Absolutely perfect! Thanks for the info, mate. I'll be looking it up on Shomi if they have it.

You could mod the game, but all you'd be doing is rejecting the reality presented to you in favour of one that makes it seem as though you're making the morally correct choices. The value of your choice is nullified because it's no longer made in the difficult context put forward by the developers in the first place: you could mod in a better alternative, but you'd no longer be playing the original game and you still haven't confronted that specific moral choice. We can't warp reality to suit our needs in the real world, so doing so in the game is meaningless.

>To taunt players for making such a decision would be hypocrisy when the developers have offered unsuitable means of progression through any other means

It's not hypocrisy, it's exactly the point of the decision in the first place. The game doesn't throw you a bone for not completing it because it's a part of the game's design: Walker's story, and by extension that of the player, only resolves itself when he finds Konrad and faces his own choices. Unless that point is reached, both you and Walker are leaving it incomplete, and you're meant to feel like that, even if it annoys you. Giving up is the hardest choice, because it doesn't give you closure, just like it wouldn't give Walker closure. Welcome to the interactive artform.

The point the game is trying to make is that, as a player, you seem to progress for the sake of progressing. You're capable of making moral choices in the game without coming to a halt, but ultimately pushing to go forward has to have its own consequences. As a player, you perfectly match Walker's deluded mentality: you want to strive to the ultimate goal despite the cost, you feel frustration at the choices you are being "forced" to make, and you discard the idea of stopping as being valid.

Firstly, thank you for the thorough response. I wasn't trying to ruffle anyone's feathers with my comment and was hoping for a well-intended debate (hope you didn't see it that way, I come off as a douche sometimes).

Secondly, I agree that validation for choosing the morally right option is unnecessary. In this case, feeling "incomplete" would be a small price to pay for maintaining Walker's/the player's morals. Giving up would be the most sound choice. My suggestion of modding comes from my opinion on how leaving the game opens up other questions about player involvement. If leaving is valid, then it is safe to assume that the decision in the game to press on never happens if I leave. However, this outcome is the only one written in the game. Because of this, I feel that even if I left, those actions would still be committed even without my involvement.

But it wasn't the story or its message that I had issues with. I loved the story and was ecstatic when I heard that there existed a military shooter that deconstructed choices in other military shooters shooters. It was how they conveyed that messaged that I had issues with. The choice of leaving the game or pressing on and seeing the death of all thousands of innocents felt lacking. As a player, I felt that I could not own my actions if the choice was as made like that. I wanted the developers to make me feel awful, as if I really committed all those atrocities that Walker committed when I decided to press on. But I felt that because of the way the choice was represented, there was a rift between Walker's actions and my own, and that I was simply going along for the ride. When that happened, it became easy for me to rationalize my own involvement. Maybe that is the ultimate message of the developers: how easy it is for players to rationalise difficult choices and the problems with how players do so.

I wasn't frustrated, just a little disappointed in how it's message didn't resonate with me as well as I was hoping.

Thirdly, I admit that calling it hypocrisy was a heavy-handed comment on my part and I apologize for that. It's just that I felt that calling the player a monster made me wonder about the developer's role in creating these conditions. To me it felt like someone threatening to kill me if I did not kill another another person; of course I would feel awful about my actions, but I feel a larger part of the blame would fall onto the one whom made the threat. In the game, the 33rd were the first to fire upon Walker as they assumed that he was with the CIA operatives, if I remember correctly. It feels similar in this case, but if I am wrong, please let me know.

Lastly, the fact that Konrad was just a fabric of Walker's imagination lessened it's emotional impact as I was more inclined to believe that Walker had less of a choice than what I believed upon seeing that ending.

Once again, thank you for the response.

Can't frisk the vrisk.



love me some good ol second megalovania person.

Be prepared for all this homestuck cocks that want to be sucked.



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