Epic Mickey Offers No Choice

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

Epic Mickey Offers No Choice

Yahtzee wonders why games don't explore the concept of a moral choice properly.

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[viking97]

aaaah *head explodes*

that was pretty interesting, but in all honesty, was anyone expecting boundary pushing human experience art from DISNEY?

actually, it is an interesting question why moral choice isn't being explored more fully by the games industry, considering even just a dual morality can give a moments thought, as limiting as it is.
perhaps its for the same reason Psychonaughts did so poorly (IE if are favorite statistic, straight Caucasian males age 17-35 doesn't understand something, they aren't going to buy it)

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Nice article, but somehow it made me think of the Spiderman 3 game which was awful, so shame on you
(The dark suit corrupts you upon use etc...)

 

[hermes]

I agree that in most cases, decision in Epic Mickey is rather inconsecuential, except because many enemies and bosses are easier to deal with with the "destroy" option, which adds some depth to the system instead of just "being evil for evil's sake".

 

[Boneasse]

It's not my granddad who's racist, it's my grandmum. Not that it makes it any better.

Other than that, good read, as per usual.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

I'd say that one of the best moral choices I've encountered in gaming was during a playthrough of Bioshock 2. Near the end, I encountered a room full of enemies. The twist was that they weren't attacking me; they were rocking back and forth holding their knees, looking terrified. I was presented with a nasty choice; should I still kill them, and as they are undoubtably enemies, (or better phrased, do I have the right to kill them unprovoked) or should I leave them alone as they haven't attacked me, but potentially risk being assaulted the second I turn my back. I stayed in the room pondering for a solid two minutes, before I decided to let them live.

 

[hawk533]

The more discussion I hear about moral choice systems in games, the more I think it's better to leave them out. When it's done really well it could theoretically make a good game into a great game, but I haven't heard anyone give an example of a really well done moral choice system.

I agree that great games need choices and that those choices should actually make a difference, but I'm not sure that moral choices are the best choices.

 

[Ranchcroutons]

As much as Yahtzee will probably hate me for it the best moral choice system I have ever experienced was in Fable III. Most of the choices that game gives you have no right answer and it can be very stressful when you want to do the absolute best thing for everyone and realize that you simply cannot.

 

[Swaki]

meh, the "moral dilemmas" in games have rarely made me think twice, as the consequences are often pretty straight forward, be nice and people are nice to you, and since i love the idea of living in a world where people are nice to you, greet you and even give you gifts from time to time i always take the nice option, sure if you live a life where that is normal having people randomly trying to murder you may seem nicer.

oh and for the last few questions: Would you give up a miserable but familiar existence for an exciting but unknown one?, no, no i would not.
Would you rescue one baby or five old people? in theory five old people as i like old people and all babies do is cry and ruin shit, but in reality i would pick the baby as it would be allot easier, you can just pick up a baby and maybe even throw it to safety, where as carrying 5 old people would be impossible and they are usually pretty slow.

 

[Sindre1]

My father honestly thinks The Legion is the best option in New Vegas.
He is republican.

 

[mjc0961]

And then there are games where both options wind up giving you pretty much the same benefit, which makes the choice itself completely inconsequential.

One of the numerous reasons why I hated inFamous, especially with how ridiculous the ways both "moral" choices end up resulting in the same thing. The only real moral dilemma towards the end of the game has such a cheap bullshit way of giving you the same result no matter what choice you make (an apparently psychic bad guy who always magically knows what you will do and thus plans accordingly to get what he wants every single time) that they might as well have not had a choice at all and just show a cutscene of the bad guy doing what he wanted done directly. Everything about that game pissed me off but holy balls that part REALLY pissed me off.

Better choices are like the one mentioned from Mass Effect, or the one in Mass Effect 2 near the end with the geth. Choices that actually make you stop and think about it, and then once you make up your mind, don't just cop-out and give you the same result either way (screw you inFamous!!!). I also really liked The Pitt DLC for Fallout 3 because it made me stop and think at one point about what I wanted to do. I want more choices like that and less of this "obviously good choice/neutral choice/obviously bad choice" shit that's there just for the sake of the game's karma system. Of course it could be the fault of the way people make their karma systems in the first place that causes so many lame choices, but now I think I'm going to start repeating stuff I heard in Extra Credits before they were calling it Extra Credits, so I'd better stop.

Oh, you got that last question wrong. Coke is not better than Pepsi. And Bionic Commando was a better game for drinking it.

 

[teknoarcanist]

I think one thing that's important, and often neglected, is to reinforce choices like this with things that actually matter to the player. Mass Effect did a great job of making me give a shit about the krogans and decisions affecting them. How? By making me give a shit about Wrex. He became my mental symbol for the abstract 'krogan race', floating somewhere off-screen, and any time the issue came up (euthanize the krogan; cure them; brainwash them; what have you) I subconsciously thought, 'Would I do that to Wrex?'

The name of the game is relevance: Using interactive narrative to compound an otherwise-arbitrary decision with emotional weight.

 

[tkioz]

Would you rescue one baby or five old people?

I read an interesting story about that once actually, you are standing near a switch, there is a train coming in, on one set of rails is fat man, on the other there are 5 people, if you pull the switch the fat man dies, if you don't the 5 people die.

edit: 5am posting isn't good for clarity.

Most people say they would pull the switch, 5 for 1 and all that jazz.

Now same situation, only there is no switch, and the only way to stop the train from hitting the 5 people is to throw the fat man in front of it (just roll with it).

Would you still do it? Most people say no, but morally it's the exact same choice, trading one life for five, you're hands are just a little dirtier.

 

[jrubal1462]

I'm surprised to see an article that talks about free will lobotomization vs. destruction, and Mass Effect, without mentioning mass effect's extremely well done choice of free will lobotomization vs. destruction. Extra Creditz did a whole episode on that one decision.

Spoiler: This video has spoilers in it, but also contains its own spoiler warning. Consider this a spoiler warning warning

Extra Creditz, Enriching Lives [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/1974-Enriching-Lives]

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Don't worry Yahtzee, We'll get there. Video games using Moral Choices is still quite a new concept, so it needs some time.

Although looking back, the first game that had a good meaningful moral choice system....was Deus Ex right? and that was by Warren Buffet? and epic mickey is by.....I'm gonna stop now

 

[myah]

I'd say that the best moral choice system was the one seen in "Heavy Rain" (SPOILERS!)At the moment when I was at the end of the trial where you have to kill a person, I really had to think. Because there was no answer to that question, would you end a human life which is worth as much as any other to save your son? When I finally made up my mind and shot him, I had to look away from the screen because I felt like horrendous monster. That's the kind of moral choice I like, the kind that actually makes feel bad for taking the "evil" alternative.

@mjc0961: "inFAMOUS" is one of my favorite games of all time, the thing that didn't work in it was mainly that you were required to choose a path and stick to it, there were moments where I really wondered (again SPOILERS!) if I should save Trish from her dead, or rather save the doctors, which would in turn, save a lot of lives, or at the time where I found a guy that wouldn't let me through a gate until I reunited him with his wife, should I tell him that his wife is dead, and let him live in suffering, or should I put him out of his misery. And while, yes some choices ended up in the same thing, they felt meaningful at the time, and I hope these two issues are solved by the time "inFAMOUS 2" comes out (I´m so preordering the shit out of that game!)

 

[Casual Shinji]

The best moral choice system is one that isn't constantly in your face.

As soon as you're conscience of the fact that you're making moral choices in a game instead of your own choices, you'll start to comform to the way the game wants you to play it.

I'll sound like a broken record, but fuck it: Silent Hill 2 has the best moral choice system of any game, because you're never aware of the choices you make. For all you know, you're simply playing a game without choices, untill you receive one of the multiple endings.