Monday 22 November, 2010

I read the game's manual while it installed and I was surprised to notice that the little sister's dilemma was talked about. I had the misconceived notion that the dilemma was somehow discovered by the player in the game while playing and that, while important, it wasn't perceived by the designers as such a central part of the game. I guess I was wrong because I've also been surprised by how the big daddy/little sister thing was foreshadowed and slowly introduced over the course of my first 4-5 hrs of gameplay (sort of). I think it went something like this:

1. You see the pair wandering around. You can hear them, but you can't interact.
2. You see a little sister harvesting. No big daddy. Atlas explains what's going on. Splicer comes in, big daddy appear, splicer dead.
3. Dead big daddy, splicer about to kill little sister. Little sister then defenseless. You can harvest or save her. It's the first time you have the choice, but there's no danger since the big daddy was taken out by someone else.

Number 3 above was interesting because right before you can choose, Dr. Something-or-other appears to plea to you to save the girls. Atlas, on the other hand, argues that they're already monsters and that you need to get the most recourses you can, your safety is at risk, and so on. His argument comes across as a lot weaker (to me) mostly because you know they can be saved. So, while the might look like monsters at the moment, they're (easily) redeemable. Also, they're entirely harmless to the player! (as far as I can tell, I've never been attacked by one...I should try and see if they can be killed in regular combat).

I've decided I want to save them all, just to see how it goes. You do get a fair amount of Adam even while saving them, so I'm curious as to how much you get if you harvest instead. In other words, I haven't really felt "weakened" or at a particular disadvantage over the smaller amount of Adam I've received.

So, has it been a meaningful choice for me so far? Well...

1. I was surprised by what happens after you save them, they change back into little girls, thank you for saving them and then run off. I wasn't expecting the thanks. This clearly makes it harder to choose the "harvest option".

2. Dr. Something-or-other is very blatant about rewarding you later on for saving the girls. I thought it was a bit too blatant in that it drew attention to the issue from a utilitarian perspective. In other words, focus on the reward. Do you want a bigger(?) prize later on, or instant gratification now? Also, I was under the impression that the payout happened much later in the game, but that isn't really how it works. Apparently you get (it's only happened to me once so far) mini-rewards along the way.

3. Curiously, Atlas never brings up the subject of the harvesting ever again. It was clearly a setup for the first time, but he hasn't continued to insist that I harvest them or anything like that. This seems like somewhat of a missed opportunity where Atlas could continue to goad me into harvesting citing my lack of success. In other words, he could be saying things like "C'mon man! Harvest them, you've been relying to much on the Vita-Chambers, 4 times in the last area alone!". Or something like that.

4. Dying in the game is relatively painless. There isn't much of a sense of loss, so the choice over greater power now rather than deferred rewards is less of a dilemma. Like I mentioned, I haven't felt underpowered...and dying hasn't been that bad, so where's the dilemma?

I guess I'm still kind of torn about it. On the one hand it hasn't felt that meaningful, but on the other hand, I see how a lot of effort has been put into to set up the situation. It's clearly not something that was thrown in at the last minute (not that I ever though it was).

I didn't appreciate my initial choice to save the little sisters until I finally harvested one. I was curious too about the rewards, which the game does balance (instant vs. delayed) like you said, but I found while it was easy to fall for the little sisters' aw-thanks-mister charming gratitude, the weight on my conscience after harvesting one made that option difficult to choose again in the future despite consideration of potentially greater rewards.

How do you feel about the big daddies? It's easy to justify killing them to save the little sisters (or to harvest), but I felt bad doing it because they tended not to bother me. They remind me of the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus, if you played that, just big dangerous beasts going about their business until you attack them for some story-backed higher purpose. And they make such sad and angry noises.

Hmmm..good point. I hadn't even considered the Big Daddies. I guess they're so de-humanized that I preferred to simply go after them as a means of rescuing the little girls. As a player we have no real sense of who's inside the suit, and they way the little sisters talk to them doesn't really add much (it's "child talk", like they might use with a pet or stuffed animal).

I guess I'll have to save/harvest/reload just to see what the harvesting is like...