hobob

matt57488

FeendRendor

What I really wonder is why games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire were never brought up? I mean, you can guide your custom made character to kill the poor and helpless. I guess it wasn't killing kids, but even so.

FeendRendor

RonJeremy4Pres

no difference, right?

Laser_iCE

The "experts" say that videogames will turn any and all innocent children (the millions who play them) into bloodthirsty monsters.

Now I'm guilty of the former and abhor the latter, and what I say might not be believable. But have you ever played a game for hours at a time and not had an image burned into your head? Do you ever see something and wonder how you might jump over it in some videogame-like car stunt/crazy manner? Something similar? (If not, you get outside too much. Exercise is bad for you. <-And for the clueless, that bit was sarcasm.)

What I'm trying to say is that we have to take a more middle range approach. It's ridiculous, knowing that "intelligent" parents and lawmakers buy into the "expert" insight. At the same time, you can't say you never thought of jumping out of that skyscraper, catching the zip line, and spraying machine gun fire at the man, all the while trying to save the world or some other such crazy stunt. Well, ok, that's a stretch, but after a weekend of Halo, I have Halo on the brain.

We just have to approach this like every other form of entertainment: books, movies, conventional art, blah blah blah. People have tried, successfully sometimes, to ban books. I'm sure there was opposition to the "moving picture" when it first arrived. Art has been the subject of controversy since the existence of art. So if we are responsible and competent, we'll stop neo-Luddites from banning games. Then, we'll insure that games are rated and distributed appropriately. Simple.

augie_doggy

DiSTiNCT

questworld

It almost wasn't worth the extra ADAM, what with the virtual karmic ass-kicking it gave me. They may be nothing more than polygons and AI, but it's easy to forget that in mid-game.

ShaggE

SBB

But when you choose to save them they return to their human state and even thank you for saving them before running off to the safety of the air vents.

*SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER*

Scattered throughout Rapture are the audio journals of Dr. Tenenbaum, who was the scientist who discovered the DNA - Adam - in the slugs. As it turned out Andrew Ryan began capitalizing on the benefits of Adam and funded Tenenbaum for her research. As a brilliant scientist Tenenbaum was ultimately only interested in her research and didn't give a damn for the little girls. The more audio journals of hers you discover, the more you find her realizing the huge moral mistake she was making and her hatred towards Ryan grew as well.

There are also some audio journals made by the mother of one of the little girls. Her daughter was forcibly taken by Ryan's men and put in The Little Sisters Orphanage - an Adam farm where the girls are infested with the slugs to produce large quantities of the DNA to be bought and consumed by the citizens of Rapture. Pretty depressing audio journals, too.

Intrepid_Homoludens

And didn't anyone find the part where the one artist guy made statues of the splicers more disturbing? That totally reminded me of House of Wax.

freeway8989

fire ze missiles

DarcSeraphim

Codexx

KM91

Actually by "rescuing" the Little Sisters instead of "harvesting" them you will earn the "Little Sister Savior" achievement and 100 points. The other Little Sister achievement, "Dealt with every Little Sister", gives you only 40 points for either "rescuing" or "harvesting" every Little Sister in the game.

As for which method "gives more ADAM", harvesting gives more in the beggining, but after every third "rescue" Tenenbaum will send a Little Sister out to drop off a special teddybear that has ADAM, plasmids/tonics, and ammo and the like. And you can only get the "Hypnotise Big Daddy 1 and 2" plasmids, along with the "Armored Shell 2" gene tonic by "rescuing" Little Sisters and having them delivered to you by a teddybear weilding Little Sister sent from the grateful Dr. Tenenbaum.

So I'd say that Bioshock 'rewards' the player by "rescuing" and not "harvesting" in the long run. By the end of the game, the extra ADAM earned along with the free ammo and special plasmids/gene tonics, surpass the initial extra ADAM the player reaps from "harvesting".

coalhalo

dv8godd

It's hard for me to be the bad guy because it makes me feel bad, lol.

Same thing in KoToR and all the other games with moral choices.

kgetz3

Ratsofat

difancer

Dark_Cheetah

Here's a hint: real artists don't have to constantly try to convince the world that they're making art.

Most new mediums tend to go through a transitional period where naysayers and cynics alike downplay the artistic significance.

Photography was not well received by those who considered only painting art. Film, comic books, and music have all suffered similar impediment.

People came together and realized a vision that is Bioshock. They developed a way for other people to share that vision. Even though one of it's primary goals is to entertain, I still don't see how one can not consider it artistic.

realize they're monsters. But assuming you can save them in the game, how is there an ethical question involved here? The only ethical choice is to save them.

Because you don't actually save them. You may stop them from being a 'little sister' but you're not sending them to the surface and hooking them up with a really rad foster family. You're just getting some Adam and the feeling that your hands are clean, when all the while a seven year old girl is hiding in a hole starving to death while trying to avoid becoming dinner for a Spider Splicer.

doubtful

Scroll back through the comments.

cadekun

The fact is, if there was a movie or tv show that involved killing little girls, the press would still be up in arms.

I'm tired of gamers getting indignant and defensive over the press covering legitimate issues.

Love Bioshock btw, can't wait for PC release (dump the securom crap), but this is a contentious issue and deserves mainstream coverage.

Spindaden

nh2

copyboy

thebluick

Is it? Killing them gives you more ADAM which is pretty essential to keeping yourself alive in the game. There's also the euthanasia aspect to consider - is "life" under the sea under the control of a tyrannical monster worth saving, or is the greater good served by ending their suffering?

I thought about it for about 15-30 seconds when I was first faced with the choice, but after that it was automatic.

baberg

phantomdata

i dont think you've ever played elite beat agents. I almost cried for the little girl when her dad died :(

Gadzooks149

... in the end, the fact that they could be "saved" at all made the path worth pursuing. If the vicious little beasts could not be saved at all, the choice of putting them down might have been a small mercy I could dole out.

But, first play-through I'm Mr Nice Guy.

dv8godd

The goal was to present players with difficult choices,

How is whether to save little girls or kill them a "difficult" choice?

The game seems to reward killing them over rescuing them, presenting an interesting ethical choice to players.

And how is whether or not to kill little girls an "interesting" ethical choice?

I realize they're monsters. But assuming you can save them in the game, how is there an ethical question involved here? The only ethical choice is to save them.

That there's even a question about that for some people is a little disturbing.

btw the game industry playing this "art" card has got to stop. You know, serial killers do that too when trying to explain away their crimes. "I'm not a killer, I'm an artist!" Here's a hint: real artists don't have to constantly try to convince the world that they're making art. Going around screaming about how great of an artist you are doesn't mean you are one, in fact probably the opposite.

It's really no different than trying to convince the world you're cool by constantly telling everybody how cool you are. It pretty much automatically makes you not cool. Same is true for art.

badasscat

Cheers!

Deth

They look like creepy ass dolls, I wish we could curb them GOW style.

Rondogg

Karttikeya

i like how this controversy tends to skip over the fact that they're creepy ZOMBIE girls.

manguero

This time through I'm on Hard mode and will harvest every one of them, to see the "evil" ending. The "good" ending really was heartwarming and touching.

baberg

bman784

BionicCommando1

overtoke

TheJordanator

I rescued the rest ;_;

TheJordanator

kyosen

The only thing that ever really disturbed me was the SH2 story.

Witzbold

I have saved about 75% of them so far, and I haven't had a problem. I still have leftover Adam, and I'm playing on normal.

Yourhero88

sc00t420

NOOOOO

TheNthDegree

So by 'saving' them you're condemning them to die at the hands of Splicers or starve. Harvesting them seems like mercy in retrospect.

doubtful

tehFluffz

Anarchist_Gamer

It's all relative quit being a gammar nazi.

Eville1

Soulgenesis

Zharay

Bah.

Eville1

GustoGaiden

akhomerun

GustoGaiden

In all seriousness though, the first time you are given the choice I chose to rescue. Then after the insanely ridiculously hard chore of killing a big daddy I harvested. Oh how I harvested. I realized why should I choose philanthropy in a game about Objectivism?

noamjamski

houkoholic

Sparkamus

strictnein

Also, "ultraviolent" isn't a genre. I'm not even convinced it's a word.

[dictionary.reference.com]

stealthnacho

Mr Fortitude

Fluffy22

Konchu

goddessakasha

Datalock

POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILER

I think the teddy bears were a bit of a cop out. It cheapens your sacrifice. I was also a bit put off at how the first one scurries to a corner in fear, a seeming landmark in NPC animation and AI, and then the rest just stand there and cower until you decide what to do. Showing that the first encounter was entirely scripted. It would have been better if you needed to prevent them from escaping into a vent or reaching another Big Daddy. of course this would have resulted in claims that you have to hunt little girls in Bioshock.

END POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILER

I think Levine was right to explain this in terms of art. It is a genuine moral question, what to do in this game. I appreciate that. I am loving this game. A tactical playground that is a feast for the artistic eye that presents philosophical and moral questions. An amazing achievement!

AlreadyDead

Because of the child-like innocence they convey. Their singing just like they might when playing with a doll, even when their shoving a big ass needle into the back of someones head over and over.

Datalock

@MJDeviant:
Dude, soda is an adjective, not a noun. So, soda what? Soda pop, soda water, soda cracker?

Purple Dave

7ucky

Phenom88

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...

cadekun

asTer0id

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.

Johnny_Under

bluesquareapple

why is that?

booyagrandma

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!

Metacore

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

Kra1oS

N'est-pas?

The_Foo

Collapse The Control

etho

PresDNA

snowferret

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

RavenGT

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

justhesh

Proto_Man

Dangeresque: I know Gundam is dirty but I love 00

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.

vermouth

daschupa

MJDeviant

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

ggodo

Collapse The Control

demonwolf

Len Bias Cocaine Surplus

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.

NeonJebus

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

El Patricko

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

landu13

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?

The_Foo

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!

Deth

bbqostrich

2inches

cactaur

brucifer

tannhauser

Gamemaster

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

VendettaUF

underground_slacker

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.

kromekoran

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

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

FiXXXerX

demonwolf

gamesronlygames

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.

TheNthDegree

d4t4

Avinash_Tyagi

Touy

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.

mva5580

LordMaim

2inches

2inches

gils0n