Bioshock and Moral Choices in Gaming Generally

[The Blue Mongoose]

It seems there's been a lot of praise for Biosock recently, (maybe I'm just exposed to lots of it, having enjoyed the game myself...) and it's got me wondering. What was the point of the moral choice in the game? There seems to be little no extra benefit for making the Evil decision in the game, merely that you get to be evil and see a different ending.

Upon choosing the "Good" path, you are showered with gifts and extra Adam, and love and hugs and smiles. When you choose "Evil" you get about the same amount of Adam, but more immediately. (Assuming you get a gift of 200 Adam for every 3 Little Sisters saved; Good: 440 Adam/3 Sisters, Evil: 480 Adam/3 Sisters.)

Sure this end up with you getting rather a bit of extra Adam, but I never found Adam to be scarce... Hell, I had plenty left over at the end of the game... So why are we given this choice, and what is the point of making the Evil one when there's no (significant) reward?

Other moral choice games seem to have this problem too... Fable didn't really penalise the player for being Evil, and it was rather easy to change allegiance when the need arose - you could easily get the Bow of Skorm and still be a shining paragon of virtue.

The best example I've played of a moral choice game is Deus Ex, where characters you kill stay dead, their friends/partners get angry at you... If you don't try and save your brother he will die... and so on.

My point: basically, what do you think of moral choices in gaming? Do they serve a purpose or are they just shiny things to grab our attention? What game (if any) have you played that had a moral choice system that worked well?

EDIT: Sorry forgot to check if this had been done before! But i was pondering it and became curious!

 

[Strong Intelligent]

They're pretty pointless, to be frank.

Fallout three (which I don't really like anyway) is the only game I think did it well.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Games, by virtue of being made by people, are simply too limited in the number of choices and number of consequences branching from those choices. There's just no way for anyone to fit enough action-and-consequence possibillities into one game for it to come close to feeling real.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I agree that Deus Ex had a couple of the better choices mainly because it wasn't so obvious that you had a choice and how you should choose. Not enough to build the whole game around but enough to make you think and maybe be surprised when you hear how someone else handled the problem.

I see some of the, in your face, do you want to be good or evil choices as being a bit pointless. Even if you replace good and evil with a Captain Kirk or Jack Bauer choice or a more literary Ayn Rand or Gore Vidal choice it's still only a simple clear choice between two options. Rock, paper, scissors or tic tac toe are more sophisticated in terms of game design.

Compare these games to a strategy game like Alpha Centauri that has 7 philosophically distinct factions and moral choices to be made in a number of non binary ways that affect gameplay on a fundamental level. Not much competition.

 

[Abedeus]

They're pretty pointless, to be frank.

Fallout three (which I don't really like anyway) is the only game I think did it well.

Kotor games, too. And Mass Effect. For example, SPOILER IF YOU DIDN'T VISIT ALL PLANETS YET.

Spoiler

your teammate Wrex, upon finding out that a cure for the genetic illness his people are suffering from can be reached, at cost of betraying allies, asks you to help him recover that cure. If you agree, Wrex comes with you, but it's harder to play later, as your allies turn against you (if I remember correctly). You also get Renegate points. If, however, you refuse and try to calm him down, he'll draw a gun and only a help from your other teammate will save your life. And Wrex will die.

Or SPOILER IF YOU DIDN'T GET TO THE END OF GAME YET

Spoiler

same thing happens if you choose to let the Council die or not. I chose to sacrifice them in order to destroy the Sovereign. After you defeat him, you can choose a human to take a place in the Council. Don't know, however, what happens if you choose to save the Council instead of focusing on the main boss.

Really, don't read those spoilers, they are pretty big.

 

[Talendra]

I liked the witcher, you had choices, but they werent so obvious what would happen, and you would not find out for some time what your decisions caused, by then it is too late to change it.

 

[jamesworkshop]

I don't find much of a morale question in the choice I was much more taken in by the obvious take on stem cell research the symbosis of the sea slug (or whatever it is) is much like pregnancy from which genetic material is harvested (embryonic stem cells)
And the nature of genetic modification the plasmids being a twist on designer babies to the point where you are considered inferior to remain a normal human rather than the new and improved "Smarter than Einstein, stronger than hercules"
"are you as strong as my daddy, not if you don't visit the gatherers garden you won't"
edit

the idea here being to kill the little sister is to become one with the world of rapture doing anything to get more adam whereas saving them is a rejection of rapture way of science without "petty morality"

 

[SmartIdiot]

I think moral choices are mostly there to grab your attention. I guess it's a part of that being-who-you-want-to-be-in-a-game kind of fad. In recent knowledge, yes, Fallout 3 made a good stab at it but you have to do what I think is a few more things than necessary to change your karma over to an opposite or neutral alignment when needed. Although I guess it keeps you occupied and there is a reason for having it in the game (i.e. certain alignments allow you do get quests off of certain people/avoiding bounty hunters/getting info etc).

With Bioshock I believe it is intended to try and draw you into the story more. First time I played it through I was in a bit of a bad mood so I harvested everyone I came across. : )

 

[KraitRazer]

It seems there's been a lot of praise for Biosock

Hehe Biosock. Sounds like something I would find in the corner of my room. Anyway back to the point, it's so the choice is there whether there is much benefit or not. It adds an element of choice and variation to the gameplay and also adds a selling point to the game. Most people after playing it 2 times to try both the endings will find that there isn't in fact much point to the moral choice system as of now but hopefully there will be in the future.

 

[Uncompetative]

Actually, the problem isn't opaque choices within a multi-path narrative, but narrative itself - whose inescapable linearity is at odds with the freedom one seeks from a game world.

 

[vamp rocks]

meh, i like having some choice.. its more of the immersion "WHAT WILL YOU DO??" kind of thing i like.. for example in a game like fallout i tried to imagine what i would do in said situation... which is of course rob everyone and kill andyone who catches me... im not a sociopath... promise... *twitch*

 

[The Blue Mongoose]

In responce to the praise for Fallout 3's moral choice system: I could not get it to go to the evil side! First playthrough i went for Lawful Good. That worked fine i became the Jesus of the wasteland. Second playthrough i went for Chaotic Evil. I still can't get much lower than Neutral. This infuriates me.

 

[RoThgar]

I agree that Deus Ex had a couple of the better choices mainly because it wasn't so obvious that you had a choice and how you should choose. Not enough to build the whole game around but enough to make you think and maybe be surprised when you hear how someone else handled the problem.

I agree Deus Ex was well written, i played it through a certain way, and heard my friend talking about the way he had completed it, which was different. I played it through again and it was different to the way he had completed it as well... amazing

 

[Iron Mal]

Most games that have morality in them are too black and white over what defines good and evil and often shower numerous benefits to the good guys while critically punishing the bad guys (Fable II and Fallout 3 being good examples).

Two examples of games that did morality well have to be Mass Effect (where your morality only affects prices in shops and your ability to charm and intimidate) and Shadow the Hedgehog (where good and evil choices give you special attacks and alter your path down the story), both of which worked well because being good/evil didn't have a major impact on the game (and didn't try to have a major impact).

 

[Socken]

In responce to the praise for Fallout 3's moral choice system: I could not get it to go to the evil side! First playthrough i went for Lawful Good. That worked fine i became the Jesus of the wasteland. Second playthrough i went for Chaotic Evil. I still can't get much lower than Neutral. This infuriates me.

._. the first time I played through Fallout 3 I seriously tried but I couldn't get away from being "very evil"
Just steal everything you find, pickpocket everyone, kill whomever annoys you and pick every lock, as well as hack every computer you can possibly find I guess.

 

[Nexus424]

They're pretty pointless, to be frank.

Fallout three (which I don't really like anyway) is the only game I think did it well.

Kotor games, too. And Mass Effect. For example, SPOILER IF YOU DIDN'T VISIT ALL PLANETS YET.

Spoiler

your teammate Wrex, upon finding out that a cure for the genetic illness his people are suffering from can be reached, at cost of betraying allies, asks you to help him recover that cure. If you agree, Wrex comes with you, but it's harder to play later, as your allies turn against you (if I remember correctly). You also get Renegate points. If, however, you refuse and try to calm him down, he'll draw a gun and only a help from your other teammate will save your life. And Wrex will die.

Or SPOILER IF YOU DIDN'T GET TO THE END OF GAME YET

Spoiler

same thing happens if you choose to let the Council die or not. I chose to sacrifice them in order to destroy the Sovereign. After you defeat him, you can choose a human to take a place in the Council. Don't know, however, what happens if you choose to save the Council instead of focusing on the main boss.

Really, don't read those spoilers, they are pretty big.

To answer Abedeus's second spoiler thing

Spoiler

If my memory serves me correctly if you decided to save the council nothing of real game altering happens except a few more human ships are destroyed and the council is extra thankful. For all I know it may matter in the second installment though

As for whether or not good/evil in a game matters. If done well they do matter. It would be interesting seeing a moral choice in a Final Fantasy game as there are plenty of things that could be done. It's always interesting seeing the overly bad or overly good endings so in a way I recognize them as things to grab attention and add replay value but isn't that really the point of them anyway.

 

[Clashero]

You don't make the Lil' Sister choice based on gameplay. Your choice should be based around what you believe is right. Should I become one with Rapture, Splice like a maniac and get all the ADAM I can? (Actually, the difference is quite huge: 40 extra ADAM per 3 sisters means about 300 extra ADAM by the end of the game. You can buy quite a lot of things with that). Or should I side with the doctor who repents her actions, and save these little girls?
Who is right, Atlas or Tenenbaum? Are her gifts worth anything? Is one of them lying? Should I try to survive like Atlas said, or rescue these girls and have Tenenbaum make it worth my while?
On your second playthrough it loses some of the impact though.

 

[Jumplion]

I remember I made a huge article on the same thing, hang on let me fetch it...

Here it is; http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.85219?page=1

I guess that's my reply to this thread.

 

[SmilingKitsune]

Bioshock didn't have moral "choices", it had one moral choice which was then repeated around thirty times throughout the game and had no effect on the story whatsoever except for deciding which ending you saw. Bioshock was a great game but after hearing Ken levine and co. speaking about how big a role ethical dilemmas would have in the game I was a little dissapointed at what was in the final game.