Comments on: I Am A Coward

By: PoC

PoC — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:35:33 +0000

I’ve had a few such moments, but the one that really struck me as emotionally effective was the Baldur’s Gate 2 expansion, at two points.
1) Due to some of the choices I’d made near the end of Baldur’s Gate 2, my alignment had been switched to Evil. I hadn’t actually noticed it until partway through the early stages of the expansion, when you need to get a key (to the sewers, I think?) from a local priestess. But if you’re evil, she refuses to just hand it over to you. So the only options the game gave me were to take it by force, threaten her, or blackmail her. I chose to coerce it out of her, and as she cries out in pain, I remember thinking, “look what you made me do.” And then I realized how effective the game had been in putting me into the mindset of evil, just by limiting my choices a little. (You could also get by the problem by having one of your neutral characters approach her and ask for it-even though she had just seen that character in the company of the villain she denied moments before, she’d have no problem. Hey, the game’s good on meaningful choices, not sensible AI.)
2) When you finally confront the ultimate villain, they accuse you of being every bit as destructive as they are. The thing is, the way I’d played the game up to that point meant there was no living NPC character left on the map except for a handful of merchants. I *had* brought destruction and death to the region, and for just a moment, I felt really, really bad for that.

By: A cry for games that matter « Pixel Park

A cry for games that matter « Pixel Park — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:07:46 +0000

[...] die in battle while he remained hidden in Call of Duty, in an in-character piece called “I Am A Coward“. Just as interesting are the comments of the readers. One guy talks about [...]

By: chess from pixeljoint

chess from pixeljoint — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:19:35 +0000

Fire in the hole!

i just looked at the ground while playing call of duty 2 today.. there i saw a weapon i never ever saw before in thi game.

it was a long red rifle with a magazine under it …. it had a grey metallish end….

after a minut eor so i realized, it wsa a MP40 laying under a mosin nagant…. my graphicscard seems to be showing them mixed up.. :-P

By: Rock, Paper, Birthday: We Are One | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Rock, Paper, Birthday: We Are One | Rock, Paper, Shotgun — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:19:26 +0000

[...] MESSING AROUND: Funny stuff, reports from events, etc. John Walker: Coward. GDC 2008. Special blathering. Kieron goes to gamecamp. Exploring exploring games. Jim gets lost in [...]

By: Kodaz

Kodaz — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:16:37 +0000

Seriously now, I had some of moments like these while playing Red Faction.

The rebellion, it only started because I could’nt help my friend, who were being harassed by the guard, if it was’nt by me, the Miners at M4 would be alive, and mining happily ever after.

Seeing my friends and co-workers being assassinated by guards brought a enormous sense of impotence, no matter how hard I tried to kill the guards, they always killed the miners fast, it was just useless.

Sorry for the Poor English he.

By: Kodaz

Kodaz — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:11:10 +0000

You’re a coward.
I remember this part, I had to replay it for more then twenty times, but I did it, and I won. But you, my friend, are a coward, a worthless scum. It was for your family and friends, and nation, you’re fighting for, not for a lonely child, buried deep only in your mind.
Your comrades may never see their children fighting in the woods with sticks, because YOU left them to die.

I hope you live forever, to enjoy the pain that you, and only you brought upon yourself.

By: perilisk

perilisk — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:48:30 +0000

Sometimes it’s weird what will get to you. Recently, I was replaying Thief: Deadly Shadows, and was in the part of the game where Keeper Assassins are hunting you. Normally, I don’t kill if I can help it, and I preferred to avoid or blackjack the assassins too, despite their murderous rampages.

At any rate, I made it back to my apartment, tried to sneak up on the assassin in there, but he noticed me, so I went back and hid in some shadows. He comes out looking for me, and runs into the apartment guard. They have a fight, assassin wins.

I don’t know why, but it really got to me. Basically, most other characters in the game are utterly indistinguishable and random, but I walk by this same guard is here every day. I steal things, he fails to notice me stealing them. We have a working relationship. And he’s practically the only constant in my virtual life. He felt like… not a friend, but something close to it. And now he’s dead. Not like the city watch or townspeople, dead to have someone else respawn in their place, but really really dead. Because of me, but mainly because of these assassins.

So I killed the assassin. And after that I went out of my way to kill every other assassin I ran across.

By: Andrew Farrell

Andrew Farrell — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 06:17:23 +0000

I tried to play through as a dark Jedi once, but I could never get excited about killing people for money or just because.

You say that, but I played it through as a dark Jedi (because, y’know, I’d bought the game, no point in only playing half of it), and I had a lot of fun as a “beat them up and take their money” type, except, there’s a scene on Tatooine where you’re approached by the widow of a hunter… couldn’t do it. Ended up taking a dark side hit just to avoid that specific outcome.

By: RPS Omnibus: March 23 - 29 | Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Pagans repent! The Endless Bear is your true God

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:21:58 +0000

[...] John Walker’s guilty secret [...]

By: Jesse

Jesse — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:52:42 +0000

In AVP2, I did some horrible things as an Alien. Terrible, unspeakable things.

… and I’d do them again.

By: Lach

Lach — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:40:09 +0000

I actually felt worse in Bioshock after having killed the Big Daddies with sisters and freeing all the sisters in the level. Wandering around you’d see Big Daddies roaming around, groaning and banging futilely on pipes trying to attract the little sisters who weren’t there anymore.

By: sinister agent

sinister agent — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:35:23 +0000

Thief 2, where you’re creeping through the pagan village and everyone is missing, and the mechanists are patrolling the area. A few ghosts that by now you’re used to are kind of sad, but the thing that really upset me was when I found a piece of paper in the hut with a (named) doll in, where the little girl had recently been learning to write.

I suddenly realised I’d been rummaging through this family’s belongings a few hours after they’d all been murdered, and feeling short changed because there wasn’t enough loot. Brrr.

I amended my “no killing” policy for that level until I felt I’d made it up to them. A bit.

I also played a game of X-Com Terror From the Deep once where the random soldier generator happened to produce the full name (and very vague resemblance) of my girlfriend. Said soldier almost immediately died horribly in a friendly fire accident that was largely my fault.

I felt quite irrationally bad about this for days.