The Creepy Douche Fantasy in Video Games
So my wife and I were reminiscing the other day about the early days of our relationship. I reminded her of the time that she spared an orphanage from the inferno of her fiery hand blasts. That made my approval rating shoot up by +10. She took the opportunity to tease me about the time I gave her the small onyx demon pendant. Not the best of gifts. she only approved of that +2.
And there, my friends, we have it. In reality the idea of making the decision to save a bunch of orphans is a bit of a no-brainer. In the world of real life you can't make people tangibly like you for real by giving them objects. This does not bother the designers of video games, though. Oh no. People who make games like Dragon Age and inFamous think that this is how the world turns. Or at least the games they produce would have us believe it to be so. To be fair to it Dragon Age Origins does present the dilemma more realistically than inFamous. Taking the "rock and hard place" approach to offering you some major crappy choices. In one memorable encounter you discover the source of an army of undead. That source is a tiny innocent child possessed by a demon. In action RPG land that means you have three choices. 1. Kill the kid. 2. Sacrifice the life of the child's mother to save the kid. 3. Battle a tower of demons to rescue some magicians in a more elaborate "save everyone" scheme. Did I mention that while you're organising this exorcism other bad stuff is happening? Bad stuff like an enormous army of demon spawn marching upon your nation? I didn't, oh, well that's happening too. Dragon Age allows you, as the player, real choice by making all the choices suck equally as hard. Good work, Dragon Age. However, then there's this whole mechanic where you have followers in Dragon Age. If they like you then good stuff happens. If they don't like you, they suffer penalties and may even leave. If they really like you, then you might find yourself invited back to their tent for... Wait! Hold on! Imagine a wah wah guitar there being swiftly silenced via a record needle scratch. Remember that bit where I said there was a blight of demon spawn about to march over the land? Yeah. Also, in the origin I played, some dude killed my parents. Then my mentor got betrayed by some evil general at a major battle. Times are depressing. This does not stop the game allowing you to hit on people with terrible pick-up lines. Nor does it stop you presenting them with jewelry, booze or limited edition grimoires. This gift giving is all a means to activating "horizontal wrestling mode". In tents. Like the world's most depressing rock festival score. The whole thing just made me wince to be honest. Crass maybe. Not as mind boggling as a "moral choice" at the beginning of inFamous 2. A moment where the game said: "Hey, why not roast a bunch of women and children to take out seven bad guys?". inFamous is the worst for this. It might not be so bad if the whole moral polarity thing wasn't something the game appears to be proud of. It is literally the thing the game hinges on. Do you want to be a boy scout or Hannibal Lecter? No, strike that, Hannibal Lecter had a strict moral code. inFamous understands morals the way a three year old understands morals. You are either good or bad. However, you are hamstrung by the fact the same things will broadly happen either way. The writers have to write a story which will happen no matter what. Doesn't matter if you're Dudley Do-Right or Dennis Douche-Canoe. The same stuff is still going to happen regardless. In these games good and evil are a spin on an experience. Is any moral lesson implied by this? If so it's that it doesn't matter how big a douche you are most things will be exactly the same. All that changes is which hand gestures complete strangers throw at you in the street. Polarity mechanics have the potential to be fascinating. In the end choosing between good and evil is just too broad. I'm not sure whether everyone at Sucker Punch was clueless about this. The mid-point morality levels in the game make you either a "champion" or an "outlaw". Now, 'champion' is a pretty bland way of saying "good guy". But outlaw? Robin Hood was an outlaw. This sounds more like "Do you want to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?" You're going to be a hero, but what type of hero do you want to be? Now there's a moral polarity you could get behind. If you had a game which allowed you to be Batman or Superman (in terms of public image) that would be cool. Do you want to be Captain America or Wolverine? Are you a paragon or a bad ass? I am already thinking of cool things you could do with that kind of a mechanic. Shame that Sucker Punch couldn't see the same thing. Let's be thankful for small mercies. Specifically that they didn't put any kind of a relationship mechanic into the game. I don't even want to think about how that might have turned out. Are you Dudley Do-Right or Dennis Douche-Canoe? What do you think of the level of choice-making in games like these? Let us know in the comments! |
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