Reality Check - Knocking People Out?

Great show Cam,but you didn't mention chocking someone out that's seen in games, TV, and movies all the time. I know that only lasts a few seconds I've seen first-hand

°J° In MGS, when you knock someone down, that person will be getting up in a few minutes. Not in a few hours, Cam.

I honestly can't blame video game for adopting this trope. It's been used in movies for decades before it was implemented in video games.

Thanks for the video Cam. This is something that has always bothered me in tv, movies, and video games.

I have to say, I have been knocked completely unconscious once, in a traffic accident where I was on a scooter, but I also had a very slight case of retrograde amnesia. A really weird experience, I remember I had woken, but could not for the life of me remember why the hell I was sitting on the sidewalk with my head in my hands. Although the really annoying thing was I had to go to the hospital and be woken every two hours to check I didn't have a brain injury. I still can't remember anything about the accident, except one moment I was driving, and the next I woke up on the sidewalk, everything in between is gone.

Everyone on the Gamespot staff seems British. Is GS HQ now in UK? I thought it was still in San Fran. For that matter everyone at IGN seems British too. Coincidence? Just curious. Not trying to start anything.

Seb fucking cracks me up. Great episode, Cam!

Good episode Cam! But you were talking about retrograde amnesia. Anterograde amnesia would be forgetting events that happened after you got hit in the head.

I'm feeling the urge to knock someone out, in a game of course.

EXTREMELY good episode this week Cam! Great topic and in depth explanation, I think this is your best episode yet!!

Now I suddenly feel slightly guilty due to all the poor bastards I've knocked out in games......

let's just say it's been a lot..........a looooooooooooooooooot of bastards knocked out......

and all with severe brain damage :/ well some of 'em deserved it.......

I remember in the old game Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive, knocking somebody out was very temporary and in 5 mins or so they'd be up. That's why you had to tie up the people you knocked out.
Wonder why more games don't use the "They're gonna come after you unless you tie 'em up" mechanics. I liked it

As far as this episode goes, I could only see it as being useful to help those people who believe the hype of what they see all too readily in understanding that it isn't so. You're always going to have people who want a game to be more and more realistic, but these game mechanics on in here for the sake of gameplay, and not ensuring a realistic simulation.

The KO mechanic seems to serve as a compromise between the player's original will to leave all hostiles alone and play passively and the realization that "Screw it, this guy's pissin' me off" and taking him out of the picture without the stigma of having killed the enemy.

The protagonist of Thief is a thief? Thank goodness! I thought he was going to be a shoemaker.

They don't stay down in MGS

What about choking someone until they lose consciousness like in MGS and Dishonored? Would that knock someone out for a while, or would it again, only put them out for a few minutes? Very intriguing episode all around Cam!

I've always wanted to see a game where you sneak up behind a guard, whack him on the head, watch him go "Ouch! Dang it! Who did that?", and then have him spin around and kill you.

Will-full brain damage man! My new gamer tag. Thanks Cam!!

The next segment should be about air assassinations of bunny rabbits like they did in AC III.

I scrolled the comments and saw no angry rants about guards in MGS waking up when others came past or when the effects of a knock out or sleep dart wore off. Weird...

Good episode :) Even if there was a tranquilizer which had been absolutely proven to be safe for stunning people the target could get a serious cerebral injury when hitting his head when falling to the ground. But it would be totally ok to stun on a grass or carpets. Maybe the sonic weapons could be the best stunning method in the future. I wish they had been covered in this episode.

oh I guessed right, your tweet was about Thief afterall :]

At least garret hides them in the shadow, Agent 47 puts them in boxes and other unexpected places lol

In Tae Kwon Do I was taught how to put someone in the sleeper hold to knock them unconscious. You basically sneak up behind them and choke them out with your arm a certain way and they eventually pass out. I don't know how long it lasts as I've never tried out before, but I imagine (or hope) that it would last much longer than just one minute. I was also taught how to kill someone using only two fingers.

No. My brother got headbutted in the temple during a corner in football (soccer) and he felt sick and he said he felt a bit like he was under water, from his eye site going blurry and balance.

A trip to hospital and a brain CT later and there was nothing major wrong. Something tells me a jab to the head with a small truncheon would be far from knocking someone unconscious.

And holding someone in a choke hold would probably take anywhere up to 15-30 seconds to have an effect. I know I can hold my breath for at least 20 seconds if I breath in strongly. And that is no where near enough to knock me out since your reflexes take over.

guess there's no reason then to do the non lethal shit, make sure you kill em immedietly!

in mass effect you can incinerate , warp, and freeze opponents to death ... haha , I say **** stealth /superofftopic

Ha ha ha @ Seb

I demand we get a film about Wilful Brain Damage Man.

Keep it Cam. Love this show.

Ahahaha willful braindamage man

I've never liked that KOd guards are knocked out permanently, not just for realism reasons but it also means that if you take out a handful of the right guards in the right places the entire level becomes a breeze. This was a major problem I had with Crysis 2, though I'm not sure that was actually non-lethal but the same theory applies.

Think about what blackjack can do, then think about Batman flying from 50+ meters away with a high velocity kick to the face. And Batman's rule was that he doesn't kill... well, technically he lets the brain injury do that for him. Good job!

So much time on bludgeoning people. I wish he went into more on choking them out Dishonored style. But it's Thief's time to shine... kinda.

what about UFC? they choke someone out all the time, if the ref wasnt there, those guys would be out to it at least for a few minutes or even longer. Also if you hit a guy in the head in the right spot, it can cause deafness to adn sometimes PERMANANT deafness and double vision for the rest of their lives.

interesting

The expert opinions in the What If Machine are sorely missed in Reality Check. The Metal Gear games do knock outs pretty accurately I'd say, KO's last around 20 seconds (upto a minute depending on difficulty setting), and tranqs take longer to work depending on whether you hit extremities. Too many tranqs can kill a guard in some the games too.

It always seemed a lot more satisfying to me in splinter cell to sneak through the whole base and accomplish the mission without leaving any evidence you were there.

tic)