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Sep 26th, 2018 at 23:35:44 - Nier Automata (PC) |
Game Log #2 - Nier (Part 2)
In my second playthrough of Nier Automata (Nier) I, unfortunately, had to tune down the difficulty after one last attempt due to the sheer difficulty of “Hard” mode in this game which I touched in the previous log. Even with that being said the sheer length of the tutorial was still a problem which resulted in the entirety of my gameplay being the tutorial, adjusting savings, and finally getting to the “City Ruins” which is where the game opens up dramatically and the player is able to have more control of what they’re able to do. With this being said there is limited content to talk about however, I did find one particular instance in the earlier stages to be extremely interesting at least in respect to the ethics around the game.
At the very end of the initial tutorial when the player has finally defeated what is
presumed to be the final boss you’re surrounded by three more of the exact same boss. It’s at this point that 2B and 9S combine their “Black Boxes” which presumably causes an extremely powerful explosive reaction destroying not only 2B’s and 9S’ body everything within the radius of the explosion. There are two reasons I found this particular instance interesting from an ethical perspective. First has to do with the act itself which refers to the idea of essentially sacrificing oneself for the sake of the mission and android well-being. Second has to do with what happens post-explosion, even though both of their bodies were destroyed their consciousness and memories can be uploaded to what is essentially the main frame of their base and then redistributed into a new body that is identical to the one they were in prior.
Regarding the first point of interest in more detail, I found it very interesting that the intensity of the action was so severe when both presumably knew that they weren’t actually going to die. At least from my perspective, they reacted in a way that this was the end of their existence. There’s an argument to be made that 2B actually thought that however, 9S knew from the beginning that he could upload both of their information to the mainframe. With all of this being said it made me question what it would be like if real life soldiers could put themselves in the shoes of android. Knowing full well they themselves weren’t actually dying would there still be as much emotion behind the actions they did or would most emotions dull down.
The second part I found interesting was the fact that their consciousness could essentially be manipulated through a computer system. This begs the question of where do people draw the line ethically in terms of AI. As someone who has played this game more than what I am trying to let my perception be the main focus appeared to be that the main focus of the game is about what is right when intelligence can be created. Because androids presumably have a higher level of consciousness than most of the machine lifeforms are they innately in the right? Answering these questions in this context would be far too difficult but the game is constantly bringing this question up even from the get-go with dialogue between 2B and 9S.
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Sep 25th, 2018 at 21:38:03 - Nier Automata (PC) |
Game Log #2 - Nier
Playing Nier Automata (Nier) for this “Game Log” assignment wasn’t necessarily a new experience for me as I have played Nier before, however, with that being said I didn’t want to continue from where I was at and instead wanted to start a playthrough from the beginning again. Since I already have 50+ hours on the game I had the inclination to raise the difficulty from normal to hard, not realizing what I had gotten myself into to. I had completely forgotten how hard the game was to get through the tutorial on normal difficulty as it took me around 5+ hours the first time. Although I was annoyed like my first time playing through it did raise an interesting question and that’s “How hard should games be?” as well as more specifically “How hard should game tutorials be?” I ask these questions because this game had a harder tutorial than any other game I have played.
The game I immediately compared it to was the original Dark Souls game. Although Dark Souls doesn’t necessarily have a tutorial I felt that progressing through the beginning of the game in Nier was more difficult than Dark Souls which is revered as one of the most difficult Triple-A titles on the market by most gamers. I would attribute that what makes Nier so difficult (apart from the mechanical skill and game knowledge needed to fight enemies without dying on harder difficulty) is the fact that the tutorial itself is relatively long due to cutscenes and dialogue which isn’t necessarily a problem IF there was a single savepoint before the end of the tutorial. The fact that you lose all progression in such a long and difficult “tutorial” is absolutely insane to me. As a reference of length, the first “walkthrough” video on YouTube took the player 37 minutes on normal difficulty. If this player died, however, at 36 minutes they would have to start from square one again resulting in over an hour of playing through the tutorial.
Some people may say that this is why there’s an easy mode. If normal is too difficult then you should play on easy mode. Which I would completely understand if the game on easy didn’t basically play itself through the use of “auto chips” which do actions automatically such as “auto-heal”. The jump in each difficulty is so drastic and the idea that “normal” which is hard by most standards is supposed to be the average doesn’t make sense. With all of this being said it’s possible that I was an anomaly or naturally bad at these styles of games in which case this was my personal experience. As a side-note, I am explicitly referring to the difficulty of the tutorial once out of the tutorial how you play the game changes in terms of “grinding” materials, currency, gear, etc. so that future fights become much easier. Additionally once out of the tutorial you can save before most boss fights so if you die your playthrough is much less tedious.
In conclusion, the overlying question regarding an ethical decision is “At what point is difficulty unethical or is it ever unethical?” This question may sound ridiculous at first but from a utilitarian standpoint if the game is overall giving players a negative experience then it may be worth considering. This question should be applied to all games and not just Nier. Nier was the reason the question arose but, if we take a look at games that are exceedingly more difficult to the point where it seems as though the game was meant to solely frustrate people then the question may seem more practical. An example of a game that would fit this category is Cat Mario.
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Aug 30th, 2018 at 23:05:56 - Little Nightmares (PC) |
Part three of my “Little Nightmares” playthrough will again follow the same format as my first two entries in that I will first talk about the gameplay experience itself and immediately after address an infrared/literal ethical issue involved in the game. Overall this third playthrough was more so lackluster than the other two. That’s not to say that it was bad by any means, it was just not as interesting as my other two experiences with the game. However, despite that, I still intend to make it as interesting as possible.
The game began unfortunately not where I had logged off but instead the puzzle right before I logged off and although this was slightly annoying I was able to breeze throughout in less than a minute so it wasn’t a big deal. Moving forward from that situation I ran down the hall being chased by the long-armed figure until I reached the elevator that got me into this mess in the first place. After hiding in a box on the elevator I proceeded to make my way through two rooms that were mostly forgettable. The game started to get interesting again when I entered a room with the long-armed figure assessing his toys. I don’t really know the meaning and I’ve found it difficult to really make an inference but this room is scattered with roughly a hundred dolls. Maybe they are taxidermied little people but it didn’t seem realistic enough to be the case, they looked like simple handmade toys so as to there meaning I haven’t yet figured out. After proceeding past this room I had to sneak past him in a room full of clocks which were quite easy since the sounds of the clocks distracted him significantly. Once I snuck past him I made my way into what seemed like his library… I found this extremely odd seeing as the long-armed figure is blind. Despite that, I had to traverse his library and make my way out of his “lair.” Once I made it out there was one final part of this stage in the game. I was stuck in a room with the door nearly collapsed and the figure is trying to reach around the room and grab me. After more thinking than I should have needed, I pull pieces away of the cage holding the door open and it collapses slicing off both his arms. It was at this point that I ended my third playthrough of “Little Nightmares.”
Now to talk about ethical issues that I found prevalent. Trying to decide what to talk about for this part of my journal was many times harder due to the sheer fact that the events that took place weren’t as distinctive as the other two playthroughs. With that being said, what I’m about to say may be a stretch but I think it’s at the very least worth noting. What I’m referring to is the idea that you’re the bad guy in “Little Nightmares.” To increase perspective think about it like this: You’re playing a little character who is running around causing trouble for these “figures” which are more humanoid than not. So as expected they set traps and chase you down until they finally catch/kill you. Yes, maybe some of them do odd things after they capture you but the idea remains that you are in some ways vermin similar to a rat. Now I think this idea could possibly fall flat when you consider the fact that the character you are playing appears to have human consciousness. But nonetheless, there is still an argument that could be made that even with a human level of consciousness your character is still in the wrong.
In conclusion, the experience of this playthrough was slightly lackluster and could have brought forth more thought-provoking events, however, despite that I still enjoyed this playthrough. In regards to the ethics, I think that the idea of right and wrong is so arbitrary to the individual in most instances that a lot of people would like to assume that whatever it is they are doing is what’s right. This is especially so if it aligns with whatever morals they have adapted from their upbringing. So whatever the case I would say that understanding both perspectives is vital to having a healthy understanding of ethics as a whole. So, as a closing remark, try your best to consider the possibility that maybe something you think is wrong is in fact not and vice versa.
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Aug 30th, 2018 at 00:15:58 - Little Nightmares (PC) |
Part two of my “Little Nightmares” playthrough was actually much more interesting than I thought it was going to be. The game provoked a lot more questions and ideas than I had anticipated. Because of this surprise, my perception of what the game is trying to talk about has changed and I still don’t think that I’m on the right track but I’m at the very least more in the ballpark. Following the theme of my last entry I’ll first talk about my literal gameplay experience and then ethical ideas I have regarding the game.
When I began my playthrough again the game was still at what I would now consider a slower pace. All I was doing was jumping around, solving puzzles and continuing progression. Of course, the game still felt unsettling but nothing too bad up until my character began to starve. After traversing a bedroom and going down an elevator I was welcomed with a long hallway and about halfway through my character grabbed his stomach and I knew what was going to happen. (because in the last playthrough my character was starving and an NPC gave me bread.) As I continued down the hallway eventually I reach an open room with a cage and a piece of meat inside, keep in mind the seen is much more depressing and repulsive than it may sound. The meat was raw and looked slightly spoiled, in addition to the quality there were rats circling all around. Regardless of the source, my character had to eat so as I began to eat the meat a frightening figure closes the cage door and captures me… I’m not going to lie, my heart skipped a beat when I saw the hand reaching down from the ceiling out of the darkness of the room. After awakening and breaking free from my cell I then had to sneak past this figure which was actually a simpler task than I had thought. After sneaking past the figure I fell down an air vent which leads to an open room with an ocean of shoes. I proceeded to swim through the ocean of shoes and jump from suitcase to suitcase in an effort to not get killed by whatever monster was lurking underneath all of the shoes. Once I made it to the other side I decided to end my playthrough there.
The ethical issue that I want to address has to do with kidnapping/child trafficking. In the game, you’re playing as a little person assumably a child. You’re not the only child in this universe, there are many others like you. Many of these children have already been captured, imprisoned, tortured, or even killed. There is evidence of these actions happening throughout the playthrough rather it is the numerous amount of cages, the bloodstains seen in different rooms, the beds with constraints, or any other sign that cruel acts are being done. In addition to the treatment, you receive after being captured, the methods used to capture you in the first place are cruel, and treat you animalistically. The creatures/people you hide from in this world will set traps with food since you’re bound to starve eventually and once you take the bait it’s all over. This could be related similarly to kidnapping in the real world where someone sets some kind of bait and once the kid takes the bait the worst may be assumed.
In conclusion, the game is becoming more and more frightening with each playthrough but on the same hand extensively more interesting. The two topics I have covered up to date only play a small part as to what could be expanded upon which results in a game that doesn’t get dull. The kidnapping was most relevant to me in this playthrough though due to the fact that it was the core of my experience.
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