Burn the orphanage, or adopt all the orphans?

So I finally got into inFAMOUS, since I downloaded it as part of the Sony ‘we’re sorry all your stuff got hacked’ apology deal and I’m really enjoying it. I couldn’t at first, because all I saw was Generic Gravelly Voice Man running around shooting Bad Guys in a Gritty Urban Environment (admittedly with lightening from his hands like Spiderman gone wrong, but, you know). My brain just went ‘UGH GOD BORING’ and nearly gave up. However, I persevered as I’m not one to turn my nose up at a free game, and now I’m finally having fun.



As you are probably already aware, inFAMOUS features a ‘moral choice’ system, where you can either be super good or super evil, jumping around the city cleaning up the streets and healing people like a modern day Jesus, or running around shooting everyone in your path and making the city itself your bitch.

Now, me and Sunday Matt are both playing the game, but we’ve taken different paths. I’ve decided to go down the Jesus route, while he’s gone super shooty evil guy. I can never play as the bad guy, because I feel too bad to do horrible things. I’ve never seen the bad ending of Bioshock except on Youtube, because I could never bring myself to harm the Little Sisters. Yes, they’re just a collection of ones and zeroes, but I can’t do it!



I mean, look at that face. She loves you, and you want to kill her? You MONSTER.

It’s got me thinking. Moral choices have become a huge thing in video games in the last few years, and while I welcome it, there does seem to be some big gaping holes in it, narrative wise. Let’s use inFAMOUS as an example, mostly because it’s still fresh in my mind, and well, it’s my post, so I’ll do what I want. Nyah.

My issue is the game stays basically the same whatever choice you make. Ok, yes, your cutscenes will be different, and the residents of Empire City will either help you or attack you depending on your behaviour, but the basic game is the same. You still get called out for help whether you’re good or evil and the neutral missions are just bizarre. If you’re evil, your appearance changes and you pretty much look like this:



If you needed help, would you approach THAT guy for it? Hell no.

Plus, no one ever says ‘please’. It’s all, ‘Cole, you need to go shoot the bad guys!’ I know the city’s under threat, but that’s no excuse for bad manners.

Ahem. Where was I? Right. It makes no sense for evil Cole to be taking orders from others, when he’s intent on taking over the city and terrifying everyone in his path. You can fiddle with the cutscenes all you want, we can still see what you’ve basically done is put in an artificial gameplay lengthening device.

The other issue is that the choices are always so black and white. This highlighted in inFAMOUS when you come across a moral pathway and a cutscene runs while Cole outlines his two choices. They are always, but always, either kill the puppy, or find the puppy a loving home. There’s never a middle ground, and it feels very stilted.



In real life, your decisions are not always that clear cut. We make our choices based on multitudes of reasons, not just whether the action is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and we don’t get rewarded or punished in the same way. Life is too complicated to do that. Therefore, when we run across a situation like this in a game it feels off.

Obviously games are not at that level of narrative yet, and while moral choices are a step in the right direction, they’ve got a long way to go until they can tell a mature and challenging tale. Until then, I’ll be over here with the Little Sisters. They’re just so cute!