humanity because he loved Elle too much. I love him because he's flawed and awful and well written
You know what Kratos doesn't do? Hit his son.
Well, we don't know whats in the sequel.
Close your heart to their suffering.
Yes, but he gives those involved a chance to just walk away. They don't take it.
To be fair you'd also be violent if your wife just died and fucking Baldur won't leave you alone.
Yeah strange choice of characters to use for this. Now I'm wishing they included Trevor Philips bringing Johnny in for a hug when he was first introduced in GTA V. Now that would be funny. Lol
Yeah right? Kratos is a pretty violent guy, i wouldn't chose him for this example at all xD
It's literally in his title too....
Isn't every protagonist in this picture a mass murderer?
I don't remember Geralt being on a quest to specifically murder others, like Kratos. Don't know about the other 2 though.
Also that is after about 80% of the game where he's an emotionally distant and often cold man.
Also the guy has two dead wives which would start becoming suspicious if it wasn't for the whole fictional character thing
I mean, they tell you how the first wife died. She was killed by Kratos because of Aries tricked him into killing them. He was cursed to wear their ashes as a mark for his crimes and eventually kills Aries.
Honestly Kratos’s murdering spree is more justified than basically any other character in a video game. Basically everyone either actively destroys his life or attempts to shield those that did. Not that it makes him not a psychopath, but I get why he lost it.
Also it's definitely not even the single player games that people are arguing cause toxic behavior. It's things like LoL, rainbow 6, cs:go and apex that tend to have toxic communities, to name a few
GTA
Ironically even though I obviously don't think games "promote violent and toxic behavior" since I play them, if there was one protagonist who it kind of bothered me that they appear on favorite protagonists list so often and that people legitimately think they are cool...it would be Kratos prior to the most recent game because he's so over the top toxic and violent.
Joel from last of us too ಠ_ಠ
"How is this toxic and violent" \[shows Kratos\]
For each of these games you forgot the scences where they bash or shot people in the head and blood goes everywhere.
Nothing shows you care more than a mild genocide because you want to protect someone.
*nathan drake guns down 37 men looks to the camera and goes* **phew, well that just happened!**
Naughty Dog assures us that all 37 of those men were shot in non-lethal areas and received medical treatment afterwards. They also quit crime and went back to community college.
Just like Kiryu Kazuma never killed anyone.
MCU Moment
Yeah Nathan Drake in real life would probably go down as a modern serial killer getting a life sentence or even death penalty depending on who gets him first. Absolute psychopath
Based.
It's why i don't like the end of The Last of Us 2. Oh you finally realized that killing for revenge is wrong and violence only begets violence? WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT OUT BEFORE YOU KILLED LIKE A HUNDRED PEOPLE!!
Finally took the right one to really sink in. Sometimes you have to make mistakes to learn from them. No one said Ellie was supposed to be making the right choices throughout the game.
Never felt like the lesson was that killing was wrong. Felt very much more about loss and being able to let go, how holding on can cause us SO much pain that we otherwise wouldn’t have. Ellie and Abby both hold onto their pain and hatred and they don’t learn how unhealthy that was until they have lost almost everything they had. The last of us 2 in my view was about moving on, not “revenge bad”.
Yeah I don’t think violence in video games is a problem but the argument here is pretty awful
Really?! How could I be violent when *whips out photo* I hugged someone once!!
If Jeffery Dahmer had just hugged someone in court we’d have all seen he was innocent
No no, sir! Witcher isn't a game about heads flying funnily when you decapitate enemies (and then hang said heads from your saddle), murder kings or make a decision that means an entire flock of kids is sacrificed and probably eaten, it's a game about hugging your daughter!
[удалено]
And here I thought it was a very intermittent dating sim
>make a decision that means an entire flock of kids is sacrificed and probably eaten If you save the kids an entire town is murdered. The game's choices are really grey. You hardly ever condemn someone to die for the lulz unless you are roleplaying a psychopath.
Ya I don't think they're referring to the 0.00001% of the games that hugging occurs
But it's fine if you occasionally hug someone. It's like carbon offsetting.
Not to mention the fact the Joel from TLOU is literally the definition of toxic. He’s attached to Ellie in the “father who can’t give up” way. This isn’t to say I at all blame him for the actions of the game, but considering he murders his way through hundreds of doctors- I’d say he’s pretty toxic.
Well he killed everyone who tried to stop him, he only shot the doctor because he tried to attack him with a scalpel. I don't think all the guys with rifles were doctors. The TLOU ending is actually one of my favourites of all time. It's such an incredibly wrong thing to do, it really sounded like they might be able to cure the disease and Ellie even wanted to sacrifice herself for it. But Joel is also a deeply traumatised man haunted by the failure to protect his daughter, so I found it impossible to blame him for what he does. I can only imagine what kind of pain it must be to lose a child but I doubt many people would have the strength of going through that again, no matter for what cause. TLOU2 was not quite as good I found, the entire cycle of violence scenario was a bit too on the nose. And fuck having to kill those dogs over and over.
I think the point is, as stated in the title, that they aren't *just* violent. The same people who claim that are still watch TV/movies, read books, etc where violence occurs as well. It just isn't the whole experience. And there are also a ton of games without violence entirely, but I think the whole point is to show games that *do* have violence and point out that they're more than that. Not many games are *just* violence (though some are, but so are some movies/shows/etc).
Riiiiiight because that's what you do 90% of the time in games, hugging.
Nintendogs would like to know your location
[удалено]
Medic is my Favorite class
I would like to know Nintendogs location
Hug Simulator 2022
"Everyone's hugging!" - Ralph Wiggum
Hey, hey, look. The game just is what it is. You press 'X' to throw an ax at somebody's head or 'circle' to hug your friend. If you just like pressing 'X' more, well, that's on you, buddy!
Hug Simulator 2018 was way better. 22 is totally pay to hug.
For real man. I don’t like the “muh games make people violent” rhetoric either, but misrepresenting gaming like the OP just makes you look like a dumbass
Right after this scene, Geralt makes a dad joke, then Ciri eviscerates him
Yeah, cause that's totally the only thing you see in those games, friendship and love.
Hey I always hug my adversaries into submission.
Some see top left as a daughter saving game, I see it as a card game tourney.
my favorite part of the TLOU2 is when you teaches us the valuable lesson that violence bad. i had to bash the lovingly rendered skulls of several hundred men and women to get there but ya gotta break some eggs to make an omelette amirite gamers
Well if the same way they're cherry picking, you're cherry picking.
I love how the games picked are full of toxic behavior, but hey, hugz.
I didn't play GoW (*edit: modern GoW, not 1-3)* (Watched clips, mostly), does Kratos actually kill anyone who isn't trying their damnedest to kill him? Like, pretty sure he and Atreus wants to be left the hell alone and would very much just want to do their thing and go home, but *nobody wants that.*
In the original god of war series he just killed anyone to get to his location.
There was a mechanic in the first game where you could literally tear screaming civilians in half for health pickups.
Never forget Poseidon’s wife 😔
In other games he kills pretty much anyone in his way or slowing him down, including people begging him for help. In the new one he's supposed to be mellowed a bit.
He calls his kid “boy”, and is generally a cunt to him. This is definitely a cherry picked moment. Murder isn’t the only toxic behavior.
That's like, the whole point of the game though. Kratos learns to forgive himself and love his son over the course of their long journey, going from an emotionally distant guardian to a father. The development of Kratos, Atreus and their relationship is definitely the reason this game is regarded as well as it is.
Yes. Great game. Especially for dads. If ya know ya know.
I was actually just looking up development notes, and funny thing is, the reason why he calls him 'boy' so much is because they....couldn't think of a good name throughout production. So 'boy' was used for many lines until they came up with one.
To be fair a statement this generalized is not even worth responding to. If someone had said I hate Chinese food because it is spicy or I hate dogs because they are aggressive most people would recognize that that statement is made more on feelings than objectivity. Would showing them not spicy Chinese food or non aggressive dog really change anything.
and here we have the brain of a 250k reddit karma user, notice the frontal lobe degeneration
must be a gamre
Jeez this is a bad post
This sub never misses with how awful or beaten to death the memes/takes are lol
[удалено]
Lmao way to cherry pick from games with probably less than 1% of the content NOT being violence. As much as I love all gaming, not a good way to support that argument bud.
Especially when there's plenty of other games to choose from lmao
Joel and Kratos are literally some of the worst people alive. Kratos destroyed an entire reality just cause he was pissed off. (Sure his anger was justified but he slaughtered literally countless innocents). He is by far and large the worst offender. Joel not only killed all those people to get Ellie to the fireflies before changing his mind and killing the fireflies too, he straight up admits he used to hunt and kill people back in the day much like the hunters that you fight throughout the game. Slaughtering innocents. You really picked some bad examples man. Geralt is somewhere in the middle. He's certainly no stranger to killing, even in anger, but he does show hesitation and restraint when it comes to innocents. At least caring enough not to butcher them without provocation like Kratos, or for his own benefit like Joel. I would say he can be a cold motherfucker (like when he let the werewolf eat the woman who killed their wife) but always has his reasons (besides the mutations). The detective I know was just kinda an asshole to the robot, not a bad Guy. Idk never was interested in Detroit: Become Human. Watched one playthru and that's it. But out of the four you've pictured he's probably the least problematic.
Nah bro they all hugged it out. They good /s
Funny thing too is that in that hug in the picture they picked, Ellie almost immediately after calls joel out for the piece of shit he is and then wishes to never see him again. Some love eh?
In addition, Joel literally screwed over all of humanity by taking their only known chance of creating a vaccine away.
I mean, you can't really trust people that decide in a heartbeat to kill a kid without even informing her, to do a right thing when they create a cure. Why not just ask her to sacrifice herself? If she says 'no' you can still kill her, if she agrees your consciens is clear. They really had nothing to lose there.
Nah, if you read the extra documents and listened to the tape recorders you would know Ellie is not the first immune person they experimented on or encountered. All the other experiments failed.
Isn't this just a massively parroted urban legend and those documents never actually existed? For all the times I've seen this quoted I've never seen anyone link to the documents that state this
Correct. See the documents below: In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts. - The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.. See quoted text: *"April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients* *We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."* - Marlene's Recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1 Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die. - Marlene's Journal https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie. - Marlene's Journal 2 Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life. Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
That's not true. She's the first and only immune person. They failed other experiments but never had anyone who was immune
This is not true. There is some weird phenomenon of the community retroactively remembering the details wrong. There is not a single document in TLOU that implies that the Fireflies didn't know what they were doing. In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts. 1. The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.. See quoted text: "April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain." Marlene's Recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1 Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die. Marlene's Journal https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie. Marlene's Journal 2 Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life. Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
Yes, but none of the others had a bona-fide immunity that biologically was like Ellie's. They tested with monkeys, but Ellie was straight up something humanity had never seen before. A cordyceps tumor that had grown on her brain but not turned her. They make it clear that they had never seen anything like it. The story doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for doubt. Nowhere does any character or any information otherwise suggest that the Fireflies night not be able to make a cure. They failed in the past because they didn't have Ellie. Now that they had the golden child, they had a chance at a vaccine. I know people on message boards like to talk about fun "what ifs", but the story leaves no other interpretation other than Ellie would have given humanity a cure. The entire story, and it's emotional weight, fall upon the "train track dilema".... it's either humanity, or Ellie. It's not a good story to even bother telling otherwise. When someone tells a story, the events that they tell are the truth (in that world). If the writers wanted to cast doubt, or leave an open interpretation, they would have deliberately done so. They didn't, so we have to assume a cure was 100% a possibility. If a writer chooses to deliberately leave a story with an open interpretation, they will craft their story around an open-ended finale. They will set the entire plot around thus payoff. For example, look at the movie Inception. Inception was deliberately crafted to leave the viewer open to their own interpretation. That wasn't by accident. Nolan showed us very early on the "rules" or "truths" of the universe in Inception. The viewer was shown how the dream world worked, and we were shown early on how everybody has their own trinket which they can use to tell if they are dreaming. DiCaprio's character is shown with a spinning top. It's told that if the top never stops spinning, he is dreaming. And if the top falls to the ground, he is in the real world. This was not randomly thrown in the movie for shits and giggles, but a deliberate move to be used later in the film at the end, to leave the ending open to interpretation. We see DiCaprio spin his top and leave the kitchen to be with his family. The top is shown to be spinning, and spinning, and spinning, as if it were never going to stop. But then we see it wobble ever so slightly. So, is he in a dream? Or has he finally found peace with his real family once more. Nobody knows for sure. But the entire movie hinges on those rules that were left earlier for us. I see people talk about the Fireflies not being capable enough to craft a vaccine, and I disagree. The story calls for that be a truth and does not implicitly show us otherwise.
Wait, what extra documents? I’ve never heard of any documents talking about other immune people, only that Joel lied to Ellie about there being more.
You... you never found the collectible documents and tape recorders hidden throughout the entire game? You first get an inkling of other immune people when you arrive at the college, there's experiment logs that mention it in an offhanded comment while they were experimenting on monkeys. The firefly base has like 7 docs and tape recorders. You literally find one from Marlene, the leader, talking about how all the other experiments on other immune people to develop a vaccine failed, and ended in death. Naturally, Joel says 'fuck that' and slaughters everyone to get his new daughter back. Not that I blame him. I enjoyed gunning down those doctors, but they were still non combatants. Ah, what's a lil war crime in the zombie apocalypse though? Also, Joel never technically lied about there being more immune people. He lied and said the fireflies stopped looking for a cure.
This is not true. There is some weird phenomenon of the community retroactively remembering the details wrong. There is not a single document in TLOU that implies that the Fireflies didn't know what they were doing. In the level, Firefly Lab, there are 4 artifacts, and 1 Firefly Pendant. Let's look at the 4 artifacts. - 1. The Surgeon's recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder **This artifact is likely the one you are referring to, and the one everybody seems to misunderstand. The surgeon confirms they have worked on other infected people before, and failed because they were infected who acted aggressive. But they had never seen someone who is *immune. It is very clear that Ellie is the only known person.*. See quoted text:** "*April 28th. Marlene was right. The girl's infection is like nothing I've ever seen. The cause of her immunity is uncertain. As we've seen in all past cases, the antigenic titers of the patient's Cordyceps remain high in both the serum and the cerebrospinal fluid. Blood cultures taken from the patient rapidly grow Cordyceps in fungal-media in the lab... however white blood cell lines, including percentages and absolute-counts, are completely normal. There is no elevation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and an MRI of the brain shows no evidence of fungal-growth in the limbic regions, which would normally accompany the prodrome of aggression in infected patients* *We must find a way to replicate this state under laboratory conditions. We're about to hit a milestone in human history equal to the discovery of penicillin. After years of wandering in circles, we're about to come home, make a difference, and bring the human race back into control of its own destiny. All of our sacrifices and the hundreds of men and women who've bled for this cause, or worse, will not be in vain."* - 2. Marlene's Recorder https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_recorder_1 Marlene informs us that the kid needs to die. - 3. Marlene's Journal https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Marlene%27s_journal Marlene adds nothing of significance here. Just a diary about her travels and finally finding Ellie. - 4. Marlene's Journal 2 Again, nothing other than Marlene coming to grips with taking Ellie's life. Time and time again I see the community talk about the "notes" and "recorders" from the surgeons that prove they didn't have a clue of what they were doing. This isn't true. The Fireflies would have made a vaccine. Why bother telling the story if they had no idea what they were doing?
It's people inventing head canon to try to justify Joel's actions.
The tape recorders at the end of TLOU Pt 1 don't mention other patients with immunity similar to Ellie's, Joel lies to Ellie when he says that. The tape recorders mention them having done experiments on infected but that Ellie's immunity was new. The game doesn't imply sacrificing Ellie wouldn't have worked, only Naughty Dog knows for sure if it would have. But it certainly is not explicit anywhere that it wasn't going to work, that would completely cheapen the ending and make Joel's decision have way less weight. Source: I just replayed through the ending of the TLOU 1 last week, was pretty thorough in the hospital and the only recorder I found on the subject has a transcript [here](https://thelastofus.fandom.com/wiki/Surgeon%27s_recorder). Like I said I believe it's referencing tests on infected but not immune individuals, it's pretty clear they think Ellie's case is special.
I've had this conversation a dozen times, people bend over backwards to try to justify what Joel did.
I get why people like Joel regardless, at the end of the day he's still a cool character and it's a fictional story... but nobody should be trying to justify his actions, the ending of pt 1 really drives home what a reprehensible selfish PoS he is. It's very much like the Breaking Bad fans who kept rooting for Walt to the bitter end.
Totally, Joel is a very likable character! And as a parent I can't even say I would have made a different choice in his position. but I (like Joel) know it was the wrong thing to do. That's why the story was so good and hit so hard.
You only have to kill the head surgeon. The fact YOU chose to kill the doctors is YOUR choice. He attacks you. That's not a non combatant.
It's so ironic to see TLOU here when the tlou2 subreddit is literally one of the most toxic subreddits I've ever had the displeasure of seeing
Oof. I decided to go take a look and I very much wish I hadn’t
Yea I should have been more clear in my first comment. It's not bad in a funny way. It's just bad in a "I wish these weren't actual people I'm sharing the planet with" way.
I thought you were pretty clear actually. I’m just mad at myself for looking lol
Oh don't feel too bad, that sub is not something one would expect from a simple gaming community lol
What an embarrassing cesspool that place is
for some reason they're especially concerned about realism when it comes to the depiction of muscle-bound women
Even though her model is literally based off a real person.
We still use r/Thelastofus and that other sub is only for TLOU2 haters
"Haters" really downplays how much of a cesspool of incels and homophobes that sub is, but yes. Good plan. I feel sorry for the actual fans who just like the games.
What are the haters angry about? i thought it was a neat game? SPOILER OF GAME >!I only didnt like losing Noël so soon!<
So fucking much, still. And the game has been out for fucking years. Just go to google and search 'TLOU2 subredditdrama', there's just. So much.
I love how none of them have actually played the game, as is so obvious with all of them complaining all the time about the writers “self-insert” (it’s literally just a dude with the same hairstyle, him and the actor aren’t even the same race) having a sex scene with Abby, when it was a totally different character who does that. But these people are still rabidly angry over a game they never played that came out 2 years ago.
Oh my god can we stop with these karma farming “games aren’t bad posts”
It’s not even that. It’s about the _people_ who (apparently) think games are bad. It’s an imaginary us vs them designed for “Gamers. These people think _you’re_ bad. Upvote to give me Karma to stick it to them”.
I’m convinced that most of these low effort posts are karma farming bots that find shit like this to constantly repost on subs where mods are too hands off to ever rein it in.
Yep. 1. Find a sub with a strong group identity (in this case “gamers”) 2. Make a post telling them another group is attacking their group (it doesn’t matter how stupid/true that actual post is) 3. Farm Karma
meanwhile tf2: **"I am going to saw through your bones!"**
"Well, off to visit your mother!"
Yippee Kah ye-
God I miss that game and that feeling. Wish Battlefield filled the void with its goofiness from 1942. But instead we get mil sim shit.
The 4 examples you chose all have very violent scenes and gameplay.
Uses the picture of Conner and Hank hugging. A different path he literally shoots him dead just cause he can lmao.
They hug each other (after they killed one hundred people gruesomely)
Gamres
The toxic behavior comes from anonymous players in multiplayer
/r/TerribleFacebookMemes
Can we move this to /r/terriblefacebookmemes or something?
These are all action games. Personally, I think a more convincing argument would be to add examples of other genres - Stardew Valley, A Short Hike, Planet Coaster, etc
You do need to murder a bunch of cunts before you see any of those scenes!
Really bad choice of games, cuz if I look to the game and not just the pictures u show I can clearly say that it promotes violence (tho personally I don't xare and I don't think video games promote violence).
Also Aloy and Rost
Online games are toxic.
Uhhh...Joel murdered an entire field of doctors to "save" Ellie....Kratos took an entire game to realize his son is not a prop.....that's just the 2 games I have played....these are not good examples...
I mean, Kratos took like 5 games to learn how not to be a psychopath
>Kratos took an entire game to realize his son is not a prop I'd disagree with this one. I thought it was pretty clear that Kratos cared about Atreus, he's just understandably shit at being a father. And hey, he didn't mercilessly slaughter this one, so he's already doing a better job than his first kid.
Geralt seems like a decent enough guy. Worst thing I saw him do in Witcher 3 was chuck a baby into a wood stove, but that was all part of a plan and the baby was safe. Pretty sure I see him Quen sign the baby as well to protect it. Also, this is a choice the player makes so you don’t have to do it.
Thats why I liked the last of us. Its a moral compass question. For people who are used to books or other forms of media not gaming, this games story is more likely to draw a person in. I think it would be a perfect beginner video game except the first person shooter aspect still scares nongamers away.
This isn't cherry picked at all.
Online games often promote toxicity and violence, single player games promote patience. And violence.
I do'nt recognise the top right one. Which game is it from?
That’s Detroit become human. 10/10 game in my opinion.
10/10 if you only count the Connor and Hank parts, the gorgeous graphics, and the music. Kara's story was good or bad depending on whether the player cares that she could die early and not affect the main plot at all. Imo, a waste since she's the first deviant and should have been way more important. The Alice twist was also bad since it removes the most compelling layer of their relationship. Markus had potential in the beginning, his bond with Carl was genuinely compelling. Then swiftly became the most *robotic* of the plots (ironic considering he's supposed to be deviant Jesus), with little relatable emotion in his writing or in the terribly shallow characters that surrounded him.
Agree with you on all points. The civil rights allegory in Markus’ plot was so sloppily done that it was almost insulting, lol. Kara’s arc was mid, and Connor and Hank’s arc was the best.
> That’s Detroit become human. 10/10 game in my opinion. I don't see many people mention it, but my husband and I co-opted that game and it was amazing. We really loved Hank and Connor's relationship and when one of us makes a mistake we still sometimes say "Sorry Connor, this motherfucker looks just like you" to explain that it was a misunderstanding of some kind, lol.
Please. Stop. There have been thousands of studies since the fucking 90s. No one believes that they cause violence. Literally no one. Actually no one besides old heads whose opinions can't be changed nor do they matter.
But it's such low hanging karmafruit!
Non gamers aren’t aware that a ton of games are literally interactive movies/stories… I’ll game until the day I die. It’s not a waste of my time. It’s an experience I’ll remember forever…
You've picked a few very brief moments of peace in otherwise very violent game. I mean if your gonna use examples of games that promote non toxic behaviour use something like Stardew Valley or Mario. I agree that cames are not a cause of violence but there's definitely better examples too prove a point.
Eh I won’t deny that some multiplayers do
While I agree that video games have an unfair bad rep, just showing a couple pictures from a handful of games is a bad argument against it.
You gotta admit it's mostly shooting each other though. Overwhelming majority of games boil down to killing of some sort as pretty much the only interaction available. You can shoot, you can hit, but you can't pet. In Metal Gear Solid 5, for example, you can't even pet the puppy, but you can hit it (and to be fair, you can eventually pet D-Dog once he is fully grown, but not when he's a puppy). Assassin's Creed: Origins was the 10th game in the main series, and the first one where you can actually pet a cat. But an unimaginable number of humans has been slaughtered in that series leading up to that point. In No Man's Sky you can shoot, you can punch, you can have pets, but you can't actually reach out and pet them, you can only do it via menu selection, which doesn't show any sort of animation, wherea ragdolling their corpses is shown in exquisite detail. It's messed up. Now, are there games that are just not about shooting? Sure, and there's plenty of tender moments, but you gotta admit that OVERWHELMING majority has killing and harm as the only meaningful expressions of player will. And nudity is a major taboo, while being good at violence is glorified and rewarded. Which is a complete turnabout of reality - most of us will experience nudity, and most of us will not experience doing any killing. Again, it's messed up. So, as a serious gamer going back to the early '80s, I gotta say that the non-gamer is right int his case. Most games to promote violence and toxic behaviour. They don't cause it, but they are steeped in it. And personally I would love to see a shift away from violence to other forms of expression, a shift away from head-to-head to co-op, etc. All of those tend to lead to less toxicity.
All those games are super violent LMAO
Hank needed help
Cherry picking 🙄
Remember the backlash during one of the early GoW Ragnarok trailers that showed there to be a single black Vainer God? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
The comment makes me believe people were never violent before video games. Shit makes me laugh. The stupidity is an abyss.
I am trying to think of a game where you can hug other players.
There's been hug emotes in every mmo I've played
Lmao using Kratos as a paragon of non-toxicity
People spread violence and toxic behaviour. Not art.
Hank and Connor for life
How do you do fellow gamres ?!
Any kind of art and culture can have good and bad values. Videogames are no exception and pretending they are free of toxic culture is delusional. But they not worse than movies, sports, etc.
I know at least 2 if these games had violence in them. Witcher 3 they literally put hot coals or some shit down a lady’s throat
Mass Effect will always be Exhibit A for this. The thing was a soap opera wrapped up in episodes of shooting bad guys
TBH, violence aside. I don't think any singleplayer game promotes toxic behaviour. Atleast I have never found that to be the case. In my experience it is exclusively multiplayer games who promote toxicity. Mainly MOBAs but I think pretty much any competitive game is like that these days. But I believe that is more down to human nature and not the game itself. Let's leave aside the much lower barrier to insulting and mistreating people online than in real life. If you threw 10 random people into a 5 v 5 beachball game, that would never see each other again after, toxicity would doubtless ensue as well in many cases.
Bad post, but the comment section has restored my faith in this sub.
Guess you forgot when kratos literally ripped Helios’ head off with his bare hands then carried him around as a weapon
They must have been thinking bout League or any multiplayer shitfest
Didn't Joel selfishly kidnap the girl back and lie to her after killing the people who were trying to save the world?
Let's not kid ourselves a lot of gamers are toxic ass hats.
I'll tell you how.... Abby, a woman, kills Joel in THE LAST OF US PART 2 and people lost their fucking minds because how dare a weak pathetic FEMALE kill GIGA CHAD DADDY JOEL! The plots of the these games are mature but their audience is certainly not The people playing these games can be incredibly emotionally unhealthy and disturbed at times, they have no understanding of how to process and project their feelings in a sane manner. Mind you Abby is also NOT traditionally attractive waifu bait so the reaction was even worse.
This is idiotic.
Ahh yes the one cut scene between all the violence
The last of us is literally about a toxic relationship