*shiver* I take comfort from the fact that it made me feel uneasy ( at least!) and I don't think it was going too far ( not in the context of Trevor anyways.) I guess the one thing I took away from it was that, in some ways, it's thematically similar to the final 10 minutes of The Last of Us, both are moments where, to me, the game is saying: " yeah, these characters aren't getting redemption. And they are not heroes." I mean, in GTA you're obviously playing anti heroes, but still. What do you guys think? Especailly as, for some it'll be the second time.

I had such hard time with that scene that I had to put the controller down a few times. I haven't gone back to GTA since playing that scene. It really fucked with me.

Is "That scene" the torture part? Because I had no problem with that, mostly because I am used to seeing things like that, perhaps because of me really enjoying horror things.

I enjoyed it.

I was more upset by the fact that it was very out of character for Trevor to so willingly do as he's told, especially by government officials, rather than the scene itself.

The thing that really bothered be about this scene wasn't the torture as much as how I didn't think it fit with Trevor at all. Not the actual act of torture. He seems to love violence and he doesn't care who he hurts. I don't think his blind willingness to do what the FIB is telling him to do is justified, not even by the weird scene afterwards where he lets the guy escape to basically say "fuck the man", when I think he would have just done that at the beginning and instead of torturing the guy he probably would have killed Dave and the other FIB agents in the room. There wouldn't be a story after that, of course, but I couldn't help thinking that during the entire sequence.

I was more upset when Trevor Killed Floyd And Debra. Sure they were shitty people but they did not deserve to die.

I didn't have any problem with that scene. Maybe I wasn't as engrossed in the story or characters as much as others were but it really surprised me to hear that so many people had problems with it considering it didn't do anything for me.

I didn't find that particular scene disturbing so much as unnecessarily provocative, although I can appreciate why someone would. The thing that really bothered me and put me off Trevor entirely was the whole subplot with Floyd and Debra.

Honestly, I didn't see the big deal.

The torture scene was the best thing in that game. It was awful, brutal and was hard to watch/play. That's what made it great. It was the one part of the game that evoked an emotional response. GTA V did a lot of things right, but I just didn't feel much of an emotional connection to the storyline. Sure, I liked the characters and enjoyed the overall story, but there were no real truly powerful moments in the story that gave me a strong emotional reaction. Well, there was only one, and it was the torture scene.

I suppose they were going for something that would really upset the player, but honestly, I have been numb to GTA violence for so long to the point where I didn't even blink.

Yeah I would agree with this.

GTA needs more scenes like this... scenes and sequences that push the limit, bother people, and make us talk! GTA games are starting to feel like just another game. The whole Debra and Floyd thing was definitely more disturbing, and was great.

I was prepared for it before-hand so it didn't bother me as much as I expected... I couldn't bring myself to do the tooth thing though. The thought of it really grosses me out.

More than anything I just thought Rockstar was trying way too hard with that scene. They try to act like the scene is there to make a political point, but I really think they were just being edgy for the sake of being edgy. The political stance at the end seemed half-assed to me personally.

It thought it was smartly implemented in that Michael who is in the car just asks for information and then Trevor beats the shit out of the guy to get it, and then reports it. From Michael's side he was doing nothing wrong, but to do what they had to do, someone had to do something terrible, seems like a good critique of the torture mentality. (Or i'm reading into it too much.)

The Floyd and Debra thing was what put me off too. After that, I wanted as little to do with Trevor as possible. Only played as him when I had to, and shot him with one of the others every chance I got. And in the end, he got what he deserved. Never seen any other ending than the one where he dies. Fucker.

Played it. Moved on. Forgot about it. There are way more brutal things in media than that scene.

I wasn't particuarly disturbed by it (though it might have been because I knew what was coming and had heard so much about "that scene" beforehand) and just generally found it really heavy handed. Especially with the conversation that happens afterwards, it felt like it was just beating you over the head with its "HEY TORTURE IS BAD, YOU GUYS" message.

As far as the other scene people are referring to, I had the opposite problem in that I had no idea how the game wanted me to react. Is this suppose to be funny? Disturbing? I geniunely had no idea. Pretty lame either way.

As everyone else said, the Floyd and Debra <---End of game story spoiler, thing made me much more uncomfortable for some reason than what you're talking about. I thought that it was weird that Trevor was doing what people told him after making it clear that he doesn't follow orders. I thought he was the least interesting character, to be honest. He's just a crazy asshole. I used him when I felt like just blowing shit up, but other than that I wanted nothing to do with him. I didn't even bother going out of my way to make investments with him before the assassination missions. He wasn't unlikable, just boring as hell.

2nd time through I avoided doing all the torture scenes by just shooting the Azerbaijani looking dude.

I had no problem with it, nor did I have a problem with similar scenes in The Last of Us.

At the time, being that I played through the whole campaign in a two and a half day period as I've always tended to do with GTA games, it was a very exhilarating moment. The production values were real high, the tension was prevalent and I was really impressed with the way they kept jumping from scene to scene, how one moment was so tense and another so calm.

But I have had a very strong love affair with GTA V, heaving beaten it twice myself, watched a girlfriend beat it once from start to finish helping out whenever a mission beat her down and now with the PS4 version getting about half way through. I've played this mission four times, and it was only truly satisfying the first time. I still get what they were going for so I can't side with those who found it offensive, but it's certainly vulgar, and it doesn't really serve Trevor the way the game seems to think it does. Like a lot of the game's dialogue/narrative, it now feels like it only really serves whatever that specific moment was. As though twenty different people wrote the dialogue/narrative for this game.

I've seen worse things on daytime television not to mention real life, and I have a serious wonder how the upbringings of the people who had a hard time with that scene were (no offense of course, just curiosity because differing between fiction and real life clearly has become more of an issue in younger generations but that's a good thread for the general forum). I don't have a problem killing dogs in games and I believe that goes for 99% of us, didn't mind that mission of No Russian in MW2 and I don't have a problem acting in self defense against dogs in real life but believe it or not many people do, if they see a someone's seriously mindbroken battered beaten ear-clipped pitbull lose its shit and run off to latch onto the leg or arm of the nearest person, they'll act on the side of the dog if you try to get that mutt off yourself in panic.

Anyway with a little thinking and knowledge of how things work you can hear in Trevors voice and acting what he really thought of it once it's all done and it makes sense, dirty work done for a good deed that he tried to make the best of. He's used to the stuff, didn't approve of it, did get the job done and then he went for the heroics he did after, that's what he does. Being the second greatest character in the entire game.

i haven't touched the game since a couple weeks after its release. I may have known back then what you are talking about, but definitely don't know now. I remember very little from the game, and didn't find much memorable at the time, so I doubt that I would even know what you are referring to if I was closer to it. Sorry, I just don't know what is going on here.

@mister_v: oh, I've totally seen worse things, there is definately a lot of toture scenes in films. I guess in the context of the game though it just felt worse because it was unnecessary for the plot and personally felt out place. It is somewhat different to the final scenes from TLoU, were it came down to me thinking: "I believe Joel is making the wrong choice, in the worst way." And clearly that's what naughty dog were going for.

Trevor ruined that game for me.

I'm incredibly desensitized to most violence in games or movies, so it didn't bother me. When media makes a big deal about stuff like that, before I see it, I never believe it's that big of a deal.

@hurricaneivan29: GTA needs more scenes where people act completely out of character?

I didn't find it offensive, but I didn't like it either. It was just kind of there. It felt so out of place there was no emotional impact at all. The closest I got to a reaction was rolling my eyes at the conversation in the car afterwards. Rockstar was trying to be edgy and missed the mark. Rockstar gonna Rockstar.

it didnt bother me.ive seen way worse that didnt bother me as well.only way a game or movie would bother me for any reason would be if it was real,which isnt happening.

@somejerk: Where in hell do you live/work that you've seen worse than a man forcibly having a tooth pulled out with pliers and no anaesthetic in real life?

I wasn't offended but like others have mentioned, it felt out of character for Trevor to take orders like that.

Fake people inflicting fake violence on each other.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and no I'm not an advocate for horrible things in real life.

But they definitely have a place in my fiction, I don't need everything to be clean and sanitized to me.

@planetfunksquad: No, I quoted that post because I agreed, but as the rest of comment stated, I just want to see them push the limit.

It really wasn't that bad - it sure made me dislike Trevor more but Trevor redeemed himself when he let the dude go.

Yeah really. I've never understood people so disturbed about things like this that they can't finish it. Like, what the hell? It's not real, I don't want everything to be squeaky clean in fiction. Same as No Russian, I don't understand people who feel it's too disturbing to even watch. They're fucking games.

I dunno how anyone can see Joel as a villain in that game... He's saving Ellie's life from a bunch of armed psychopaths who are willing to kill her on the slightest possibility that she could provide a cure for a world that is already too far gone. Joel only kills people who attack him and it's the players choice to kill the doctors or not. Trevor on the other hand is an irredeemable asshole.

@robbparris said:

Yeah, I never understood why people made such a big deal about this.

I wasn't affected by it at all. I did like the fact that it didn't matter who you killed with the information you're given which made the torture absolutely unnecessary. I thought that was a decent piece of commentary.

Like so many have said, I wasn't offended by it but I still thought it sucked. Actually, that kind of aligns with my feelings on most of the story in that game.

I think that scene was not even worth the controversy it caused; I started it expecting something uncomfortable, and came out the other end thinking wow, that scene was surely blown out of proportion.

Didn't bother me. I find shit like American Psycho to be hilarious. Trevor made the game for me. Its not a dude I would want to hang out with in reality. BUUUT, that game wasn't reality. It was a satirical take on crime and violence. Honestly, I didn't find anything offensive in that game at all. Then again, I'm not easily offended...

It wasn't that bad but I definitely got uncomfortable at parts and looked away from the screen a couple times if I recall. It did end up feeling a bit more pandering than dramatic, though.

Exactly, it just felt forced overall. It just started to feel less and less dramatic and just kind of...crude? And it just sort of felt unnecessary with how it all went down. I definitely "got" it but was just trying a bit too much to be edgy and just because kind of distasteful in the end, if nasty to me.

@dan_citi: Its not so much trying to be "edgy" as it is completely absurd. That Trevor essentially "doing the right thing"(letting him go) by way of a bizarre technicality on his own personal honor.

That whole scenario(the torture stuff)is just a set up to get us to examine what a broken lunatic/homicidal child that Trevor is. But it doesn't really take itself seriously enough to be "edgy." imo.

In fact, I can't think anything in that game, tonally, that constitutes as "edgy."(thankfully)

Couldn't give a shit.

First off, the game is desperately trying to be do "satire" but it fails at it, in my eyes. There's no attempt at subtlety whatsoever. Everything is raised to 11 and then it goes - "see how dumb the opposing side of the argument is?". No, GTA - I don't. You've made a heavily, heavily exaggerated strawman of the other side, nothing convincing at all here. And that degree of exagerration just ruins both the political message it had as well as the comedy aspect of it.

The worst part is that I actually agree with GTA's stance on most things. It's just that their way of presenting that argument is garbage. Kinda like Bill Maher.

Secondly, it was more of a cutscene than actual gameplay. And hell, even the scenes people mentioned in this topic were straight-up cutscenes. There seem to be very, very few games that have told their story primarily through gameplay. I don't know why people praise games that simply have good (even that's debatable) cutscenes.

Seems like any amount of decent writing, interactive or not, is praise-worthy nowadays. Explains a lot about Gone Home.

@sravankb: I actually agree with you on this. However, when they tried to be subtle and a bit more grounded in the world of GTA: We got GTA 4 which was self serious and jarring imo. I actually liked the over the top nature of GTA 5 which I feel is the right tone for that series/world.

I think if Rockstar wants more to be more subtle they should create a different world.