Sg3 on 7/3/2011 at 01:33
I'm not a psychopath, honest! A friend and I had a discussion about games allowing the player to make moral choices, and I couldn't think of more than a few P.C. games that allow the player such broad moral freedom as to allow him to essentially go postal. The three that I can think of are the Hitman series, the Postal series (obviously), and Prototype. Oh, and I suppose the Grand Theft Auto games also do allow (or, rather, encourage) this sort of behavior, although I don't know if they were ported to P.C. Can you think of any other games that allow the player to slaughter large numbers of bystanders?
ZylonBane on 7/3/2011 at 01:55
Syndicate
Fallout 1/2/3
june gloom on 7/3/2011 at 02:00
I like how you post this the same day I posted the school shooting mod thread...
lost_soul on 7/3/2011 at 02:05
I seem to recall crowbar-ing the entire population of the HK area of Deus Ex on more than one occasion.
I also remember terrorizing the civilions of "the city" in Thief Deadly Shadows.
and then there's all the times I ran around in Black Mesa (Half-life) crowbar-ing scientists.
Yep, when you get right down to it, most games allow the player to kill innocents.
The only friendlies you weren't allowed to kill in HL were ones that were critical to game progression.
Sg3 on 7/3/2011 at 02:29
Quote Posted by dethtoll
I like how you post this the same day I posted the school shooting mod thread...
Heh—I missed that, actually.
Quote Posted by lost_soul
and then there's all the times I ran around in Black Mesa (Half-life) crowbar-ing scientists.
Yep, when you get right down to it, most games allow the player to kill innocents.
The only friendlies you weren't allowed to kill in HL were ones that were critical to game progression.
Well, when I said "the masses," I meant large populations of people. Not a couple dozen scientists. Additionally,
Half-Life didn't present it as a moral decision, because the scientists were clearly all doomed even if the player tried to help them. I know this because I tried to save all the scientists. (Sorry to spoil the image, Dethtoll.)
demagogue on 7/3/2011 at 02:57
Defcon & Pandemic
/thread
Sg3 on 7/3/2011 at 03:02
Quote Posted by demagogue
/thread
I hardly think that this sums up the list of computer games which offer the player moral choices to the point of allowing large-scale murder. Do you really?
demagogue on 7/3/2011 at 03:13
No it doesn't sum it up. It's just a common expression of an extreme example, not a literal "end of thread".
But when you have a game whose objective is to completely wipe out all of humanity as mechanically & efficiently as possible, there really isn't any way to push it farther. I mean, you win Pandemic when there are 0 humans left alive.
As for the moral choice, I think Defcon is on the extreme edge of that too. You know the vast percent of casualties will be innocent civilians, and they're in the millions. And the choice is often between minimizing everyone's casualties and mutual obliteration.
Phatose on 7/3/2011 at 05:31
If we're limited to PC only, then Just Cause 2 is another recent title that fits.
These don't really seem to have anything to do with Moral Choices though. From the list, I'd say he's going more for the Catharsis factor then anything to do with morality at all.
In Prototype for example, you don't make a moral choice to kill civilians or not. You're going to kill them one way or another. The closest to morality you'll get there is choosing not to eat anybody who's not shooting at you, and not to go apeshit in central park for no reason. But you're going to kill innocents whether you mean to or not.
Shadowcat on 7/3/2011 at 06:35
Carmageddon
