Choice in Video Games, : To Be Right or Wrong

When playing a video game, you will often be called upon to make a choice.  You’ll need to decide What what weapon to use against a particular foe, what character to select in a fighting game, or other similar and simple choices . I am here to talk about the harder choices in games, typically more difficult for the developer than the player .

Plenty of games tout the ability to make a choice and have that choice matter.  Gamers want that decision to matter (whether they know it or not) as it helps pull them into the world.  I personally want it to matter since immersion is my number one goal when playing a game (Unless I'm playing Call of Duty or the like, then I just want to be able to not suck).  So when a game cover, preview or, developer commentary yammers on about the choices they placed in a game, I go in expecting to somehow make a difference in whatever world I am entering, yet more often than not, I end up disappointed.

How to do it wrong, : light side or dark side choices. 

This is not just Star Wars games, quite a few games, like Star Wars games, have you make polar choices like this, that in reality is that they aren’t much of a barely a choice at all. I use the word polar purposefully  because the choice always seems to go like this.:

Light/Good side: Rescue hostage, pay their bills, set up a trust fund for their children .

Dark/Bad side: Punch hostage in genitals, steal identity, light family on fire, eat dog in front of them .

The worst part is that the “choice” doesn’t actually matter. You do something to the hostage and get a few points on a meter somewhere. Those points MIGHT influence whether you can get certain abilities or equipment down the road but it doesn’tthey don’t actually matter because those abilities or equipment will functionally be the same on both sides.  Other characters may recognize your disposition for inherent evil or goodness but, while they may have varying dialogue, ultimately they tell you the same thing regardless.

Obviously I am exaggerating, but that’s what it ends up feeling like . Especially  when you play through a second time to see what the difference is and there really isn’t one. Oh you get the dark ending, which is later deemed non-canonical so it doesn’t matter anyway.  But where does the blame lie, if anywhere? Developers usually only have so much time and money so it seems like they cannot give these choices the depth they deserve.  They should anyway .  If a hostage is placed in my way and I absolutely have to deal with it, make it matter.  Make the hostage different every time I play.  Maybe the hostage is a psychopath and setting him free gets everyone on my street murdered. That would make me have an emotional attachment to my choices as opposed to “oh I am playing a good guy this time so I set him free.”

The worst offender for me right now in this category is the new Star Wars MMO.  I kept seeing videos and articles going on and on about how my choices would matter and but have yet to see that actually be true.  I leveled a Jedi Consular to level cap and chose to play her light side, and but the whole time I felt like she was an unfeeling  robot. So I started over as a Knight and purposely made dark side choices only to have the same thing happen. Choose to save a guy? Get an in- game mail from him saying thanks and giving me a dollar. Kill him? Get an in in-game mail from the government saying thanks and giving me a dollar . Maybe the next guy in the quest line has something to say but it is always “Wow I can’t believe you (let him go/killed him)” I face palm every time this happens because it’s not really a choice. What makes me angrier is during the game’s “Flashpoints” or instanced dungeons, they force the group to come to a computer or something similar and a cut scene begins that says “You see some guys over there,. they They are working with the bad guys but they are doctors or something equally innocuous., what What do you do? A) Leave them alone. B) Send in hot dancers for them to make their day better then utterly kill the ever- loving shit out of them.”  It makes no sense and only serves as a vehicle for the game’s useless inconsequential light side/dark side meter.The only thing that meter does is make the game harder for the developers because now they have to make gear for both sides. This whole thing is even more baffling as BioWare, the developers of this game,  executed the choice thing correctly before this game was out with Dragon Age: Origins.

This dialogue doesn't matter

How to do it right,: choice Choice is actually a choice with repercussions. 

I am given the objective of finding a secret weapons cache deep in some enemy territory. That’s it. I am free to decide on a number of things,  like weapons, point of entry, tactics,etc. Maybe I come in from up high up and work my way down sneakily. If I get caught, I will have to deal with every enemy I skipped on the way. Or I can kill my way in, effectively dealing with an army just to see if they have a cache or not. My choice. These choices are better  as they are not presented in a menu format where I am forced to pigeon hole my character into some type of social archetype
. 

The Deus Ex games, and as mentioned before, Dragon Age: Origins do this choice right. Sure, in Origins you get the menu choice of being an ass or not, but it doesn’t get written down on a scale that boils down to light or dark ending.  Instead, If if you defile those holy ashes, your religious companion may be so offended that she tries to kill you. Depending on the choices you may or may not have made up to this point, you may be able to talk her down. That is choice. Choices have depth and meaning. 

However, I should point out that even these good choices may end badly . The original Deus Ex had lots of good stuff going for it, but the endings seemed to have left the developers of the sequel scratching their heads. They couldn’t decide which to make canon so they moved forward as if all endings were chosen (leading many players, including myself, to say “What!?”)  The prequel developers must have had an even harder time because all of the ending choices don’t matter at all, as if they said “fuck it” at the last minute. 

So developers, here is what I want.: Depth in choices. I want to be a nice guy in my dialogue because I am lying through my teeth to get what I want. I want to Palpatine it up and play both sides against each other. Every time I see a dialogue choice that says [Lie] I attempt to strangle my monitor. Don't treat my dialogue choices as my personality. I can say things and not mean them, the game will figure out I was lying when I do things differently.

What’s that you say? Developers couldn’t possibly make choices matter and in such a way and keep a cohesive story? I call malarkey on that, good sir. Maybe they aren’t given the development time or money to do so, but seeing what I have seen in the industry (the same things you have seen) I fully believe if given the time, every single choice could work within the greater scheme of any game’s story. Now hop to it developers, I have a trust fund to set up for this psycho hostage.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Forgetting Can Lead to Good Things

Now for the true purpose of this blog: As I have limited funds, I tend to obtain games well after their peak when they go on sale or I can otherwise obtain them for meager  amounts of money. I believe the developers deserver the sixty or so dollars they charge, I just don’t have the means to give it to them. As such, my reviews will be about games that are at least one year old.  If you are looking at some older games and were wondering what a slightly eccentric gamer thought of them, look no further.

Amnesia The Dark Descent was developed and published by Frictional Games and is quite possibly one of the most immersive games I have ever played.  I am not given to fear easily (usually because I don’t put myself in potentially horrifying situations) but there were times during this game when I had to stop to do something else.  I KNEW it was just a game but the fear persisted, so well played Frictional.

Amnesia is a first person action/adventure game where you take the role of an amnesiac named Daniel. You awake in a castle with no idea what the fuck is going on with only a strange liquid trail to propel you forward.  The developers have said themselves that the whole amnesia thing is typically a bad cliché, but in this case they did make it work.  As you move forward in the game, you discover darkness both within and around Daniel. The story is simple but serves its purpose of making you brave the bleak Castle Brennenburg in search of answers.  

When you first load up the game, it tells you to play in the dark with a good headset.  I fully agree. To truly experience Daniel’s breaking sanity, you need to put yourself in his situation.  Small sounds and subtle camera shifts all add to the ambience of 1800 era Prussia. 

You may know there are monsters in this game, which there are, but the catch is that you have absolutely no way of fighting them. As you are incapable of picking up anything that won’t later solve a puzzle, your only defense is to attempt to outwit these creatures.  There are a good amount of points where you are genuinely trying to trick these beasts, but it often becomes a matter of “OH FUCK IT SAW ME FUCKING RUN ITS GOING TO EAT MY ANUS!” then hiding in a corner, weeping softly, hoping it moves past and leaves your anus intact.

"Hi would you like to buy some cookies?"

As I mentioned above, the game is dark, and for some reason, fragile minded Daniel is horrified of the dark.  So fragile is his mind that his wafer-thin sanity starts disintegrating when spending any amount of time in darkness. Stay too long and he starts hallucinating, falls, and generally makes a blubbering ass of himself.  This will often happen when something hungry for anus is nearby.  To preserve your sanity, you have a lantern with a limited fuel reserve, tinderboxes for lighting torches, and the game’s gamma adjustment settings for light (leave the gamma alone you wuss). The point of the game becomes: find items for light, find puzzle pieces to solve puzzles, find pieces of the story and protect your anus, all while traveling further into the giant castle. 

The graphics are good enough that if you let yourself become immersed, you don’t think about the polycount. The big seller for me though is the sound and music.  Every time the “shadow” screamed at me I tended to bolt straight forward (usually right into danger).  The game-play itself is not very challenging and sadly, once played through; the only reason to play through again is the (very worthwhile) developer commentary. The difficulty comes in forcing yourself to play it. If you claim you don’t scare easily, give this a whirl. I know a few people who don’t like being scared and therefore refuse to play, but I suggest playing even if you find yourself in this category. 

You can't see it, but the coffee maker is just to the right

If you find yourself unable to play this game but want to experience it anyway, I extremely highly  recommend some Lets Play videos, especially this one. Or if you don’t think you want to watch the whole game but want a sampling of how awesome it is, watch this infamous video.

I give this game a “Fuck Yeah!” out of MIND SHATTERINGLY AMAZING. Play it; it’s not that expensive and you’ll be funding the developers ’ next foray into forcing you to procure new pants.