Ah, moral choices. We all know them. Usually, in videogames, they're represented as "Good" and "Evil" choices, which fill up one of the two meters for said representations of your choices, and affects the ending/game itself.
However, in the first paragraph of this blog post, I already mentioned a FATAL flaw on these choices- the representation of "Good" and "Evil".
I personally don't consider everything to be "Good" and "Bad". In life, everything is just right in the middle spot. We do certain things because we have to- we don't follow such simple idealisms as being a bad or a good guy. Which is why games absolutely fail at presenting moral choices for you to pick- and why said choices lack emotion -almost- all the time.
Let's grab inFamous for example- without a doubt, a marvelous game. But my only problem with it is how the choices were so transparent- so obvious and so heartless, I just did a "Good" and a "Bad" playthrough of the game. I just couldn't help how shallow these choices felt; how everything lacked a certain human spark, you could say. At the end of the day, the moral system encompassed itself into "hurr i evil" and "hurr i gud".
Another example could be done- now with Mass Effect. It's the same shit. There's two completly two-dimensional choices throughout the whole goddamn game. It makes said choices feel shallow, lack emotion, and overall kill a great deal of immersion the game could have had. Hell, even two choices that seem completly deep and emotional, as well as hopeless overall, are reduced to "Paragon" and "Renegade" points. I won't spoil these for you, but goddamn, it's pathetic.
Honestly, it feels like our society is based on these thoughts; there are "Good" and "Bad" people, even when the world in front of ourselves says otherwise.
Gentlemen, we're all assholes in our lives, even when we don't like to think about ourselves as ones. We also make good descicions and do a few great deeds just to feel better about ourselves. There's no "Good". There's no "Evil". There's just a gray morality that becomes more and more apparent in our daily lives, and that, precisely, is what's lacking in alot of videogames.
Oh- but there's a few great videogames that do so otherwise.
As an example, I could showcase the "Shin Megami Tensei" series.
Y'see, these games usually revolve towards the bases of the end of the world itself, about religions, Gods and Demons. But no, the Gods and Angels aren't "Good" and the Demons aren't "Evil". Yes, you DO pick a side (Although the best path for ANY SMT game is Neutral), but it doesn't makes you seem like you're the best guy ever if you pick the "Law" (Angels and Gods) path or a complete senseless asshole if you pick the "Chaos" (Demons) path.
No- in fact, both paths are awful. Both Angels and Demons are complete selfish assholes, religious groups are usually crazy as fuck; self-lying/convincing circlejerks, and the endings involve either complete madness to the root of nature itself or brainwashed people that lose their freedoms for eternity.
And, see, this is how it should be. Another great example would be The Witcher, for reasons I won't spoil.
We're humans. We're not completly good, we're not completly bad.
There's no evil- there's no good- there's just something in the middle for all of us.
And that is how videogames should present moral choices to us- no good and no evil- just something in between. Some already do; but there's an astonishing majority that doesn't, sadly. And I would like to ask them to stop doing that shallow bullshit.
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