Eight Video Game Kills that Made Me Feel Guilty in Freestyle Unrhymed Poetry

ByPaul Posted on

tiger2

Video games may not desensitize us to killing the real world, but the virtual one? Absolutely. When 90% of games have you killing things at all times, it’s bound to happen.But we don’t mourn for those fallen soldiers we gun down in Call of Duty or Covenant we blast apart in Halo. They had it coming. They deserved it.

That’s not always the case though. Sometimes, you feel bad about killing an enemy in a game. “Enemy” might not even be the right term much of the time. I don’t know why, but I decided the best format for this post would be eight odes of freestyle unrhymed poetry, dedicated to each of the fallen. Read on to see what I mean.

Beaver (Assassin’s Creed 3)

beaver

Little beaver

I’m sorry you don’t have teeth like the cougar

I’m sorry you don’t have claws like the bear

I’m sorry you’re not fast like the rabbit

I’m sorry you’re not sneaky like the raccoon

But you’re pudgy and slow and your fur is worth its weight in gold

I hope you didn’t feel my blade

I hope there’s a heaven for beavers

Giant (Skyrim)

giant

You were so brave

The dragon was chasing me

And I happened to run into your camp

You leapt at the chance to defend your mammoths

The dragon’s flame seared your flesh, but you were undeterred

I shot arrows from a far, letting you soak up claws and teeth

We took it down together, you and I

But your tiny brain couldn’t grasp the concept

You saw me there, bow in hand

I don’t want your mammoths

Don’t charge at me

Please

We made a great team you and I

Even if you didn’t know it

The mammoths still visit the site where you fell to my bow

They miss you

So do I

Machop – Pokemon

machop

Many Pokemon are cute

This much I know

But there’s something that bothers me about Machop

He’s human, almost

Not quite, but close enough

And he’s so young. He doesn’t look more than six or seven

Too young to be enslaved and fight

Too young to be burned by fire or frozen by ice

Why is it that he should fight

And we should not?

Because he can only say his name?

Perhaps

But I bet he has hopes, dreams he can’t express

But we’ll never know

“Machop! Machop!”

I can see the pain in his eyes

Tiger (Far Cry 3)

tiger

Hey friend

Remember that time

When the bad pirates had you locked up

And I set you free and you ate all of them?

I laughed and laughed in the bushes

But then you saw me

And you didn’t know it was me who set you free

You leapt

I shot

Goodbye friend

I wish things could have been different

Big Daddy (Bioshock)

big daddy

The metal behemoth bellows

I rage and unload bullets and fire

Why does he fight so fiercely?

What monster lurks within that suit?

The battle is won

His armor a tomb

What’s this?

A little girl?

You were protecting her

I didn’t know

I’m sorry

I would have done the same

Should some stranger approach

I’ll protect her now

I promise

Teemo (League of Legends)

teemo

Little Teemo

How did you get here?

This is a battlefield for gods and demons, conquerors and kings

You are so tiny

What are you?

A badger?

A badger in a bunny suit?

I don’t understand

Why should you face off against such foes who tower above you?

But then you shoot me in the eye with a dart

And I step on your poison mushrooms

And I remember why I want you dead

Kaiden (Mass Effect)

kaiden

I didn’t know it would be a choice

When I sent you on that mission on Virmire

You seemed like a nice enough guy

I’m sorry I let you die

Maybe we could have been friends

And explored the stars together

Fought Collectors and Geth and Reapers

Laughed with Mordin and Wrex and Garrus

Saved the entire galaxy

But I really wanted to bang Ashley

And I didn’t feel the same about you

Koopas (Super Mario Bros.)

koopa

Little turtles

Walking around

Not ghosts, not goombas, not bullets, not booms, not piranha plants

Just little turtles

Walking around

I wonder if Bowser is so mad

Because I’ve been killing his children

Little turtles

Walking around

I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point.

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25 Comments

  1. Great post. Especially about Kaiden, I completely forgot about that dude because I made the same decision you did. How does the story even turn out if you let him live?? I don’t want to play all three again with that scenario.

    I also felt bad for ODST and regular marines in Halo. You keep them alive on your tank or some other way for so long, then bam, they’re dead.

    I’m pretty sure there is something similar to Skyrim in Fallout 3 or New Vegas, but I can’t put my finger on it.

    However, the grandaddy of them all is command and conquer or other RTS games where you bottom of the barrel infantry unit ranks up, becomes a super badass, then he dies, ouch.

  2. All of the Colossi from “Shadow of the Colossus” for me. I guess you were meant to feel bad about taking them down, but damn, they did a good job of it.

  4. @Michael

    I felt really bad killing Benny in New Vegas. Not because I liked him. Not because I thought he could be an asset later in the game. Nope I read all I could about the game prior to release, I knew how much work Matt Perry had put in, and having only heard maybe 5 lines of dialogue from Benny I felt killing him was an injustice to all the work Perry put in.

  6. I’m playing ME right now as femshep and it’s getting close to the time where I have to choose between Kaiden and Ashley. I like Ashley a lot more and was going to chose her, but I was just forced to reject Kaiden because I’m romancing Liara and I feel like Killing him now is just plain wrong.”Oh you thought we had something? Man I care so little about you I’m going to blow you the hell up”

  9. More like this please! I very much prefer stuff like this to bland, forced reviews. And not only was Ashley hotter than Kaiden, she was a beast in combat to boot. I wonder what kinds of times I missed with the poor guy in ME2 and 3. Must play again and restrain myself from sending him to his death again.

  10. Shooting Mordin in the back in ME3 when I did a renegade play through was seriously depressing. I never gave Kaiden a second thought…he was a putz.

  13. You shouldn’t feel bad for killing Teemo. Teemo is a sociopathic monster. Lorewise he’s one of, if not the most efficient assassin in the game.

    “Teemo rides a thin line between chipper compatriot and unrepentant killer”
    — Tristana

  14. I actually felt pretty empty after killing Priscilla in Dark Souls. I didn’t realize I didn’t have to kill her, but once I initiated it, I couldn’t take it back. The poor girl…dragon…thing just wanted to be left alone, and I unknowingly wanted to be a jerk. As it turns out, my character is a ruthless bastard. Plus the atmosphere of the fight made it feel even more tragic. However, as sad as I was, I had to celebrate her death because it meant victory for me, which may or may not have involved a teary-eyed fist pump.

  15. Mine are a few.

    – I NEVER accept Giant Killing quests in Skyrim. Dudes are just trying to live their lives and want to be left alone. I think somehow the game knows where I stand too because I’ve encountered giants that never even gave me a second look. Seriously. I’ve walked right up to some and they never get pissy with me.

    – I hate killing Big Daddies. Poor bastards never chose that life.

    But for me the worst isn’t random NPC-ish enemies, no. The worst for me is when video games trick you into doing something horrible. I can tell you all two games I put down and never played again after they emotionally traumatized me. And yes, I know this might make me seem too sensitive, but I have fibromyalgia and I’m in constant excruciating pain, which makes it very hard to restrain my emotions sometimes. Couple that with my natural kindness and love of life, and you’ll understand these two moments. Spoilers ahoy.

    Fable II – THE CHOICE.

    Come on, if you’ve played Fable II you know what I’m talking about. The choice you’re given at the end. Three possible outcomes. Be a prick and get all the money but leave hundreds of thousands of unjustly killed people dead, save your family but leave everyone else dead, or save EVERY wrongfully lost life, but give up your murdered family and dog.

    Given my nature, there was only one choice I COULD make. I saved thousands, turned the game off, and cried myself to sleep, thankful that there’s zero chance I’d ever have to make that choice in real life.

    Red Dead Redemption; Undead Nightmare – In order to unlock one of the cooler outfits in this game, there’s a bunch of quests you have to go complete to collect all the pieces you need to make it. One such quest is an old coot and his wife in a cabin in the north woods who tells you of a bigfoot clan who’s been eating human babies. As ridiculous as the idea sounds, it’s a friggin’ Old West Zombie game, so I figure it’s just schlocky B-Movie cheese and go bigfoot hunting to get my outfit piece.

    I run around hunting bigfoots, killing 4 of the 5 total I need to. When I find the map marker for the 5th one, there’s no bigfoot visible, but once I walk into the Circle O’ Plot Progression, a cutscene triggers where our hero walks up to the last Sasquatch, sitting huddled against a tree, weeping mournfully, who tells you the old man lied to you because he’s a scared superstitious ass, Sasquatches are herbivores, and you JUST MURDERED HIS ENTIRE FAMILY, leaving him the last of his kind, and begs you to kill him too because he can’t bear to go on living without them.

    So I did as he asked, exited the game, and deleted it off my 360 entirely, vowing never to play it again. Because that bullsh*t was just f*cking CRUEL.

  16. I always felt a little guilty about mowing down all those grunts in the Halo games. Poor little bastards always seemed like they just didn’t want to be there. Moreso for the Engineers when you find out they’re a slave-race at the end of ODST. Also the Turrets in the Portal games.

  17. Malygos. i didn’t want to kill him; he was right about everything. A little crazy, sure, but he was right and still i had to kill his old buddy to get a key to his house and then run in there like an asshole and murder him because some human Kirin Tor jerkoffs asked me to? I hated that.

  18. I think the most devastating kill in a video game for me was Quelaag in Dark Souls. Sure, you initiate the fight and a giant spider comes rampaging at you, ready to spew lava all over you. You hack and slash, attacking a fear of dying in the game and a fear of big ass spiders in real life. The victory is triumphant, and you walk across the arena feeling like a god among men. You’ve conquered that monstrosity and you didn’t die. Then you travel down the stairs, and you see an odd wall. You decide to poke it, and it’s just an illusion. You discover a poor man with eggs exploding out of his back. He asks if you’re a servant, and feeling nice you decide to answer yes. You then travel into a chamber where another spider woman resides, and you get your sword ready to attack. But then you notice you can speak to her, and if you have the Old Witch’s Ring you learn the truth. That beast you just destroyed? Was her sister, the only one that could understand her. And now she’s dying. And you’ve killed her sister. You asshole.

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