Epic Mickey Offers No Choice

[kop hooligan]

This was thoroughly enjoyable.

I never finished Infamous but I thought it was the worst offender of this kind of thing. All the choices that I can remember were "save everyone" or "do something selfish and everyone dies." I mean it was a good game and I do plan on finishing it but that part of it did not do it for me.

 

[Cursed Frogurt]

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 live.

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.

A long time ago in my philosophy class, I heard about this instance where this operator had to pull a switch to lift a bridge to avoid hitting oncoming trains. One time (for whatever reason) his son was with him and he noticed that his son had gotten caught in the large bridge gears right as a passenger train was coming. He gruesomely sacrificed his son to save all the people on the train. THAT'S some deep shit. He apparently went insane and committed suicide.

 

[Callate]

Mass Effect 2 got points from me simply for (occasionally) adding something I'd always wanted: a way to cut off long-winded vainglorious villains and idiots who fail to acknowledge the power dynamic currently in play. Now if they'd just add "How about you give me what I want not because I complete your fetch quest but because the power level that would enable me to complete your stupid fetch quest is the same power level that would readily enable me to turn you into a long red smear", and we'd be set.

But as far as "moral choice" goes, I think it made much the same mistake as The Sith Lords; namely, what is supposed to be a mechanic to make the player think and develop their character into something that seems more like a believable personality instead ends up making the player go all-out one way or the other because they want the stat boost or the dialogue options.

The boosts one gets for going all-out Renegade or Paragon aren't quite as blatant as the ones one gets in the KOTOR games, but they still frequently end up, if nothing else, determining who lives and who dies in the end game. Which ultimately amounts to: restrict your choices to branch "A" or branch "B", or you'll have fewer viable options in the last mission.

By all means choices, "good" and "bad", should have real consequences. But it ought to be possible to come up with a moral system for how one envisions one's character without being railroaded into an absolute for the sake of game mechanics.

One other thing, just to stir the hornet's nest... The more I know about it, the more I feel like the "Terri Schaivo" affair was nothing like a moral equivalency. One party wanted to let their spouse die with dignity; the other turned the lives of everyone trying to live out the end of their lives in peace, and everyone who worked at the hospice, upside down so they could pursue their medically untenable delusion that their daughter wasn't a vegetable. The best one could say about Terri Schaivo's parents is that they may have thought they were doing the right thing, but the means and extremes to which they went to go about it puts them so far in the wrong that it's hard for reasonable people to feel anything but disgust at their actions.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Im on the "sacrifice the few for the many" camp. So all my decisions are based on that.

 

[Kegluneq]

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.

Definitely. I think the subtleties of a system like this are kind of lost in recent games, since it was about more than just lampshaded binary choices. Did you neglect other characters or yourself more? Did you care enough about your wife to listen to all she had to say?

Silent Hill 1 had a very crude but quite effective moral choice - did you save a villainous character or not? If you were playing without foreknowledge of the game, saving him would affect the ending, and reveal a technique the player could use earlier in a replay to get the 'best' ending (sadly non-canon).

Morality in games is generally handled fairly clumsily. I'd like to see a game that left things morally hazy; I haven't played Mass Effect but the dilemmas posed there sounds pretty interesting. The notion that there are two correct (or equally bad) choices should be explored more.

 

[GoWithDAFro]

Personally, I feel that while moral choices should definitely have an effect, certain characters being grateful and others hating you, stuff like that, they shouldn't have any actual in-game benefits. Your own morals should be the sole motivation for your actions. You also shouldn't be told which choice is good and which is bad, or there'll be situations like "hmm, I want to be a good guy, and the game says this is the good choice, so even though he's a homocidal dick, I guess I'm not killing that guy!" More gray morality would be great as well.

 

[hansari]

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

No, but from Warren Spector we expected something more.

 

[CosmicSpiral]

Moral ambiguity in video games would increase ten-fold without reliable rewards. Real-life moral choices never have guaranteed results, only beliefs and suppositions.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Interesting. This made me think of the end of ReBoot where they've finally captured Megabyte (or so they think) and Bob's talking about reprogramming him and Megabyte's like "Ah, so a fate worse than deletion? And they call me a monster."
Sometimes killing (or deleting or erasing) isn't always the the "bad" or evil option.
Another example would be in Mass Effect 2, where you're given the choice to either reprogram the heretic Geth or destroy them. For myself I felt that destroying them would be the less evil option. Of course both felt pretty evil.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

In the sense of Moral Dilemmas, perhaps instead of the whole "save or kill" option, perhaps it could be perceived in a different viewpoint. Such as attempt to save (and fail anyway) someone or leave them to the wolves without ever thinking of helping them. The end result may be the same, but perhaps the choice itself affects the way people in the game look at you later: Attempting to save x person nets you another ally later on, saying "screw this" turns said "ally" into "enemy" or something along those lines.
A lot of moral dilemmas in life still tend to have the same result whether or not we choose to act, but the action itself can define us as persons later in life. Mostly because we don't know the outcome beforehand. Just something I haven't really seen in games yet I'd like to point out.

I personally believe that the best humans are the ones who don't fool themselves about the "good" and "evil" aspects of life. We all operate on either selfless or selfish impulses (and even sometimes the selfless impulse is only triggered to make ourselves feel better thus being selfish in the end) and therein lies the core. I believe in the end we're all self-serving creatures, but the best of the bunch are the ones who are willing to take a gut punch (metaphorically) so that someone else doesn't have to suffer as much or at all. Decent Being vs. Selfish Prick. Sometimes tho neither choice is decent... and thats another aspect I haven't seen much of in games. Life is complicated, and I don't know if translating that into games can be a good or bad thing. My head is spinning now, thanks.

 

[Carbo]

Thing is Yahtzee, this game's morality system is more of a way telling you "how do you go by solving a problem/what kind of hero are you", not good/evil. I'm surprised you're approaching this game with preconceptions of black and white morality, that's completely missing the idea behind it. The system is supposed to be simple and it doesn't detract the game the least, it supports both choices. Hero = The goody-two shoes Mickey we know today, and Scrapper = The mischievous little troublemaker we used to know him as.

The shittiest thing about morality scales is that more than often being evil in a game results in you getting a non-standard game over because you weren't nice, and the end result feels shit. Epic Mickey isn't about being a massive douchebag who punts puppies across the street, and your choices do have consequences in the long run, whether or not you were good or evil. The endings, the bosses you face etc. It's more long-term. It's a hell lot more clever than most other games I've played, and it leaves room for replay value. It supports both paths and ways to the fullest, and it's all in there for light-hearted fun.

I dunno. I feel almost as disappointed with this article as with the review. In the review you completely omitted the game's core gimmick and idea, while in this article you're mostly talking about how it isn't evil/good. I thought you out of all people would be against that, especially after your inFamous review. At least Epic Mickey feels alot more solid and has less ridiculous purposes of morality. It feels more down-to-earth.

 

[doriant]

The central choice in Fallout 3's Pitt expansion knocked me for a loop:

SPOILERS

I was all about toppling the slaver regime and stealing the cure to the plague. THEN I discover that this means stealing a baby from her loving parents who plan to eventually cure everyone and handing her over to a grad-A a-hole who may or may not have society's best intentions at heart. I was stuck with either maintaining a horrible status quo or destroying it, orphaning a child, and possibly not making anything all that better.

I literally spent a couple *days* pondering what to do before I decided that my anti-slaver policy meant I *had* to bring down the regime, no matter how disgusted I was with the idea of orphaning a child and handing her over to a scumbag. Once I'd done it, though, I immediately left the Pitt and never wanted to see it again.

I found the Pitt to be the best quest line in the whole game because of this. And unlike the regular quests in Fallout 3, you get no extra reward or karma for choosing one side over the other, it just asks you which one you think is right. It doesn't even tell you the long term effects of your choice.

Personally, I sided with Ashur, the slavemaster, even though I disagreed with some of his methods. I don't think the upper class would willingly release the slaves at any point in the future, but at least Ashur has a plan and good intentions; all I know about the other guy is that he used to be a slaver and now hes trying to get power. Plus, I broke into Ashur's safe and found the tapes he made for his daughter, and I would have felt like a total bastard if I kidnapped her after listening to those.

 

[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.

Yes! I loved that level, and I too let them live. I wish they had done more with including splicers who, if not actively friendly, were at least not actively hostile to the player. It seemed like a bit of a stretch that for every single person in Rapture to go all homicidal, and I always imagined that there may have been still functional communities barricaded into other parts of the city.

I also thought that the confrontation with Stanley Poole in Bioshock 2 was very well done, in terms of moral ambiguity.

Good to hear that you had the decency to give them a chance as well! I believe personally that they missed a good chance for diversity in Bioshock 2, by having areas in which there were not friendly NPC's, but indifferent. I loved Stanley Poole, although I had no qualm first time about putting an electric slug into his skull.

 

[Freechoice]

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]

I never found that to be a good example of moral choice. The fact is that the geth don't care. They're machines. Legion has little, human quirks because he needs to. Without them, he's not a sympathetic character. Reprogramming the heretical geth is akin to what they're trying to do to the regular geth. They're evil and you're stopping them. Regardless of what the karma meter says, choosing the renegade option is dumb. You lose more allies to combat

Spoiler: Mini-Spoiler

The Reapers.

It probably doesn't matter, but it seems to matter enough that they have that one special Asari with that one special message on the citadel if you were nice enough to save one special insect race. That's a good moral choice.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Mountain Dew Master Race reporting in. Coke sucks.

Pepsi-Fan here. Coke does indeed suck.

 

[badgersprite]

It's weird that a lot of games where you do have interesting moral choices tend to waste it in useless things. I'm probably going to cop flack for saying this, but Fable III finally got to a point where they were using it well.

The game actually gets to a point where it basically says, "Okay, here are the 'good' choices, but, if you want to actually be heroic and save everybody, then you've got to devote hours of your life to making back the millions of gold you will lose. HOPE YOU BOUGHT A LOT OF HOUSES BEFORE YOU GOT HERE, HERO!" So, yes, in the end, the players are forced to weigh up a big case of 'easy but evil' or 'good but with imminent threat of failure if you don't put a lot of work into getting the good ending'.

In the end, it almost makes the 'Tyrant' who makes evil choices actually look like he cares more about the people, because at least he's actually trying to save lives instead of being selfish and worrying about his popularity. The good ruler comes across as vain and willing to gamble with lives because they can. And some of the 'evil' choices don't feel evil at all.

Anyway, it was nice to see the Fable games finally incorporate something they've been promising since the start of the franchise. I hope more games might involve this route some more since it actually helps make the build up to the final conflict feel like it has some sort of weight and tension. There's no alternative - you have to sacrifice SOMETHING if you want to win, be it popularity, your time, or 'lives'.

 

[moretimethansense]

Snip

I'd just like to disagree with you regarding Infamous, The point of the game (spoilers for those that care) was that you were being lead to your "choices" the reason they end up the same way is because someone is pulling the strings.

To use your example
Kessler forces you to make a choice, Save her or save them?
If you choose her - You are being selfish, you are putting personal feelings above the greater good, she dies to make sure you can't make that desision in the future.
You save them - You put the good of the many first, wether because you believe in "the good of the many", you expect him to trick you or you simply didn't like her, it doesn't matter she dies so you can't change your mind.

Kessler is trying to prepare you to fight the "beast" he didn't because of her, because he wanted to protect her, and because of that many died.
You complain that there isn't a choice, that's the point, she has to die and you have to feel responsible, he already knows what choice you are going to make and has stacked the odds, that is why I like this "choice" it is exactly in line with the rest of the story, it wouldn't make sense to let her live, even if you made the "right" choice.

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.

And just what the blue fuck does the man's weight have to do with anything?

 

[Squarez]

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.

I suggest watching the Extra Credits videos on the subjects.

You should see "Enriching Lives", "Choice and Conflict" and their pre-Escapist YouTube video on it.

 

[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.

And just what the blue fuck does the man's weight have to do with anything?

Objectively nothing, however ask the same question to a group of normal white people in say 1950, substitute fat-man for black-man and people are a lot more comfortable with the choice, we place different values on life, numerically (kill one, save 5), emotionally (my friend is worth X strangers), instinctually (a baby is worth more then an old person), judgementally (a fat person is worth less then a healthy person, because the fat person will die sooner, or a drug addict is worth less then a sober person), etc.

But morally it means nothing, once you concede that you can trade away a human life for any reason it's just a matter of degrees, see the famous George Bernard Shaw story;


George Bernard Shaw once found himself at a dinner party, seated beside an attractive woman. "Madam," he asked, "would you go to bed with me for a thousand pounds?"

The woman blushed and rather indignantly shook her head.

"For ten thousand pounds?" he asked.

"No. I would not."

"Then how about fifty thousand pounds?" he contined.

The colossal sum gave the woman pause, and after further reflection, she coyly replied: "Perhaps."

"And if I were to offer you five pounds?" Shaw asked.

"Mr. Shaw!" the woman exclaimed. "What do you take me for!"

"We have already established what you are," Shaw calmly replied. "Now we are merely haggling over the price."

 

[JakeOfRavenclaw]

The central choice in Fallout 3's Pitt expansion knocked me for a loop:

SPOILERS

I was all about toppling the slaver regime and stealing the cure to the plague. THEN I discover that this means stealing a baby from her loving parents who plan to eventually cure everyone and handing her over to a grad-A a-hole who may or may not have society's best intentions at heart. I was stuck with either maintaining a horrible status quo or destroying it, orphaning a child, and possibly not making anything all that better.

I literally spent a couple *days* pondering what to do before I decided that my anti-slaver policy meant I *had* to bring down the regime, no matter how disgusted I was with the idea of orphaning a child and handing her over to a scumbag. Once I'd done it, though, I immediately left the Pitt and never wanted to see it again.

Yeah, this is a great one. I wound up siding with Ashur, the guy in power, because he seemed like he actually had a plan for making things better, while the rebels might conceivably have plunged the whole thing into chaos. Then, when walking through the Pitt a little later on, I noticed that a whole bunch of the workers had been murdered by the guards. It actually upset me so much that I reloaded and made the opposite choice, but that wasn't very satisfying either. Like you, I left the area in disgust. But it was the good kind of disgust ;-)

I've seen a couple people mention New Vegas already, which took an interesting approach to morality by allowing you to choose which faction to support in the endgame. I picked the NCR, which I still think provided the best long term solution, but it was kind of unsettling to see some of the negative consequences of that during the end credits. The nice thing was that factions judged you independently, meaning that it was possible to be loved by some and hated by others. Of course, they kept the over-all karma meter for some reason, but it didn't really have a big impact on how you were treated. I thought it was much less black-and-white than Fallout 3.

And I can't agree that Fable 3 got the moral choice thing right. There were some choices--the one that starts the game, for instance--that were really thought provoking and well handled, but the ones you had to make at the end seemed to be strictly divided between making your people happy and saving them from the coming invasion. There was no real middle ground, no third choice. It was disappointing.