Let The Bodies Hit The Floor
by Kat
Grannies... the look innocent but turn your back for one second and they're chucking up the devil signs, plus out of all the colours available to them they only ever wear beige... that's just wrong.
The snapping of sinew. The crimson blood splatters. The intestines spilling onto the ground. The death cries of an enemy.
There is something highly satisfying about wielding a chainsaw in the face of my foe, lopping off limbs or in some cases letting it ride cleanly up their backside leaving two bloody halves at your feet. Sometimes I’ll favour despatching those most deserving using a blade, perhaps a katana or a good old fashioned stabbing frenzy. I struggle with guns. I’m usually incapable of a smooth, skilled headshot instead preferring a lengthy obliteration involving numerous shots to elbows or the groin. Fire gets me cackling with glee, be it igniting a crowd with my Molotov or the bursts of a flame thrower. Then after a long, hard day harassing villagers in Wiltshire I’ll settle down for the night with my Xbox.
I jest. I’ve always relished killing in games but lately I’ve wondered if that’s normal. If perhaps I enjoy it a little too much and if, to my horror, one day I’ll be plastered over the front of The Daily Mail having brutally attacked innocents with a frying pan after an extra long Left 4 Dead 2 session. I am fully aware there is a difference between pixels on a screen and “real life”. I relish watching a zombie horde being blown to smithereens by a pipe bomb, seeing the limbs fly and entrails decorate nearby walls and bushes. That enjoyment fortunately seems to decrease the more realistic the situation. Gore in a movie makes me exclaim “cooooool” but while hiding behind my hands and grimacing. Then in reality a person can come up to me with a paper cut and I’ll run off, screaming in fear of it gaping slightly.
If you can't find a messy enough gun, grab yourself a chainsaw... or... if you've watched enough eppies of Blue Peter you know how easy it is to combine the two with nothing more than some double sided sellotape, a fairy liquid bottle and a couple of bendy straws. Enter the Lancer.
It isn’t the killing in games that makes me concerned for my sanity. There are very few that don’t involve it to some degree or other, especially on consoles. It’s the enjoyment. I struggle to think about when I’ve ever felt a pang of guilt over one of my in-game massacres. The closest would be in Grand Theft Auto when I’m running around the streets knifing passers by. Not for a mission you understand, purely for fun. The wet slushing sound of the repeated stabbings feels more harsh than a swift bullet to the face. Firing rockets from the roof of a skyscraper makes me seem like a hard bastard but plunging my knife into an old lady doddering along with her shopping does make me feel slightly ashamed. I wondered if I was alone in feeling this way.
Colonel Sanders had the right idea... guns, neck wringing, even dropping concrete slabs on them... it all results in the same Rorschach art.
I decided to quiz twenty-five of my gaming friends about their attitudes to death and killing in games. Similar responses came back from most. It isn’t the actual death of the enemy that causes joy for many but the skill behind it. That death is the payoff for patiently lining up a headshot, perfecting a technique, surviving to the next checkpoint. It’s a sense of accomplishment. Guilt seems to rarely be a factor but when it is it’s from games that can immerse you more deeply, where you are likely to grow fond of characters or be forced into difficult decisions. Titles that often cropped up included Oblivion, Fallout 3, The Sims and Fable II. Any guilt however stopped there. Almost everyone was happy to kill innocent characters and heaven help any animals in games. You’re all running about ecstatically shooting, clubbing and kicking anything that moves – rabbits, squirrels and seal pups included. Chickens fare the worst, being annihilated in Modern Warfare 2, Risen and Fable II.
The results made me rethink my approach to death in games. Perhaps my happiness actually comes from the confirmation of my proficiency as opposed to the visceral gore after all? Could it be I overlooked the gratification pulling off a sublime shot?
No.
Turns out I still just like killing stuff.
Out of everyone I quizzed only two shared exactly the same views as me. No guilt, “yes please” to lots of gore and a general love of mindless carnage with minimal thought to the skill involved. If that makes me ever-so-slightly psychotic then so be it but as long as these homicidal urges stay firmly in the imaginary world of games then I think I’m safe from the men in white coats and the long arm of the law
Last five articles by Kat
- Falling For Fallout?
- I MAED A P0ST WITH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!1
- One Girl, Two Pads
- The Gaming Closet
- 24 Hours In Reach
If your killing spree only happens in games, yet you’re going to a gaming convention in May, is that blurring the lines too closely?
All your zombie killing, pedestrian runnin’ downin’, chainsawing antics are all understandable in the games you are playing. However, to be sitting idly by watching friends complete a challenge only to be nudged off a cliff by Peggles, well that’s just evil. I’m telling Jack Thompson about you. :p
I think anyone that does feel guilty committing virtual murder is probably lying. It’s fun, lots of fun and we all need to be far more creative in how we go about it
What a lovely read Kat, I can go to bed now
“…when I’m running around the streets knifing passers by. Not for a mission you understand, purely for fun. The wet slushing sound of the repeated stabbings feels more harsh than a swift bullet to the face.”
Unfortunately, I think the Joker from Batman had exactly the same views as you regarding killing things up close and personal with sharp objects. It’s just a few steps from doing it online to putting on clown facepaint, hehheh.
I very occasionally feel guilty. I remember having problems playing Soldier of Fortune, until someone pointed out that generally speaking, showing terrorists mercy is asking for trouble, and they kind of deserve it if you fling a knife into the back of their skulls, or blow their nuts off with a shotgun when they’re waving a machine gun in the face of some innocent granny, or planting a bomb on a train.
It’s why now when I play shooting games, I like to be a sniper class. You can do it from far away, it’s impersonal, and takes a lot of skill, so you can concentrate on the feeling of “fuck yeah, I totally nailed that guy in the eye from a mile away, that’s really hard”, instead of “I am a monster, I just killed a bunch of pixels, what have I become?”
Really? You don’t enjoy the up close and personal Preach? I’ve never known a more satisfying feeling than the CS Knife kill or the TF2 Baseball Bat/Whiskey Bottle. Knowing you could get that close and still get the kill I’ve always found to be far more spiritually rewarding than the long range kill.
We’re all crazy in our own little ways I suppose
P.S -Totally Lied about going to bed. Naughty me.
This blog scares me. Kat knows the city I live in. Even though she goes to great pains to show she knows the difference between pixels and people, I am not sure. This reads like an FBI profile.
/prays.
lol @ the tags “mutant granny devil”
For *now* I’m okay but sure, watch your backs people. The May Expo is a way off so I may have turned into a fully fledged psycho by then and Van, a flight to Glasgow is easily arranged, that’s all I’m saying
My current means of destruction are “a big fuck off sword” in Darksiders and explosions in Just Cause 2. Ooo the pretty pretty fire!
Ah the knife kill in CS:Source Gungame…. such a sublime moment when your victim screams at you for losing a level
I enjoy a mix of the two skills I guess… I can marvel at a long range headshot as well as a brawler! Close in killing can be frantic though so the adrenalin pumps
I may have to hide my cat if Kat visits though lol
Hmm… I’m going to be at an expo in May… surely not the MCM one? Please don’t kill everyone. I need to come home and brag about how I’ve been as far away as London. Blow the tiny minds of everyone else in Cornwall.
Those who come from here originally and didn’t move down here from London that is.
Keep your knife kills, chaps. Any nutter can run up and stab someone. I can shoot a fly at a mile and a half with a good sniper rifle.
Im a little scared Kat. When you hit me with that bus the other day i thought it was just some fun, but your clearly mental.
Ban this sick filth.
Kat… that first paragraph was terrifying… I’ve never heard you sound so dark and sinister before… It’s genuinely frightening. o.o
Umm guys? Can I hear the clicking of me being rapidly deleted from friends lists? :/
Really enjoyed this piece. Nothing more than a good blade for a bit of close up Ultraviolence. I also enjoyed the garrotte wire in Hitman…and the garden shears, kitchen knives, etc. I take pleasure in kills especially when they feel justified. Taking Hitman: Blood Money as a prime example, the kills were very satisfying.
All of the intended targets deserved it in some way, whether they were murderers, perverts, drug barons, etc. Also, the way in which you coud dispatch your targets was entirely up to you, and this free rein over how to kill was a welcome breath of fresh air, making the kills far more enjoyable. When you have to be devious or inventive, the act is always more fun. Shooting a glass ceiling over a swimming pool and watching the shards rain down and kill a drunk woman like something out of ‘The Hand That Rocked the Cradle’ was as interesting as tampering with a patient’s home-made cooker so it fried him….and don’t get me started on poisoning a wedding cake…
I used to be a sniper. I loved watching heads come off at a point on the map that seemed to far away to be realistic. I still love that aspect of gameplay but, very recently, I’ve started to just grap my repeater and stand in front of the most brutish character I can find and shoot the hell out of his face until he’s no more. There’s something to be said for being stealthy enough to place yourself in the middle of the enemy and then suddenly let loose on them.. moreso than taking them out from a distance. Each requires a high degree of accuracy, albeit one with a weapon and the other with the feet.
In reality though, I’d likely never opt for such tactics.
I loved this piece though, made me laugh several times during the first read, then again during the layout and sourcing images… and again today. There’s nothing like carnage and destruction to put a smile on my face when I need to work through the weekend… a long holiday weekend at that.
Every time I look at that first picture of the old lady, I think she’s giving the finger…