186: The Best of All Possible Worlds

[tendo82]

The Best of All Possible Worlds

For all their doom and gloom, videogames are pretty much always about the unqualified triumph of good over evil, a happy occasion that's pretty rare in everyday life. So why do critics insist that games need to be polluted with more ambiguity?

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[The_root_of_all_evil]

Brilliant. Love the 'shaggy dog' stories as well.

Evil can be a way to go, but you really need to be Evil, not just a petty thug who kicks puppies. Not unless those puppies squeal as they hurtle in front of the speeding truck.

 

[Galletea]

I enjoyed this article. Gaming worlds are so much easier to do the right thing in, black and white are so much more clearly marked out.

Though I would have liked to see Tommy Vercetti die in a Scarface-esque fashion really.

 

[Beery]

It's not 'critics' who want more ambiguity in games - it's gamers. Anyway, why can't there be room for both simplistic 'good guy vs bad world' tales and more complex ones where the player's character has more of a choice about the morality of his character?

Besides, it's not the ambiguity that's the point - it's having a choice.

 

[goodman528]

Good article. But failed to note that almost every game on the market is a mindless shooter, so arguing we need more of the same is really unnecessary.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Does anyone else want to play "Cuttlefish Wars: The Inkening" as badly as I do?

 

[paste]

In games, you are often only presented with the unambiguous moral path out of necessity. It wouldn't make any sense if, say, in Super Mario Bros., you stopped to ponder whether the princess wants to be with Bowser instead, because then you'd just stop playing. There is no other option. Rescue the princess or die. However, now that we have greater technology, people want more choices. There are plenty of games that are excellent without allowing choices, and there are games that show the dilemma of moral ambiguity through cut scenes without actually giving the player any control over the final outcome. To attempt to give the player a significant say in how the game plays out would be a cyclopean task, but it would also be more impressive and provide a richer experience, if done well. Think of it as a modern Choose Your Own Adventure book.

 

[Liverandbacon]

Does anyone else want to play "Cuttlefish Wars: The Inkening" as badly as I do?

Me. That game sounds absolutely epic.

The article itself managed to not only be amusing, but also make an interesting point. I agree with much of what it said. I really hate the common RPG choice trichotomy of A: I'm really nice so I'll do it. B: Grr I am evil, no I will not do it. and C: I'll do it, but I'm greedy. Give me money.

 

[Boober the Pig]

You totally missed the choice to be made in Bioshock. There will be some *spoilers* so stop now if you haven't played the game. You arrive a stranger, being told what to do by an unknown voice. The path before you is set, everyone who plays the game follows the same basic path. Killing little girls for a minor performance benefit isn't really the choice to make, it just points you toward the choice. You don't choose the path but you can choose why you follow it. Are you there to accumulate money and power because that is the obvious path, or is there a greater purpose, saving the orphan girls and giving them a chance at life. This is reflected in the two endings. The ultimate test comes near the end where you have to protect the Little Sisters as you approach the final boss fight. You have an unlimited supply of girls so if you don't protect one you can always get more, but you can use your ammo and health to protect this stranger or you can save it for the big fight. The real challenge is being a protector, the final fight was easy by design. It was a secondary objective, one last minor errand before you take the girls to their new life. After the obvious metaphor for growing up and going through puberty, this acceptance of parental responsibility is the final step in growing up. It is just sad that most people missed this part of the the game, leaving them with the empty feeling that comes with the aimless wandering of perpetual adolescence.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Really interesting read, and I mostly agree, although I'm not sure quite how far. Much as the central point is true, perhaps I'm just particularly poor at suspending disbelief but I don't get such a altruistic rush when I'm forced to be the saintly good guy. I think a small degree of moral ambiguity, if done properly, as it rarely is, could very much add to a game. I'm not talking about KOTOR 2's infamous beggar sequence, either.

Because, ambiguity or not, games let us do what we couldn't in real life. If we take as an example the your tale of misplaced kindness and place it in a game, it wouldn't end there. You would have the seemingly clear-cut choice to start of to help or not to help. If you help and return to find an item stolen, in a game that wouldn't have to be the end of the story. You could find him again, and then what would you do? Would you exact your revenge on him for betraying your trust? How far would that revenge go? Or would you take the moral high ground anyway? By adding that end bit on the edge is taken off the ambiguity, of course, but it would place the spectrum of actions much more into the grey, and I believe would make the plot somewhat more compelling. Would you get such a rush from taking the high path when the low path is justified?

I'm aware that that's hardly the depth of ambiguity some people seem to desire, but games are entertainment after all and we play them to be entertained, not depressed. But I think if a game can bring in that slight element of ambiguity, and drag you through the shadows before the way to the light is clear, it would only add to it.

 

[teknoarcanist]

" No one wants to experience the inner emotional life of a videogame character; no one wants to see Tommy Vercetti die like Al Pacino in Scarface; and certainly no one wants to play a videogame about someone's descent into heroin addiction."
You're joking, right? This is a joke. That's EXACTLY the kind of game I would want to play; how about pointing me to the developer that can pull it off with some nuance and depth? This article seems to imply that all gamers play games for the basic escapist entertainment of being the white knight saving the princess from the Totally Evil Wizard Guy, which just isn't true. Technology has sufficiently advanced now to the point that it is possible for videogames to tell an interactive story, and to tailor an emotional experience for the player. I'd kill to play as a heroin addict, but I don't think any dev on earth could make that and resist the urge to turn it into a minigame with flashing lights.

 

[cbreeden]

I dig the Candide reference, and your article makes me wonder why (both as humanity and gamers) we focus so much on destruction. As for me, I'm going to go play Viva Piñata and work in my garden.

 

[thesambassador]

This is the exact same thing as people who read cheesy romance novels (or any other easy-to-read -but-entertaining book) instead of reading a piece of literature. Sometimes, yeah, you just want to be entertained, but sometimes you want something with a bit more meaning. You say you always just want to be entertained... that's your opinion. There are other people who could stand to be moved by a game sometimes.

 

[R.O.]

To piggyback on Boober the Pig, in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (SPOILERS!!) you are given a similar choice to join the Emperor, let your friends die, and kill Darth Vader. If you don't run to destroy the Emperor immediately, I think you will be stuck playing bad Star Wars games and attending Star Wars conventions for quite sometime. But I think growing up means turning back into a child before you even had a crush on Star Wars, Bioshock, or video games. The ability to put a game or video games behind you is similar to a child's ability to remain interested in many new things instead of becoming some specialist. I think Bioshock's use of children is a metaphor for respecting and revisiting your childhood. If you kill the children and don't protect them, you are way too into video games and need to "grow up".

And I don't think life is ambiguous at all. Life is real and based on facts. For example if you don't eat then you will die of starvation. If anything, video games are ambiguous because how can you ever agree with the choices you make unless it affects your own survival? Dying in a video game is almost religious because you can come back from death without penalty. The only games where dying is treated even somewhat correctly is Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem. If your favorite knight dies, he is never coming back again. Sure you can reset the game, but that also shows just how ambiguous your own life is when you can't accept loss as a fact of life on Earth.

 

[MiloP]

Why do I feel like a Big Daddy laden with kittens is far scarier than a big Daddy with a Rivet Gun?

Regardless, lovely article.

 

[Odoylerules360]

wow, fuck you. I don't want to play Good Triumphs Over Evil 5286: The Inkening, 'cause after about the fifth one of those games, they get really really boring. I want games to get to where they can be respected as much as any other art form. I don't want games to be just toys anymore. I've had enough of good vs evil, right vs wrong, and bringing light to the darkness. I want to play something I can respect.

 

[Fightgarr]

Congrats on your act of subway heroism. I feel that.

 

[wadark]

Interesting viewpoints, but I agree, and yet I don't agree. It depends on the specific game, there's no one set standard that all should follow. Mario? Yeah, he should save the princess every time (although Mario is getting kinda stale to me after 25 years). In that case, good should (and will) triumph over evil.

But to say that no gamer wants to experience a characters inner emotional life??? I can prove you wrong right now by saying that I do. I'll never forget the first time I felt real emotion coming from a game, the ending of Final Fantasy X. The tearful goodbye between Tidus and Yuna is heart wrenching, and looking back afterwards I realized that throughout the game we were experiencing the inner emotions of several characters the whole way. And that made it all the more amazing of an experience.

Perhaps I'm jaded and mean, but in the situation outside your apartment, I don't know that I'd do what you did. How often do people covered in blood stagger up to you saying that "bad men" are after him and will kill him. There are more lies and scams these days than murders and I, for one, would question his motives. But again, maybe I'm jaded. But, linking back to the point, those are the kinds of decisions that I think would be cool in games, not all games, but certain games.

Like another said before me, not everyone plays for the sheer escapism. My life, while not perfect, is not so bad that I need to sit down and play a videogame just to get the unpolluted "happiness" into my day. Sure, sometimes I play for the triumph of good over evil. But whether that's the case or not, I'm almost always playing for the emotion and the story of the game; to put myself in this character's shoes and see how his/her story unfolds.

 

[writerguy]

The article is a brilliant satire of an indefensible position. No one gamer gets to decree "that's what games are for," thank God.

 

[metzger555]

I'm not even gonna read the heartgaugingly bland mess of replies that must be here.
They usually show up when you slightly miss a point entirely, sometimes to point it out.
Ok, I did look now and I see those replies are there! Hehehe...
Still, it's true that games whould not be ambiguous or however it's spelled, nothing should.
Didn't ambiguity use to mean evil? Fashion moves with the majority~

I hate it when a game tries to flip an ending, what are u supposed to do, go "wow my imagination is somehow insufficient to come up with that, thank you for changing my life and wasting my effort"?
The pain was surely a trial worth money, and worthy beyond my following rage.

What they're trying to say is, they don't want stupid games, make the world magically a little less stupid why don't you.
Of course they get the opposite or we wouldn't be reading ur article.

I'm kinda bored because you can't agree* with me so I'm gonna go do something else.


*argue

EDIT: I'm tired