Keeping an eye on our local BioShock sidebar poll here, I'm actually fairly surprised at what an overwhelming percentage of you are Little Sister rescuers. I think the SVGL audience skews more empathetic than the average core gamer, judging by the discussions we have here -- but even still!
I find the results especially surprising because of all the talk I've heard around the Little Sister choice in the games -- people always say it's not really a "choice" since you receive a gameplay benefit in either case, or because it doesn't change much about the story save for the ending; people find them creepy AIs, not cute little people at the crux of a meaningful moral conflict, blah blah. If all that is so, why do so many of you care?
I killed all the Little Sisters in the first BioShock. To me, to do so seemed to suit the narrative better -- I was a faceless stranger in a man-eat-man world. I liked the repellent desperation that made Rapture so lawless, and so amoral was its world I thought I'd play along. Did I feel good about doing it? Not exactly, but to make my decisions based on a hunger for power felt appropriate for the story.
And I've always maintained I had a better experience in the first game because of it. When the things I was led to believe came crashing down, having to face what I'd done made the story's later revelations more of a gutpunch. Arriving at Tennenbaum's safehouse as a Little Sister killer was one of the most memorable gaming experiences I'd had that year. One thing I wish is that the game could have given me the opportunity to redeem myself, to start handling the little sisters as fellow victims instead of as prey once I knew what the real deal was -- but then, that might have violated the game's message of "no real agency".
I am hesitant to say much yet about BioShock 2 because I'm doing a review for Paste, but I'll say that the choice felt much different to me this time. Although the harvest-or-rescue decision is more nuanced and complex from a gameplay perspective, it seems not a decision at all from a narrative standpoint -- in the first BioShock, it felt equally realistic to take either path. In the second, I personally find it implausible to do anything but rescue. But maybe that's just me.
It does bring me to an interesting point: What's your motivation when you play a video game that allows you some agency? Are you writing a story and creating a character? Or are you using the medium of interactivity to express your own self -- and see how the environment responds to you?
What determines your harvest-or-rescue decision, for example -- something inside the game, or something inside of you?
Bonus Content: Header image is this wallpaper.
August 2007, I write my Aberrant Gamer column for GameSetWatch on the original Little Sister choice and what creates emotional impact versus basic cost-benefit analysis.
August 2007, I write a different Aberrant Gamer column on the Little Sisters themselves, and the use of creepy girlchildren in survival horror.
September 2007, Aberrant Gamer deals with one of my favorite things about original BioShock: the character of Sander Cohen.
July 2008, at Kotaku EA boss John Riccitiello tells me that he, too, was a Little Sister killer.
23 comments:
Just being a hero, I guess. In general I grew up "playing hero" in games, toys, pretend. With friends and me, Skeletor and Megatron were always second choice in the toybox. Everyone wanted He-Man and Optimus Prime.
I don't really consider a villain-protagonist to be the intended path of a game. It's weird, but even in something like Overlord I don't find myself doing particularly evil things.
I agree that the "choice" in BS2 really didn't feel like much of a choice. Much like the first game, you have a mechanical problem in that it doesn't matter whether you save or harvest: you still get a whole lot of ADAM either way, to the point where any bonus ADAM you'd get from harvesting is inconsequential.
From a narrative perspective, I just don't understand why a big daddy would harvest a little sister, which informed my choice to harvest all of the little sisters. I really didn't even stop to consider what I would do, since I felt like the narrative strongly dictated only one course of action.
I still feel like both games sort of botched the "moral choice" angle as far as the little sisters go. Harvesting the little sisters is always the wrong thing to do from pretty much any conventional moral standpoint, and there's nothing in the games that actually challenges that.
sorry
"which informed my choice to harvest all of the little sisters."
To rescue them, I mean.
Mostly it's acting out a character of my own design. My first play throughs tend towards 'Good with attitude', and get progressively more ruthless from there. If I start a new game out intending to try cruel and out for my self it works for a while. But if I take a break and come back after a week or so I naturally fall into being generally good again
I think my best experience with player agency was Knights of the Old Republic 2. Most of the time I just didn't know what was the 'best' thing to do and that was great! It freed me to think as my character truly might, wondering if I was being lied to or if my apparently good actions might lead to greater pain and suffering. I remember an intriguing lesson at the start of one level: a 'war veteran' begs for a few credits. I acquiesced, thinking maybe he can use it to improve his lot in life. Then it is shown how he immediately gets mugged for the money... could I have seen that coming? Maybe. But should it have influenced my judgement? Well, that is the question isn't it.
I pretty much always play the good guy, unless the game has been explicitly designed around being bad. 100% Paragon in Mass Effect, but in Saints Row 2, I gleefully blew up civilians and griefed everyone in sight.
It's odd, but I always try to make ethical choices in games. It didn't even occur to me to harvest the little sisters. Then again, I have a hard time killing villians that appear humans- zombies or extremely violent people (it's self defense, see?) are easiest for me. With Uncharted 2, I turned off gravity. Watching the dead bodies float into the sky took away the element of realism.
Obviously, games aren't real life so I shouldn't have these hangups. Playing a game in as morally-bankrupt a way as possible could be very freeing.
Yeah, yeah, Grayson. "Saving", "harvesting" – it's all same to you, innit? :P
But yeah, what other people have said: there's no narrative reason to be bad; and there's no egoistic reason to be bad. The only reason I can think of, just off the top of my head, is simply being bad for the sake of it.
And I'm not a malicious person, really, so of course I rescued all the little sisters. C'mon, I'm an old softy. What else was I going to do? :)
"If all that is so, why do so many of you care?"
Well, I didn't know about the balance in rewards between the two choices when I was playing the game so that didn't stop me from harvesting. And just like you I not only felt it suited the narrative better, but if I didn't believe myself to be in this horrifying world where the little sisters that are so obviously innocent are actually in my scared and plot-twisting mind evil, then the experience wouldn't be as exciting and plausable. So I did it for the story to make more sense, basically. To rid it of the Ludonarrative dissonance. ^^
My decisions generally based on the numbers of the game. I only rescued the sisters because I knew that it would not punish me for it. If the game plays the same either way, then I generally go for the good decision though.
This also works for more traditional RPG, I want everybody to be my friend so that I always have my gameplay options open.
I find it kind of surprising that nobody else has touched on the feelings of real-life guilt that can often accompany virtual-world transgressions. I had a roomate in college who would play GTA III non-stop, but never play the missions -- his favorite activities were running over elderly pedestrians, punching random people, and murdering prostitutes. After trying to emulate his 'play style' one day, I lasted about ten minutes before I began to feel like such a detestable human being that I couldn't really force myself to continue.
In Bioshock, the choice was essentially made for me as soon as I realized I'd have to watch a cut-scene of my act if I wanted to 'harvest' the Sisters. There's no way I could partake in that sort of stuff and walk away from the game feeling like I wasn't taking part in some horrible cultural phenomenon.
Maybe I just have an overactive guilt response, or something along those lines, but I find it very difficult to enter a game world and behave in a way I'd find vehemently disagreeable in real life, regardless of how the game's narrative casts my avatar. I even completely avoided games like Manhunt based solely on this reaction. Am I the only one?
I can't stand to play Dark Side in the KOTOR games; I just end up feeling guilty and reloading my save.
This is a very interesting way of playing a game.
I know a lot of people that like to play a game evil if possible because that's something they can't really do in real life.
Personnally I can't do that.
I tend to be drawn to a "chivalrous" behaviour. I feel bad about myself otherwise... I can't roleplay. Well I guess I could, but then it doesn't feel right, so it kind of spoils my fun.
That doesn't mean I'm always a zealous do-gooder, but I tend to tip the balance towards good as much the game environment lets me.
Eg try to bring the girl back to the light side in KOTOR - Doug I know how you might feel.
Even in Dungeon Keeper, I wouldn't slap my imps too much. The carrot's better than the stick.
I did go into a few killing sprees in GTA though... ^^;
So in that sense I guess I'm playing myself or at least playing the image of myself or at least my fantasy-self.
I'd fancy myself more as a hero than a villain.
You severely overestimate the number of people who take the evil path through a game. Here's Peter Molyneux on the subject:
"The research that we did [for Fable] showed about 70 percent of people played it good, and of the remaining 30 percent about 20 percent of them started playing it evil and then switched somewhere down the line to good. So we’re only talking of about 10 percent of the people playing evil."
Hence the pressure on designers to make the Good Path just as rewarding as the Evil Path: By the time you visit Tennenbaum, virtually everyone will be taking the Good Path, so why frustrate your players?
I find it really difficult to play the bad guy. In WoW, I avoided most quests that had me kill cute, furry animals (insects be damned). I couldn't stomach the idea of GTA, so I never played it. And in Fable, I was a saint.
When I go out of my way to be "bad" in games, I get a certain distaste in my mouth, as if the videogame character is somehow representative of who I am.
I haven't yet played Bioshock (!!I know, right?!), but I'm 99.99% sure I'll be a Little Sister rescuer.
Personally, I do the right things for the wrong reasons. Rescuing the Little Sisters would allow me to have an army of syringe armed infiltration experts or bait to use for blackmailing pedophiles to form a large personal fortune.
Honestly, I would have liked more than just a good and a bad reason for doing something like saving the little girls.
"re you writing a story and creating a character? Or are you using the medium of interactivity to express your own self..."
Both - I am writing a story about me/my character by interacting in the way I want; rather than following one of the paths/stories the designer wants me too. At least that is what I do in a game that allows me that freedom.
I like strategy games that allow me to explore the world as I wish and in games like Rome:TW I have thrown a battle and retreated rather than send my Veteran troops in to die. Not just because keeping them alive to fight again is good game play but because I invested something of myself into them as I built them up.
Like others, I tend to start off following the "good" path and then replay the "dark side" afterward. I like the fact that games give me the chance to find out how I will feel when I make unpleasant decisions.
Hmm, thinking about it, in the original Bioshock, I harvested every single sister and it only took me a few seconds to make up my mind. At first it was pure greed. Then it felt too good to do anything else. :)
In games where I have a choice, I try to do what I feel is right, according to my very unorthodox set of morals. The fun of games is that I can be who I want to be, morals and repercussions be damned.
there is good and evil in all of us, even when gaming. In the first bioshock you can play either role, the power hungry stranger to this new world or the good Samaritan who feels that a child should not have to suffer through this madness. Bioshock 2, you can play the big daddy that has the ingrained need to protect all little sisters and rescue them all or you can play the big daddy on a mission to find elenor and reject any little sister that you run across and harvest all of them.
Both games are more then just a moral choice of good or bad but how you feel you would be if you were put directly in that role.
the Choices are placed there as if you were stuck in rapture, would you start off with the intention of rescuing every little sister and then later one have the need to start harvesting them strictly for your own survival? would you just harvest them all for the power? or are you the resourceful savior where you make due and heal the world?
personally I'm going to try to play through it and get all 3 or 4 endings like I did with the first bioshock, just because I want to see the various outcomes.
I rescued all of the little sisters in Bio Shock 1. I don't usually get attached to video game characters, but the way the scene was presented for the first time, with your shadow looming over what was really a cowering child left me no other choice...
I feel that this sense of dread power has been lost in Bio Shock 2. I haven't finished it yet (I know, why am I commenting, right?) but so far the game pushes you to save them. You are, after all, a Big Daddy, and they depend on you to take care of them.
There's nothing wrong with the Bio2 treatment, but I feel that the nudging in Bio1 was actually more nuanced--it was one of the few games where you are given the opportunity to emoby a trye monster...
For me, more often than not, it's the crafting of my own story. It's like crafting out an action figure of my own making and putting it in someone else's world to see what kind of choices I will make and the way the world will respond to the choices I make as well!
I'll say that the first time around I play as the goody goody. Because it would be outside of my own character to do otherwise. Every playthrough after that, I find myself slipping down a darker slope until I become (in games like Fallout 3) an agent of Chaos, for lacking of a better phrase.
I haven't played the second Bioshock yet because I'm still finishing the first (Yeah, I'm a little late to the party), but I am so far compelled only to save the little sisters - yay me, the hero - and I assume I'll do the same in the new one when I play it
I loved the immmersion of System Shock 2 so I tried to roleplay Bioshock the same way, cutting all the lights and playing it in the dark. The #1 thing that broke the immersion was the ridiculous use of glowing quest objects. (Finding out that it could be turned off afterwards only added insult to injury!)
For me the Sisters were another aspect of the game which was gamey and immersion breaking. The profound moral decision was just picking to play one of two stock animations. It's like having a big glowing neon girl yelling "you are playing a video game!" in your face...
I would question what having the kill/save choice was meant to add. In Bioshock 1 you can't die, at what point are you so desperate that you need to start killing little girls to help you out? Immortality chambers aren't good enough?
Moral decisions in games still have a long way to go. The repercussions for your actions are easily quantified and usually not very interesting.
I really can't think of all that many interesting moral choices in games really. More often than not you can just slaughter innocents, then walk into the nearest shop and buy things as usual. Similarly you can save a town and the local store will still charge you a fortune for new armour.
All these systems fail because how they work is quite transparent to the player. Until someone makes a moral system that is complex enough that you can't plan out the repercussions to your actions then we will start having far more interesting games.
In Bioshock's case, I heard before I played about the save VS harvest argument and read a comment pertaining to which is more profitable in the long run so that kinda ruined it for me.
Bioshock games I normally play through twice. You save them the first time, then you crank up the evil and start harvesting!
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