Hardest Moral Choice you had to make in a game?

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

The end of infamous 2.

Spoiler: MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS

you basically have to choose between killing all humans to save the conduits (people with superpowers such as Cole) or kill all the conduits and yourself to save the puny humans.

I'm interested, what did you do? I don't own a PS3 but that is one hard choice!

On topic though, a few of the decisions in Alpha Protocol were hard to make.

Fallout: New Vegas also had good questions, as all sides usually had good points.

And of course, Dragon Age 2's main choice. Mage VS Templar. I'm actually going to do a run through somewhen, as a Templar lover as I think that could be quite interesting, having Sebastion in my party, etc.

Spoiler: Nothing that wasn't in the last spoiler but still, spoiler.

It should be noted that some people in the world have a thing called the conduit gene which gives them powers if exposed to a certain kind of energy, the good ending kills off all conduit gene carriers, the bad ending gives them all powers.

I chose to save the humans and kill the conduits, doing the opposite would create a world where everyone had superpowers, not everyone would use these powers for good. The risk far outweighed the reward.

It's a shame that with every other choice you get the good option is the only one that makes logical sense.

 

[Dracowrath]

I know one of the most heart-wrenching decisions was in Dragon Age: Origins. If, when you get into Redcliffe Castle, you decide to kill Connor. Once you beat the demon, Isolde is holding him and begs you, in all caps, to not kill her baby. I had sided with the templars at the circle, so there were no mages to help. And I didn't want to resort to blood magic. So I had to smack a frightened and heartbroken mother from her child to slit his throat. I felt like a complete bastard, and unless I intend to play an evil character I ALWAYS go with the circle of magi's help to destroy the demon in the fade.

 

[Darkfiretiger]

Spoiler Alert?

I just finished Dragon Age II. The finale for that story was absolutely phenomenal. The decision whether or not to kill Anders or risk Sebastion's armies is gut-wrenching. Anders was a good friend but did a terrible thing. But that final choice between Templars and Mages is also very weighty. All in all just a powerful finale.

So yeah, the choice between killing Anders and letting him live was the hardest choice in recent memory.

That iritated the hell out of me, I mean the fact that there was no way to stop anders when in DA:O you had multiple options for every situation I didn't like being forced into the corner there.

 

[Jedoro]

Fallout 3: The Pitt

There is a crippling and horrific virus plaguing the slave population of a city. There is a cure, but it isn't until a pivotal moment where you realize that that potential cure is actually a Baby. Her Father is the overlord of the city who uses slaves to further the production of the city, the only city that can make things after a devastating nuclear war. The overlord, Ashur, does not really seek to keep the population as "Slaves", but notes that without them, the city cannot thrive and produce as it can. He and his wife promise that they will develop a cure for this illness by developing it from the immunity of their child, but it will take time as they do not want to risk her health.

On the other hand the slaves want to rebel against the cruel and harsh nature of their forced labor, the two leaders are divided on the nature of the rebellion, Midea just wants to free the slaves while Werhner is just using it as an excuse to get revenge on Ashur by kidnapping his baby daughter and seizing power for himself. Both know that the "Cure" is actually an innocent baby. Midea feels guilty over corrupting such an innocent being, but fights for the greater good for the greatest number, while Werhner is just doing it to spite Ashur.


I was so willing to go in, Gun's blazing and kill all the Pitt Raiders and slaver scum too free the slaves, until I saw Marie, the little baby who holds the cure to the Trog disease. As I looked at her, i couldn't bring myself to take her away and kill her parents, who had proven that once they managed to find a cure, they would give it to the slaves and free them, turning The Pitt in to a productive City instead of a husk of pre-war industry.

In that moment of seeing the Baby, and of the things my character had experienced in the wasteland, i couldn't bring myself to take her, so ended up repressing the slaves and killing Werhner.


Once i returned to the Capital Wasteland, I still felt frigging guilty as hell. Either way my descion was going to be a questionable one. But when i went back to see that baby again, i felt like it was the right way to go.


Seriously, that moment was one of the most profound moral dilemma's i've had in a game. It made my question a lot about my values. Do i help the repressed masses at a horrific cost of a child's life or do i preserve the love and innocence of a child while repressing the liberty of others, with the promise of future freedom?

I couldn't kill Werhner dead enough when he called me "weak" for not being able to kidnap an infant and kill her parents. Sure, I got the XP from talking him down, but then I turned and shot him. Repeatedly. Because it's not my fault he was too weak to do his own dirty work.

 

[OdyCay]

witcher 2 weather to go with vernon roche and reject the elves to find the kingslayer, or with the scoietel to vergen to find triss. i took the vernon roche path. they both change to entire story line

 

[OdyCay]

i just got that game and that was very hard to pick i went to the circle of magi and a whole epic long quest started so i just went fudge it im going to committe blood magic

 

[OdyCay]

and dragon age 2

 

[PixelKing]

Infamous 2.
Dragon age 2.
Dragon age 2 legacy to some degree.

 

[Agarth]

Whenever I play a game with moral choices I already know what my alignment will be in the end. Please game developers, If your going to have moral choices in your game, have more alignments than just 'Good' and 'Evil'. Also make both of the choices seem equally logical, equally difficult, and equally rewarding.

*SPOILER ALERT*
Near the end of InFamous, the second-to-last mission, you have finally found the ray-sphere. You then get the options, A. Destroy it and save who knows how many people, or B. Activate the ray-sphere. If you activate the ray sphere you will get 6 extra energy cores, but will have your alignment changed to infamous and it can never go back. If you were already evil you would have noticed that civilians will randomly start attacking you (usually when large groups of enemies were already fighting you). If you activate the ray-sphere they will stop thinking they can beat you in a fight and just run from you, this also means that they won't get in your fucking way all the time. Meanwhile if your being Cole McNice (good Cole) and destroy the ray-sphere you will get no bonus what-so-ever, except a good karma raise, and by now you should already be hero twenty times over. What the hell, Suckerpunch? Could you have given us a reward for breaking the thing? And it should not be Experience. By now we should be pretty damn close to having maxed out everything, assuming you bother with neutral upgrades. Also why can't I be neutral and still get cool things like scatter electro-grenades?

*SPOILERS HAVE ENDED*

As Yahtzee stated in his review of InFamous all the moral choice system does is force you to play the game twice to see all the cutscenes, obtain all powers and achievements, hear all dialog, ect. I am honestly offended by that. As someone who, as classified by every alignment test designed, is True Neutral, it pisses me off extremely when neutral ain't no option. In Infamous no matter what you do after the, technically, second mission you have to be either good or evil. Why? Why is there no neutral section of the karma-o-meter? And why are there no cool neutral upgrades? It forces you to be either all the way good or all the way evil or else we don't get to play with the big-boy toys. That just infuriates me beyond belief. Every game with moral choice systems does this bullshit. I still like InFamous but I hate the fact that you can't mix your choices up a bit and not be punished for doing so.

 

[Elysis]

Spoiler Alert?

I just finished Dragon Age II. The finale for that story was absolutely phenomenal. The decision whether or not to kill Anders or risk Sebastion's armies is gut-wrenching. Anders was a good friend but did a terrible thing. But that final choice between Templars and Mages is also very weighty. All in all just a powerful finale.

So yeah, the choice between killing Anders and letting him live was the hardest choice in recent memory.

That iritated the hell out of me, I mean the fact that there was no way to stop anders when in DA:O you had multiple options for every situation I didn't like being forced into the corner there.

I thought it was brilliant. Being able to control every action and every character seems just immature and shallow to me. Anders felt real, faults and all. No one could stop him, and that's what makes him an amazing tragic figure.

But back on the subject, I'm still torned in ME2 to keep or destroy the data on the Krogan genophage.

 

[wolf thing]

the end of dues ex, both side had good and bad points and in kotor 2 when you are in the sith cave on korriban, its got a few of them and the whole experience ends in getting dark side points

that's why I chose to party...<.<

this blowed my mind, thank, thank you so mich

 

[IBlackKiteI]

the end of dues ex, both side had good and bad points

Yeah. in the end I...

Spoiler: MEGA SPOILERS FOR DEUS EX 1

I fused with The Helios AI. It seemed like the most insane idea in the world...but the other choices would be
1) to plunge the world into a new dark age which would totally screw over humanity at worst, and be a temporary fix at best.
or 2) To hand the world over to ANOTHER group of humans who would rule form the shadows. ...Yeah, that doesn't work.

Plus, I knew the AI was a mishmash of AIs. One was made to silently protect innocents from terrorism and oppression, and the other was made to rule carefully and in an orderly way. Throw my own human compassion into the mix, and it might just be possible to create a being that had the power to rule the world, an unbreakable directive to protect the people in it, and the compassion to understand those people. Risky as hell, but with so much potential.

Yeah, the final choice was absolutely incredible, and probably the only moral choice which has racked my brain all that much.

Spoiler: Spoilerish DX stuff

I chose Helios too, because it was pretty much as you said and when I thought about it for ages, pretty much the only one which could possibly be any good for humanity.

Blow up Area 51 and you aren't really sending humanity back to the Stone Age, but you are fucking up pretty much all communications and possibly electronics. This would most likely only be temporary, and there would be loads of infrastructure, technology and weapons left over which could general power imbalances and general suckery across the world. The way I eventually came to see it, if you fuck Area 51 over the whole world then fucks itself over. There needs to be control, but I wasn't sure just what kind of control that should be.

Go with the Illuminati and you could very well greatly improve the world over a long period of time, but you could also do the opposite. However don't forget that the assholes who started the whole global shitstorm, Majestic 12, were originally from the same organisation. After thinking about it for a while I eventually dumped this choice on the basis of that.

Second to this would probably be chosing between siding with Freedom or Duty in Stalker.
It's not a major thing, doesn't have any really ridiculously huge benefits and can even be completely avoided, but it was a really intriguing kind of dilemma for me.
Neither side is that good or bad, and basically the Freedom faction wants to use the bizarre artifacts and occurences of the new Chernobyl Zone of Alienation to advance humankind, while the Duty faction believes that the whole area is extremely dangerous and needs to be destroyed or else it could screw the entire world over. If the whole world ended up like the Zone of Stalker, that would suck. A lot.
I agreed with both points but chose Duty because they seemed to be a lot more organised and generally more unified towards their goal.

Oh yeah, and great thing about the first game is that everything you've done in it decides which of the optional Wish Granter endings you get.

 

[willofbob]

hmm... probablu either the HELIOS I thing from New Vegas or Legion's loyalty mission from ME2

 

[Darkfiretiger]

Last friday my Haradim Theif had to decide wheather to hand over a royal document to Haradim revolutionarys claiming that the document held a list of their familys to be executed.
... dam party members forced the decision onto me.

 

[Tirinn]

....then am I the only one so far that chose to kill the most people just to be a douche?

I don't play many games that require you to tear out your conscious. Last one I played was Fable two...and I think the choices were--save everyone that died because of the evil guy, bring back your loved ones and the dog or get the money.

I was torn between the money and saving my dog...and only my dog....

in the end I chose saving my dog which ultimately brought my wife back as well...and my sister...jooooy.

How did you even consider the money?

It is extremly easy to get money in fable 2. Just buy every single house you see, and you will have millions in no time.

 

[Fantastic Foxkins]

The fourth trial in Heavy Rain

Spoiler

I was all pumped up and ready to shoot the guy in the face(after all he just chased me through the house with a shotgun), then he started saying how he had 2 daughters and that he just wanted to see them one more time. Then I realized he was just like me, except this time I could prevent the tragedy from happening.

This so much.

Spoiler

I was like kill one guy? Psh I shoot people all the time in video games what's so hard about that? The guy chases you with a shotgun and I was ready to shoot him between the eyes. And then he started begging for his life and how he wanted to see his daughters. I actually felt sick and I just couldn't shoot him.

 

[Cantrix]

Given the amount of interspecies conflicts that might kick off in Mass Effect 3 (Geth vs. Quarians, Krogans vs. Salarians + Turians, Rachni vs. everyone) I'm really not looking forward to picking sides. Particularly Geth vs. Quarians. I can't help feeling that the Geth are in the right, but Tali's had a space on my squad for two games now!

In fact, given how well Bioware have set things up so there is no obvious right or wrong side, it's a shame that the Human-Batarian thing is so obviously biased. It's hard to feel any sort of remorse at the ending of Arrival when all the Batarians we've met have been terrorists, slavers, or just bad-tempered.

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

I was in a total did they seriously just do that, seeing as since I maxed Nanako and Dojima social links. I felt really close to them I was in shock, that games characterization was almost to good.

I had maxed Nanako by that point, and after helping her deal with living without her mother and helping her with school work I was genuinely depressed at that bit. That wasn't the only time the game upset me, I was being loyal to my girlfriend so when Yukiko made a move to ask me out I had to say no, and she ran off embarrassed and upset.
That was actually due to the game not changing social links when you have a relationship, which I would have appreciated as it would have allowed me to say "Sorry, got a girlfriend", but it was still a really powerful moment and I felt awful.

The fourth trial in Heavy Rain

Spoiler

I was all pumped up and ready to shoot the guy in the face(after all he just chased me through the house with a shotgun), then he started saying how he had 2 daughters and that he just wanted to see them one more time. Then I realized he was just like me, except this time I could prevent the tragedy from happening.

This so much.

Spoiler

I was like kill one guy? Psh I shoot people all the time in video games what's so hard about that? The guy chases you with a shotgun and I was ready to shoot him between the eyes. And then he started begging for his life and how he wanted to see his daughters. I actually felt sick and I just couldn't shoot him.

I made the opposite decision.

Spoiler

I felt bad while making the choice, but I put Shaun first and pulled the trigger. It was only after that I felt truly terrible. Ethan says "I don't have a choice," and shoots, and it hit me. He did have a choice, but I made him kill a man. He starts throwing up into the carpet and I felt so bad because it was my fault.

 

[Stammer]

In fact, given how well Bioware have set things up so there is no obvious right or wrong side, it's a shame that the Human-Batarian thing is so obviously biased. It's hard to feel any sort of remorse at the ending of Arrival when all the Batarians we've met have been terrorists, slavers, or just bad-tempered.

It's not just the batarians. BioWare set us up with the quarians being innocuous and pitiful to the point that it feels like they're trying to force us to like them and stand up for them.

It's interesting that you bring up how you believe the geth are in the right. The more I think about it, yeah I see what you mean.

Hopefully in Mass Effect 3 we'll get a batarian squad member and Legion will be more prominent in the story.

 

[Tonythion]

....then am I the only one so far that chose to kill the most people just to be a douche?

I don't play many games that require you to tear out your conscious. Last one I played was Fable two...and I think the choices were--save everyone that died because of the evil guy, bring back your loved ones and the dog or get the money.

I was torn between the money and saving my dog...and only my dog....

in the end I chose saving my dog which ultimately brought my wife back as well...and my sister...jooooy.

How did you even consider the money?

It is extremly easy to get money in fable 2. Just buy every single house you see, and you will have millions in no time.

Mostly because it came with 300 evil points....because no matter how many innocent people I killed once I did something remotely nice I would be considered a good guy again...so I mostly did it for the 300 points and because I felt like being a dick and not reviving everyone and I didn't want my wife back so the only choice was the money....

But I ultimately started to feel bad for my dog so I chose that instead.