Disgusting and outrageous stuff you've been forced to do in games

[Zekkyou]

TruckOSaurus said:

Zekkyou said:

I can think of a lot of 'disgusting and outrageous' things games have made me do, but the only time I've ever been genuinely disturbed was in The Last of Us, when it makes you kill the surgeon. I could go on a multi-paragraph rant about how damn impressive i think TLOU's narrative structure is, but to give a TL;DR:

For me, that scene was the exact moment i realised Joel had become the bad guy. That the game's primary narrative focus had been to manipulate my perspective, to make me empathise with Joel through Ellie, and to use that empathy to make me rationalise his action as him just looking out for her. By the time you realise how deep down the rabbit hole you've gotten, how selfish the actions you're rationalising really are, it's too late. By then the game has stopped pretending you have a choice, has made you point a gun at the defenceless surgeon, and has made you kill him. The worse thing is though, even now, i still want to rationalise it all away. I still want to shout a big "fuck you!" to TLOU's world, and give Joel a big thumbs up for being a selfish piece of shit, and putting his need for Ellie above humanity's best hope for a brighter future.

I know not everyone will have gotten as invested in the story as i did, but for me personally, TLOU is currently the peak of video game story telling. Games have made me feel happy, sad, scared, etc, but never as conflicted as TLOU left me. 

I actually tried to have the surgeon kill me at that point in the game (but he wouldn't). It took a long time before I accepted that I had to kill him to move forward.

I wish he had tried to kill Joel. Would have made the whole thing a lot easier :(