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I think that the uncharted drake is a murderer thing isn't actually a criticism (at least in my case) but rather an example of fringe horror (which appears in all sorts of works of fiction)

You don't think about those kind of things while playing, nor do you care. It's when you are bored or just stray thinking that stuff like this comes up and minor inconsistencies or occurrences come to light.

In fact this is true about a lot of games.

Personally, I'd love to see a game series that embraces the fringe horrors it's accidentally or intentionally builds and uses it either as a plot point in a future game or in a way we can't possibly imagine yet.

 

[DemiMatt]

I can honestly say while on holiday some Naughty Dog artists, they absolutely hate Neogaf.

 

[RedAssedApe]

neogaf gets both the good and the bad shout outs. its the nature of the beast

 

[Valnen]

Won't someone please think of the poor killers shooting at the protagonist!

 

[Superflat]

nah "ludonarrative dissonance" was all the rage in the media about a year back about a variety of games, think bioshock, TR and UC were kinda at the forefront but other fps/tps games also got mentioned
kinda died down and didn't see much discussion about the whole thing until this thread

The "ludonarrative" bit always struck me as a big sign that critics really don't give video games enough credit and actually makes me feel that they have no idea how to properly talk about tone and narrative in video games; to take what is clearly escapist entertainment and try to push the rules of "the real world" on it, and eventually degrade into a film comparison. "Movie action heroes don't kill 500 people, they kill around 20! And what if those enemies had families?? What about the REAL WORLD repercussions?!" Holy hell.

 

[UrbanRats]

Is not normal, but makes way more sense that someone who fights for his life takes that number of lifes and dosn't leave a mark.

We talking of hundreds of people, is laughable to think a character (videogame or not) wouldn't have a problem after taking so many fucking lives. And that he can still crack jokes after taking one.

You don't seem to understand what "tone" is.

In Uncharted, much like adventure stories as Indiana Jones, the Mummy, and such, a death is not supposed to have the 1:1 weight it has in real life.
It's not supposed to haunt the character 40 years like it was a damn Michael Haneke film.

You bend the rules of reality and adapt them to the tone and necessities of the medium.
In this case, the necessity is to give players targets to shoot at, for more than 5 minutes total, and give them a lot of exciting action moments, that entail faceless goons getting thrown off cliffs comically.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

Yeah, not the same as killing Nazi's. Sorry.
Nazi's are a universal figure of hate, Bumbling Pirates, Russian Gangsters and English mobsters just don't have that get of jail free card that Nazi's do.

 

[NastyBook]

And?

I think i must be getting old or i'm not a very nice person or something but i don't see what the problem is.

It's the ridiculous assertion that Drake, and only Drake, should be ashamed of himself for making quips whilst kicking ass. He's also the only character in video games that needs to be aware that he's snuffing out other human lives.

 

[RoboPlato]

Haha, damn

It's no secret that I hate this debate. Probably one of the few times that "ignore NeoGAF" is good advice.

 

[Branduil]

I do find it ironic that some ND fans are basically telling ND to not try and improve their storytelling. If they had listened to that advice then Uncharted and TLoU would never exist in the first place.

 

[UrbanRats]

I'm not talking about removing the shooting, just make it distinct. Maybe starting to not make the protagonist a one-man-army, could be a good start. Is not like I have the answer, but I feel that for the medium to go forward, is a problem that should be tackled sooner or later.

It's not a problem to be tackled.
The problem is the stagnation of game mechanics, not all the killing.

Uncharted is not part of the problem, because it does interesting new things with its mechanics, so it doesn't really need to change anything.

The problem is not social, again, it doesn't need to change at all.
The problem is just of game design lazyness, but that doesn't touch this particular series much.

 

[ItIsOkBro]

Do you have a pount?

subsequent die hards caught flak relative to die hard

 

[Rurunaki]

I never knew this was a thing. People actually think of Nathan Drake as a mass murderer? Might as well get David Cage to make UC4 to avoid this issue.

 

[KTallguy]

Yeah, not the same as killing Nazi's. Sorry.
Nazi's are a universal figure of hate, Bumbling Pirates, Russian Gangsters and English mobsters just don't have that get of jail free card that Nazi's do.

So... you want all your games with Nazis and Zombies in them? Or Nazi Zombies?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

You don't seem to understand what "tone" is.

In Uncharted, much like adventure stories as Indiana Jones, the Mummy, and such, a death is not supposed to have the 1:1 weight it has in real life.
It's not supposed to haunt the character 40 years like it was a damn Michael Haneke film.

You bend the rules of reality and adapt them to the tone and necessities of the medium.
In this case, the necessity is to give players targets to shoot at, for more than 5 minutes total, and give them a lot of exciting action moments, that entail faceless goons getting thrown off cliffs comically.

You name the tone, but there's plenty of serious moments in Uncharted (specially 3) that I don't see on Die Hard or other movies. As I said, I don't feel Drake is the typical american-action hero, at least I feel this is not what the games tries with the character and then he kills hundreds of guys.

Unlike other games and characters it sticks out more in Drake that other characters.

Basically is the difference between the old Lara and the new Lara, and why people are so uncomfortable in the second case.

 

[BouncyFrag]

I'm laughing at how ridiculous this is. It's good the awareness for Drakes penchant for rampant, unrelentless killing has reached the top folks in the industry.

Spoiler

jk

 

[SirMossyBloke]

That's what some people on Neogaf get for fucking stupid "concerns" about mass murdering. There's a thread about hating the term "but it's a videogame" as a response, but this is one of them. Some people on here really like to cause controversy, or try, when there really isn't any.

 

[WrenchNinja]

It's always been such an insanely stupid argument.

 

[Superflat]

We talking of hundreds of people, is laughable to think a character (videogame or not) wouldn't have a problem after taking so many fucking lives. And that he can still crack jokes after taking one.

I really feel like I'm in the twilight zone sometimes.

I fear for the future of fiction.

 

[Dawg]

Sometimes I forget how many community managers and developers read this forum.

Makes me wonder how many companies are in on some of the biggest GAF jokes and discussions.

 

[kyser73]

I've long struggled with a high level of cognitive dissonance regarding this kind of criticism.

OT1H, I totally get where people are coming from. We're playing amoral, wise-cracking scuzz-balls who are ethically challanged at the very least, complete sociopaths at worse. I read and nod my head at the critical theory displayed by some of the more intellectually leaning writers/bloggers and often agree with what they say.

OTOH I find much of what is supposed academic criticism a complete waste of time when applied to most entertainment media - outside of the mainline Marxist theories of cultural reproduction I tend to veer away from anything post-Frankfurt school, and tend to view Derrida et al with a healthy dose of scepticism - I'd sooner critique the criticism and how much of the time it appears to solely exist to talk to itself and a narrow audience, not for the function of increasing knowledge or the critical faculty of others, but for the self-aggrandisment of the critic.

But then I also like reading Bordieu and Zizek so who am I to say anything?

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

It's not a problem to be tackled.
The problem is the stagnation of game mechanics, not all the killing.

Uncharted is not part of the problem, because it does interesting new things with its mechanics, so it doesn't really need to change anything.

The problem is not social, again, it doesn't need to change at all.
The problem is just of game design lazyness, but that doesn't touch this particular series much.

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

Yeah but the more the realism, the less the fun. Unless you sell your product as such. Imagine CoD where every bullet that hit you killed you. Actually I think there's a gametype for that. However it would piss people off. There's a time and place for it.

Maybe I should add more periods.

 

[Ateron]

I agree with him, and honestly this shit pops up everytime a new uncharted is released. It's a TPS. You shoot things. Usually people. Usually people who aren't exactly Mother Teresa in disguise, who are actively trying to wreck your shit first. Yet I don't find a dissonance between cutscene Drake and gameplay Drake- he's always cracking jokes even when his life is on the line. He's like Indy.

I honestly feel that some people just jump on that bandwagon to hate on the game. It's almost like it's literally the ONLY game in existence where you shoot poor, innocent soldiers or mercs. Share a tear for the thousands of goombas Mario has stomped on while you're at it. It's a fucking game, Neil is right on this one. Will patiently await for the next thread "UC4: Is Drake still a mass murderer???" Yes he is, as it would be mighty boring to play a shooter with only one or three enemies to kill in 15 hours of gameplay.

 

[giancarlo123x]

"Ignore NeoGAF as much as you can."

Truer words never spoken.

Good advice. A lot of people think they are developers and know what's best for everything. Do what you must do. Believe.

 

[UrbanRats]

You name the tone, but there's plenty of serious moments in Uncharted (specially 3) that I don't see on Die Hard or other movies. As I said, I don't feel Drake is the typical american-action hero, at least I feel this is not what the games tries with the character and then he kills hundreds of guys.

Unlike other games and characters it sticks out more in Drake that other characters.

Basically is the difference between the old Lara and the new Lara, and why people are so uncomfortable in the second case.

Die Hard and almost every other action movie (including The Mummy that i mentioned before) have the "touching" serious moment, usually between the main hero and love interest, or main hero and father figure and so on.
Uncharted does the same exact thing, doesn't make it a story with a serious tone.
I'll repeat it again: enemies have classes in that game (brutes, grenade guys etc).. you can't get more gamey than that.
It's a way to set the tone and dehumanize the enemies.
-
Tomb Raider shot themselves in the foot (no pun intended) because the fuck up tone and bring attention constantly to the fact that Lara doesn't want to kill millions of dudes.
The problem with that game isn't the killing, it's its basic misunderstanding of how to marry tone and gameplay, and its insecurities about this very subject.
Like Druckmann said, they should've "ignored Neogaf" and avoid all the "oh my god i don't want to do this!!" shit, she's constantly spewing.
But they come from a very different place, tonally, compared to Uncharted.

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

No, it shouldn't.
Uncharted doesn't have anything close, to a "realistic narrative".

 

[kyser73]

Particularly, I don't believe the whole "sticking to your guns" shit, I feel is just because designers, or rather the industry, don't know how to create an action game that dosn't involve killing hundreds of enemies.

Or maybe they don't want too. And the easiest way for writers to deal how a character can kill so many people without feeling anything at all, is just...not dealing with it.

That creates a big disconnect in some cases, because there's clearly some thought on Drake's evolution and grow, but the more they flesh him out, the more sticks that omission.



Is not normal, but makes way more sense that someone who fights for his life takes that number of lifes and dosn't leave a mark.

We talking of hundreds of people, is laughable to think a character (videogame or not) wouldn't have a problem after taking so many fucking lives. And that he can still crack jokes after taking one.

Played Spec Ops: The Line?

That's the game for you I think.

Bit in bold: no, it isn't. It just depends on the kind of fiction you're used to dealing with.

 

[Superflat]

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

Why should killing always have "weight"? Why can't it exist as entertainment? And what realism? The realistic narrative of Nathan Drake trying to stop a warlord from ruling the world by drinking blue goo in a fairytale land shouldn't necessitate the dispatching of his evil mercenary henchmen who are trying to help him attain it?

OTOH I find much of what is supposed academic criticism a complete waste of time when applied to most entertainment media - outside of the mainline Marxist theories of cultural reproduction I tend to veer away from anything post-Frankfurt school, and tend to view Derrida et al with a healthy dose of scepticism - I'd sooner critique the criticism and how much of the time it appears to solely exist to talk to itself and a narrow audience, not for the function of increasing knowledge or the critical faculty of others, but for the self-aggrandisment of the critic.

But then I also like reading Bordieu and Zizek so who am I to say anything?

 

[Two Words]

If you watched an Indiana Jones movie with 2 hours of story and 15 hours of shooting pirates, Nazis and mercenaries, you might find Indy to be a bit of a rampaging murderer.

 

[Boombloxer]

Yeah I can't wrap my head around it. It's incredible.

I just don't consider the argument valid. It's pretty silly.

Why should killing always have "weight"? Why can't it exist as entertainment? And what realism? The realistic narrative of Nathan Drake trying to stop a warlord from ruling the world by drinking blue goo in a fairytale land shouldn't necessitate the dispatching of his evil mercenary henchmen who are trying to help him attain it?

Exactly. Summer movie bodycount. Get over it.

 

[nded]

Yeah, makes sense. Most people on the internet don't know what they're talking about, including me.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Played Spec Ops: The Line?

That's the game for you I think.

Bit in bold: no, it isn't. It just depends on the kind of fiction you're used to dealing with.

I played that game.

To specify, I never had a problem with Contra, because is just 2 dudes shooting people. I have a problem with games like Uncharted and TR2013, because they have this narrative that actually crash with my actions on screen.

Why should killing always have "weight"? Why can't it exist as entertainment? And what realism? The realistic narrative of Nathan Drake trying to stop a warlord from ruling the world by drinking blue goo in a fairytale land shouldn't necessitate the dispatching of his evil mercenary henchmen who are trying to help him attain it?

It dosn't need to have weight, only when you have a narrative where is suposed to have weight....

 

[Kageshinzo]

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

Then play fucking Battlefield in Hardcore mode. Uncharted, from what little I played of it, hardly counts as a "realistic narrative", not when I can jump and shimmy and roll five feet away from people and they do not notice my presence.

 

[RustyNails]

LOL

God I wish Conan does more gaming expos.

 

[Paracelsus]

Then remove the narrative and keep the tps gameplay, the last thing we need is a game like that to be less gamey, as if we haven't enough problems with moviegames already.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

Then play fucking Battlefield in Hardcore mode. Uncharted, from what little I played of it, hardly counts as a "realistic narrative", not when I can jump and shimmy and roll five feet away from people and they do not notice my presence.

That's gameplay, not the actual cutscene narrative and character interactions...

 

[Lana Del Rey]

I always thought this was a given. The games wouldn't be as entertaining without the amount of combat that they have. But didn't Lazarevic at the very end

Spoiler

call Drake out on killing so many people?

Yah

Was there a big budget action game that had you killing a few people through out it?

 

[giancarlo123x]

Why should killing always have "weight"? Why can't it exist as entertainment? And what realism? The realistic narrative of Nathan Drake trying to stop a warlord from ruling the world by drinking blue goo in a fairytale land shouldn't necessitate the dispatching of his evil mercenary henchmen who are trying to help him attain it?

What video is the gif from? Looks hilarious.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

lol..

 

[Pimpwerx]

Killing is not the problem, but should have a meaning and a weight it dosn't have right now. Or rather it should be more realistic, if you have a realistic narrative, which means you can't kill 12 guys on a single room without a scratch. Make a single gunfight more interesting and deadlier instead of making dozens of there with armies of dudes to shoot.

It doesn't take long to kill someone, especially with a gun. Enemies are already unrealistic bullet sponges and they still go down quickly. You have hours to fill in a game. You have to fill it with large amounts of corpses. People play shooters to shoot. So combine that desire with the reality that shooting is a quick act and you see the predicament. There is no way around the high body counts without either making a stealth game or a boring game...or a boring stealth game...which they already did with TLoU. I'm half kidding. PEACE.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Played Spec Ops: The Line?

That's the game for you I think.

Bit in bold: no, it isn't. It just depends on the kind of fiction you're used to dealing with.

Spec OPs is a fucking terrible game, It should never be recommended.

 

[Shengar]

The problem is when you have sequences like in Uncharted 3 where the place is falling down and Drake points out, "Why are you guys still shooting at me? The place is collapsing". And he's absolutely right. The writers recently have been breaking the immersion themselves by pointing this stuff out with a quick line.

The other aspect of this is that the enemies don't act like actual human beings but rather targets to be killed. They don't react after you kill thousands of their comrades or when you're mowing people down left and right. Not to mention the effect that it would have on the person committing those acts.

The same happened in most FPS, and even action movies. Those guys are just shooting target that can shoot back even though they wouldn't able to hit the protagonist unless they have the mandate from the Word Of God (author). The self awareness that Uncharted seems have makes it kinda neurotic or double sided to me because in any creative work with similar format, usually there isn't any even slight trace of awareness to their situation. Maybe in Uncharted case, the feeling of dissonance is become too damn high for the writers to ignore and they ended up making a nod of the situation. Nathan Drake after all, only want adventure, and his opposition isn't nazis.

I think the best solution for this is.....better gameplay design. Rather than throwing nameless henchmen at us as an obstacle, they could make an actually worthwhile man-made/natural puzzle, and lessening the number of armed confrontation but making them more intense.

I think that the uncharted drake is a murderer thing isn't actually a criticism (at least in my case) but rather an example of fringe horror (which appears in all sorts of works of fiction)

You don't think about those kind of things while playing, nor do you care. It's when you are bored or just stray thinking that stuff like this comes up and minor inconsistencies or occurrences come to light.

Well, most of the time they ignored it altogether, but some tries to make a nod of it.
The big difference is how well the nod try to picture the character in situation. Is it just to acknowledge the characters is mass murderer without shedding any negative or even positive light to them?

 

[Krappadizzle]

Only listened to the part the OP linked, but I agree with him. Killing hundreds of people in any game is just a part of the fantasy and if you can't accept that, maybe play different games. There are plenty of games out there that stick closer to reality if people wanted to play them.

 

[ChouGohan]

The "it's a game" excuse doesn't really work when your game tries so desperately to emulate movies.

What? There are so many wise cracking mass murders in movies, do you watch action movies?

 

[kyser73]

Why should killing always have "weight"? Why can't it exist as entertainment? And what realism? The realistic narrative of Nathan Drake trying to stop a warlord from ruling the world by drinking blue goo in a fairytale land shouldn't necessitate the dispatching of his evil mercenary henchmen who are trying to help him attain it?

Dat cognitive dissonance - even in my own post!

Spec OPs is a fucking terrible game, It should never be recommended.

That's fighting talk.

 

[Artex]

Ha;awesome truth and well said. I love that guy.

 

[TEH-CJ]

What video is the gif from? Looks hilarious.

Anyone have the link to this vid? lol

 

[FinalStageBoss]

I can honestly say while on holiday some Naughty Dog artists, they absolutely hate Neogaf.

With some of the stupid shit that gets slung around here and I can't say I blame them.


I mean ppl are arguing about drake killing too much again. The stupidity of it all makes my head hurt.

 

[gotstrangepowers]

Anyone have the link to this vid? lol

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HO5imsViKp0

 

[WrenchNinja]

Did you even read the text in the picture? It means Indy himself killed 45 people in three films.

Are you trying to act like this is somehow more respectable?