Ian McKinzey Hall

Isn’t that what their Boomerang channel is?

Text based games seem to, today at least, exist in a limbo. We truly have been spoiled by hyperrealistic graphics along with the convenience and simplicity of of how we are accustomed to interacting with the digital worlds around us. I, personally, love the idea of text based games, but practically I have trouble getting into them. They’re clunky by today’s standards and although these games may be gold plated under just a layer of dust, that layer of dust may be harder to sweep away for some than for others. But whether you love them or you can’t stand them, text based games played an important part in video game history and are still looked upon fondly today. I believe it was the first Call of Duty: Black Ops that actually feature Zork in its entirety as a hidden Easter Egg for no reason other than respect and love for a beloved genre that’s fallen off the radar.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead (at least season one, I have not played season two) truly is an excellent example of the illusion of choice in video games. In this game several choices are presented to the player concerning matters as trivial as what food to give to which members of your survival group, and as major as deciding between which member of your group to rescue when you do not have time to rescue both. However, no matter what decisions you make, no matter who lives or who dies, no matter if you play as a saint or a manipulative jerk- the ending is the same. The end result, even if there are options as to how the end events play out, is always the same. Two different players may play through the game making polar opposite choices in how they act and who they save, but both players will get the end result. This is, in my opinion, the perfect illusion of choice.