okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
Is it necessary to single out anything for doing it "right" or "wrong?"
Speaking only to this question, I say the answer is yes
If your goal is effect your audience in a certain way, then it makes sense to look at and take cues from works of other people that have had that desired effect
Not only that, but it is important to understand what things that got it "wrong" actually did so you can avoid doing those things
Also in a discussion about what is or isn't exploitative/torture porn it is useful to know what standards people are using when assigning a value based label to a piece of media. Saw is popularly agreed to be basically torture porn and so it makes a good base for what people are hoping not to see/feel/experience with the new tomb raider game
That's fair. Like I said, I hope there's some kind of context for the way they're treating Lara like an abused voodoo doll. If it's being done for the shock, without any kind of message or theme, then yes, I think they've done it "wrong".
It would not completely invalidate the game as a whole for me, but I could see how it would for others.
I think ever since the bit with injecting into Scully's eye in the X-Files
I am squeamish about it but I mean that's why the sequence works. Granted the tone of a straight up horror game lends itself more to that kind of thing.
I am so sick of games trotting out the old "look! violence!! how does this make you feel??" shtick to fake depth
I actually really liked that errant signal(?) video that deconstructed hotline miami's thesis as being "this is gross and violent but it's fun so who cares"
okay, you're making a game where if I, the player, make a mistake, then I am forced to watch a scene in which a realistically rendered character undergoes a graphically depicted scene of brutal, painful death
If there wasn't a difference in the way certain people reacted to the actual depiction of violence, then the original Metroid or Super Mario games would be considered just as violent as the games being discussed here.
It may not phase you, but the purposefully-graphic scenes of Lara dying or being severely injured in some way are designed to provoke a reaction. The plain fact is that it's going to turn some people off.
I don't think there's any objective "good" or "bad" to it, but it's definitely an intentionally shocking presentation.
I'm not saying it's arbitrary that some violent images will turn off some people while others won't. Blake and Nuzak are both making arbitrary and anecdotal decisions that somehow the past two years have seen an uptick in violent video games. That's not true at all. They're just picking games at random and saying "look, games didn't used to be like this"
Yes, they did. Ever since people have been able to render things in a 3d environment, there has been no end to violent video games.
I am so sick of games trotting out the old "look! violence!! how does this make you feel??" shtick to fake depth
I actually really liked that errant signal(?) video that deconstructed hotline miami's thesis as being "this is gross and violent but it's fun so who cares"
okay, you're making a game where if I, the player, make a mistake, then I am forced to watch a scene in which a realistically rendered character undergoes a graphically depicted scene of brutal, painful death
why would I want to play this game again?
Because some people enjoy horror/survival stories. You don't. That's ok.
I am so sick of games trotting out the old "look! violence!! how does this make you feel??" shtick to fake depth
I actually really liked that errant signal(?) video that deconstructed hotline miami's thesis as being "this is gross and violent but it's fun so who cares"
okay, you're making a game where if I, the player, make a mistake, then I am forced to watch a scene in which a realistically rendered character undergoes a graphically depicted scene of brutal, painful death
why would I want to play this game again?
People play games for different experiences. I like games that have sufficient palpable tension to the point where I have the controller in a white knuckle grip. That is part of the appeal of say the dead space franchise for me, and things like those intense death sequences can be pretty effective in increasing that sensation, a literal fear of failure if they are implemented correctly.
I don't know if they fit well into this game, but I think that's the idea behind them in other games that have done similar things.
I think I've mentioned it before but my thumbs were literally trembling against the sticks while doing the eye poke sequence in Dead Space 2, and it's the most memorable part of one of my favorite games ever.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
it's different when the violence isn't cartoonishly over the top
some of the stuff I've seen from Tomb Raider (that gif from earlier in the thread for example) makes me uncomfortable more than any other game I can think of. Part of that is they're lingering on the effects of the violence more than most games do. It's not what's being done to Lara, it's the cries of pain, the limping and similar animations that make it look more like real injuries rather than something the hero shrugs off with little more than a scratch or a "wounded" texture. It's the camera lingering on her panicked desperate thrashing as she dies gruesomely.
The Raid: Redemption did this as well. I've seen plenty of hyperviolent martial arts movies, but this one spent a little more time showing the effect of the beatings/stabbings/door-splinter-impalings and it was enough to push me out of my comfort zone. I appreciated this with The Raid, and I might with Tomb Raider, depending on how they handle it. It's something that could be done to make a point, and be better for it, or it's something that could be done purely for exploitative shock value and I haven't seen enough to convince me that it's one or the other yet.
Serious question, have you played the Dead Space games? They have a similar level of showing the character struggling or screaming in pain before death.
I haven't!
I think I got the first one in a Steam sale, but never got around to trying it. Sounds like I might not enjoy them so much as I am a massive baby at times.
Fair enough. I'm wondering if someone who has seen both could explain why they feel it's different, or why this one deserves the outcry.
I've played Dead Space the first, and honestly, even though Isaac gets some horrific shit done to him when he dies, I feel like there's a disconnect there firstly because the game itself is akin to a sci-fi/horror movie. So from the jump, you are in the context of a game where horrible creatures and gore are expected. A requirement, even.
Then there's the fact that Isaac, for the most part, is a suit. He's a dude, yeah, but he's a faceless suit of armor with a voice filtered through a breathing mask for most of your time spent with him, and for my part, I think that matters in how people react, too.
Lara is a much more realistically-designed character in a more real setting (at least from what has been presented so far), and the shit happening to her is horrifically violent, but in a context that you're not necessarily expecting it or wanting it. I don't play Uncharted to see Drake's femur pop through his skin when he flubs a jump, or crack his skull open on a stone floor. It's an adventure game, which sets up a context for a lot of people that doesn't normally include that level of ultraviolence.
But again, that doesn't make it inherently wrong for them to do that. It also doesn't make it wrong for a segment of gamers to be turned off by it and choose to not play it.
I'd argue that every single bit of marketing I've seen for this game has set the tone as "desperate survival struggle". At no point did we get a montage of Lara cracking jokes while she climbs things, and i think expecting the same level of violence as Uncharted is disengenous because the tones they have set for the two games are radically different.
I absolutely expected this kind of thing because the marketing and preview images have never led me to believe the game would be anything but fairly brutal. I think your argument about sci-fi/horror holds here, in that your expectations should color what is acceptable, but if you've been following the marketing for this you should have expected it.
Also why does the setting matter? That bit confuses me. Especially in Dead Space 2, just because it's in space, he's still a guy with a face who feels pain, why does being in the future make that ok?
The marketing for the game has suggested a level of realism/violence that was probably not what people would have assumed for Tomb Raider, yes.
But I honestly think the most significant part here for the people who are being put off this game is that the more extreme stuff that we have seen (the river/pole/neck thing, seems to be the go-to) has been seen completely without context. It's just Lara getting her ass handed to her, or being brutally killed by something as simple as hitting left when you should have hit right.
Without playing the actual game and seeing the larger picture (if there even is one) it's just the brutalization of the protagonist. Your avatar in the story of the game. The person you're supposed to control and empathize with. If people are reacting to that in a negative fashion, I'm just not that surprised.
I specifically referenced Dead Space 1, because I haven't played the sequels. But my point was, for me, the horrible shit that happens to Isaac is tempered by the fact that it's a horror game with nightmare creatures attacking you on the regular, and for the most part, he's a silent protagonist in a full-body suit of space armor with an arsenal of weapons to protect himself. That (again, for me) places the graphic stuff that happens in that game on a different level than something like this Lara business.
I'm not saying you have to feel the same. I'm just saying how I feel, and how I think some of the other people in here who are being turned off to the game might be feeling.
Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
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Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
If there wasn't a difference in the way certain people reacted to the actual depiction of violence, then the original Metroid or Super Mario games would be considered just as violent as the games being discussed here.
It may not phase you, but the purposefully-graphic scenes of Lara dying or being severely injured in some way are designed to provoke a reaction. The plain fact is that it's going to turn some people off.
I don't think there's any objective "good" or "bad" to it, but it's definitely an intentionally shocking presentation.
I'm not saying it's arbitrary that some violent images will turn off some people while others won't. Blake and Nuzak are both making arbitrary and anecdotal decisions that somehow the past two years have seen an uptick in violent video games. That's not true at all. They're just picking games at random and saying "look, games didn't used to be like this"
Yes, they did. Ever since people have been able to render things in a 3d environment, there has been no end to violent video games.
That was part of my point. Violence has been a part of games always, not just in the 3D era. There are some violent-ass NES games.
I think the important distinction is the way that violence is depicted. And the more realistic, the more people are going to have a problem with it. And in cases like this, when the horrible violence is happening to your avatar in the game, the person you are responsible for, the character you're rooting for, I'd argue that it affects some people more than when that same violence is being inflicted by the character.
When Manhunt came out, it was terrifically violent for its time, and still is in some respects. But now you're getting games where that type of ultraviolence can be represented in even more realistic ways, and in this case on your own character for making as little a mistake as flicking an analog stick the wrong way. It's a pretty brutal thing. I guess I just can't really blame anyone for singling this out as "over the line" on their personal spectrum.
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
For what it's worth, you can read my last few posts. While I personally don't condemn Tomb Raider for what I've seen so far, I'm trying to explain why I am receiving it differently than I received Dead Space, for example.
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
Female protagonist.
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
Female protagonist.
That's what I was figuring.
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Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
Female protagonist.
To be completely honest, I would be kidding myself if I tried to rule this out as one reason that it affects me more.
I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's true. But it's not the only reason, or even a major one.
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
Female protagonist.
That's what I was figuring.
Well Resident Evil games have had female protagonists, but this game already had a bullseye on its back because of some of the supremely gross shit one of the people promoting the game said about its female protagonist a while back. (Comments which from what I've seen of the way the game is presented thankfully feel like bullshit).
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
especially not in a (probably unskippable) cutscene of the player dying as a result of failing one of a sequence of QTEs, a cutscene that you're probably going to see several times in rapid succession over the course of your first run through the game
i really do not get this sophomoric obsession with wallowing in lovingly-rendered, increasingly "realistic" ultraviolence and then patting ourselves on the back for taking in the message of GOSH LOOK HOW AWFUL VIOLENCE IS after we've spent several hours or days being rewarded for committing or that violence in-game.
Hotline Miami, at least, doesn't chide the player for it (or commend the player for feeling rilly sorry for it, well after the fact); one of the first scenes in the game is a blunt admission that, yes, you (the protagonist and the player) do like hurting people, or else you wouldn't play this kind of game in the first place
except that Tomb Raider is differing from these other games in that this time the horrifically painful violence is all being visited in Lara herself, not on her enemies. she's killing loads of enemies but after the first one it's all the 10xHEADSHOT COMBO +100 XP type of videogame killing, not even making a token effort to elicit the "wow that was a really awful murder I feel bad about that" kind of reaction. and from what i've seen of actual gameplay footage, these super-visceral injuries that Lara is taking don't seem to be stopping her from platforming all over the place; not thirty seconds after taking a spike of jagged metal through her side, she's clambering over cliffs and crates with as much ease as ever. kind of weird how the game is making a point of inflicting lovingly-rendered crippling injuries solely on our sexy barely-legal protagonist in cutscenes when these injuries have no bearing on the gameplay or narrative. weird how the game with the female protagonist makes a point of repeatedly, torturously victimizing her even as it builds her up to this awesome ass-kicking tomb raider. the constant scenes of her getting impaled and concussed definitely don't undermine that aspect of her character arc, no sir.
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
Female protagonist, partially.
But because it's not an M rated, hardcore, fucked up violence series...until now.
I think people would be up in arms, maybe not as much because the devs probably wouldn't say something about "protecting," if Uncharted 4 went the survival, Descent route and not the Indiana Jones route.
If Drake went from wiseacre fun guy to dude who when you miss a jump, falls and dashes his brains out on the ground or loses at combat and gets a graphic close up of his neck being stabbed 7 times...yeah, people would complain.
It's understandable, to a certain level, I think.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this game is getting so much flack for its depiction of violence over other games like Dead Space or Resident Evil?
For myself in particular, and I assume many other people, the fact that this game has a female protagonist throws up a lot of red flags that wouldn't get raised by other graphically violent games that have a male lead character. Like, I can't help it, that is how "media where horrible violent shit happens to a lone average woman" makes me feel.
This combined with some spectacularly poor early interviews/trailers/PR work really created a steep hill for the game and its developers to climb in order to be acceptable product
However I am hopeful that it will "get it right" and if I try and divorce myself from that earlier feeling it looks like it could
So I'll wait and see
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Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I guess it all just doesn't bother me. I don't care if I'm seeing a man in a space suit, a girl in adventure gear, or a knight in armor...if I die in a game and it's particularly violent I'm ok with it. I don't think of it as "torture porn" or anything.
As for the early PR stuff, that I do understand, but I thought that this was already covered for the most part.
I fully expect to find this game to be awesome.
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Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
It sucks because I think having Lara, one of the few prominent female protagonists in games, struggle through these really horrifically desperate circumstances, through injury, against both environment and enemy, is a really important message that could be well-represented and well-received.
But I feel like the insta-death head impalings and whatever else this game has in store for players who might not be great at QTE sequences might undermine that a bit.
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
I don't know why you're looking for a video game of all things to use violence in that fashion
what exactly would you want a game to do with that kind of violence?
and do you really think that the target audience is more likely to take in that violence as "dude that's awful" instead of "dude that's sick! awesome!"?
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
especially not in a (probably unskippable) cutscene of the player dying as a result of failing one of a sequence of QTEs, a cutscene that you're probably going to see several times in rapid succession over the course of your first run through the game
i really do not get this sophomoric obsession with wallowing in lovingly-rendered, increasingly "realistic" ultraviolence and then patting ourselves on the back for taking in the message of GOSH LOOK HOW AWFUL VIOLENCE IS after we've spent several hours or days being rewarded for committing or that violence in-game.
Hotline Miami, at least, doesn't chide the player for it (or commend the player for feeling rilly sorry for it, well after the fact); one of the first scenes in the game is a blunt admission that, yes, you (the protagonist and the player) do like hurting people, or else you wouldn't play this kind of game in the first place
except that Tomb Raider is differing from these other games in that this time the horrifically painful violence is all being visited in Lara herself, not on her enemies. she's killing loads of enemies but after the first one it's all the 10xHEADSHOT COMBO +100 XP type of videogame killing, not even making a token effort to elicit the "wow that was a really awful murder I feel bad about that" kind of reaction. and from what i've seen of actual gameplay footage, these super-visceral injuries that Lara is taking don't seem to be stopping her from platforming all over the place; not thirty seconds after taking a spike of jagged metal through her side, she's clambering over cliffs and crates with as much ease as ever. kind of weird how the game is making a point of inflicting lovingly-rendered crippling injuries solely on our sexy barely-legal protagonist in cutscenes when these injuries have no bearing on the gameplay or narrative. weird how the game with the female protagonist makes a point of repeatedly, torturously victimizing her even as it builds her up to this awesome ass-kicking tomb raider. the constant scenes of her getting impaled and concussed definitely don't undermine that aspect of her character arc, no sir.
You are talking about two different things here. Stuff like the rebar injury - which is part of the narrative (though not part of the gameplay which I would agree causes a significant dissonance though it's hard to incorporate something like that in a way that makes the gameplay not suck) is not the same as the death sequences.
Now I'm not saying they should be completely divorced from the other, because the totality of the game obviously makes for a cumulative experience - but you also can't divorce from their in game context in an effort to equate them. I've already outlined above why and how I've found that sort of technique effective in other games - so I'll just repeat that I don't feel like those sequences are the sort of piling on that you are describing. (Again with the caveat that I agree that doing it too much or too often would rob them of any initial effectiveness in this regard - but I have not played nor seen enough of the game to give me the impression that that is substantially the case)
Going back to the rebar, from what I understand that happens pretty close to the start of the game as a singular event that serves as a tone setter for the direness of the situation - while I think the rebar is a bit silly considering how easily she shakes it off gameplay wise, it's a justifiable narrative device particularly given that they no doubt want to shed the baggage of the previous games early on.
I don't think not have I seen anything to make me believe that that is simply the first in a series of gruesome injuries put upon the character by the narrative. Unless you again have seen way more of the game than I have and can confirm that Lara ends the game standing top a pile of corpses while literally herself a pile of wounds and shattered limbs I think you are either making a big assumption or over dramatizing your point.
Obviously Lara does go through some other shit in the game (One of the trailers had a pretty cool sequence dealing with exposure to the elements) but I have yet to see anything else like that rebar thing which I think works as a one time thing. If the game turns out to have a dozen of those moments then I will probably feel a lot like you do.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
I don't know why you're looking for a video game of all things to use violence in that fashion
what exactly would you want a game to do with that kind of violence?
and do you really think that the target audience is more likely to take in that violence as "dude that's awful" instead of "dude that's sick! awesome!"?
Well first I don't think anybody who sees the main character spear their throat on a branch and then struggle at the wound with their hands before succumbing to shock/bleeding out and says "dude that's sick! awesome!" is the target audience for anything, except maybe the saw movies
Second, I personally don't enjoy "gritty/realistic" hyper violence. I avoid it in pretty much all media and if this Tomb Raider game has Lara falling on a piece of rebar or something as often as that very early trailer made it seem, then it will not be a game for me regardless of how the narrative employs those situations
But just because it isn't "for me" doesn't mean it cant be well done, and I think I would prefer if most games are well done?
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
I don't know why you're looking for a video game of all things to use violence in that fashion
what exactly would you want a game to do with that kind of violence?
and do you really think that the target audience is more likely to take in that violence as "dude that's awful" instead of "dude that's sick! awesome!"?
Well for one thing, if that didn't exist, what would you have to feel morally and intellectually superior about? Who would you condescend to with straw man arguments?
okay so lets say the Saw franchise is what we don't want the new tomb raider game to be
what is an example of a piece of media that does violence like that "right"?
where its horrible and painful to watch because dying violently is in fact horrible and not because it wants to laugh and call you a pussy when you blanch
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
I don't know why you're looking for a video game of all things to use violence in that fashion
what exactly would you want a game to do with that kind of violence?
and do you really think that the target audience is more likely to take in that violence as "dude that's awful" instead of "dude that's sick! awesome!"?
Your view of both who plays games and of their viability as a storytelling medium both upset me.
-all players who play a game with brutal violence are doing so to crow like frat boys
-violent video games have no worth and any statements they make are sophomoric
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
]kind of weird how the game is making a point of inflicting lovingly-rendered crippling injuries solely on our sexy barely-legal protagonist in cutscenes when these injuries have no bearing on the gameplay or narrative. weird how the game with the female protagonist makes a point of repeatedly, torturously victimizing her even as it builds her up to this awesome ass-kicking tomb raider. the constant scenes of her getting impaled and concussed definitely don't undermine that aspect of her character arc, no sir.
kind of like starting a game gut shot and then having nothing come of it.
-all players who play a game with brutal violence are doing so to crow like frat boys
I didn't say that thanks. my totally anecdotal experience suggests that the number of people who play games and are really affected by the violence, even in games where the violence is meant to be affecting, are PROBABLY outnumbered by the people who play games and think that the more over-the-top and/or hardcore the violence is, the more entertaining it is. it's hardly unique to games (I recall former military folks mentioning that their fellows Troops would watch anti-war movies while abroad specifically because "anti-war movies have the best violence"). i'm not entirely sure that the distinction between "brutal" violence and "regular" violence in games is really meaningful; so many games that aren't explicitly cartoonish use bloody violence as a matter of course, to the extent that what passes for "non-brutal" violence in a game would be pretty explicit for a movie.
-violent video games have no worth and any statements they make are sophomoric
yeah, that's not what I said at all. like, I specifically mentioned Hotline Miami as a game that uses violence to make a statement in the very posts you're kvetching about here, so I'm not even sure how you could get that I'm arguing this at all. most games that have recently tried to use violence to make a statement have failed to do so meaningfully not because games can't do so, but because the execution was carried out poorly: Spec Ops railroads you through horrific setpieces and then chides you for taking the only possible option in the game, and Far Cry 3 wants to have its cake and eat it too regarding the role of violence, among other things, in the game. even in the rare game whose writing is actually capable of dealing with violence in a mature fashion, there are still plenty of other cooks handling the broth before it's served. the role and presentation of violence in Rhianna Pratchett's script may have very little to do with the role and presentation of violence in the game as it actually plays, even if the dialogue and story structure laid out in the script are 100% unchanged.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
Well, going by what I've read and heard women talk about when discussing writing female characters in games, and more generally going by what I've heard female acquaintances talk about when discussing writing female characters in other media, "female characters written by women get altered by male producers/directors to be more in line with men's expectations of what women are like" is not exactly uncommon. Maybe Tomb Raider 2K13 is an exception and all the "Lara gets buffeted around willy-nilly" and "Lara is grabbed/pinned down by dudes" scenes are taken directly from the script, and weren't added by dudes who wanted to underline Lara's femaleness vulnerability. I wouldn't doubt that Cutscene Lara, who is deeply affected by taking a human life for the first time, was taken mostly from the script, and Gameplay Lara, who shoots and kills a half-dozen more dudes within ten minutes of that happening, wasn't.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
I mean, yeah, he's talking about his impressions from what he's seen of the game, and in context of the medium as a whole, but... if you can point to one of the MANY games featuring a male protagonist that treats violence inflicted upon him, and violence inflicted BY him on others in that same way, I'm interested. I don't really see many games that do it, let alone games that are specifically marketed with that tact front and center.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
Well, going by what I've read and heard women talk about when discussing writing female characters in games, and more generally going by what I've heard female acquaintances talk about when discussing writing female characters in other media, "female characters written by women get altered by male producers/directors to be more in line with men's expectations of what women are like" is not exactly uncommon. Maybe Tomb Raider 2K13 is an exception and all the "Lara gets buffeted around willy-nilly" and "Lara is grabbed/pinned down by dudes" scenes are taken directly from the script, and weren't added by dudes who wanted to underline Lara's femaleness vulnerability. I wouldn't doubt that Cutscene Lara, who is deeply affected by taking a human life for the first time, was taken mostly from the script, and Gameplay Lara, who shoots and kills a half-dozen more dudes within ten minutes of that happening, wasn't.
So without playing the game, your problems with the game are based entirely on things outside of it. Got it.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
Well, going by what I've read and heard women talk about when discussing writing female characters in games, and more generally going by what I've heard female acquaintances talk about when discussing writing female characters in other media, "female characters written by women get altered by male producers/directors to be more in line with men's expectations of what women are like" is not exactly uncommon. Maybe Tomb Raider 2K13 is an exception and all the "Lara gets buffeted around willy-nilly" and "Lara is grabbed/pinned down by dudes" scenes are taken directly from the script, and weren't added by dudes who wanted to underline Lara's femaleness vulnerability. I wouldn't doubt that Cutscene Lara, who is deeply affected by taking a human life for the first time, was taken mostly from the script, and Gameplay Lara, who shoots and kills a half-dozen more dudes within ten minutes of that happening, wasn't.
So without playing the game, your problems with the game are based entirely on things outside of it. Got it.
He's interpreting what information we've seen of the game, seeing as how none of us have played it yet.
We're discussing our impressions of the game and how that's influencing our reaction to the media/marketing surrounding the game and our decisions to purchase or not purchase it.
Reducing his part of the discussion doesn't help anything, you're just creating antagonism where people are just trying to discuss. What's being presented to us is usually all we have to discuss until the game is actually in our hands, so what's the harm in talking about it?
I don't disagree with a lot of his premise but either he's seen way more of the game than I have or he's making some serious extrapolations from existing preview footage because a Lara "constantly rendered helpless" does not really jive with what I've seen of and heard about the game.
As for games that treat their male protagonists with that level of extremity I again point to the Dead Space series. It's not quite analogous because as discussed earlier in the thread Isaac is more of a silent protagonist in the first game and while 2 does a very credible job of fleshing him out he has already been through this shit once before at that point. (Though its worth nothing that he spends pretty much the entire 2nd game as a barely sane, hallucinating wreck of a man, because the first game essentially broke him. He starts the 2nd committed to a mental ward.)
Max Payne 3 is another recent example off the top of my head that really goes out of its way to take a shit on its protagonist, though its weighted far more to emotional maiming than physical.
I haven't played it but I've heard that Far Cry 3 tries to take some similar approaches in regards to turning its everyman hero into a competent killer, but most people seem to agree that being a case where it didn't quite work.
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
I mean, yeah, he's talking about his impressions from what he's seen of the game, and in context of the medium as a whole, but... if you can point to one of the MANY games featuring a male protagonist that treats violence inflicted upon him, and violence inflicted BY him on others in that same way, I'm interested. I don't really see many games that do it, let alone games that are specifically marketed with that tact front and center.
Far cry 3 just came out, and while it fails at actually portraying this through mechanics (for the same reason any action game that features this fails, in that it isn't fun to be hindered by mechanics), the opening dialogue of the game and opening scene spends just as much time as Brad described in Tomb Raider having the main character break down over having to be violent. He has dialogue that talks about being disgusted, spends the tutorial freaking out and almost crying, and even takes time during later game instances commenting on his disgust.
I don't disagree with a lot of his premise but either he's seen way more of the game than I have or he's making some serious extrapolations from existing preview footage because a Lara "constantly rendered helpless" does not really jive with what I've seen of and heard about the game.
As for games that treat their male protagonists with that level of extremity I again point to the Dead Space series. It's not quite analogous because as discussed earlier in the thread Isaac is more of a silent protagonist in the first game and while 2 does a very credible job of fleshing him out he has already been through this shit once before at that point. (Though its worth nothing that he spends pretty much the entire 2nd game as a barely sane, hallucinating wreck of a man, because the first game essentially broke him. He starts the 2nd committed to a mental ward.)
Max Payne 3 is another recent example off the top of my head that really goes out of its way to take a shit on its protagonist, though its weighted far more to emotional maiming than physical.
I haven't played it but I've heard that Far Cry 3 tries to take some similar approaches in regards to turning its everyman hero into a competent killer, but most people seem to agree that being a case where it didn't quite work.
Posts
nope no fuck that nevermind
One of exactly two times I have jumped out of my chair because of a game
but I'm still very much not a fan
I think ever since the bit with injecting into Scully's eye in the X-Files
Yeah okay, we are on pretty much the same page
I am squeamish about it but I mean that's why the sequence works. Granted the tone of a straight up horror game lends itself more to that kind of thing.
I actually really liked that errant signal(?) video that deconstructed hotline miami's thesis as being "this is gross and violent but it's fun so who cares"
okay, you're making a game where if I, the player, make a mistake, then I am forced to watch a scene in which a realistically rendered character undergoes a graphically depicted scene of brutal, painful death
why would I want to play this game again?
I'm not saying it's arbitrary that some violent images will turn off some people while others won't. Blake and Nuzak are both making arbitrary and anecdotal decisions that somehow the past two years have seen an uptick in violent video games. That's not true at all. They're just picking games at random and saying "look, games didn't used to be like this"
Yes, they did. Ever since people have been able to render things in a 3d environment, there has been no end to violent video games.
Because some people enjoy horror/survival stories. You don't. That's ok.
People play games for different experiences. I like games that have sufficient palpable tension to the point where I have the controller in a white knuckle grip. That is part of the appeal of say the dead space franchise for me, and things like those intense death sequences can be pretty effective in increasing that sensation, a literal fear of failure if they are implemented correctly.
I don't know if they fit well into this game, but I think that's the idea behind them in other games that have done similar things.
I think I've mentioned it before but my thumbs were literally trembling against the sticks while doing the eye poke sequence in Dead Space 2, and it's the most memorable part of one of my favorite games ever.
The marketing for the game has suggested a level of realism/violence that was probably not what people would have assumed for Tomb Raider, yes.
But I honestly think the most significant part here for the people who are being put off this game is that the more extreme stuff that we have seen (the river/pole/neck thing, seems to be the go-to) has been seen completely without context. It's just Lara getting her ass handed to her, or being brutally killed by something as simple as hitting left when you should have hit right.
Without playing the actual game and seeing the larger picture (if there even is one) it's just the brutalization of the protagonist. Your avatar in the story of the game. The person you're supposed to control and empathize with. If people are reacting to that in a negative fashion, I'm just not that surprised.
I specifically referenced Dead Space 1, because I haven't played the sequels. But my point was, for me, the horrible shit that happens to Isaac is tempered by the fact that it's a horror game with nightmare creatures attacking you on the regular, and for the most part, he's a silent protagonist in a full-body suit of space armor with an arsenal of weapons to protect himself. That (again, for me) places the graphic stuff that happens in that game on a different level than something like this Lara business.
I'm not saying you have to feel the same. I'm just saying how I feel, and how I think some of the other people in here who are being turned off to the game might be feeling.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
That was part of my point. Violence has been a part of games always, not just in the 3D era. There are some violent-ass NES games.
I think the important distinction is the way that violence is depicted. And the more realistic, the more people are going to have a problem with it. And in cases like this, when the horrible violence is happening to your avatar in the game, the person you are responsible for, the character you're rooting for, I'd argue that it affects some people more than when that same violence is being inflicted by the character.
When Manhunt came out, it was terrifically violent for its time, and still is in some respects. But now you're getting games where that type of ultraviolence can be represented in even more realistic ways, and in this case on your own character for making as little a mistake as flicking an analog stick the wrong way. It's a pretty brutal thing. I guess I just can't really blame anyone for singling this out as "over the line" on their personal spectrum.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
For what it's worth, you can read my last few posts. While I personally don't condemn Tomb Raider for what I've seen so far, I'm trying to explain why I am receiving it differently than I received Dead Space, for example.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
Female protagonist.
That's what I was figuring.
To be completely honest, I would be kidding myself if I tried to rule this out as one reason that it affects me more.
I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's true. But it's not the only reason, or even a major one.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
Well Resident Evil games have had female protagonists, but this game already had a bullseye on its back because of some of the supremely gross shit one of the people promoting the game said about its female protagonist a while back. (Comments which from what I've seen of the way the game is presented thankfully feel like bullshit).
maybe, just throwing this out there, maybe a video game that isn't gross violence porn could not do that kind of violence at all
especially not in a (probably unskippable) cutscene of the player dying as a result of failing one of a sequence of QTEs, a cutscene that you're probably going to see several times in rapid succession over the course of your first run through the game
i really do not get this sophomoric obsession with wallowing in lovingly-rendered, increasingly "realistic" ultraviolence and then patting ourselves on the back for taking in the message of GOSH LOOK HOW AWFUL VIOLENCE IS after we've spent several hours or days being rewarded for committing or that violence in-game.
Hotline Miami, at least, doesn't chide the player for it (or commend the player for feeling rilly sorry for it, well after the fact); one of the first scenes in the game is a blunt admission that, yes, you (the protagonist and the player) do like hurting people, or else you wouldn't play this kind of game in the first place
except that Tomb Raider is differing from these other games in that this time the horrifically painful violence is all being visited in Lara herself, not on her enemies. she's killing loads of enemies but after the first one it's all the 10xHEADSHOT COMBO +100 XP type of videogame killing, not even making a token effort to elicit the "wow that was a really awful murder I feel bad about that" kind of reaction. and from what i've seen of actual gameplay footage, these super-visceral injuries that Lara is taking don't seem to be stopping her from platforming all over the place; not thirty seconds after taking a spike of jagged metal through her side, she's clambering over cliffs and crates with as much ease as ever. kind of weird how the game is making a point of inflicting lovingly-rendered crippling injuries solely on our sexy barely-legal protagonist in cutscenes when these injuries have no bearing on the gameplay or narrative. weird how the game with the female protagonist makes a point of repeatedly, torturously victimizing her even as it builds her up to this awesome ass-kicking tomb raider. the constant scenes of her getting impaled and concussed definitely don't undermine that aspect of her character arc, no sir.
Female protagonist, partially.
But because it's not an M rated, hardcore, fucked up violence series...until now.
I think people would be up in arms, maybe not as much because the devs probably wouldn't say something about "protecting," if Uncharted 4 went the survival, Descent route and not the Indiana Jones route.
If Drake went from wiseacre fun guy to dude who when you miss a jump, falls and dashes his brains out on the ground or loses at combat and gets a graphic close up of his neck being stabbed 7 times...yeah, people would complain.
It's understandable, to a certain level, I think.
For myself in particular, and I assume many other people, the fact that this game has a female protagonist throws up a lot of red flags that wouldn't get raised by other graphically violent games that have a male lead character. Like, I can't help it, that is how "media where horrible violent shit happens to a lone average woman" makes me feel.
This combined with some spectacularly poor early interviews/trailers/PR work really created a steep hill for the game and its developers to climb in order to be acceptable product
However I am hopeful that it will "get it right" and if I try and divorce myself from that earlier feeling it looks like it could
So I'll wait and see
As for the early PR stuff, that I do understand, but I thought that this was already covered for the most part.
I fully expect to find this game to be awesome.
But I feel like the insta-death head impalings and whatever else this game has in store for players who might not be great at QTE sequences might undermine that a bit.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
Well yeah sure it could
But if it did that sort of violence and still had an interesting narrative and solid gameplay that could also be good?
I don't know why you're looking for a video game of all things to use violence in that fashion
what exactly would you want a game to do with that kind of violence?
and do you really think that the target audience is more likely to take in that violence as "dude that's awful" instead of "dude that's sick! awesome!"?
You are talking about two different things here. Stuff like the rebar injury - which is part of the narrative (though not part of the gameplay which I would agree causes a significant dissonance though it's hard to incorporate something like that in a way that makes the gameplay not suck) is not the same as the death sequences.
Now I'm not saying they should be completely divorced from the other, because the totality of the game obviously makes for a cumulative experience - but you also can't divorce from their in game context in an effort to equate them. I've already outlined above why and how I've found that sort of technique effective in other games - so I'll just repeat that I don't feel like those sequences are the sort of piling on that you are describing. (Again with the caveat that I agree that doing it too much or too often would rob them of any initial effectiveness in this regard - but I have not played nor seen enough of the game to give me the impression that that is substantially the case)
Going back to the rebar, from what I understand that happens pretty close to the start of the game as a singular event that serves as a tone setter for the direness of the situation - while I think the rebar is a bit silly considering how easily she shakes it off gameplay wise, it's a justifiable narrative device particularly given that they no doubt want to shed the baggage of the previous games early on.
I don't think not have I seen anything to make me believe that that is simply the first in a series of gruesome injuries put upon the character by the narrative. Unless you again have seen way more of the game than I have and can confirm that Lara ends the game standing top a pile of corpses while literally herself a pile of wounds and shattered limbs I think you are either making a big assumption or over dramatizing your point.
Obviously Lara does go through some other shit in the game (One of the trailers had a pretty cool sequence dealing with exposure to the elements) but I have yet to see anything else like that rebar thing which I think works as a one time thing. If the game turns out to have a dozen of those moments then I will probably feel a lot like you do.
Well first I don't think anybody who sees the main character spear their throat on a branch and then struggle at the wound with their hands before succumbing to shock/bleeding out and says "dude that's sick! awesome!" is the target audience for anything, except maybe the saw movies
Second, I personally don't enjoy "gritty/realistic" hyper violence. I avoid it in pretty much all media and if this Tomb Raider game has Lara falling on a piece of rebar or something as often as that very early trailer made it seem, then it will not be a game for me regardless of how the narrative employs those situations
But just because it isn't "for me" doesn't mean it cant be well done, and I think I would prefer if most games are well done?
Well for one thing, if that didn't exist, what would you have to feel morally and intellectually superior about? Who would you condescend to with straw man arguments?
What a dismal reality for you.
Your view of both who plays games and of their viability as a storytelling medium both upset me.
-all players who play a game with brutal violence are doing so to crow like frat boys
-violent video games have no worth and any statements they make are sophomoric
-violence against a female protagonist is done specifically because she is a woman.
kind of like starting a game gut shot and then having nothing come of it.
I didn't say that thanks. my totally anecdotal experience suggests that the number of people who play games and are really affected by the violence, even in games where the violence is meant to be affecting, are PROBABLY outnumbered by the people who play games and think that the more over-the-top and/or hardcore the violence is, the more entertaining it is. it's hardly unique to games (I recall former military folks mentioning that their fellows Troops would watch anti-war movies while abroad specifically because "anti-war movies have the best violence"). i'm not entirely sure that the distinction between "brutal" violence and "regular" violence in games is really meaningful; so many games that aren't explicitly cartoonish use bloody violence as a matter of course, to the extent that what passes for "non-brutal" violence in a game would be pretty explicit for a movie.
yeah, that's not what I said at all. like, I specifically mentioned Hotline Miami as a game that uses violence to make a statement in the very posts you're kvetching about here, so I'm not even sure how you could get that I'm arguing this at all. most games that have recently tried to use violence to make a statement have failed to do so meaningfully not because games can't do so, but because the execution was carried out poorly: Spec Ops railroads you through horrific setpieces and then chides you for taking the only possible option in the game, and Far Cry 3 wants to have its cake and eat it too regarding the role of violence, among other things, in the game. even in the rare game whose writing is actually capable of dealing with violence in a mature fashion, there are still plenty of other cooks handling the broth before it's served. the role and presentation of violence in Rhianna Pratchett's script may have very little to do with the role and presentation of violence in the game as it actually plays, even if the dialogue and story structure laid out in the script are 100% unchanged.
the way the game treats Lara's relationship with violence, both on the giving and receiving ends of it, is kind of unique in games, and I don't doubt that it's because of her gender. Lara is constantly being tossed around or generally rendered helpless both by human antagonists and by the environment, and she's so personally affected by committing violence herself that she dry-heaves on killing for the first time and apologizes to an animal for shooting it. maybe a game with a male protagonist and a similar narrative thrust would still go to these lengths to make the violence more personal and more affecting, but I somehow doubt it.
I think that you feel this way says a lot more about your attitude towards women than the games. You don't offer any evidence here beyond that you "don't doubt it". That's your view coloring the action of the game, and condemning it because of what you yourself are bringing to the plot and action.
Well, going by what I've read and heard women talk about when discussing writing female characters in games, and more generally going by what I've heard female acquaintances talk about when discussing writing female characters in other media, "female characters written by women get altered by male producers/directors to be more in line with men's expectations of what women are like" is not exactly uncommon. Maybe Tomb Raider 2K13 is an exception and all the "Lara gets buffeted around willy-nilly" and "Lara is grabbed/pinned down by dudes" scenes are taken directly from the script, and weren't added by dudes who wanted to underline Lara's femaleness vulnerability. I wouldn't doubt that Cutscene Lara, who is deeply affected by taking a human life for the first time, was taken mostly from the script, and Gameplay Lara, who shoots and kills a half-dozen more dudes within ten minutes of that happening, wasn't.
I mean, yeah, he's talking about his impressions from what he's seen of the game, and in context of the medium as a whole, but... if you can point to one of the MANY games featuring a male protagonist that treats violence inflicted upon him, and violence inflicted BY him on others in that same way, I'm interested. I don't really see many games that do it, let alone games that are specifically marketed with that tact front and center.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
So without playing the game, your problems with the game are based entirely on things outside of it. Got it.
He's interpreting what information we've seen of the game, seeing as how none of us have played it yet.
We're discussing our impressions of the game and how that's influencing our reaction to the media/marketing surrounding the game and our decisions to purchase or not purchase it.
Reducing his part of the discussion doesn't help anything, you're just creating antagonism where people are just trying to discuss. What's being presented to us is usually all we have to discuss until the game is actually in our hands, so what's the harm in talking about it?
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
As for games that treat their male protagonists with that level of extremity I again point to the Dead Space series. It's not quite analogous because as discussed earlier in the thread Isaac is more of a silent protagonist in the first game and while 2 does a very credible job of fleshing him out he has already been through this shit once before at that point. (Though its worth nothing that he spends pretty much the entire 2nd game as a barely sane, hallucinating wreck of a man, because the first game essentially broke him. He starts the 2nd committed to a mental ward.)
Max Payne 3 is another recent example off the top of my head that really goes out of its way to take a shit on its protagonist, though its weighted far more to emotional maiming than physical.
I haven't played it but I've heard that Far Cry 3 tries to take some similar approaches in regards to turning its everyman hero into a competent killer, but most people seem to agree that being a case where it didn't quite work.
Far cry 3 just came out, and while it fails at actually portraying this through mechanics (for the same reason any action game that features this fails, in that it isn't fun to be hindered by mechanics), the opening dialogue of the game and opening scene spends just as much time as Brad described in Tomb Raider having the main character break down over having to be violent. He has dialogue that talks about being disgusted, spends the tutorial freaking out and almost crying, and even takes time during later game instances commenting on his disgust.
As for games that treat their male protagonists with that level of extremity I again point to the Dead Space series. It's not quite analogous because as discussed earlier in the thread Isaac is more of a silent protagonist in the first game and while 2 does a very credible job of fleshing him out he has already been through this shit once before at that point. (Though its worth nothing that he spends pretty much the entire 2nd game as a barely sane, hallucinating wreck of a man, because the first game essentially broke him. He starts the 2nd committed to a mental ward.)
Max Payne 3 is another recent example off the top of my head that really goes out of its way to take a shit on its protagonist, though its weighted far more to emotional maiming than physical.
I haven't played it but I've heard that Far Cry 3 tries to take some similar approaches in regards to turning its everyman hero into a competent killer, but most people seem to agree that being a case where it didn't quite work.