Animal abuse in video games

Have you ever noticed any animal abuse in video games?

I know that in some games like Mega Man Legends where you can do more then just kick dogs. In fact, in its Japanese counterpart, Rockman DASH, you can not only kick the dog to save a certain female character early in the game, but you can even kick cats, and shoot down birds too with no penalty whatsoever. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQ1yWro2b4) (This video is almost full of annotations that save me the trouble of describing everything in complete detail.)

There’s more too. In many Zelda games you can strike at the Cuccos (The chickens) out of amusement. Though, they’ll practically curse you with a flurry of them after your cruel ass.

Also, in the MOTHER/EarthBound series, you can strikes stray dogs, crows, etc. with a baseball bat. Even though its in self-defense. Plus, in MOTHER 3, there’s a character that shocks his monkey servant out of amusement.

What kind of examples of "animal abuse" do you spot in video games nowadays and before?

Shooting chickens in RE5 is pretty fun after they try to maul your face.

Doubleheads in both Silent Hill 3 and RE5. Though, I’m not sure if that counts as you are tasked with killing many animals in video games…

I could go into the "do you mean non-human animals?" debate so I could include humans in this, but meh.

In Duck Hunt, you shoot ducks.

In Super Mario Bros., you jump on turtles and then kick them away.

In Jurassic Park, you shoot dinosaurs, driving them to extinction again.

In Shadow of the Colossus, you murder the colossi.

I think everyone has seen animal abuse in video games, because it’s in a large number (if not majority) of games.

The real question is: are these games training the duck, turtle, dinosaur, and colossus killers of the future?

What about Pokemon, it’s all about cockfighting.

I don’t want to kill Colossus, AG. He’s pretty swell.

Can I kill Cyclops instead?

@Zak: And Monster Rancher, too.

@Neg: If you’re playing God of War, there’s plenty of opportunity for that.

But is that animal cruelty? I just don’t know anymore.

before reading the post i thougth TC was gonna be a PETA loving bastard and bitch at us for animal cruelty in games.

but yes, you will most certainly kill animals out of fun or self defense in any game.
hell, i even read cooking mama was panned by those PETA fucks.
humans need actual protein, those soy substitutes dont do shit.
if you feed your baby with substitutes for meat, you are gonna kill him.

and what about plants? plants are also living things!
i donte see anyone complaining about plant-killing in video games.
that potion you just drank to regain mana? yeah, made of plants.
those plants died so you could regain magic and cast firaga on osma’s ass.

Kicking chickens and killing fluffy little rabbits in Fable 2 anyone?

WoW revolves mostly on killing mammals/insects.

Fable 2: you get a 5pt achievement for kicking chickens, also on the first one you have a chicken kicking competition and i dont need to tell you the rules for victory.
since when has kicking chickens became an achievment microsoft?

what about turok and dino crisis, poor dino’s. in turok for the ps3 you can grab harmless little dino’s and rip off their bottom jaw with your bare hands, now thats wrong

Fable 2: you get a 5pt achievement for kicking chickens, also on the first one you have a chicken kicking competition and i dont need to tell you the rules for victory.
since when has kicking chickens became an achievment microsoft?

what about turok and dino crisis, poor dino’s. in turok for the ps3 you can grab harmless little dino’s and rip off their bottom jaw with your bare hands, now thats wrong

Wrong, yes. But also highly amusing. Really the only amusing part about that game, to be honest… but I digress.

I’m not one to complain about any amount of violence in a game, whether it be against human, animal, or some strange thing that is both or neither. But if I were, I’d probably be more apt to be worried about games like Prototype, where you get points for literally running down the street and carving hundreds of people into pieces within seconds, instead of Fable 2 where you kick a chicken for shits and giggles. Just ’cause it’s an animal doesn’t make it worse.

See, Catty, in this forum, you make perfect sense 😀

there’s a lot more people cruelty

That’s the way, uh-huh uh-huh, I like it~

why complain about a couple of virtual animals when hundreds of real people starve in Africa every week

Hey, they’re not starving anymore, Umbrella Corp. fixed that. Now they can just eat whoever we send over there. Unless whoever we send shoots them in the head first, of course…
Oh wait, you said real people. oops, missed that.

I prefer to use my chickens as kickballs as seen in Fable

Kicking a chicken gives you EXP and health in the Wolfenstein RPG for cellphones.

Anybody thought of Demento? You can hurt Hewie in that, so I guess that would count.

I’ve always felt a tiny bit guilty after hitting a chocobo. 🙁

Anyone else enjoy kicking the soccer ball at Red XIII during the storyline trip to Costa Del Sol on FFVII? :p

Strange thing is, I’m a vegetarian in real life, but even I found that rather amusing.

I’m shocked that nobody has brought up Pokemon yet.

I mean, how much more abusive can it get than forcing one animal to beat up another animal so you can cram it into a tiny ball, subjugate it, and use it to either beat up more harmless critters or put in some bank as part of a private zoo? Oh, and then there’s the part about fighting animals belonging to other people. Michael Vick had the book thrown at him for that.

Oh, but they took the time to assure that they are only fainting :p

Like invisible guns 😉

I’m shocked that nobody has brought up Pokemon yet.

I mean, how much more abusive can it get than forcing one animal to beat up another animal so you can cram it into a tiny ball, subjugate it, and use it to either beat up more harmless critters or put in some bank as part of a private zoo? Oh, and then there’s the part about fighting animals belonging to other people. Michael Vick had the book thrown at him for that.

I was waiting for someone to say this 🙂

Really don’t care about animal abuse anymore than human abuse in video games.

It’s fake, IE: NOT REAL.

So I’ve killed a bunch of women, children, blacks, browns, whites, yellows, ect.
Done the same to dogs, rats, spiders, chickens, fish, ect.

It’s just digital, it doesn’t really matter.

…Someone’s starting to look like the next Buffalo Bill >_>

why complain about a couple of virtual animals when hundreds of real people starve in Africa every week

True.

Obviously because you can see the virtual animals and the starving Africans are just theoretical to most people. Anyway, the only reason they’re starving now is because they cut back on the cannibalism, so it’s their own fault.

tru dat