Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow – Shoot Dahlia
Pandora Tomorrow is notorious for its amazing 4-player Spies vs. Mercs multiplayer mode. It was an unmatched experience that hasn't been duplicated. The game's single-player was less impressive, failing to improve over the original Splinter Cell in any fundamental ways. When Chaos Theory came along and revitalized the series, Pandora Tomorrow's single-player became even less worthwhile.
Despite this, tucked away in a brief moment in the middle of the game's campaign is one of the coolest choices I've ever come across. Dahlia, your contact in the field, is parting ways as you board an elevator to continue your mission. As the doors close, your handler Lambert comes in over the intercom and insists that you shoot Dahlia. "Don't think, just do it," he insists.
The consequences of either choice are minor, but the time to react was so quick that the scene was quite surprising. There hadn't been any choices like this before to suggest players would be put in this situation. In some small way, I can see how the urgency of this decision may have informed more recent games like Alpha Protocol and The Walking Dead, which force players to make sudden, split-second decisions.
Catherine – Catherine or Katherine?
Most of the tough choices in games revolve around deciding who lives and dies. What made Catherine so special was that it forced you to choose between two lovers. Does the protagonist Vincent fall for the bubbly vixen Catherine, or does he remain faithful and stay with Katherine, who's ready to settle down. On the surface the game may appear to be nothing more than male wish fulfillment, and its certainly at least a little bit sexist, but Catherine explores some serious adult dilemmas.
Both options have their perks and flaws, and regardless of how you personally lean, the perspective of Vincent plays a big factor. He's the typical immature man-boy, not quite ready for commitment. Your decisions can push him to either clean up or fly free, with some less ideal options in between, depending on how you play your cards.
Fallout 3 – Save or Blow Up Megaton?
The size of the balls on the developers at Bethesda should not be underestimated. Their ability to create dozens of hours of worthwhile RPG quests is unmatched by even the biggest developers. They've gotten so good at it that when the time came to offer tricky moral choices in Fallout 3, they knew exactly what needed to be done to make the choice impactful.
Save the town of Megaton from the undetonated nuclear bomb in the center and you'll be treated to hours of content and a great base of operations for your character. That bomb sits there like a tantalizing red button that must be pushed, though, and some players just couldn't help it.
The destruction of the town meant the death of everyone inside, a potential house, and every quest that started there. You nuke enough gameplay to equal one of the Call of Duty campaigns, and Bethesda allowed you to do it without batting an eye. In a world where some developers direct the action so that you don't miss one second of the work they've done, Bethesda deserves credit for letting players follow their hearts, no matter how destructive that may be.
Knights of the Old Republic – Be an Evil Asshole
Knights of the Old Republic was the first Star Wars game to present the Light Side/Dark Side concept as a choice for the player. It was one of the first games to dive headfirst into moral choices in games, and as such it took a pretty straightforward approach. Do good deeds and you'll shine blue like a generous Jedi god. Do evil and you'll turn scarred and red, feared by even your own party members.
By today's standards the choices don't offer enough middle ground. You're either a golden child or maniacally evil. At the same time KOTOR was awesome because it offered the constant temptation to go dark. Do-goodery was met with the same typical praise we've received in so many RPGs, but doing bad felt new and exciting.
As the game progressed, the opportunities to be a jerk started to pile up. One moment with your Wookie crew member and his Twi'Lek friend may go down in history as one of the most despicably evil actions in gaming.
The Walking Dead: Episode 3 – What Now?
I wouldn't dare go into specifics about a choice in a game so recent, but The Walking Dead has been so praised because of the potency of its choices. There are so many tough ones that it's difficult to narrow it down to only one. Needless to say, if you care about these kinds of choices in games, then The Walking Dead is the series to play.
There was one standout choice for me, in Episode 3, and that's because of the emotion it got out of me: careless anger. When one character went too far and attacked a character I liked a lot, there wasn't even a choice to be made. I was so angry with what happened that I made the brash, anger-fueled choice without skipping a beat.
What was so special about this particular moment was that the high quality writing of the game manipulated me. Telltale wanted me to make the decision with fire in my eyes and it actually worked. The bottom line: I cared about these characters a lot, and its a testament to their writing skills that they fired me up so much.
Mass Effect 2 – The Suicide Run
There is nothing quite like Mass Effect 2's final mission. After several hours of collecting your crew and getting to know each of them, the game thrusts you into an impossible mission where anyone can die. Every major character is fair game for the meat grinder, and even minor crew members can eat it in unexpected ways.
What's so amazing about the mission is that its built on the relationships you've forged over dozens of hours of gameplay. With the game's somewhat episodic format, you grow to love the cast. So it only makes it worse when every choice you make can get one of them killed. Knowing that the dead crew members won't be returning for Mass Effect 3 made the stakes even higher.
If you ever need evidence for why a lot of people were disappointed by ME3's ending, you need look no further than the crazy ambitions of ME2's Suicide Run. ME3 made good on the concept by spreading ambitious choices throughout the trilogy-closer, but there was something especially final about losing your crew in the final, bloody battle.
So there you have it: my top picks. My choices come out of personal experience, so they may not be your favorites. Please feel free to tell me how wrong I am or share your favorite moral choices in games in the comments below.
Joe Donato is still sad he lost Grunt in the final battle. Console him in the form of a tweet @JoeDonuts.
This was a pretty good year for player choice in games. Even the biggest, Wal-Mart door-busting, mainstream blockbuster, annual release of the year, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 had a branching story full of choices. The game being pegged by many as the obvious choice for GOTY 2012 is The Walking Dead, a game that's barely a game without the decisions you have to make. We even saw the epic Mass Effect trilogy come to a close with an entry that became notorious for its ending but actually featured some fascinating examples of moral choices and wildly branching paths.
Agency and choice is one of the most important fundamental aspects of modern games. The key to good storytelling in games may actually be player choice. Giving players an opportunity, however small, to participate in the story creates an interaction between the player and the creators. It gives validity to the art of storytelling in a video game. Without a way to influence the story or participate, you may as well be watching a movie.
For a while the feeling that you may as well watch a movie was a big sticking point. Long cutscenes were born out of a desire to tell a tale, but they also caused a rift. Story and gameplay were segregated to the point that some people questioned why there are stories in video games at all. Now we have an answer. Games like Mass Effect and The Walking Dead have woven story and gameplay so tightly that the "just go watch a movie" argument is moot.
From here on out player choice in games may become a forgone conclusion. It's an exciting time to play games and I'd like to celebrate it by highlighting some of my favorite choices I've ever made. By no means is this a definitive list, but it should give you a good idea of the wildly different ways that games can challenge players with tough decisions.
Warning: There will be some spoilers ahead.
Spec Ops: The Line – Damned if You Do/ Damned if You Don't
Even the best examples of choices in games are usually binary menu options. You typically select what you want your character to say and they say it. That's what made so many of the choices in Spec Ops: The Line so exciting. One scene in particular should paint a picture for you: The player is given the choice to shoot one of two prisoners. One stole water (a death sentence in the desert), and the other was sent to capture the thief and ended up killing his innocent family instead. Snipers are present to ensure you make a choice between the two criminals.
While you're still making a binary choice you do it using the same shooting mechanics that make up the typical combat. The extra freedom to move around and shoot not only feels more intuitive but it allows you to think outside of the box. Start playing with your options and you'll quickly realize there's actually much more to this sequence than a binary choice. This is only one of the early choices, and the game just gets darker from there.
Streets of Rage – Betray Your Co-op Buddy
Game design may have humble beginnings, but tucked away in the 16-bit era is quite possibly the most biting moral choice of all time. Most games place the consequences of your choices on the fates of in-game characters. Streets of Rage, on the other hand, gave you the chance to right or wrong the friend sitting on the couch right next to you. Players would brawl their way through all the games' stages before the final boss gave them each a choice. They could stand together and die, or fight to the death and become the boss's right-hand man.
Maybe your buddy punched you a few too many times "on accident", or maybe he had it coming for some personal reason. Either way the game gave you the ability to sabotage everything you'd been working towards and royally piss off your friend. The game even goes one step further if you both betray each other by knocking you down to the previous level. It's almost like friendship counseling in video game form.
Bioshock – Save or Harvest Little Sisters?
In a game that was ultimately about how little choice your character had, there was one choice Bioshock players will never forget. The Little Sisters were either innocent child slaves or mutant piggy banks of XP depending on how you looked at them. This choice went right for the gut, and for some people it wasn't even a choice. Those that took the greedy option would often immediately regret it and reload their save as this adorable little girl was harvested for the disgusting slug inside.
In terms of art direction, this choice was brilliantly executed. But in terms of gameplay it revealed some of the pitfalls of creating binary choices. Players who chose to save the Little Sisters were promptly rewarded for their good deed, keeping the playing field even but also negating the difficulty of the decision. After all, why kill them if there wasn't a substantial benefit to it? In the end you'd have all the skills and abilities whether you were a saint or a sinner. Between that flaw and the punishingly binary good/bad ending, Bioshock managed to teach some lessons to future player choice designers while being a pretty amazing game otherwise.
GTA IV – Kill Dwayne or Playboy X?
For a series credited for its general lack of morality, GTAIV still managed to offer players a couple tricky moral choices. Sure it may have overstayed its welcome, and Nico isn't always the likable anti-hero he starts off as, but the first half of GTAIV was phenomenal, and this decision is one of the focal points. Dwayne is fresh out of jail, a little off-kilter, but he seems honest. Playboy X is a charmer with a penthouse and some genuine goals to give back to the community, but you get the impression he'll never get around to it. Eventually the two are at each other's throats with Nico caught in the middle.
Their fates are left to you, and the consequences of your decision aren't clear until after the kill is made. My decision left Nico without either friend. Playboy X, seemingly repulsed by Nico's actions, no longer wants to speak with him. A missed voice mail from the now-deceased Dwayne made the decision even harder to swallow. Rockstar made me care about the personal relationships and lives of low-life criminals, and that's pretty damn impressive.
