I don't get why people say Nathan Drake is an asshole that yearns to kill people
- Thread starter The Lamp
- Start date
I think it is a mostly silly hang up. It is all about tone and how much guilt is felt during the combat scenarios. There is far less humanity in the enemies than something like the Last of Us where they would talk to each other and even beg the player to spare them. They are ultimately blank slates who die in very PG-13 ways, where they have minimal/no blood when shot while Drakes melee moves are never gratuitous and bone shattering. It is a stylized world with very clear moral lines where they always set up the antagonism beforehand. The complaint that there are too many enemies is the only one I buy, and that is mostly for gameplay/pacing reasons.
Silent Chief
Member
It's the same people who couldn't accept that Han Solo shoots first.
There's nothing wrong with killing guys carrying guns, except hunters and law enforcement officers.
When he steals from a museum, he doesn't kill anyone.
I'm more concerned by military people killing civilians. In real life.
There's nothing wrong with killing guys carrying guns, except hunters and law enforcement officers.
When he steals from a museum, he doesn't kill anyone.
I'm more concerned by military people killing civilians. In real life.
Don't blame the victim, man. Come on.
Professor Beef
Banned
now you've gone and done it
lel
N
Noray
Unconfirmed Member
This is how I think of it too. If we consider games as non-literal representations, we can consider the bodycount of these games to be representations too. But I do think the discussion is interesting - what parts do games want us to take seriously, and what parts not? That's different for every game. This discussion happens a lot with Uncharted because it's tonally weird, and because it may be a goofy romp, but it DOES want you to take Nate, Elena et al. seriously as characters, which is impossible to reconcile with Nate killing hundreds of goons. It requires more mental gymnastics, and more active suspension of disbelief, to buy into it.
Slightly off-topic, but on the topic of games are representations, it's the same way in Fallout 4. Boston airport is like 30 seconds walk away from an urban center, which is obviously a fudging of scale that requires a suspension of disbelief. But in some cases it's so jarring that it really stands out to me. That's different for everyone, but it's the same kind of disconnect in Uncharted's story wrt Drake being a mass-murderer in real-world terms.
I completely agree with this concept. I mean why aren't we complaining that he can regain health when not being shot at. I have said it before but gameisms are fine as long as they fit the tone of the world. If you want to take any video game story seriously, you likely have to suspend your disbelief more so than you would during a film. That isn't to say there should not be less combat, but again, for pacing/gameplay purposes.
The idea of Drake being a sociopath and mass murderer would be easier to buy if the violence was presented in such a way, like the Tomb raider reboot where you would perform brutal finisher by sticking a pick axe through someones throat. The combat is presented in a way which is fun and pulpy where you are never left feeling guilty about what you have done.
I dont think it takes a genius to realize what is supposed to take seriously and what not to. Deaths/kills (however few in comparison to UC) are NOT taken seriously in Indiana Jones -- unless a key "good guy" character is mortally wounded, which is shared in the UC series.
I don't think it's impossible to feel connected to the main characters when they're well-characterized, because of the fantastical world they exist in. Hell, Dexter was a great character to root for in season 1, and he was a literal psychopath.
Melchiah
Member
I don't recall people calling Indiana Jones a mass murderer.
apparently you have to kill hundreds of bad guys to earn that title
"You killed 20 people!!?
....
HAAAAAAAH"
TheRedSnifit
Member
Right, you're illustrating the dissonance right here. The intention is clearly to have him be a guy that you could see as being a (badass) drinking buddy:
Uncharted writer Amy Hennig said:
But it's impossible to support this narrative when this "regular guy" is a killing machine who guns down upwards of a thousand people per game. Hence your inability to see him as the Joe Shmoe he's supposed to be. Hence this thread.
You're reaching. John McClain is, across four movies, shown to be a nice guy who only kills when he absolutely has to; at no point can we infer that his motivation for becoming a cop is legalized serial killing. Whereas Drake's specific goal is repeatedly shown to be personal gain, to which end he kills hundreds of people.
Brad Grenz
Member
That would completely transform the tone of the gameplay. You are describing the gameplay of the Last of Us, but that doesn't work in a breezy action game like Uncharted. The kind of experience the gameplay imparts is actually what is relevant when "reading" a game, not a body count with no context.
Drake comes back to life after dying, does that mean he's a zombie or some sort of Christ figure?
Acquiescence
Member
I don't think that comic is specifically referencing the security guard being pulled off the edge in Uncharted 2. That dude certainly isn't dressed like one of the guards patrolling the museum.
I fully concur with these two posts. It's not something that's worthy of a serious discussion at all in my mind, and as zoukka says, it seems born due to fanboy trolling than anything else. I never felt any disconnect between cut-scene Nathan Drake and playable Nathan Drake, because the Uncharted series has never been portrayed as anything more than light-hearted, pulpy, globe-trotting action-adventure. It's exactly the sort of thing that you should be able to suspend your disbelief for, in the same way that you can accept that a lone archeologist can take on the Nazi army and win. If you can't go along for the ride in Raiders of the Lost Ark, you're missing out on the greatest film ever made... imo of course!
but it really is the greatest film ever made
Now Tomb Raider 2013 on the other hand, that's a game of similar ilk that was so tonally inconsistent that the dissonance did actually bother me.
Wait, Indiana Jones killed 20 people in the span of a single movie? YOU HEARTLESS MONSTER! I bet some of those nazis didn't even want to be enlisted to fight.
Professor Beef
Banned
Haven't we all?
plasmawave
Banned
Don't worry OP.
Some people are just crazy.
Some people are just crazy.
kind of, but not really. what people have an issue with isn't the gameplay mechanic of killing a lot of people, but with who nathan drake is as a character. no one has any problems with joel from the last of us or ellie having a large body count because they're in it for survival and are shown to be morally gray characters while still being on the right side of things (or at least we can sympathize with them).
GoldenCrow
Member
Just the typical gaming community hyperbole on something that is accurate but not that big a deal. Game gets praise so the detractors inflate a flaw between narrative and gameplay, which does exist.
You witness Drake taking out more people based on ifs and buts of a supposed villain – that is only really guilty of being a bit of dick and owning a militia – that you don't get to see them properly until the final act and by that time the player has "killed" hundreds of NPC's and Drake acts like the villain is the mass murderer which the player has never witnessed. Then you top it all of with the fact that a supernatural empowered villain can be taken down by a treasure hunter with a few guns and grenades so all that killing was a bit unnecessary. The game is fun because of the story and the gameplay but they aren't exactly in unison.
You witness Drake taking out more people based on ifs and buts of a supposed villain – that is only really guilty of being a bit of dick and owning a militia – that you don't get to see them properly until the final act and by that time the player has "killed" hundreds of NPC's and Drake acts like the villain is the mass murderer which the player has never witnessed. Then you top it all of with the fact that a supernatural empowered villain can be taken down by a treasure hunter with a few guns and grenades so all that killing was a bit unnecessary. The game is fun because of the story and the gameplay but they aren't exactly in unison.
The killing in the game isn´t even the worst part of nathan drake the person...
HE IS EVIL...!!!!
listen.. listen carefully..
He is a self proclaimed archaeologist/treasure hunter... but he is only out for the final big treasure. Along his way to the BIG treasure he finds MANY valuable treasures and valuable items, things that has been lost for a long time.
And what does Drake do..? take all the treasures and give them to a museum..? collect them and keep them in a place so that he can look at them and enjoy them later..?
NOOOOOO... he discards them, he does only care about the BIG treasure at the end, everything else gets destroyed or trown away.
He even destroys MANY ancient places, places that could have been made available for the public later on. Maybe they could have made them into attractions like Stonehedge or the Ancient Pyramids in Egypt. But NO, Drake destroys every single place he visits, and all the ancient valuable artifacts that are at those places.
As an expert in archaeology (I sell car parts) I cry a little every time I see Nathan Drake's disrespect for his trade. He might be a Mass Murderer, but that is nothing compared to how lousy he is at his work.
HE IS EVIL...!!!!
listen.. listen carefully..
He is a self proclaimed archaeologist/treasure hunter... but he is only out for the final big treasure. Along his way to the BIG treasure he finds MANY valuable treasures and valuable items, things that has been lost for a long time.
And what does Drake do..? take all the treasures and give them to a museum..? collect them and keep them in a place so that he can look at them and enjoy them later..?
NOOOOOO... he discards them, he does only care about the BIG treasure at the end, everything else gets destroyed or trown away.
He even destroys MANY ancient places, places that could have been made available for the public later on. Maybe they could have made them into attractions like Stonehedge or the Ancient Pyramids in Egypt. But NO, Drake destroys every single place he visits, and all the ancient valuable artifacts that are at those places.
As an expert in archaeology (I sell car parts) I cry a little every time I see Nathan Drake's disrespect for his trade. He might be a Mass Murderer, but that is nothing compared to how lousy he is at his work.
Han doesn't shoot "first", because that would imply there is a "second". He fires the only shot and then Greedo dies without firing any shots at all.
It's like you don't understand Star Wars at all, mom!
I always thought this whole mass murderer thing was just a joke people came up with to throw some shade on the narrative and these kinds of games. If they were serious...then i can't help them....video games don't translate to real world terms directly.
The gameplay of Uncharted is what it is and is the core of what most people enjoy with the series. Trying to change that to serve some narrative goal sounds like a really bad idea.
i only feel i need to speak up in these threads because raiders is such a good film. like comparing uncharted to raiders? or at least nathan drake to indiana jones? nathan drake is more like nic cage in that documentary of nic cage's life, national treasure. both are dudes in it for personal reasons, fighting against random people who we're supposed to dislike only because they're against the protagonist. i'd say nic cage is probably more on the side of right at least because of the whole disney film effect and i didn't see the entire movie so i don't think he ever killed anyone either.
Melchiah
Member
And think about those poor Stormtroopers Han & co shoot to death.
Dargor
Member
I agree, calling Nate boy a mass murderer, you really need to be invested lol ;P
Been seeing Lara brought up a lot as a point of comparison, but having recently played through TR2013, followed by UC1 and then UC2, and now currently playing RoTR, I think it's a pretty terrible comparison.
In TR2013, Lara's crew sets out to find treasure sure... but they are shipwrecked on an island... someone tries to rape her, people try to kill her, people try (and partially succeed) to kill all her friends. They actually make attempts to simply leave, but any attempt at leaving the island prove impossible. The inhabitants of the island run a super strict law of "join us and kill people... or be killed". The "join us" option isn't applicable to females btw. Asking Lara to not kill a fuckton of people in this situation is simply asking her to die, and allow those she cares about to die too. It's not a simply case of "I want that shiny shit, and nobody's gonna stop me, or talk me out of it". She's not willingly placing her friends in danger, in order to continue pursuing her original goal... there's very little choice in the matter here. Oh, and she doesn't crack jokes for every third kill.
In both Uncharted games I've played, Drake simply wants the treasure just as much as the other guys. Quitting the pursuit of it is a completely viable option at numerous points BEFORE any greater supernatural threat is revealed... and in UC2 the supernatural threat is basically impossible to even uncover without his express help. "This is the key to the door of horrors... I better find that door, open it up, and destroy what's inside". No, just destroy the bloody key that they don't know you even currently possess... holy shit... Come back and destroy it later if you must, just not right now as they're fucking following you along the way.
Only played a little RoTR so far... but in that she's following up on clues of a potential truth left by her father (who remembers being threatened, discredited and probably murdered). Some guy she paid to drive to the location sells the information that's she's headed there (getting himself killed as a result), and then upon her return they attempt to kill her IN HER OWN HOME... how the fuck is this remotely comparable to "So, we're dicking this guy over right?" "Damn straight!" upon heating there's treasure to be had, and then killing everyone he encounters attempting to catch up with them once they get ahead
In TR2013, Lara's crew sets out to find treasure sure... but they are shipwrecked on an island... someone tries to rape her, people try to kill her, people try (and partially succeed) to kill all her friends. They actually make attempts to simply leave, but any attempt at leaving the island prove impossible. The inhabitants of the island run a super strict law of "join us and kill people... or be killed". The "join us" option isn't applicable to females btw. Asking Lara to not kill a fuckton of people in this situation is simply asking her to die, and allow those she cares about to die too. It's not a simply case of "I want that shiny shit, and nobody's gonna stop me, or talk me out of it". She's not willingly placing her friends in danger, in order to continue pursuing her original goal... there's very little choice in the matter here. Oh, and she doesn't crack jokes for every third kill.
In both Uncharted games I've played, Drake simply wants the treasure just as much as the other guys. Quitting the pursuit of it is a completely viable option at numerous points BEFORE any greater supernatural threat is revealed... and in UC2 the supernatural threat is basically impossible to even uncover without his express help. "This is the key to the door of horrors... I better find that door, open it up, and destroy what's inside". No, just destroy the bloody key that they don't know you even currently possess... holy shit... Come back and destroy it later if you must, just not right now as they're fucking following you along the way.
Only played a little RoTR so far... but in that she's following up on clues of a potential truth left by her father (who remembers being threatened, discredited and probably murdered). Some guy she paid to drive to the location sells the information that's she's headed there (getting himself killed as a result), and then upon her return they attempt to kill her IN HER OWN HOME... how the fuck is this remotely comparable to "So, we're dicking this guy over right?" "Damn straight!" upon heating there's treasure to be had, and then killing everyone he encounters attempting to catch up with them once they get ahead
You guys are reaching too, that was kind of the point I was making by removing context and painting his actions in the worst light possible.
Drake is a treasure hunter and almost all of his killing is done in self defense. Yes he puts himself in those situations but he's not going around murdering people, and unless I'm mistaken they never even imply his motivation is to kill people so the serial killer accusation really doesn't fit.
The fact that Drake kills more in all honesty is kind of irrelevant, if John McClane had to kill 700 terrorists in Nakatomi plaza I don't think he'd have much of an issue with that.
i always took it to mean people were taking naughty dog to task a bit on why the design of their games is so simplistic despite the opportunities they have with the concept. nathan drake doesn't need to be just a mass-murderer to find treasure. i mean i think exploration and finding stuff and solving puzzles would get me to finding treasure faster than killing people.
Gravy Boat
Member
To the bolded, because then it wouldn't be Uncharted. Why can't a game just be about killing hundreds of people while playing as a wise cracking ruffian? Not all games obviously, but this one? I enjoy the Uncharted goes for what they are, ridiculous nonsensical shooters with amazing set pieces. I don't get why people are asking it to be more than that, because then it would just be a different game entirely.
I haven't yet, but I suppose I'll see eventually.
Vincent Grayson
Member
I think this is a general "storytelling in videogames" issue, as I've brought it up before when talking about RPGs having too much filler combat. If you think about your average fantasy film, the heroes generally don't change weapons or armor (or do only when finding some incredible ancient weapon), don't fight hundreds of minor battles against enemies that don't matter (much less random wild animals), and spend little, if any, time bartering and trading and selling loot.
I often wonder what a big, epic fantasy RPG would be like if you only had maybe 10 major combat sequences in the entire running time.
Taking back to action-adventure, I feel like the first Tomb Raider game was kinda like this. You shoot some dangerous animals and weird undead monsters, but the amount of times you actually kill human beings is maybe three or four scenes in the whole game.
I think I only saw it bought up when they were talking about a disconnect in character actions and in game actions.
I have not played it but I'm under the impression she has issues with killing people at points in the game but you're still killing tons of people in gameplay even around those points.
Pre reboot Lara seems like a far comparison although she didn't seem to face people anyehere near as often as Drake.
That's certainly one way to see it.
Another would be to see how he is characterized:
-would risk his life for his friends/innocents
-has a moral compass
-warns his enemies about the dangers of the powers they want to possess
-would rather not be killing dudes
-sometimes rises to the occasion to save the world
Seems like a alright regular guy.
His amazing luck and ability to use firearms doesn't all of a sudden take those core character traits away.
Brad Grenz
Member
Synth, the problem with TR2013 isn't the situation, it's that the way Lara is being characterized in cutscenes is completely at odds with the actual gameplay. Nathan Drake is never depicted as being traumatized by what he does so it isn't as incongruous when he kills so cavalierly.
KratosEnergyDrink
Member
There are many video games out there with good story and characterizations, even action games.
They characterize Nathan in the cutscenes as a charming adventurer. But in-game he is an murderous psychopath.
So this character simply don't work for people who follow the story.
Melchiah
Member
Eventhough I think the series could have less shooting and more exploring, I don't think facing 20 or so foes during the course of the game would really work. Even the old Tomb Raiders had more enemies than that.
Bear Force One
Banned
perineumlick
Member
I actually know a few people who fit the mold of Drake's character, from my time in the service. Charming, funny, affable guys, (and one girl), but they could kill you and make a sandwich right after. These are people I've served with in the military of course, but they've come to terms with life and death combat, and survival, so it doesn't affect them the same way it would a Neogaffer sitting home playing video games. This is the way I view Nathan Drake's character; he's a guy whose seen and done some shit, and has come to terms with it and does not hesitate, because that is what keeps him alive. As much as people view him as an everyday man, he's really not.
Yes, Elena is just as much a psycho. 'I love these' she exclaims, as she collects grenades or Chloe's suggestive 'Lets finish you off!' as she plants a bullet in someones head indicate how messed up these individuals really are. I hope they all get what's coming to them in U4.
...
...
Gameplay like that wouldn't fill Naughty Dogs coffers though.
I think you will get a bit more of that from UC4. From the gameinformer and OPM preview, Druckmann talked about how there will be more room to breath between combat citing the Tenzin village in Uncharted 2 as well as left behind. Some choice quotes.
.'Allies also engage in contextual conversations like the last of us. "If you see a mural or something you can talk about what you are seeing" says Druckmann'
'Naughty Dog is focusing on navigational freedom for this entry. We witness multiiple paths for reaching that final destination in our demo. While the game is still more linear than open world, you encounter different obstacles based on the path you choose. Sometimes this means a new treasure or extra cave; other times it will mean bypassing a group of enemies.'
'Plenty of side stories and optional paths are around if you are willing to look for them'
'In addition to the primary treasure, Uncharted games have always had little collectibles along the way. Uncharted 4 continues that, but when you stumble on any of these items they might contain clues that will lead you to even more treasures and locales. "within artifacts, there are notes that you can find and flip over and examine" explains Bruce Straley. " You might find clues that lead you somewhere else in the environment to find more treasures or artifacts in our treasure system." The journal is also receiving an upgrade to dynamically fill in with clues you find in the world, so your journal could look different to another players depending on how much you explore every nook and cranny.'
There was more about exploration and stuff but I am too tired and lazy. Should add some more engaging moments outside of combat.
Bear Force One
Banned
Huh? This has got to be a joke meme.
plasmawave
Banned
He's a charming adventurer that doesn't take kindly to hostile mercs and pirates that try to kill him. It's totally consistent with the gameplay.
I still don't see how the wires cross. These opinions seem to be under the assumption that somehow fictional characters must be weighed down by the realities we live under. And when examples are brought up, the goalposts then shift to a numbers game, as if humanity dwindles the MORE people you kill, regardless of actual context, let alone the tone of the fantastical universe portrayed.
The early Tomb Raider games were largely like that and the sold great.
Admittedly a lot of things have changed since then but I don't think it's fair to dismiss that sort of gameplay. Having said that though, that's not what Uncharted is or ever has been.