 |
|
Feb 15th, 2017 at 21:12:44 - Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4) |
This session was a bit longer than previous sessions, mostly because I am really enjoying the combat and stealth gameplay of Shadow of Mordor. I’ve always been partial to stealth games, but appreciate when the out of stealth combat is good enough that you don’t have to restart a mission if the stealth option goes south. The story progressed quite well in this session and I was left with a few more intriguing things to wonder about in regards to morality and ethics.
As we can see and hear all throughout Mordor, Talion’s newfound powers are something the orcs have quickly come to fear and dread. While some of the higher ranks of orcs display bravado and boast that they can kill you easily, many lower orcs run away from you after a display of power. In a short amount of time, Talion has already slain several orc captains, rescued dozens of slaves from their cruel masters, and helped stem the ever growing tide of orcs killing Gondorians.
While Talion was a skilled ranger before, his newfound undeath and his wraith powers give him an incredible advantage in fighting evil. Even if he is defeated in combat, Talion is banished from death. He will simply come right back and continue to wreak havoc on the forces of evil. The amount of good that Talion can do in this form is nigh infinite. He is an immortal orc-massacring machine. So then should Talion be trying to lift the curse that binds him to the world and keeps him from dying? As a player that is the task we have been given and it is the only way to progress the story. Shadow of Mordor’s gameplay system however shows us that we do not have to necessarily make forward progress to have fun.
In most games there is only so much you can do in any given area, once the missions are complete and the enemies defeated and the loot plundered, the only way to continue playing the game is to progress the main story. In this game however you can be content to stay the way you are indefinitely. For each Orc you slay, 5 more take their place. For every warchief and captain you slaughter another rises to power. In a Sisyphean fashion, you could slay each and every orc you come across one by one. While that may not progress the plot and lead to the eventual defeat of the hand of Sauron, for each slave you free and each orc you kill, some small increase in the happiness of the humans in the world of Middle Earth has happened. In and of itself that should be good enough to justify not wanting to remove the curse and instead try to use this new power to exact a change on the world around Talion.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Feb 14th, 2017 at 17:08:52 - Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4) |
When Transitioning from my previous game for this class, The Last of Us, I wasn’t quite sure what ethical dilemmas or moral quandaries I would experience in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. While TLOU is a very morally ambiguous game with many shades of gray in every character, Shadow of Mordor is a little more black and white in its morality. Orcs in this game are not the multi-dimensional characters of Warcraft or the humans of TLOU making the best of an apocalyptic situation, the orcs of Mordor are bloodthirsty, cruel, and seek to inflict as much pain on the world as they can. For this first section of the game that remains largely unchanged, though as I was completing my play session things started to come a little more into the gray area.
The tutorial of the game is very well made and introduces they player to a light-hearted sparring match with your son to demonstrate melee combat. In what is easily the most touching moment of Shadow of Mordor, the stealth tutorial has you sneaking up on your wife to surprise her with a kiss. These light-hearted memories are immediately supplanted by brutal uses of both the combat and stealth mechanics in an attempt to save the lives of both your wife and son. The way the game strikes a balance between the skills you need to play the game and their delivery to the player is incredibly intriguing.
For the characters, though not the player, a little bit of an ethical dilemma is portrayed in the background of the game. During a loading screen you hear a conversation between Talion’s wife and her father about the murder of a Gondorian nobleman. Talion killed the nobleman as he assaulted Talion’s wife. She claims that if her father attempts to turn in Talion, she will lie and claim it was she who killed the nobleman instead. In compromise it seems Talion was allowed to join the Rangers defending the black gate and was placed into exile there with his family.
It would be hard to argue the morality of killing the nobleman, even if he was clearly in the wrong for attempting to rape Talion’s wife. However, given the circumstances is it wrong for the wife to lie about the events to mitigate the sentence of her husband? It would seem that despite the extenuating circumstances, Talion would be executed. While that hardly seems fair for defending his wife (as I would do in a heartbeat), is it also fair that the death of the nobleman would go unpunished? This is a hard line to walk and I am not entirely sure either way what is morally correct.
The final thing that I touched on when playing was the way your wraith companion Celebrimbor tortures and burns the orcs for information. Despite the evil nature of the orcs and the atrocities they commit, is stooping to the level of torture to defeat evil worth the cost? Do the ends justify the means? Certainly the orcs are not above torture and evil methods to make their plans come to fruition, but if we stoop to the same level what makes humans any better than the orcs they despise and fear?
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 20th, 2017 at 13:11:50 - The Last of Us (PS3) |
From Gameplay Session on 1/18/17
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than by playing the Last of Us with my wife. The character interactions and environmental storytelling are just so good.
After the discussion in class today (1/19) I have begun to formulate the different philosophies of the characters in The Last of Us. Joel falls very very squarely into the viewpoint of the “Law of the Jungle”. Survival for him is perhaps the most important thing in the world. Every action he takes is determined by this desire for survival. Taking out Robert, agreeing to smuggle Ellie, even his arrangement with Tess is about maximizing his potential for survival. Human connections are not the motivating factor for Joel, but if human connections can help him to survive then they are worth investment.
Despite his clear emotional attachment to Tess and his anger at her death, he pushes it away until their survival is assured after escaping the capitol building. This isn’t exactly unexpected for Joel to feel this way. Unlike normal everyday life before the cordyceps outbreak, survival of the fittest is a very real tangible thing in this world. If you do not do everything you can to survive, you’ll likely end up dead, or worse infected.
Tess also believes in the Law of the Jungle, but not necessarily to the same extent as Joel. Despite being perhaps even more hardened and callous than Joel, as soon as she sees that Ellie is immune, her perspective shifts. Getting Ellie to the Fireflies isn’t about getting paid anymore. She seems to know that getting a cure for the cordyceps virus is more important than their survival, even going so far as to sacrifice herself to save Joel and Ellie and use Joel’s feelings for her to convince him to get Ellie to the Fireflies, no matter how far or difficult that journey may be.
This utilitarian viewpoint of doing what makes the most sense for the most people is not as much about “Survival of the Fittest” and is more about “Survival of the Largest Number”. This begs the philosophical question of moral choices. Having played this game before I know the ending and I know what happens to Ellie and Joel in Salt Lake City. Knowing whether to sacrifice the one to save the many (or in Tess’s case sacrificing yourself to save the many) is a difficult decision.
I honestly do not know what decision I would have made. In this respect having a linear narrative without player choice is actually to the credit of the game. I love the fact that I don’t get to choose whether Joel chooses Ellie over the cure, ESPECIALLY when finding the cure is not guaranteed, though Ellie’s death at the hands of the scientists would be guaranteed. This give the player only two choices, follow Joel’s rampage through St. Mary’s Hospital and rescue Ellie, or turn the game off.
I chose the first, which I guess means that my choice as a player is to save Ellie over the rest of the world. Then again after losing Sarah, I can’t exactly blame him. Some people when discussing the game actually say Joel is the villain of the game. While I can’t agree with this entirely it is only because the world of The Last of Us is not at all black and white. The entire world is shades of darkness and light mixed together.
(Note: This session contained all play from when the trio enter the Capitol Building until Joel and Ellie arrive at Lincoln in search of a car, I have played the rest of the game before)
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 19th, 2017 at 08:12:16 - The Last of Us (PS3) |
From Gameplay Session on 1/17/17
Having fought my way back into the city past infected I was met with a somewhat scarier enemy, other humans. This is the point in the game where I as a player was offered a choice on how to interact with my enemies. By waiting and playing carefully you have a chance to hear banter from the thugs Robert has hired to protect himself. Because I like to conserve ammo and play carefully (I play this game like its Metal Gear), I heard their lamentations about how trade has dried up and their contacts have disappeared so they are forced to take menial protection jobs where they aren’t even sure they will be paid. While this is sad to hear, they are also unquestionably enemies in our path.
A lot has been said about agency in videogames. The original Bioshock played with this in an interesting way in that you as the player were mind controlled into doing what Fontaine told you, which happened to coincide with the objectives onscreen and the only way to advance the narrative of the game. This game doesn’t have the mind control aspect, but it does limit player choice in a similar way. The only way to progress the game in your first encounter with Roberts henchmen is to murder them, either through shooting or bludgeoning. Violence is the only way to solve the problem and there is no ethical non-violent way to resolve this dispute.
Despite the player’s inability to choose in this situation, that will not always be the case. For the next few sections of the attack on Robert, the player is given the opportunity to play using stealth (which although it isn’t explicitly non-lethal, it seems to be knocking out guard rather than killing them). While there is a practicality to stealth, meaning that you save ammo and health by defeating enemies in a non-lethal fashion, there can also be a moral choice to attempt to do so. This prerogative to take an ethical approach to finding Robert is on the player however and is not explicitly indicated by the game. On the contrary Marlene later says that sneaking “isn’t your style” indicating that Joel as a character is less concerned with the moral implications and more concerned with the survival aspects of a stealthy approach.
I choose to disregard this comment and believe that I as a player have the right to choose that the actions the game lets me take are for a multitude of reasons, morality being one of them. This makes some sense in the context of the gameplay as well. Once you are discovered by an enemy, they don’t give you another chance to do things in a non-lethal fashion. Guns are drawn and death is the only solution. In this way Joel can take a small moral high ground in this conflict (the validity of which isn’t necessarily guaranteed). “My” Joel doesn’t kill unless he has to, unless he has no choice. Whether this can remain a facet of Joel’s character remains to be seen as he makes his way across the country with Ellie.
(Note: This session contained all play from when Joel and Tess re-enter the city until they and Ellie reach the Capitol Building in the Boston Quarantine Zone)
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
|
 |
| element40's GameLogs |
|
element40 has been with GameLog for 7 years, 10 months, and 7 days |
view feed xml
|
| Entries written to date: 9 |
|
