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Can Games Make You Cry?

Posted by Zonk on Thu Jul 27, 2006 01:30 PM
from the recently-only-when-patching-doesn't-work dept.
Ground Glass writes "'Can games make you cry?' is a ridiculously simple question to ask about a hideously complex issue. Worse, it's possible that the very question itself muddies the answer. Next Generation's approach is a little more thoughtful; by figuring out what questions each medium tries to answer free of the art issue, it cuts to the heart of what games can do. With the tools made clear, it then theorizes what said tools can do emotionally." From the article: "In film, you can show a character staring at a point before him and then change perspective to show what he was staring at; it is the proximity and timing of the imagery that lends significance to the second shot. In painting, you can play with the two-dimensional space and qualities of the material at hand to create similarly suggestive juxtapositions of imagery, color, symbolism, perspective, lending greater insight into the workings of the medium, the subject at hand, the painter herself, and - ultimately - the viewer and his own perspective on the world around him."
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  • Starfox 64 (Score:4, Funny)

    by ronz0o (889697) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:32PM (#15792480) Homepage
    It was starfox...i was at the end boss...hardest mode...would have unlocked everything......... ...then I died. =(
  • Nothing like seeing a kid not be able to get past a level, and breaking into tears.

    Hell, it happens with adults too. If you've played Battletoads or Ghost and Goblins you know what I mean.
  • One Word... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by poodlehat (919902) <angela.anuszewski @ g m ail.com> on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:34PM (#15792498) Journal
    Aeris.
    • by antifoidulus (807088) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:49PM (#15792681) Homepage Journal
      It's not as emotional, if like me, you named her "ugly slut".....
    • Re:One Word... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Conception (212279) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:52PM (#15792713)
      I have to put my money on Wing Commander 3. When Hobbes betrays you and you see the death scene for Angel... man... I've never been so engulfed by both sadness and rage by fictional characters.
    • Re:One Word... (Score:4, Informative)

      by MuNansen (833037) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:55PM (#15792760)
      Supposedly there's a pretty sad moment in Shadow of the Colossus with the horse.

      And the trailer hints to some loss in HL2: Ep. 2 that could be pretty sad.
    • Re:One Word... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by meanfriend (704312) on Thursday July 27 2006, @02:21PM (#15793016)
      I have to disagree with this example. The whole Aeris thing is a pre-rendered cut scene with no interactivity. It's just a movie and we all know that movies can make people cry.

      The question posed here is can a *game* make you cry. Not a video stuck into the middle of a game, but from the actual gameplay. How many times have you cried while actually playing a game as opposed to sitting there with the controller in your lap watching some CGI whose trigger and resolution you had absolutely no control over? Not many, I'd wager.
      • Re:One Word... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 0racle (667029) on Thursday July 27 2006, @02:42PM (#15793220)
        Hate to break it to you, but simply saying it was a FMV in a game doesn't make it not part of the game. The death of Aeris wouldn't have been important at all if you just saw the cutscene so that wasn't what made it sad. It was all the interactions with the character that made you care about her and then you watched as a giant sword ripped through her.
        • Re:One Word... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Evanisincontrol (830057) on Thursday July 27 2006, @03:09PM (#15793488)
          Half of me wants to agree with you, and the other half wants to disagree.

          Initially, I was on the same train of thought you were on. All the actual in-game interactions develop a sense of connection with the characters, specifically Aeris, who dies, and Cloud, who catches her in his arms when she collapses. Up until this point in the game, you'd played with Cloud as the main character throughout the story (or close to it), and it's almost like you ARE Cloud, watching Aeris die. (stretch your imagination a little, people)

          But on the other hand, how much interaction is there with this game, really? Sure, there's long conversations between the characters, and they go deep into their past... but it's all forced. You don't get to make-up Cloud's past, that he thinks he's a SOLDIER and that he likes Aeris, etc. It's all forced upon you, just as much as the story of any movie is forced upon you. (Exception: You get to "pick" who you're going on a date with in the Golden Saucer. Sort of. Can this be enough to justify a more "connected" feeling with the characters of a game than the characters of a movie? Maybe, in someone's opinion.)

          So what's my point? I don't think I have one, other than to say that I can understand and argue both sides of this debate. In the end, I think it comes down to how much you LET yourself feel like you're part of the world you're playing in. People cry in movies because they let themselves feel like they're in shoes of the person watching their war buddy die, or seeing their true love pass away of cancer, or whatever you cry about when you watch a movie. Just the same, if you feel like you're standing in front of Sephiroth, watching a 7 foot sword stab through a girl you like/love, you are probably more prone to feel emotion than if you think "it's just a game."
      • Good point (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DesireCampbell (923687) <desire.c@gmail.com> on Thursday July 27 2006, @03:34PM (#15793768) Homepage
        That's a good point. Such an event is emotional because you can't control it. That's why people become angry or sad when such things happen in other mediums. You are sad or angry because it 'happened' and you aren't in the frame of mind to think that it can be changed. In a game, you're always thinking about how to 'win'. If something bad happens (like one of your teammates dies) you aren't as effected by it because you are not 'in' the scene like you would be if it was a movie. You are, in a way, 'outside' the scene as an omnipotent observer with the ability to affect the world. Like a god. You have great power over the game's 'world'. You can try and help the characters, and if it doesn't work you can always try again. In a non-interactive medium you cannot do that. You expect that you're able to find some way out of the level with everyone alive. You expect that you'll be able to 'save the world'. In a non-interactive story, you don't expect that, so you don't think in such a way, but in a game you cannot take such consequences as seriously.

        Perhaps games need to evolve into a more 'all or nothing' mindset. Currently all games are based on the idea that you can restart at any time and try again. Maybe the game that finally causes us to evoke major emotions will be one where you can't just 'try it again'. Maybe 'the next great game' will start you on a quest to save the world, give you teammates that you grow to care about, and not let you get them back when they get killed. Imagine playing a game and getting careless and having one of your teammates killed. The emotional impact could cause you to take the consequences of your actions much more seriously. You will start to think about characters as much more human if they stay dead.

        That said, it doesn't mean it's impossible for a current game to evoke such strong emotions - just harder. I was playing 'Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood' some time ago and had grown attached to my squadmates. In one level we were ambushed and one of my men couldn't get to cover fast enough and screamed out as he was riddled with bullets. My heart stuttered and, for a moment, I froze. It wasn't enough to make me cry, and it was only momentary (I reloaded the level and kept him out of harm's way), but I certainly felt a very strong, very real emotional shock.

        Can a game make you cry? Yes. They can, and they will.
  • by krell (896769) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:34PM (#15792504) Journal
    Not if you have the right game coach! [slashdot.org]. "There's no crying in Warcraft!"
  • by DesireCampbell (923687) <desire.c@gmail.com> on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:38PM (#15792554) Homepage
    Games are an art form just like films or books. These other art-forms can instill a wide range of feeling into those playing/watching/reading them. Interactive media has come a long way since it's inception a few short decades ago, and already there are games which can made you happy, excited, they can move you, or they can scare you, some even make you laugh. It stands to reason that a game can make you cry, it's just a matter of "what game", and "when".

  • by Eudial (590661) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:42PM (#15792593)
    PC games series that are adapted to consoles (at the expense of gameplay) make me cry. Deus Ex II for an instance, that made me cry.
  • Of course they can (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cloud K (125581) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:43PM (#15792600) Homepage
    The Final Fantasy series has made me shed tears (however mildly) on a number of occasions. I am a 24 year old male.

    It's difficult to pinpoint what it is, until you turn the sound off. It's the music. I can watch (FF7+10 spoilers) Aerith die and Cloud's reaction, Tidus fading away as Yuna tries to hug him and falls through (end spoilers) without the sound on and barely batter an eyelid. Put the sad music in there and I'm blubbing like a girl. The emotions are there with or without, but the music is like a magnifying glass.

    • by Darth Maul (19860) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:58PM (#15792796) Homepage
      But that's not really a game at that point. It's a rendered movie. You're just watching. So then how is that different from a film that makes you cry?

      That's my big problem with the FF series and games like it; they've become movies. Sure, you can hit a few buttons here and there to make you think you're "playing", but really it's just to get you to the next cut-scene.

      I certainly know that games can frighten. Playing Metroid on my NES in a dark room at midnight finally getting to the Mother Brain freaked me out. 'Course I was ten, but still, that was scary.

    • The Final Fantasy series has made me shed tears (however mildly) on a number of occasions. I am a 24 year old male.

      Thank you for demonstrating the subtle difference between "male" and "man". ;)
  • by eddy (18759) on Thursday July 27 2006, @01:59PM (#15792810) Homepage Journal

    As someone who just completed Planescape: Torment [wikipedia.org] for the first time about an hour ago [klopper.net], I can say YES.

    FFG: "No cage shall separate us, and no Plane shall divide us." Fall-From-Grace's face becomes like stone. "Keep thinking of me, and we shall meet again." TNO: I SHALL NOT FORGET ALL YOU SACRIFICED FOR ME.
    FFG: She shakes her head. "Just do not forget me."
    TNO: TIME LAYS WASTE TO ALL THINGS. BUT I SHALL FIGHT IT AS LONG AS I CAN.
    FFG: "Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

    PS. Best. Game. Evar.

  • How i see games. (Score:3, Interesting)

    I think story-based games are basically movies that give you illusion of control over what happens.
    I think that illusion sort of breaks your identifiability with the character, there sort of an ambiguity for me between me as the character and me as the guy playing the character and i sort of find it easier to identify with a character that's not supposed to be me.

    Examples for games that i can think of right now that stirred emotions for me are:

    Fallout - I remember the end especially, when the hero saves the vault for the second time he is told he can never return to his home because he changed too much and would be a bad influence on the vault dwellers.

    Homeworld - I love it how they added a whole spiritual side to what could have been just a space strategy game, and the music in the second one really contributed to the atmosphere.

    Planescape Torment - The whole "What can change the nature of a man?" theme, search for identity.

    There is a place for games that concentrate on skill developmenet.
    But i think that as a form of art, a story-based game that doesn't stir emotion in you is missing its purpose.

  • by thatguywhoiam (524290) on Thursday July 27 2006, @02:02PM (#15792839)
    Once we get past this 1920-film era of video games, I'm sure we'll have some more emo.
  • Grim Fandango (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nuzak (959558) on Thursday July 27 2006, @02:32PM (#15793119) Journal
    The ending of that ... more of a happy tears thing, but it was so cute. "This little light of mine ... I'm gonna let it shine ..."

    Also the flashback in the sensorium in Torment. And that was just text.

    Serpent Isle was trying to be a tearjerker in the scene where Dupre dies, but since most of my party had died and been resurrected dozens of times before, it's just too hard to get attached. That and LB really just can't write drama (as U9 showed us)

  • That came as close as anything ever would. Very emotional ending (showdown with The Boss).
  • by MarsDude (74832) on Thursday July 27 2006, @04:57PM (#15794578) Homepage
    Sure they can.. depending on how hard it is thrown at you, if the console/pc is still attached, and where it hits you...
    • Re:Can they? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by muellerr1 (868578) on Thursday July 27 2006, @02:47PM (#15793267) Homepage
      If the person holding the camera is that kid's parent, this is unbelievably mean--that kid was clearly traumatized. How messed up do you have to be to do that to your kid? And once you've done it, pass the video around?

      This kind of underscores the link between surprise, fear, and humor. I thought it was pretty funny until the very end. Then I just felt bad for the kid, and kind of angry at the person behind the camera.