Samuel23

To think and to feel, the only ways to be real.

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The Wolf Among Us and The Necessity of Choice

A phenomenon is happening in game industry. We are demanding more and more games that gives us more freedom and possibility of choice – such as the Telltale games -, in which we can alter the storyline based on our choices. We are criticizing games that lead us through a path we can’t change. The Wolf Among Us is a game that evidenciates this need to choose, we go under the skin of an authority (Bigby) and face difficult choices the entire game that could change the course of the destiny of an entire community that is under our protection, and our relationship with it.
We are demanding to be put against the wall and feel the weight of responsibility over our shoulders. What does it say about our society? Are we striving to connect so bad with others that we want to feel our every action can set off a chain reaction that affects us all? Or are you only become so individualistic that we want to feel in control of all of our experiences?

I think the driving factor of these games is that we get to choose the driection we take our character in so many different ways, whether it's simply a narrative decision (ie if we kill a character or not) or building the personality of a character through the dialogue options. We are essentially given authority within these games and it is reflective of making our own choices in real life. Even so we are still only given a restriced amount of options throughout these games. There are four preset doialogue options (one of which is usually "...") and when we do have a really huge decision to make only two options are mostly given. We don't really get that much control over these characters when you look at the bigger picture, they just so happen to be the protagonist of The Wolf Among Us or The Walking Dead. Finally, Heavy Rain would be an excellent game to look at for this subject because there are 20+ different game endings, one of which being that every playable character can die, hence our failings have consequences in this game. – Jamie White 9 years ago
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Until Dawn is so far the best representation of the "choose your own story" type of game. Your decisions leave the most impact and can greatly change the outcome of the story. The Wolf Among Us had a few consequences, to the story and how other characters behave toward you, but not so much. Dragon Age allowed choices in dialogue, but besides one major plot altering choice, there weren't much consequences either. Players may crave for more choices because they want to be more involved and lost in the gameplay. When you make a decision, and see the later consequence, and thus develop a reaction because of it, you've lost yourself to the story and you've ultimately have become emotionally invested in the characters. – Jmarie 9 years ago
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[Telltale Walking Dead Spoilers] I'm have mixed feelings towards Telltale's story driven games. I'm drawn into these games because it lets us build our own world. If we feel like our decisions have weight, we become more absorbed into the story. I was drawn to The Walking Dead because I knew that my choices had consequences. It makes moments even more moving when you feel that you were a part of it. Unfortunately, Telltale more often then not gives you the illusion of choice instead of the real thing. If you choose save a character because you see something in them (like a shot at redemption for Ben in TWD, or hope for recovery for Sarah in S2) then you feel betrayed by the game when in the next act they're killed out of your control. I don't believe it has to do anything with isolation or individualism, instead more about us wanting control over our games. – Aaron 9 years ago
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Sep 20, 2015 Samuel23 I find it fascinating that Wilde is able to capture with perfection the reasons and logic of a society that is so opposed to him and only seems to exist to deny Wilde’s existence. And yet he transforms this hate towards him in wonderful pieces of art that are a mirror to society’s behavior, and scares and shames those who look at it. He should be fearful of society, and yet he menaged to be feared.	Oscar Wilde: Social and Sexual Commentary in "The Harlot's House"
Sep 17, 2015 Samuel23 To say that it must be shown in order to attribute reality to the show is really stupid given that they didn’t have the same consideration regarding the dragons and zombie-like creatures. But ok, let’s say that the rape scenes are important to construct the atmosphere of violence. The important thing is not what is shown, but how it is shown. The camera seeks to empathize with the vision of the audience, so it’s angles and the construction of the on-screen cene should be focoused on the things that catch our attention the most. And they do not construct the rape as a cene of violence, the camera strives to capture the body that is being violated but not with eyes that construct an image that repel us, but seduce us. By preferring to focus on the look of pleasure on the violator’s face instead of the look of suffering on the victim’s eyes, the supposed imparciality of the camera is destroyed and it assumes the point of view of the dominator. That point of view dialogues directly with what we, as spectators, are looking for, and it reveals a worrying diagnosis.	Sexual Assault in HBO's Game of Thrones
Sep 17, 2015 Samuel23 I don’t understand why so often people treat the Sybil system like it was somehow different from the system we live in. It may not be so present around us, but the criminalization of people with psychiatric conditions (in the sense that they’re locked up and forced to therapy or to medicate themselves because they could be “a danger to themselves or the society”) shows us that we follow this line of utilitaranism just as much as the anime. The show strikes us as something so horrible but at the same time aren’t we judging individuals before their crimes so that we can maintain an aura of harmony?	Psycho-Pass: The Ethics of an "Ideal" Society