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UltraVioletLlama's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
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| [February 22, 2017 09:25:04 PM]
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Shadow of Mordor, PS4, February 22nd, 2017, 5:53-6:50 (57 minutes)
This playthrough I simply released more slaves and I unlocked more and more missions. Saving slaves in this game is very rewarding because the more slave rebellions you cause, the more xp and xp opportunities are created. This gives the game an interesting dynamic, because you do not have to engage in these missions, and it is seen as the moral thing to do in this game world. Is this teaching the player to only fight for others if you gain greatly from it? As for the narrative I experienced this game, I had another main story mission with Ratbag. We are introduced to something called warchiefs, basically captains that affect Sauron’s army even more than a regular captain. You need to kill these for the story, so it is partially out of your hands. As you kill them, they all become stronger, but you also become stronger. You act selfishly by killing the warchiefs, because ultimately you are making the world a darker place just so you can have a better chance in defeating Sauron. Anyways, in that mission, you are called to kill a warchief and then passing it off as Ratbag’s kill. You are basically a hitman for Ratbag, just so you can learn of your past. Is being a part of this corruption ethical? Is helping Ratbag actually going to help you, or are you creating a monster?
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| [February 20, 2017 11:05:19 PM]
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Shadow of Mordor, PS4, February 20th, 2017, 6:47-8:34 (1 hour 47 minutes)
On this playthrough I simply did one mission and I used it’s open world to learn new game mechanics. The mission I did was to find more about Talion’s past and to learn about Sauron’s army. I started out by actually freeing an orc, Ratbag the Coward, from being imprisoned. Through a win-win scenario, the game eventually has the two of you team up. This world pits you against killing this species so much that there are even mini games where you have to kill as many ureks as you can until the time runs out. Why, then, is one of these orcs able to be all buddy buddy with you, if he is inherently evil? Why does Ratbag the Coward get special treatment while other orcs are treated as simple obstacles? Is it ethical to kill these orcs if you are friends with one of them? What if they are good, and their intent is like Ratbag where they aren’t fighting solely for Sauron, why does the game blindly pit these people on you. After that mission, I messed around in the open world of Middle-Earth. I learned of a mechanic that makes this game very unique-- When you die or when you kill a captain, several Ureks take their place, making them all stronger. Is it an ethical decision to kill these captains because it gets you closer to stopping Sauron, or are you causing more pain in the world? Looking at this from a Utilitarian perspective, the decision to kill these captains is a bad idea because in the end more captains are waiting to take their place and they all get stronger. The only way I could see this work in this framework is if Talion actually does stop Sauron through getting stronger by killing captains. Stopping Sauron is a daunting task, and if you use the LOTR series, you see that Talion is definitely not the one that stops Sauron. Does Talion help enough in the cause against Sauron for his escalation of Evil to be worth it, or does this narrative make all of his actions pointless? The end is what is emphasized in a Utilitarian framework, so all of this evil he is directly bringing into the world needs to be less than the evil he ends up taking out in the end of his journey. In a Kantian perspective, Talion is doing everything he can, and the outcome isn’t up to him. Other than Ratbag and for self-defense reasons, this game world incentivizes killing ureks, and it is impossible to play as a pacifist in this game. Talion killing these captains is still killing Sauron’s captains, and it isn’t his fault that other captains might benefit from that interaction. Talions intentions are good in this game, he wants peace for middle earth, but the necessary game mechanics. might actually create a worse situation for the world.
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| [February 19, 2017 08:42:58 PM]
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Shadow of Mordor, PS4, February 19th, 2017, 4:39-5:41 (1 hour 2 minutes)
It opens on a man, Talion, and he is teaching his son how to fight Sauron’s army. His efforts against Sauron ends up destroying his family, and his son’s and wife’s throats are cut. Could his open fighting of this cause his family to be killed? Should he have fought for his family, or for his people and the reign of Sauron? His wife makes it clear that she is okay in dying for a cause like Sauron. The gameplay is also centered around killing Uruks, orc like creatures. They are combative, but you can move through the game without killing all of them. Are they worth as much as human life? Who is the actual good side? Why not attack the source, not the pawns? We ended up interrogating an uruk and killing him for information. If we have to kill these people to end Sauron, is using a game mechanic like this very ethical? A different gameplay mechanic is the use of grabbing them and dragging them around. Is this an inhumane way to fight someone? Another mission I went through was to hunt down Gollum. He was innocently walking along, and we had to hunt him down and stalk him. Eventually he was forced into helping us find Sauron’s servants. They threatened him, even though he did nothing wrong. Are the means that Talion takes to stop Sauron justified by the end? Will he even succeed? If he doesn’t succeed, his actions could be seen as unethical. If he does, by a Utilitarian perspective, he was acting ethically.
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UltraVioletLlama's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 19 February, 2017
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