Making me eat my feelings
This week on The Electronic Wireless Showpodcastwe give thanks to listener Tom Fakelastname, who emailed in to ask us about the moral quandaries in video games that we feel are the most meaningful. Matthew isn’t here this week, which means we are very well behaved. I talk about BioWare games a normal amount, and Nate tries (and, in fairness, succeeds) to find a way to make moral choices a thing that you can apply to the sort of games he likes. Not Age Of Empires II this time, though.
Because there’s no Matthew, I change the Cavern Of Lies into a cavern of moral judgement for Nate, and make him run a gauntlet of some of the most important choices inDragon AgeInquisition with no context. He turns out to be both authoritarian and kind of wholesome as an Inquisitor.
You can listen above, or onon Spotify,iTunes,Stitcher, orPocket Casts. You can find theRSS feed here, and you can discuss the episodeon our Discord channel, which has a dedicated room for podcast chat.
Music is by Jack de Quidt.
LinksThe Nate Gambit this week is forRimWorld, where he gradually turned his commune into cannibals obsessed with bears because it was economically sensible.
See also: the terrible calculus of how much there is to eat inFrostpunk.
The Walking Deadand games of that ilk are always forcing you to make hard moral choices but are they actually that hard? Nate likes the surprise element of the zombies. I think the best example isLife Is Strange, which takes away your carefree rewindy time powers at the worst/best moment.
The Outer Worldsis pretty cool, but the choices in it all kind of boil down to A, B or C(entrist), which is probably the same as most games, but The Outer Worlds doesn’t do the best job of hiding it.
Nate loves the semi-doomed world ofThe Banner Saga, as do a lot of you.
We also talk aboutThe Longing, a real time game about waiting for a long time.
Plus, I admit that the choices inDragon Age: Inquisitionet al. aren’t really that hard or harrowing.
Recommendationsthis week are the short story collectionFamished by Anna Vaught, the HBO TV show Peacemaker (or at leastthe opening credits), and to make some cherry compot at home.
