Blogging the experience of gameplayhttps://www.gamelog.cl/gamers/GamerPage.php?idgamer=1827https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362OH GREAT. GENOCIDE IS COMING, NOW DECIDE WHICH OF YOUR FRIENDS WILL BE THE VICTIM! There are so many choices to make that have real consequences, but again, there's no real "good/evil" meter that you sit on. Just deal with what happens. I think that more games that implement choice systems need to have this sort of morality system. That is to say, none at all. I really appreciate that the world just feels alive due to always being at least kind of shitty. You have to deal with the evil emperor by staging his assassination. Saving the mages means that the non-humans get the shit end of the stick, and you have friends on both sides. The moral decision, the moral system, the influencing factors, that's all up to you. Maybe different people have different opinions, but that's life. What an excellent RPG!Thu, 06 Apr 2017 23:16:37 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362&iddiary=11133https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362Ah, great. Now it's not even neutral vs. slightly less neutral. Now it's just straight-up two evils. The baron wants to find out what happened to his wife and child, but the witches won't tell you unless you sacrifice a bunch of children to them. So you can either hurt one family or not help multiple families. Are you a man of the people or are you a man of your word? Remember, your adopted daughter needs your help, but will also wonder what you've been up to. Everything sucks in this world, but that's just real life, isn't it? Disease, corruption, war, moral ambiguity, straight-up demons... Everything sucks, and this game is the best because of it. How can you possibly be a good person despite all of this stuff happening around you?Wed, 05 Apr 2017 22:49:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362&iddiary=11117https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362You are free to your choices, but you are not free from your consequences. Your tutorial town is an entire lordship, and it's pretty indicative of further gameplay. You get your standard D&D starter inn, you can play cards with the patrons and the barkeep, and get one quest of each type. As you talk to each of the big figures in town, it becomes very evident that you won't be able to please everyone, which means pissing off at least one very important character. Even the act of defending yourself can result in seriously negative consequences. But there's no meter. No honor system, no "good guy/bad guy" dynamic, no "law vs. chaos," nothing. Just the people around you, and the way they treat you.Tue, 04 Apr 2017 23:53:53 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6362&iddiary=11098https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317So I actually happened upon a choice I made for myself in this sprint. I had a very lovely and informative chat with an NPC in the game, a doctor. She was generally very helpful and one of the least asshole-ish characters in the game so far. A few steps later, I happen upon her laptop, and a safe containing valuable items. I decided not to take from them. She's a doctor, working her ass off in a ghetto, and is helpful to strangers. Why should I take from that? Hell, I would offer help if I could. This NPC won me over, and it affected the way I played the game. It would have helped me to go through her stuff, but I would have put her and her patients at a disadvantage. I'm not so selfish as to do that for something that I maybe would have used later. But it's a game. Surely me going through her safe wouldn't actually affect the NPCs in this one-time-only mission zone. How could that programming exist? But I made that choice anyway. I appreciate that the game got me to do that. What a well-written zone.Thu, 23 Feb 2017 22:08:27 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317&iddiary=11036https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317A person with dissociative identity disorder and a person with PTSD from murdering his own grandson via mind control are both being held at gunpoint. Who will you save? Local police are preventing an international agency, which their government supports, from properly investigating the site of a terrorist attack, and are citing home grown subversive elements as the source. What do you do? Will you falsify government documents to keep someone out of an apartheid ghetto in which they will most likely die? Law versus Good. Utilitarianism demands killing cops. Choose the lesser evil. Man, this game just forces choice on you at every turn.Wed, 22 Feb 2017 22:55:07 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317&iddiary=11012https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317Give me a story. Anyone who's played Human Revolution knows that the Illuminati is trying to manipulate human cybernetic augmentation to take over the world. You, naturally, have the opportunity to discuss and take part in various issues regarding the core issue. "They're taking our jobs!" one side says, while the other side says "yes, because this guy can lift 300 lbs with one arm!" Biggest issue is that augmentations are for the people that can afford them. They're for the rich. As a result the rich get richer and the poor stay poorer. Another issue is how sacred the human body is, or isn't. Medical augmentations are also a sticky wicket; "I didn't ask for this" is a memetic phrase from Human Revolution, and a difficulty setting in Mankind Divided. Particular to this game is the introduction of extremism on both sides, with Aug terror attacks and segregation ghettos for Augs running rampant. Which side is justified, if any? I'm ready to explore more.Mon, 20 Feb 2017 23:12:39 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6317&iddiary=10990https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225The puzzles did become more obtuse and more frustrating as the game went on, but I definitely felt compelled to complete them just so that I could get to another terminal and be asked a philosophical question that I had never anticipated. I did wind up noticing the game setting me up for straw man arguments, which became frustrating since the game basically put me in a no-win situation with a holier-than-thou "help system" with a complex, but I suppose that's going to be the way life is. Overall, 4/5 on the game. There were a few frustrating moments, but the experience as a whole was engaging and interesting.Thu, 19 Jan 2017 10:54:40 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225&iddiary=10859https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225Maybe frogs are people, too. What is a person? What is the checklist of criteria for being a person? Is it language? Maybe empathy? Does that make zoo apes that have learned American Sign Language people? Where is the line? What are people? At this point I decided to branch out and explore the places that Big Ominous Voice In The Sky told me not to explore. It's a strange feeling to realize that the game exists outside of what the game tells you. I'm so used to games existing in a box that's predetermined and can't be expanded on a whim. And of course it's just a box that's bigger than the box that they advertise, but it's still a bit uncomfortable for me but also liberating to go past what I'm used to experiencing as a player.Wed, 18 Jan 2017 14:24:42 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225&iddiary=10842https://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225"Why is it important to you that you are a human?" Wow. What a great question. I knew that I was going to explore some moral stuff in this game, but wow. That's the sort of thing that made me sit back in my chair and think about myself and my place in the world. I don't even know how to respond. How cosmically insignificant am I? Why does it matter whether or not I exist at all, regardless of whether or not I'm a "person." Some of the puzzles are annoying and rely on you using knowledge that is either counter-intuitive or poorly explained, but I'm looking forward to this game.Tue, 17 Jan 2017 22:13:35 CDThttps://www.gamelog.cl/logs/LogPage.php?Log_Id=6225&iddiary=10837