Moral choices seem to be the new bullet time of video games. I'm not sure who started it or whether Fable or Knights of The Old Republic popularised this idea of players walking paths of good and evil. Whoever did it I think it's time we all agreed to finish it. The obvious salability of these Morallity Systems is that you get to play the game twice. One for the good ending and one for the bad ending. The problem is that that's about all. The only other thing Morallity System seems to bring to the game is a laughable black & white philosophical approach to ethics.
The real problem is that the Morallity System isn't actually a part of the game. Take for example the game Neverwinter Nights (because I'm still on a crusade against Bioware these last couple of months) and the choice of alignment. Now of course to bring it in line with the source material (Dungeons and Dragons) you couldn't really leave out the alignment but they made no use of it. Most quests you did had no affect on your alignment and the "evil" option seemed mostly to do nothing and that doesn't help you much in terms of experience gain.
Better yet is the afore mentioned Knights of The Old Republic (I will have your head, Bioware!) where the good and evil axis is more emphesised and you gain the ability too... Use dark side force powers a little cheaper. The problem is that whether you're good or evil, the plot is still railroaded to a confrontation with an antagonist and the only change is the final cinematic. It doesn't feel like my moral choices have made much of an impact.
On the other end of the spectrum is a game like inFamous (A game I continue to nergasm over at the very mention of) where in they've done things a little better and you can do that in a persistent sandbox world. When I'm evil the world responds appropriately and when I'm good, the same is true. But despite their vast improvement over the Elder Scrolls series where fame and infamy seem to have the affect of "bugger all" over their sandbox, it still just doesn't sit right. Moral choices are shallow gimmicks and don't really add character depth. Not only does it cast a world in black and white morality but it leaves no space for exploring that black and white. Black is always one kind of black and white is always one kind of white.
It reminds me of the times when you couldn't have an action game without bullet time. Of course bullet time was at least a part of the gameplay. We're far better off with the kind of treatment we got from Prototype. There's no choice about morality, no matter how you play the game you're still a jerk. So it's time we grow out of moral choices too and maybe NOT replace it with a new shallow gimmick. There's room enough in this world for video games not trying to be trendy.
Log in to comment