The game rewards for both.

I definitly harvested those little demnons. but now i have to go through again and save them all.

demons not demnons

They had this same argument in 1985 when Ultima IV was released. There was a room full of children that would attack the party, and the press were up in arms that the player was forced to slaughter these rabid tykes in order to progress. To which Richard Gariott promptly replied that murder was only one of the options. The player could have just as easily used a sleep spell or some other such contrivance to bypass the issue entirely, but he found it interesting that moral dilemma wasn't even addressed.

I wish the world would just get to the point where they understand that video games are no different in terms of entertainment than a movie or a TV show.

Everyone can go freaking CRAZY over GTA, Bioshock, Doom, or whatever, but hey all these rated R movies and the crap that's on regular TV, no big deal right? They flock towards what gets headlines, period. Idiots.

I'm harvesting too. They creep me the hell out.

While I would have no qualms killing the video game characters, I would never harm a real life little girl, the fact is these video game characters are not only not real they have no actual personality to generate empathy with the player, so why would anyone view it as a moral issue? Now if the characters all had distinct personalities and played a role in the game story then you might be able to generate some moral dilemmas for the player

The idea is quite unsettling as it is a little over the top. oh yea, kill the bitches.

I struggled with it frankly at first...I had a little "moral" anxiety, but I think it was linked more to what the expected reward from Tenenbaum would be thanks the choice of harvesting or saving the Little Sisters. That said, harvesting the first one is pretty creepy.

Then I realized I was playing on hard, and that you get 1/2 the ADAM, 1-fing-2, if you save them.

I'll save them on an easy playthrough.

creepy

outsiders should just turn the page, click the link or change the channel to avoid what they dont wanna see it's that simple. If they don't like porn they just don't look that way so why bother paying attention to a game which they obviously have no real intrest in.

Before I harvest them I go over to my stereo and put on some old school Dissection. Then I proceed to my bathroom to coat my face in corpse paint. Of course the next step involves me adorning myself with leather and spikes and what not. I even have a wig, with long flowing black hair that I wear.

Then... with the lights down low and the music blaring... I HARVEST THE LITTLE GIRLS!!!

.... But seriously, I like me some Dissection ....

I love how articles such as this one from the Patriot Ledger make sure to cite statistics saying how violent video games desensitize children to violence, spend 5 paragraphs on it, then at the end of the article include the throw-away of 'oh yeah, this game is made for adults'.

will we ever rid ourselves of the stereotype of games being things for children? if journalists, politicians realize and accept the fact that a great deal of video games made today are made for the enjoyment of adults, we won't get articles like this anymore.

i havent got it yet, since my 360 is busted, but i think when i get it id save em, since in games like that and oblivion i may jump at the opportunity to nick stuff i will play the hero when it comes to kill or not, its just the way i play, its nice when games like that add the choice for each individual player.

Depending on how I want to play through a game would depend on my actions. I'm almost ashamed to admit I tend to like to play the good guy :). Even in games where I have the option I tend to pick the good path. Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, etc etc. However, knowing that the other path is there is important to me. Knowing that there are consequences to evil and good acts makes the choice more meeningful. I haven't played my bioshock yet....but I will likely try to save them, as I enjoy playing that type of character.

However, if I was feeling in a particular dark mood, I'd like the option of being the villain :)

He's right. Why is it acceptable to kill grown humans all over games, but it's horrible to kill children? Other than them being cute or defenseless, there really shouldn't be a difference. I can't think of many games where you could kill children, with everyone's favorite murder simulator, GTA, backing out completely.

Bioshock work of art? I don't think so...

There are actually some pretty good rewards for saving them.

The only difficult choice for me is whether to buy now or wait for a concrete resolution for the securom hooha.

my gf says im mean cuz the little girls are cute then i make them cry when i kill "mr bubbles". but hey. they look creepy and there voice is creepy they deserve to die.

Actually, if you continuously save them, you get a healthy amount of ADAM in gifts from Tenenbaum along with some ammo and stuff.

This is another example of a game that gets bad press without people even understanding what is going on. The same thing happened with Bully and Manhunt.

The "girls" are not even alive to begin with. So how can you kill them? And as has been said, the game does not favor one method over the other.

People really need to play and understand a game before they say it is wrong or evil or whatever.

Cheers!

I'm rather surprised Mr. Fahey here refers to "the art card", as though it is some kind of a trick or political gambit, rather than Levine's honest opinion. Whether intended or not, that kind of language puts a condescending or diminutive spin on what was said.

I'd tend to agree with Levine, frankly. The game presents you with a choice that isn't black or white, and presenting this kind of moral dilemma should provoke thought in the player, and isn't that really what makes art worthwhile?

a seductive woman saying she'll reward me for saving them? of course i did and now im loving xxxx and yyyy rewards. I haven't killed one yet, but i plan on playing it a second time just to try it out, along with a few other things.

i get more pleasure out of killing the wall crawlers though, and breaking glass in the fort.

I'm playing through the first time on medium and saving them and when I finish that I'm going to play through again on hard and murder the little bitches.

okay, that sounded a bit harsh... sorry. I figure the extra Adam from killing them will help a bit on hard.

Upon reading that the player had a choice to either kill or save the little girls I went with saving them. The point of all games is to beat (kill) the boss, to know that there must be a point in saving them was much more interesting to me.

Media needs to focus less on virtual child killing and perhaps more on the parents who lock their kids in a hot car while they go shopping.

Living in Boston I can say I'm honestly shocked to see someone actually having read a Boston Patriot Ledger.

you know what you kill little girls in prey when they become possessed why wasn't there are article about that? oh and the little girl slammed the little boy onto a 12 foot spike. So is it ok to kill that little girl? cus she's nuts.

Would it be better to know that when you save them they become your little sex slaves?

I haven't killed one yet

of course that might be because the Steam demo isn't working for me
anyone else not getting that to work?

I killed lots of little demonic babies in Zombies Ate My Neighbors. With soda and a water pistol at that. There's something very deranged about that ....and fun. Also, I like how everybody jumps on this like it's some serious issue. A serious issue is war or poverty. Not a fantasy video game. Has anybody every thought it's the violence in this world that influences video game makers to make games like this? It's got to come from somewhere and it's been around a whole lot longer then electricity. Also, I don't know why the response wasn't simply "Well, if you on't like it, don't buy it dipshit. And check the rating, it's not for kids. Levine Out"

Put it on canvas and you'd get a grant from the government, put it in a viseogame and you'd get a lawsuit.

@The_Foo: It's boy crying wolf problem. Like everytime any controversial thing comes up we hear developers talking about art and it starts to become difficult to separate the games that have more artistic aspirations from the ones who are using that as a shield for more base tittilation.

With respect to the issues of reward their is not some grand imbalance between harvesting the little girls and saving them. It amounts to a gap of about 40 Adam per 3 girls or about 120 Adam all told if you deal with all of them. And frankly I feel so good saving them and the good ending is way way more rewarding than 120 Adam.

@TheNthDegree: It's actually more rewarding to save them. This could be considered minor SPOILERS, I guess, but every 3 Little Sisters you save, Tenenbaum gives you 200 Adam, a unique Plasmid you can't normally buy, and some other cool bonus. That's my problem with it, really- there's no reason to harvest them, as it's better to rescue them from both a moral and a gameplay standpoint, so it removes the ethical dilemma. There's no point.

I've harvested all but 2. I'm playing through again to do nothing buy rescue.

@tannhauser:
"Bioshock work of art? I don't think so..."

You've drunkenly stumbled into the wrong website, my friend.

First of all, the Little Sisters are indeed "living", it'll be clear once you save one. Oh and I never really looked at it as "killing" a Little Sister, at least it's not portrayed as lethal killing, she just simply disappears and turns into....a slug!?

"Mr. Bubbles! Why won't you move Mr. Bubbles!?" Awwww :3

Seeing as these things aren't actually human should people even care? And I don't mean that in the sense of "it's just a game, it's not real." Thats obvious. I mean that these "little sisters" aren't human characters they just look it. If one were to theoretically see some little girl monster in real life would it not be better to do it in before it does its evil bidding?
Also while on the topic. Aren't there plenty of games that have you PLAY a child who has to take up arms and fight and kill? Zelda comes to mind. No one seems to think that's inappropriate. You know I think this is a gender issue. If those were "little brothers" I bet this wouldn't be half the big deal it is to those people.

The first time I played
something about that animation of the "little sister" struggling against you defensively and the sounds "it" makes kind of creeped me out. In a creepy uncle kind of way...

For the record, I'm saving all I can, at least for my first play through. Not as much adam, but the teddy bear rewards more than make up for it.

@etho: I only played a bit of the game so far but I was "saving" all the girls because I thought it was an achievement, but it turns out I have to do the opposite.

@vermouth:
But the point is: games ARE art. Just like movies are art. Whether they're good art, or the game equivalent of hack-n-slash gore flicks, the point is that each game should be judged on its own merits, not based upon, "Well, this is a videogame, so calling it art is a defensive tactic or crying wolf."

N'est-pas?

I wonder why they always use little girls to creep us out. Any one who played F.E.A.R or watched the ring should know.

Something about their voice/hair/height I guess... it's just creepy.

This isn't the first game full of choices, and frankly they are pretty much always good = better long term reward bad = nifty short term.

Yeah, they forgot to mention that the good doctor who created the little monsters, out of guilt, is trying to rescue them as well, and will reward you for rescuing them. Better rewards then harvesting, but you need to rescue 2, or 3, or 4 of them before you see these rewards. The game is trying to be a microcosm of justice, like many of these good or bad games, the only difference is they are trying to make it more emotional.

I appreciate that, and I doubt this would get too out of hand. What I really like to see is how they react to Fallout 3's "Would you destroy this entire village?" kinda situations, maybe Mass Effect has something similar. It's not so much the killing, as it is the emotions evoked by doing it in person. And so, in a way, the article validates what the developer was trying to do. So it is okay to kill a village full of people as long as you don't see them die, and no one cares. Well, that is kinda getting political there.
P.S.
Just from my point of view, I tend to play the game the best way possible, and knowing the game would reward me better for rescuing them, I did. I might have flinched while harvesting them, or something, but it is still just a video game, and I am more detached from it than the real world. This whole thing kinda reminds me of when the kid shoots himself in Grindhouse's Planet Terror. I just kept thinking "no way, they won't. I mean... No! They wouldn't... *Bam* ...Okay, now what was the point of that?" Still, that is kind of what made it a great movie, "going there" and that is what the game is doing.

P.P.S
If you went through the game harvesting them, you should know, for harvesting two Sisters you get 320 Adam, and for rescuing them, as well as the 160 you get right away, you get 200 more later(so you now have a total of 360, ha!) aswell as some nice items, and the exclusive "Hypnotize Big Daddy" plasmid, which makes one of the big guys think you are a little sister and protect you accordingly. If you do this, his sister runs back to her hole, and you have to wait till the plasmid wares off and he gets her again. So, Hypnotizing him, then planning a surprise attack would not go as you planned. Don't know if you hypnotize one, how it affects another in the room. Can't wait to see!

not just giggling; singing little girls are also really creepy, like the first little sister you see.

why is that?

I don't like this article due to lack of research and failure to capture both sides of the debate. ESRB may be "voluntary" on a federal level, but any major store will require the ESRB rating; so without such rating, you're setting a game up for failure. As the article itself states this game is not rated for children, and any parent that buys this or any mature game for any child that is unable to substantiate the difference in entertainment and real life should have their children taken by child services. But that's just my opinion.

I spent my first playthrough saving them, and now I'm going back to harvest them.

To be honest, I feel more of a pang when I kill a Big Daddy than I do when I harvest/save a sister. The poor, lumbering brutes are just trying to protect those little girls, and here I come to blow them away.

After this play, I think I'm going to try and go through the game and leave them all (aside from the first) alone. It should be next to impossible. Sounds like fun.

first of who, how can anyone here or in the press decide what is a work of art and what is not? An argument can be made for anything being art and everything being not. So lets not even go there. As for rewarding you for killing girls...it doesnt reward you, its an ethical choice. I dont know what kind of ethical choices that writer has made, but thats how they usually are. Doing the wrong thing or taking the easy path (in bioshock, the easy path is getting more Adam) versus doing the right thing even if it means sacrificing something in the process. Thats the ethical choice...i dont see anything wrong with it.

I feel good about it when I save them. I'll try harvesting them the 2nd time through, but I dunno....

Say what you will, but I couldn't play through KotOR as evil specifically cause I'd feel guilty about being mean all the time to all the characters. I can obviously seperate the fact that my actions within a game aren't reflected on how I am in real life, but I still feel bad...

If the Big Daddies weren't so damn cheep I wouldn't need to harvest the little sisters for all that ADAM!

[Enter Roger Ebert] "Games aren't 'Art'!"