Epic Mickey Offers No Choice

[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.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'm reminded of the game Alien 3.

You could do anything you wanted, but Ripley never died.

Sure, she could fall to the ground with a slavering alien over her, but she could never die.

Reason: Trademark Damage.

Now, Mickey? Mickey is the epitome of the Disney Corporation, and you want M.I.C. - K.E.Y. to do something actually bad? You may as well ask Ronald McDonald to shoot the Burger King in the face.

We all know he wants to, but there's no way they'll do it.

Moral Choices are limited because they are in real life. Don't like Christmas? YOU SCROOGE!!

It's one of those dreams we have where we can alter our own destiny, but it's something that's FAR too scary for games managers, who just want the nice profitable dopamine feelings rushing through us.

Now, you imagine Shock and Awe if you're the one that ultimately launched that nuke. Frankly I'm surprised Faux News hasn't already cut it to pieces, but the media outcry would be horrific. How dare we let our children choose to do bad things? Won't someone think of the children!!!!!!!

Yes.

Won't someone think OF the children, rather than AS the children.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

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

Wat? Really? REALLY? there just evil for evils sake... NCR or House seems for more logical. I would say Wild card but that is basically the Mr. House ending.

 

[moretimethansense]

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."

The thing is the question is a simple 1 v 5 choice, the man's weight is completely immaterial to the question at hand and stating a weight is simply an obvious attempt to insult the overweight by7 implying that it makes them less of a human.

To illustrate my point,

You asked what is in essence "Would you kill 1 person to save five?" then adding "The one is fat by the way.", it is completely unnecessary to mention it unless to make the one less valuable, which in a 1 v 5 debate is frankly bullshit.

Were the question a Fat v Not fat question I wouldn't be bringing this up, but the way the hypothetical is phrased you may as well be saying "but the one is fat so you don't need to feel guilty!".

If you merely copied this verbatim from another source then I apologize for my vitriol, but if you composed this yourself then I feel I must say on behalf of the overweight and philosophers everywhere, Kindly get stuffed.

 

[Dectilon]

I think it's worth keeping in mind that it's still a Disney game; something meant to be enjoyable for tiny babies too. On the other hand, since that should've been apparent from the beginning, Warren Spector shouldn't have talked it up quite in the way he did, or at least chosen his words a bit better.

A lot of RPGs have a choice here or there where what is 'good' and what is 'evil' is immediately apparent, but they are few and far between. Mass Effect of course eschews that and clearly labels every choice lest someone get confused. It's not a very good system really. It makes future interactions dependent on previous interactions in a nonsensical way. Also, the idea of the Renegade path is often that "sometimes sacrifices has to be made for the greater good". But that's not how it works out most of the time. Instead of the renegade succeeding where the paragon would have failed by making sacrifices the paragon succeeds without having to make any. Or perhaps more accurately, by playing the renegade you are actively planning on sacrificing things/people for no gain.

 

[moosek]

Why does the end comment usually make some statement about my weight? I've been losing weight, and mean comments negate any confidence that I may have gained between now and 22 pounds ago.

 

[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."

The thing is the question is a simple 1 v 5 choice, the man's weight is completely immaterial to the question at hand and stating a weight is simply an obvious attempt to insult the overweight by7 implying that it makes them less of a human.

To illustrate my point,

You asked what is in essence "Would you kill 1 person to save five?" then adding "The one is fat by the way.", it is completely unnecessary to mention it unless to make the one less valuable, which in a 1 v 5 debate is frankly bullshit.

Were the question a Fat v Not fat question I wouldn't be bringing this up, but the way the hypothetical is phrased you may as well be saying "but the one is fat so you don't need to feel guilty!".

If you merely copied this verbatim from another source then I apologize for my vitriol, but if you composed this yourself then I feel I must say on behalf of the overweight and philosophers everywhere, Kindly get stuffed.

A) Fat myself

B) Example was paraphrased from a book I read a fair while ago, and it was a fat-man in that example so I used it here.

C) Oh get over it, if I had used "drug addict" or "terrorist" as an example would you have cared?

 

[Pontus Hashis]

Would you rescue one baby or five old people? That makes me think of a moral choice in inFAMOUS... one of my favorit moral choices evur acctualy.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Interesting article. I'll probably never play "Epic Mickey" on account of I don't own a console, but it's an interesting point of untapped potential in a game.

Makes me think of Fallout 3, where you have three choices: neutral (do an equal number of dastardly and divine deeds), evil (routinely slaughter and/or enslave defenceless innocents), or good (save baskets of kittens from fiery apocalypse). It's a points-based system, which means that you can quite easily blow up an entire town, but you only lose five hundred "points" by doing it, which is easily balanced by doing a few other quest-related good deeds. Nobody seems to remember your good / bad deeds once you're bad / good respectively (although if you blow up Megaton, you do get attacked by refugees afterwards occasionally).

And of course, there's Bioshock's classic "murder little girls / save little girls" system, which I thought would've worked much better if you could choose one option at the start, and then just keep doing it until the point about two-thirds through where you meet Tenenbaum, at which point you're given the option to change your mind. Four endings: one for starts evil, stays evil; one for starts evil but redeems; one for starts good but becomes corrupted; and one for starts good stays incorruptible.

 

[WaderiAAA]

Coke is indeed better than Pepsi.

Hope games will evolve when it comes to integrating moral choice.

 

[Vegedus]

I'm not kidding in the slightest when I say I wish I could spend christmas like Yahtzee. The awkward family reunions are really the words part of christmas.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

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

No, but people expected it from Warren Spector. That's why people were disappointed. At least that's why I was.