GTA 5 Torture Mission (debate inside and no big spoilers hopefully)

[Swaggart]

It's just a bunch of noise simply because GTA has pushed buttons in the past. It's fairly tame in GTAV, whereas in Splinter Cell interrogations you could actually pick which part of the environment you wanted to mercilessly smash your victim's face into.

I think they did it because they knew it would cause a typical overreacting shitstorm and would be great free publicity for them. Someone suggested to me that it was done to highlight the hypocrisy of speaking out against torture in a game yet being completely silent about the so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the West, but I think that's giving Rockstar far too much credit.

[Xant]

In Splinter Cell, however, a) the people deserve it and b) it's more "beating them up" than contrived torture on a guy strapped to a chair.

[Necrorave]

Decent Debate topic with some honest questioning behind it that will lead to flame wars.

I always feel some things are unnecessary about things in a game.  Take "Man Hunt" for example.  I did understand that that the plot had a reason to have some gore filled scenes and extreme violence in it.  Although, I do not see the reason to give the player control of what kind of "Execution" he is going to do unless they have different "Perks" to them.

Example: I will kill the guy silently so he doesn't make a sound OR I will go for high profile kill so it's faster and attracts attention.

In Manhunt, they had somewhat of a score system in it for the degree of violence you let your Avatar commit too.  Although, it was unnecessary violence that was put in the PLAYERS control.

I am not against violence in video games at all, but I see see why some things are not needed to tell a story.

From what it sounds like though, this mission seems to be part of a Cinematic scene.  Which gives the player minimal control.
(I have not played it so I don't know for sure)

The way I look at it, if it is used to tell a story it is fine.  Although, if you give the player control of it, they must give them reasons to do it rather then mindless violence.

(Apologies for contributing as someone who has not played it, but I wanted to put something in here)

EDIT: After watching a video, I saw what the issue was.  I do feel it was a bit much to give the player complete control, although Rockstar is known for being the type to throw in "Why not?" Scenes.

Remember the scene in EoLC when they did there best to ironically censor a guy just to show you everything in the end anyways?  They also get free publicity for causing a commotion like this.

Also, from what I know, that character is supposed to be a nutcase who seems like a Sociopath.  So they did want to create the character through these actions.  Although, why they were put into the players control is not for me to answer.

[Xant]

They probably let the player control the character because it's a video game.

[Deltah]

After watching the scene I can understand why people would see this as a bit messed up.
However, I have a point to make.

GTA is a satire. However outlandish the game seems to be, it parodies and depicts modern society with reasonable accuracy. Listen to the radio, or watch the TV in one of the games, you will see.
(IE, Republican Space Rangers, or that bubblegum anime) People with wisdom and empathy(let's just pretend the crpg community has some for a second) will see its correlations to real life.
It's pretty fucked up. Yes. But, this kind of thing is actually going on in the real world right now on a scale that I wish I couldn't imagine. Believe it or not, Rockstar actually wants us to be human beings and try to make change and reason with this fucked up world we live in. While it is an overdramatized parody, the future is sure leaning toward a reality like this if we don't try to make a change in society.

I hate to sound like some hippy/conspiracy theorist/hipster my old friend but with the way that we currently let the media scare us, social networking prostitute our social beings, and the massive amount of senseless and unjust violence in our culture desensitize us, we are becoming more and more like these characters in this game that we laugh at.

You turn on any news channel and here is what you get: " terrible accident/terrorist attack/school shooting/international genocide" What do I do? Probably the same as you. Laugh at it and switch channels. Oh look it's kim kardashian and her huge butt. Man I would like to tap that. You know, I could probably get more ass if I worked out more and went to the gym or bought the supplement they are advertising on this commercial.(no that's not actually what you or I are thinking. But it's what they want us to think, because it will make them money.)

All of this shit, when drawn out into the open, is really fucked up. Not just the events themselves, but our reactions to them.
What's worse, hundreds of children starving and getting forced into child soldiering and murdered senselessly, or the millions of people that watch it and are not just apathetic, they laugh at it.
We come on here and we make "memes" and jokes and we laugh our asses off at how fucked up the media is.
We play crpg, which is at the end of the day just a medieval murder simulator. "oh but we have objectives and things to strive for" Yeah, like killing as many fucktards as we can so our team can win and get that "x5." And for what? So we can get more gold and xp. So I can buy myself plate and a large two handed sword. So I can make my guy swing harder to kill you quicker so I can move onto the next unlucky son of a bitch who happens to cross me. So I can make my team win.
So I can get an x5. See where this is going?
You enjoy beating that guy who killed you last round. You enjoy having a high score so you can gloat about it later. You enjoy watching your enemies crumble before you.
Sadly, it's human nature.

We are all so fucked up and we will never do anything about it. We could. But we choose not to. It's easier, and if you did, it wouldn't make a difference anyway so why try?

Let's say you live in or near a major city. Chances are, there is more than one guy within a handful of miles being shot or stabbed.
You actually don't care. No matter how much you wish you did, you don't.
 Our faces are our best masks. We express all of this bullshit about how we care. We don't.
I am you. I am worse than you.
I for one actually dress up in color coordinated jogging clothes with a facemask and carry around multiple weapons on me. I patrol my streets.
No matter how hard I try to be some comic book vigilante hero, or even just that sweetheart who holds the door open for you, I honestly don't care. I don't know why I do it. I could stab you in an alleyway just as easily, and it would benefit me more. For some fucked up reason however I choose to do what I think is right. It's what we all do. What WE think is right.


You can play a thousand games about saving the world from aliens and evil men.(anders come join my anti-alien militia irl) You can kill millions of people and creatures. That's okay. They were bad. They would do it to you and worse, in a heartbeat.

But the second we are put on the other end of what we personally view as right, when we cross that microscopically thin and transparent line, then all of a sudden there is outrage.
That's how fucked up our morals are.
That's the point rockstar is trying to make here.
Rockstar should win a Nobel peace prize.

(TL,DR: you're a worthless subhuman sack of shit, go read the fucking post. It's 37 seconds of your day and you just spent half an hour touching your dick and or looking at cat pictures before you came here anyway.) 

[Xant]

The TL,DR is a lie.

[Deltah]

The TL,DR is a lie.

Is it, really?
Or is it just easier on you to think that?
It would be a lie to say that we haven't both spent more time on stupider shit.

Also to anyone that actually scrolled down and read the TL, DR first, I hate you with a burning passion and you are everything that is wrong with this community and this world.
Please go crawl back into the womb and drown yourself in amniotic fluid.

That is all.

[Xant]

The modesty can almost be felt in the air when someone writes ten paragraphs of their opinion on something trivial and then insists it isn't a waste of time because, well, because

[[ptx]]

Here, let me make a better TL;DR: Noone cares, boohoo we are human and we are lazy, egoistical bastards.

What exactly could we do about us being human? Stop being human? And what the heck does random crime somewhere not even within your vicinity or chilling out in a slasher after work or whatever has got to do with this? That wall of text would be far less, if you would stop going off your own topic so much.

[Deltah]

What is so trivial about a satire that hundreds of thousands of people are playing through right now? It sounds stupid as shit, but this is history just as much as whats actually going on outside of our comfy rooms right now.

I flipped on the news today, and I heard a story about two girls being strangled to death in the town adjacent to mine. I watched soldiers rush into some building in Kenya to try and halt a terrorist attack.

You're not going to remember that. However, a couple of years from now you are going to recall that torture scene from that silly game you played. It made you actually think for a second. You're going to remember this huge ASS PRINCE wagging his finger at you like some self-righteous man on a mission over a forum.

Rockstar actually has a chance to make a big impact on modern history here with this.
History is history because we remember it in the first place.
We remember WW2 and the holocaust because some dickhead teacher forced it into our heads, because they wanted to see a better world tomorrow.
If you remember that torture scene in GTA that could have made you actually feel something because I made you read a ten paragraph post, because I'm an incessant asshole, then my job is done.
If you don't, then oh well. You are trivial. Someone else will. Someone that played Rockstar's game will inevitably be put in a similar position over another human being, and just maybe, they will show some compassion because of it. That my friend, is history.

That's why I want people to actually read my "stupid fucking post" instead of scrolling to the bottom and dismissing it because they can't hold their eyes on the screen for something with the potential to change their life.

[[ptx]]

What.

You are aware, that the things that happen in the world today are no less different than what they were a decade, a hundred or a thousand years ago, right? Torture, crime, religious fanaticism, famine, global imbalance of resources and general apathy of the populace, none of these is an invention of recent times.
Actually, the above is false, things have never been as good as they are nowadays.

Also, you're missing the point. GTA (imho) is not a satire of the terrible things that humans do to each other. If anything, it's a satire of how hypocritical we are about them - which is what you should actually be worried about, if you are such a self-proclaimed crusader for humanity as you say. Hypocrisy is the root of immorality and the way the global community is all about being ethical nowadays, all the bad things get wrapped up in more and more hypocritical nonsense - which is what GTA parodies.

Funnily enough, the criticism it receives for that is hypocritical in itself.

[CrazyCracka420]

I personally didn't feel disturbed by the torture scene.  I thought it was a little over the top, but the whole character (Trevor) is completely over the top.  He's a psychotic lunatic who goes on rampages.  One of the first things that I did with him (I think it was a random encounter with some rednecks) was to go on a redneck killing rampage. 

Even after the torture is over and Trevor is driving the guy you tortured to the airport, he says what I think most people already agree with (Paraphrasing):  "Torture is not useful for getting information, it's useful for exacting pain and punishment on the victim."

"The game" isn't condoning torture, in fact the psychopath even takes the stance that most rational human beings have understood for a long time.

Also the guy you're torturing is willing to talk from the beginning but he doesn't provide you the necessary information until you coax it out of him...(again, I don't think torture works.  people will say whatever is necessary to stop the pain, and you never know if the information is true or was bullshit to get you to stop torturing them...it also creates a lot more enemies for you if they find out you're torturing their friends/family, and it likely will get "your side" tortured or worse if you get captured).


This is just a fantasy, a video game.  It's fiction.  I remember going on a shooting spree in one of the CoD games killing innocent civilians at an airport, that felt much more disturbing than this.  But even then, it's still a video game.  I'm not more likely to torture or shoot up an airport because of what I did in a video game.

[Leesin]

When I get to play it I'm gonna enjoy it, just like I enjoyed shooting all those innocent people in that CoD intro.

[Deltah]

Also, you're missing the point. GTA (imho) is not a satire of the terrible things that humans do to each other. If anything, it's a satire of how hypocritical we are about them - which is what you should actually be worried about, if you are such a self-proclaimed crusader for humanity as you say. Hypocrisy is the root of immorality and the way the global community is all about being ethical nowadays, all the bad things get wrapped up in more and more hypocritical nonsense - which is what GTA parodies.
Funnily enough, the criticism it receives for that is hypocritical in itself.

Ring ding ding, we have a winner here folks. Someone finally got it! Thank you for being a decent human being and thinking. (actually not sarcasm)
Aside from me missing the point. I feel more as though I hit the nail on the head so hard that it took someone with a brain to put it back together.

So, who gets the next prize?

[[ptx]]

i don't even