Back in October 2006, I asked the very first PP (in case you are new here, this site used to be called PlanetPhillip.com and we always abbreviated it to “pp”) Poll Question was Have you Crowbarred Barney for his ammo?
This poll question is interested in asking whether you ever kill NPCs unnecessarily? Not for ammo or weapons but just because they are annoying you.
I don’t think I do, at least I don’t remember doing it.
Maybe you are more heartless than I am, or just plain crazy, who knows.
Time to Vote
SCIENTIST SLAUGHTERHOUSE
True but I meant in the actual games and other mods, but fair point.
In games like HL, I liked to set aside different saves and such to mess with maps / the NPCs.
Most times when I accidentally kill a Scientist or Guard I feel bad and will load up a past quicksave.
yeah i love that mod it is funny and awesome.
I used to do it all the time when I was younger, in games like Morrowind and Oblivion I’d just run around committing mass slaughter for no real reason. In games like Half-Life 1 I’d try to gib absolutely everything I came across.
I got older though and grew a conscience so now I try to keep them alive for as long as possible. I’ve even reverted to earlier saves just to avoid preventable deaths (which might lessen the value a bit but I feel really bad about it) so I’ve definitely changed a lot in that regard. It usually depends on how immersed I am in the game world though.
One time when I was playing Heart of Evil: Source I spent about two hours racking up a follower count of 22 and progressing through a relatively difficult area while trying to keep them all alive.
Back when I first played Half-Life as a kid (I was 10, I think), it was my first actually violent singleplayer FPS – I had, and loved, 007 Nightfire for consoles, but it was far from the gore and violence of HL1 -, so that made an impact. The freedom to kill anyone was shocking and weirdly liberating, and the characters were so cartoony that I had fun sometimes just slaughtering everyone.
As I grew up though, I kinda became more restrained when it comes to violence, particularly after I got my hands on my first Metal Gear Solid game where I could beat it non-lethally, which was a revelation. So no, I don’t really kill the NPC’s anymore, and in fact I’ll even reload if I get one killed! Save scumming just to spare an idiotic NPC who’ll be of little use, that’s how I roll. In Black Mesa they even have more lines and personality, so it’s even harder to not try to keep them alive.
Also, yes, I’m the kind of guy who can’t kill civilians in GTA. Modern GTA, mind you; my stomach sunk whenever I accidentally killed a lifelike pedestrian, but weirdly I’ve never really grown a conscience when it comes to the GTA III era, which kinda contradicts my earlier points. They’re just too cartoony… and fun to kill, I guess. 🙂
Yahtzee pointed out that GTA disconnect before when talking about Saints Row. In Saints Row, plowing through a sidewalk of civilians is funny because they have exaggerated ragdolls and funny screams. The game doesn’t take itself seriously at all, just as the early GTA used to do.
In modern GTA, it’s too realistic to be funny. You hear these cringeworthy sound effects, and realistic screaming and cursing. It doesn’t come across like dark humor, it come across as brutal, even though the game itself seems to think it’s being funny. That’s the disconnect, in a nutshell.
I’d argue that Black Mesa runs afoul of this too. The gibs and gore are just too realistic and detailed to be funny, imo.
the gibbing and stuff is so ridiculous in Black Mesa. That is my biggest complain actually about the game. What I hate the most is the sound the gibs make when they fly around, its so ridiculous and completely takes me out of the experience…
I try my best to not kill NPCs in games.
Unless they either annoy me or got me in a terrible situation too much for comfort.
Plus, it’s cool in HL to have people that heal you in low health and what is basically a moving talking unlimited-ammo turret.
I never do it, simply because it takes myself out of the experience, because the moment I do that I realize that it’s just a game I’m playing.
On the other I did that in Dark Souls, but there the fact that you can kill NPCs is not just a “gimmick” or does exist in the game because it’s “realistic” or whatever, but it’s an actual decision the player can make with different consequences.
I never do. I just kind of feel bad for them. It feels like in this way, Gordon’s personality changes, so now he’s just a psycho that kills everyone he sees, whether he’s innocent or not. It’s kinda like the whole Han Solo situation and whether he shot first or not.
I guess I’d have to go with “sometimes.” Not so much in Half-Life, because I’ve always found it odd that the hero of our story can go around slaughtering scientists without any repercussions, but in games like Fallout which support this in a more complex way, changing how a scenario or faction plays out when one of its crucial NPCs is dead.
Well, until they become ‘impossible to kill’, sometimes you just have to. It’s more meta than “i’m playing a character that would just gun down his coworkers in a rampage to get out”, and has aspects of “why did the devs make the AI so damn stupid?”
Reminds me of a game called undertale
Are you kidding me? I’d kill them for a Klondike Bar
I have a soft spot for npcs in most games, so I felt bad for killing the scientists. But sometimes your curiosity gets the best of you..
No It would mess up the game and make all the npc stop in place or not move and all 😐
I never. I just couldn’t do it, even if they annoy me. They haven’t done anything worthy of death, so why should I kill them?
Barney has a gun, I have a crowbar…
It seems pretty logical to repair his butt cushions in order for me to obtain a weapon of my own.
As for scientists, they are looking for a future of being eaten alive, atomized in nuclear explosions or shot severely by the army…
I just take pity on them and resolve it with a swift 9mm between their eyes.
Some may judge me as a psychopathic killing machine, when in reality, I only offer the most merciful of all endings to their lives.
If they are not immune to my reckless and often terrible aiming friendlies do die under my weapons, but I do feel bad. But if they are constantly blocking me and putting me in danger my compassion vanishes!
Or, in the case of one mod, a fellow blocked my progress through a door continuously and my last save point was too far back. It took a grenade to clear him and luckily the mod allowed his loss!
Am I the only one who thinks otherwise?