Bit of an explanation as to what prompted me to make this post: I recently played through Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 and I just felt off. I’ve slaughtered hundreds of innocents for my amusement in games like Fallout and TES, I play through No Russian with a grin, but for some reason, I refrain from killing bad guys in SGW? The first one has you hunt down Russian oligarchs and war criminals, while the second one is about Middle Eastern terrorists and this is the game where I feel bad about killing? There’s just something about the soldiers talking about their daily problems like making no money, uncomfortable boots and sweating too much, or showing eachother pictures of their dogs, not to mention the absolute horror when you’ve got a knife against their throat or when they find a body. I hope this isn’t weird, but I’ve never experienced remorse for killing a video game enemy, and I’ve played a lot of different games. I’d like to hear about your experiences, and which games do a good job humanising common enemies, the concept intrigues me.
GTA 3 made me stop killing the cops in GTA 3 and later installments. In GTA and GTA 2 they were plain stick figures from above who tried to deter me from accomplishing my goals and my missions. I blasted them, set them on fire, whatever.
GTA 3 has changed. Giving them faces changed for me. What really did the click on me that I was driving on the park early in the game. Right above a hill I have spotted an older cop really late. He was old with gray hair, could’ve been 3 days before his retirement. I hit the brakes as hard as I could, didn’t want to get a Wanted level. I eventually hit him with the car anyways, it knocked Mr. Officer off his feet. He got up, and he chose peace. He somehow chose to ignore this blatant offense and walked his way. He chose peace, to “live and let live”.
In other games, well yeah, there is hardly a stopping for me. Counterstrike, Postal^2, Duke Nukem 3D, you name it. Even in old GTA games, old habits die hard. But GTA 3 or San Andreas? I am trying to get them not involved as much as possible. I still cannot forget the one officer, who has chosen peace.
If GTA makes it so cops don’t start shooting on sight for a 5 mph fender bender , then maybe I would agree with you. Currently they don’t act like anything a real person would so it’s easy to not even notice them as real. I hope 6 makes it so they follow actual police procedure and escalate it correctly depending on your actions. I would also love traffic cops where they pull you over to give you citation.