@awesomeusername:

Godwins law in 3, 2, 1, GO!

Hitler: He killed to make is country great, and to save his own people from the oppression they were suffering post WWI

@awesomeusername: No one was talking about realism here. It's about games that have ambitions of depicting believable human characters, actually making their characters somewhat human; not just in cut-scenes that exist in a separate dimension from the interactive parts, but throughout the experience as a cohesive whole. There is nothing wrong in enjoying Uncharted for what it is, I enjoy it too, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from noticing the (very obvious) disconnect in the characterization. Also saying 'video games are video games' only gets us so far, and game creators can only render the act of relentless murder in so much detail before we all have to take a moment to think about why we play games. What is considered popular norm today doesn't make it the right way nor the only way of doing things, and people need to have this conversation eventually if the medium is to ever grow much further than what it is today.

I beg to differ, my Shepard is a remarkably crazy dude.

In most games about killing, there is some sort of larger conflict used as a back drop. In a war, of course you kill the enemy, that's what war is. At the very least, there is a there is a sense that you're doing what you have to do, there is no way out, so you might as well try to survive. In Uncharted, Drake kills because of situations he puts himself in. His life seems pretty decent, yet he is actively pursuing treasures that he has no rightful claim to, even when he knows it will likely lead to conflict. He's a thief who kills other thieves. He may not be slaughtering innocents, but that's still not ok. That fact that the game's characterization paints him as a charming, lighthearted "everyman" who likes to crack wise only furthers the disconnect when you realize that he's murdered thousands of people.

@DexterKid said:

@awesomeusername: No one was talking about realism here. It's about games that have ambitions of depicting believable human characters, actually making their characters somewhat human; not just in cut-scenes that exist in a separate dimension from the interactive parts, but throughout the experience as a cohesive whole. There is nothing wrong in enjoying Uncharted for what it is, I enjoy it too, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from noticing the (very obvious) disconnect in the characterization. Also saying 'video games are video games' only gets us so far, and game creators can only render the act of relentless murder in so much detail before we all have to take a moment to think about why we play games. What is considered popular norm today doesn't make it the right way nor the only way of doing things, and people need to have this conversation eventually if the medium is to ever grow much further than what it is today.

I deleted everything I said. I'm tired of arguing/bickering/debating over this. Nathan Drake isn't crazy. That's it.

@TeflonBilly said:

Zoran Lazarevic: You think I am a monster. But you're no different from me, Drake. How many men have you killed? How many... just today?

When he said that, I felt like Drake got pwned.

@Slaker11

Again, nobody goes around calling Indiana Jones a psychopathic character, he's simply a lovable adventurer who puts himself into situations where he kills plenty of people(for a movie) and coincidentally ends up saving the world in the process of reaching his goals. Jones is addicted to the 'thrill' that comes with his profession and his third adventure also ends with him...

This opinion probably won't mean much on account of the fact that I haven't played the Uncharted games, but unless I'm very much mistaken, Nathan Drake is a treasure hunter. He initiates these grand adventures of his own free will. He could just stop and walk away, with no change whatsoever. Everyone else on that list is specifically driven by something.

Kratos: The death of his family and the betrayal of the gods.

Isaac Clarke: He has to find his girlfriend and survive.

Shepard: He's trying to save the galaxy from extinction.

Carl Johnson, John Marston: All are motivated by external sources; government agencies or gangs to do what they do.

Niko Bellic: He is caught up in it all against his will after trying to set his life straight.

Ratchet usually has motives pertaining to, or resulting in saving either his friends or the world, and the vast majority of the enemies he kills are robots.

Ezio is motivated by the death of his family to stop people who wish to control the world by robbing people of free will.

Starkiller is simply not entirely aware of his circumstances.

Nathan can state none of these reasons at the beginning of his adventure. He's not motivated by the death of someone close, he's not ordered to do so, he's not trying to save anyone (at the BEGINNING of the adventure), or anything of the sort. As far as I can tell, he goes adventuring for kicks. Once again, I've never played the Uncharted games, so I may not have an adequate grasp of the situation, in which case, I apologize.

@JonSmith: No, that's pretty much right on. To make it worse, there are actually times when his friends urge him to stop, and he fails to give any compelling reasons to continue. Of course, by the end he is saving his buddies and the world, but that's an unintentional consequence of being a treasure hunter.

@awesomeusername: Also remeber that Turkish museum sequence in UC2? Those guards were innocent and Drake refused to kill them and took care of them with a tranq gun while Flynn didn't really care

He clearly has a conscience

Well he kills a ton of people sooooo

Shepard - Trained soldier fighting to save the world

Ezio - Trained assassin fighting to avenge his family then save the world

Starkiller - Trained as a child to murder, essentially brainwashed

Isaac Clarke - Kills inhuman monsters to survive no?

Kratos - Trained warrior turned God of War fighting to avenge his family

~~~

Drake - Just your average joe, on the search for treasure, who murders hundreds of men without any sort of emotional response

EDIT: Basically everyone else on your list (outside of Ratchet, he's basically a Saturday morning cartoon) comes from a history of violence where they have been trained and hardened to the rigors of combat. Their goals are almost always motivated by either strong emotions such as revenge or a sense of duty to a certain noble cause such as the preservation of freedom or simply life as we know it.

Drake on the other hand is supposed to be the everyman, someone we can relate to, who's just looking to make an amazing discovery and get rich. The fact that he mows down legions of men without a second thought flies directly in the face of everything he's portrayed as during story-telling moments.

@awesomeusername said:

I don't think it'll be fun to play a game where you just run away from every bad guy you find instead of shooting them

Did you play Mirrors Edge?

Would you be friends with a guy who personally gunned down hundreds of people and seemed to show no sign of remorse or reflection?

I always thought it was because Uncharted 2 did a better job at having characters that seemed like real people than most games, so the disconnect seems stronger when you're doing awkward video game stuff like shooting guys for the sake of shooting guys.  Other games do the same thing, but they get away with it because they can't sell their characters as well and people more easily stay in a video gamey state of mind.

@kingzetta said:

@awesomeusername: but kratos is fucking crazy

Yeah. Kratos went off the deep end, through the floor and into the darkness with the Balrog and Gandalf.

Locking thread at the request of the original poster.