|
Barnes's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
|
| [February 24, 2017 05:25:02 PM]
|
Another play session of Shadow of Mordor and man this is not going to be an easy paper to write! Mechanically I'm really enjoying the game, it is super fun to play the controls are tight visually the game is good looking and the theme of killing orcs and the changing power struggles of their captains is super tight. Trying to look at this game through some different lenses its not giving me much. Its hard to say all the killing I'm doing in the game, and it is a massive amount of killing, is ethically questionable when every animation and idle thing my enemy does is mustache twirlingly evil. The biggest moral question might be hidden in the mechanics and well my attention span. Everywhere you walk in this game world there is suffering and slaves that morally should be freed. But i just do not have enough time to kill every guard and free every person ans still be able to advance the story to defeat the overall threat. That might be a good ethical question to explore, whether it is better to help everyone you can whenever you can or to quickly try to decimate the leadership of the Orcs. I'll have to play more to think about this.
read comments (1)  -
add a comment 
|
| [February 22, 2017 11:49:45 PM]
|
Well I was wondering where my ethical questions would come from and this play session has seemed to answer that question. Not in the amount of orcs and monster I'm killing but in the power play between killing war chiefs and promoting orcs that are aligned with my causes. This is a bit of a moral grey area because as i said with my last entry the orcs have yet to show any reason they should not be considered pure spawn of evil, but now I'm actively helping one to achieve my greater good. This offers a pretty good base for interesting ethical questions. It also brings to mind another recent game I've played with an enemy that is evil incarnate, Doom. In Doom one of the defining characteristics of the doom marine is that he faces this moral question and steadfastly abides by the code that all evil must be killed in the most gruesome way possible. This is in contrast to Shadow of Mordor, even if our character has a similar disposition to orcs he still uses them to reach his greater goal. There may be a paper in this game yet.
add a comment
|
| [February 21, 2017 10:53:57 PM]
|
The opening of Shadow of Morrodor is a confusing mix of flashbacks and mixed with basic control tutorials. As someone who isn't well versed in Tolkien, I have no idea what is going on. This being said I'm hooked! The intro sequence is confusing and quick paced but I really appreciated it, I know the basis of the story and know who I'm supposed to kill. Speaking of killing, This game takes a lot of the moral implications of most games killing away entirely. Killing a massive amount of creatures is a lot easier on the mind whenever they are literally creatures made of hate and darkness. I thought the game might be offering some sort of moral choice with the interrogation of enemy captains, but it looks like you kill them either way. I'll have to see how these systems play out in the future, if I'm looking for moral implications that were they will most likely be found in this game, within the rival mechanics. It might take a few more play sessions to start to see them though.
add a comment
|
|
|
 |
Barnes's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (PS4)
|
|
Current Status: Stopped playing - Got Bored
GameLog started on: Tuesday 21 February, 2017
GameLog closed on: Tuesday 28 August, 2018 |
|
