Difficult Decisions

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h0lgr

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#1  Edited By h0lgr

I was watching Executive Decision the other day (kind of a shitty movie, but I do like plane/hostage movies), where the President had to make a tough decision; shoot down a plane full of hostages (cutting their losses) or potentially risk the East Coast of the USA based on a hunch (it was unclear to them whether or not the plane carried biological weapons). It made me think of games like the Walking Dead, X-COM and Mass Effect, where the player is forced to choose between several decisions where every outcome inevitably sucks.

A situation where whatever you pick, someone loses, or something dies. I was thinking if there were any other (relatively recent) games that employ this type of gameplay mechanic. Not necessarily moral decisionmaking, just decisions that bear consequences - whichever choice you pick. I think it's a really neat thing, that totally puts the player on edge. Especially in the case of the Walking Dead (the food distribution) where you (or at least I) feel very invested in many different characters at the same time. Anyone have any other recent examples of this?

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Fredchuckdave

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Spec Ops the Line at the end is great; most moral choice systems are terrible though. The Witcher 2 is another standout given that one choice changes 10 hours of the game almost entirely (though Front Mission 3 changed 60-80 hours back in the day).

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Sooty

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#3  Edited By Sooty

Persona 4

I was utterly torn between hanging out with Yosuke or reading on my sofa.

It was just torturous.

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davo

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A decision in Infamous is pretty grim no matter what you pick.

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deactivated-5a46aa62043d1

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I really can't think of one. I feel like games that have choices don't have meaningful consequences, which make the choices themselves lack any sort of impact or meaning.

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soldierg654342

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For as shit a game it was, the decision with Alex's mother in Silent Hill: Homecoming actually gave me pause.