Why some games lie to you

[@insenkiv4619]

Life is Strange is one of few choice-based games that creatively uses its mechanics and, rather than attempting to be a technical tool of branching realities, makes its mechanic the very part of narration. Max uses her rewind to never face grief, to never be lonely or unliked. Similarly, we adapt to Max's worldview and simulate her desires, snooping around us and rewinding time for miniscule tasks simply to have the best forms of dialogue, of relationships, of events. We create the best consequences for Kate, for Chloe, for Rachel but also wish kindness to David, Victoria, Joyce and even random Arcadia citizens. We want to fix everything and live in a perfect world by actively relying on our powers (as a character) but also replaying the game time after time for the best consequences (as a player - applicable to those in 2015 waiting for new episodes). The game lying to the player is crucial because Max is lying to herself. The very tropes of Butterfly Effect and Donny Darko are quite popular, a lot of us are familiar with it. And it's not like the game attempts to hide what it will make us do. In Max's journal, she herself alludes to media about the two choices, sometimes even mentioning her own irrational fear of the same thing - but ultimately she always brushes them away for yet another "I have to save Chloe". Just as we brush them away because we want this story to end differently even if the answer is staring us right in the face. Life is Strange is ultimately the journey of grief. It's the deep desire we all have to relive the past with our loved ones, for things to be different. Throughout the four episodes, Max accelerates in her use of rewind powers but also desperation. To save Chloe, to have everything, to never have anything bad happen. Ultimately, that desperation reaches its climax in Polarized, non-stop jumping through time and realities to imprison Jefferson, to save Chloe, to win the contest; never having a time to catch a breath or process the horrific assault she experienced just moments ago. Max runs towards a destination that doesn't exist in search of a light, of revelation, of something to Fix Everything. We run with her. And then we stop, finding ourselves on the top of the cliff, the very place we ran from all these episodes dreaming of a different world and we Finally Know. That's why the story works. That's why letting Chloe or Arcadia go is so heartbreaking. Life is Strange is not supposed to have a good ending or a good myriad of consequences to our previous decisions. It's supposed to crash the illusion we played into for those 5 episodes alongside Max. Chloe dying on a bathroom floor angry, not knowing what happened to Rachel, never finding peace with her mother and stepfather - is what breaks our hearts. Whichever ending the player chooses, Max is left with the result of sexual assault and seeing death all over. Arcadia Bay's death trail and convoluted messy problems of its citizens will never be overwritten. And we can't change that. No amount of interference, rewind, choice making will fix that. It's supposed to be horrible, unfair, powerless. Because that's the reality of grief and loss. Max, and us, are supposed to acknowledge the truth, the reality. And acknowledging is the path of accepting and moving forward from the horror endured. Back in 2015 the endings did face scrutiny by players. Of course, everyone wanted everything to be Good, for consequences to be felt, and for us (and Max) to never lose agency. I find that years later the overall perception has grandly changed and people set with it a little, reflected on the game, maybe even replayed it, and finally accepted the story it told. But I do think it's expected and quite normal that back in 2015 people were adamant to that finale. Of course, no one wanted their pefect reality and a myriad of perfectly chiseled decisions snatched away from them.

[@Stands-In-The-Fire]

Yeah, I think there's a core viewpoint being espoused in this section that if choices only alter gameplay/story/characters along the way and don't alter the *ending*, it's Lying to you. Personally, and especially with everything that the game's core story was building up to as you learn the *why* of what's happening, I think calling that out as lying to the player about choice is a bit disingenuous. But, that can also just be a matter or perspective. Journey vs Destination as the core focus of scrutiny.

[@insenkiv4619]

@@Stands-In-The-Fire I agree. The mechanic itself doesn't lie throughout the game. There are a lot of branching consequences and dialogues to explore and it doesn't feel like a static experience. It would definitely be a different conversation if for example both the ending and the lead-up to that ending were utterly without variation. A good example of that is the new Life is Strange: Double Exposure game, unfortunately... In that game, yes, I agree; the game is lying entirely, and our actions don't have consequences, both in the final decision and generally throughout the game. But Don't Nod's Life is Strange approached choice by making it part of a Coming of Age narrative. I think , ultimately, if people find the game lied to them, than Don't Nod's story just didn't work for them. Which is okay of course, not everything works for everyone.

[@raidenvakarian9362]

I legitimately think that you've thought about this more than the writers of LiS themselves have.

[@insenkiv4619]

@@raidenvakarian9362 idk, these aren't particularly complex ideas. And Don't Nod talked extensively about their vision.

[@Alexander_Nafait]

Thank you for putting to words what I felt about the ending. One thing I want to add is that I always felt that our choices ultimately not mattering was a clever play on Max's time travel abilities. Like you mentioned, the game actively makes you rewind to see different dialogue options, different choices and their different outcomes before you ultimately settle on one. *Why* should your choices matter in a game where you get to see the immediate consequences to your actions and pick and choose which you favor? The final choice is pretty much the only time in the game that they don't let you rewind and check how the other option would go before moving forward, it is the only choice you make where the consequences hit you like a brick and you cannot magic it away, even if you regret it. Max grew up, you grew up. It's time to go out there and live with the consequences, no more running away.

[@CyanMentality]

Me: Enjoying an indepth analysis on deception in games, up to the Spec Ops White Phosphorus scene. KZbin: *interrupts video to give me an ad for an outdoor gas cooker stove* Outstanding... Liked and subscribed lol

[@Pixel_Whip]

👀

[@JadeStarLP]

I loved Life is Strange, and while you are mechanically right that no choice in the game changes the final option, save the town or save Chole... does that really matter? Your choices shape the experience you have, reflect on you and how you view things, and take you on a wonderful journey. It's the journey, not the destination. That old saying.

[@George_M_]

And the sense as a player of sacrificing all the changes you made to hopefully better the world helped heighten the final choice. The gameification helps.

[@Havok0159]

It does. While he was talking about it I remembered what my expectations were while playing. I expected my choices to play into how the town reacted to the storm. I figured that the more I helped people, the better my chances were in the last episode where I expected Max would try to convince the town to evacuate. Instead it went with, hey your choices didn't actually matter, kill this person you love in the hopes that it won't cause a freak storm.

[@zachanikwano]

“maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” vibes, lol Which is valid, I have a set of guilty pleasure games that have let players down massively. But if a game promises your choices have consequences and then doesn’t follow through, people are allowed to be upset at being lied to.

[@MartialLoreNZ]

I was going to say just this exactly. The choices in Life is Strange are still choices, even if they don't mean anything in the end, and are a good way to help players connect or share agency with the narrative goals of the game.

[@xzinster]

Nah. If the game tells me that my choices have consequences, it better stick to that. This is the reason why I kinda hated the old Telltalle games and Mass Effect 3. Anything you've picked prior to the very last choice did not matter as you're basically just given a choice in the end anyway on what ending you want to have.

[@Il_Exile_lI]

The most dishonest and insulting lie I've experienced in a game was in the first Infamous game. There is a choice where the protagonist's girlfriend is kidnapped and he's presented with a very comic book inspired choice of having to choose to save 6 doctors or his girlfriend. If you make the good choice and save the doctors, his girlfriend dies as expected. If you choose to save the girlfriend, it's revealed that it was actually a trick and the woman you save was a decoy and the girlfriend was hidden among the doctors you let die. The game retroactively changes the nature of the situation based on your choice to ensure that the girlfriend always dies. It's only a trick if you try to save her, but if you let her die it wasn't a trick and she wasn't a decoy. It feels incredibly manipulative for the game to reshape the past to ensure that your choice results in the outcome they wanted.

[@Pixel_Whip]

This is a good one, for real one of the most blatant 'illusion of choice' situations

[@jacobstaten2366]

The Suffering did kind of the same thing. If you make ethical choices, you get the good ending and if you make middling choices, you get the middling ending, batted choices bad ending. So far so good, except for what changes. Either your family was murdered by someone else and that's why you're in prison now, or the kidnapping you plotted for them accidentally causes their deaths, or you're straight up evil and you murdered them. So it retroactively changes the entire plot of the game based off of what you do currently.

[@droid-droidsson]

The Witcher 2 also does this a lot. The situation you faced, while on the surface level the same, turns out to have been different, and caused by radically different things, depending on what answer you choose. of course you might not ever find out, since both "major" paths players can go down have so much bespoke content to them that it feels kinda surreal to think there could be an entirely different branch to go down that is entirely mutually exclusive with the one you chose. I'm still torn on whether that particular facet of the game works to enhance the experience, or cheapen it.

[@Il_Exile_lI]

@@droid-droidsson I think in Witcher 2 it's slightly more handwave-able since the game branches so significantly from the Act 1 choice. The changes in circumstances may not always hold up to excessive scrutiny, but it makes sense on the surface that events play out differently in the two different versions of the post Act 1 story. I feel like that's less insulting than the Infamous situation where the past is altered in the moment based on your choice.

[@jacobstaten2366]

@droid-droidsson You mean like that time you were supposed to be fighting an army and they only trickle in about four guys at a time with some effects in the background because the game and system can't handle more?

[@marsalwin5101]

This video was how I learned about the Hellblade lie. I loved learning a new perspective on the game.

[@Pixel_Whip]

I had a feeling this would happen 😋

[@MTLion3]

I didn’t mind the lie of HB. I actually liked it. I saw the message, felt my sphincter tighten, and resolved that I wouldn’t be beaten. I only died a handful of times and never got too worried. When I found out that it was a lie after beating it, I loved it. It made me feel like I’d been motivated and was closer to Senua’s journey because of it. Death may have felt worse, but that’s because, like Senua, my failure was amplified by false information. We were both going to be just fine - we just couldn’t see it until the end

[@kaylemjoseph8727]

Just found out hellblade didn’t have perma death this whole time and have done 2 full play throughs thinking if I died too much I’d have to restart. Thinking that heightened the experience as a veteran gamer and if I ever came back to it now the experience would now never be the same.

[@CantankerousCannon]

Life is strange and hellblade are to this day some of my favorite narrative experiences in games. Both were just truly fantastic for what they were. Hellblade's lie didn't really effect me, because I realized pretty early on that the combat was pretty easy, and it didn't stress me out a ton, but the narrative, and the audio of that game fricking delivered. And Life is Strange just packed some serious emotional gut punches that aren't incredibly common in video games. I also want to point out, you could argue the original bioshock falls into the same category. Similarly to spec ops, it really makes you think about the way we tend to just accept whatever video games tell us to do.

[@jacobstaten2366]

Barring a game like Doom, on paper, every character should approach situations as if perma death is on, because from their perspective it is.

[@eadbert1935]

maybe we should tell the demons in doom that permadeath is on xD

[@StrideResearch]

Before we even start, Ghost of Tsushima when they say “this horse will be with you for your entire journey”

[@mnandeazy34]

OHMYGAWD i was gonna say this..... i felt so betrayed 😭😭😭 Kage was the goodest boy

[@ccsam1516]

Love your analysis. You deserve more recognition than what you have based on this single video alone

[@Pixel_Whip]

And I love your comment

[@ChefJoy10]

that senuas sacrifice lie gave me enough anxiety that i stopped playing halfway through lmaoo might go get back into it now. having made it further in the video, i will concede that even though i quit halfway through bc of my own anxiety and (ironically) mental health, i never looked at the experience i had as anything short of a masterpiece. that was part of why the effect was so strong on me

[@Forke13]

Prince of Persia II was it, I think. They didn't tell you, but the sand veins grew up the arm and it was implied that's bad and the other demon guy would take over. I mean I was like 12, but still :D

[@memandylov]

I would argue that Life is Strange isn't really lying about your choices having consequences. Sure, your decisions throughout the game don't change the ENDING of the game, but that doesn't mean they have no impact at all. It was never meant to insinuate that the fate of the entire town was going to change based on your individual day-to-day decisions, but that each small decision will result in some sort of consequence down the line. If you choose to water your houseplant, it will stay healthy. If you neglect to water it or if you over-water it, it will die. If you stick up for Kate from the start, she'll be more receptive to you talking her down from the legde later on. If you save Alyssa from all of the the many projectiles that seem to be attracted to her, she'll step in and save you when the opportunity presents itself. If you decide to bully Victoria, she won't be wiling to hear you out when you tell her that she's in danger. Life is Strange isn't about the culmination of all of your small decisions leading to one major outcome. It was always about the little things, the day-to-day interactions that you might not think too much about until they suddenly become relevant. The game is a series of individual decisions that have their own separate consequences, and even the ending of the game is just one last big decision with another set of consequences to be weighed against each other. Do you keep your best friend alive knowing that it will spell disaster for your community and more than likely kill dozens of innocent people, or do you allow her to meet an early end for the sake of the community? Either way, you'll be left feeling some amount of grief and a whole lot of guilt, and the consequences will by felt, not only by you, but by the community as a whole (or whatever is left of it) I don't think it's fair to insinuate that the ending of the game HAS to be affected by all of your in-game decisions for you to claim that your decisions matter. Also, comparing the way Life is Strange and Detroit: Become Human approach the idea of consequences doesn't really make sense. In Life is Strange, Max is just a normal teenager with no real influence outside of her powers. If she uses her powers to alter reality, a storm happens and wipes out Arcadia Bay. If she doesn't use her powers, the storm won't happen, but she'll have to accept the death of her best friend. All of her moment-to-moment decisions don't matter in the grand scheme of things because the storm is directly tied to the time-travel powers and whether or not she uses them. The universe doesn't give a shit how good of a person you are and how many good deeds you do. It only cares whether or not the tides of fate have been disturbed. In Detroit: Become Human, however, you play as characters that have a lot more influence over the outcome of the story and society as a whole. You have the leader of a civil rights movement, whose actions indirectly shape public opinion and by extension the opinion of the LITERAL PRESIDENT, the person who has the MOST power to change the fate of society and the fate of the androids. The success of the android rebellion is directly tied to your actions and how your actions are perceived by society. Play as a vengeful and uncaring android, and society will see the androids as a threat that needs to be terminated. Play as a peaceful and caring android that only wants to be treated equally, and society might just see some humanity in androids and give them a chance. And even aside from the whole civil rights plot line, Kara's story has a lot of room to end in different ways because her plotline is only about whether or not she survives and makes it to freedom with Alice and Luther. The outcome of her story is almost entirely dependent on her own decisions and she has very little influence on society as a whole. In fact, she is so inconsequential to the game's main story that you can kill her off pretty early and the rest of the game plays out almost as if she was never there. The structure of Life is Strange's ending is obviously going to be different from the structure of Detroit's ending because the premise of the game is entirely different. Both games make a statement to acknowledge that your decisions have consequences and both games deliver on that promise. They just happen to do it in different ways, and that's okay

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

Counterargument: It feels lazy and is unsatisfying. You leave the game disappointed, no matter how much fun you had in the middle.

[@Cuiasodo]

36:30 The thing about Mass Effect is that it depends in what you consider to be the "ending" of the game. If you consider the last five minutes to be the end, then, yes, the choices you've made up until that point don't matter. But if you consider the whole third entry to be the end, boy howdy does it deliver. There are so many different branches and permutations of people being alive, dead, in good standing with Shepard, whether the council lived, what your relationship with the annoying gotcha journalist is, so much that has payoff and changes depending on choices you made. While I agree that the final choice could have integrated player choice better, honestly, it feels impossible for any game studio to incorporate every single choice in a game series that massive all into one moment at the end of the game.

[@Pixel_Whip]

Yes, good point and I agree with it. But that's why I focused on the ending and not the choices themselves like in LiS and TWD. This kind of thing happens a lot in RPGs more generally, but very few have the level of unique character development and interaction be so unique depending on your in-situ choices the way Mass Effect does.

[@jacobstaten2366]

That's only a cut and paste modular difference. It's not any different from Fallout or heavy rain. The only difference is that one of the characters is no longer present. It's not like anyone grieves them when they're gone or that their necessary skills are now absent.

[@raidenvakarian9362]

That's honestly a really great perspective. I must admit that at launch I was in the "ME3 bad" camp, and to this day I still think the final act is garbage. But the game itself is spectacular, and really does pay off a lot of plot threads from the previous two entries. The fact that peace between the Quarians and Geth is only possible if you made certain choices in ME2 (and if you didn't you just can't achieve it in ME3 no matter what you pick) is absolutely wild.

[@Bloodanna]

The thing for me with Mass Effect was that the "good" ending forced you to abandon allies and choices you made without even acknowledging this fact. I could defeat the Reapers and make sure they don't come back, but only by also wiping out the Geth who were fighting with me at this point. And yet this loss/betrayal is never mentioned in the game. (Obviously I didn't choose to sacrifice them and it kind of felt like the Reapers won.)

[@jacobstaten2366]

@Bloodanna the Geth were a hive minded enemy right up until they retconned it for the 3rd game, didn't they?

[@wolverinedude69]

How do you only have 3k subs????? Excellent and very interesting video. Keep up the good work

[@Pixel_Whip]

On it!

[@therruefalse9984]

Good video, keep up the work! Maybe you could make a video about game mechanics and core gameplay loops being used against the player in meta-narratives, like Bugsnax or Undertale?

[@Pixel_Whip]

Love that idea

[@maybeyourbaby6486]

Spec Ops: The Line feels really frustrating to me at face value, since I actively try to find non-lethal/less-lethal options in games where I can, and being denied that option and railroaded into something I don't want to do is already frustrating enough without also being mocked for it... but that's also my perspective as someone who's already experienced games like Dishonored and Deus Ex, and drawn lessons from them, so I feel like it's unfair to hold that against Spec Ops: The Line? I think the message gets SO MUCH CLEARER when you directly compare it to "The War on Terror" in real life - every American who signed up to "fight the terrorists" was also lied to (the big lie that Iraq had WMD:s crowning a whole web of smaller lies), does that absolve them of the horrors they committed? And the thing is, even when they became disillusioned in the field and realized they weren't actually the heroes they thought they were, it was too late to opt out. If the point that they went wrong was when they willingly signed up to go kill dirty stinking middle eastern terrorists, after which it did not matter if they realized they'd been duped because they no longer had a choice, is it really so wrong to put the player in the same place in SO:TL? The deceptive marketing is such a shady business move, but it is the thing that makes it work. The whole story hinges on the player going in with completely unrealistic expectations. I want to be mad, but, as someone who's had games like Sniper Elite V2 sitting unplayed in my steam library for more than a decade because military shooters just don't appeal to me... clearly, Spec Ops: The Line was not made for people like me... and that's the whole point. It DID give me a choice, and I picked the right option. Not sure how I feel about that, but I really respect it.

[@Pixel_Whip]

There's an interesting discussion about how much Spec Ops is just a commentary on military shooter games as a genre which just happens to involve war as a trope of the genre, and how much is an actual deliberate message on war itself. That's a different and much larger thing, but as you make clear, there's a lot to talk about there.

[@raidenvakarian9362]

I think you're comparing Spec Ops to Deus Ex and Dishonored when in reality you should be comparing it to Call of Duty and other military shooters of the era. In those games, you get rewarded for following orders and blowing up the bad guys, and non-lethal approaches are not only not an option, but highly discouraged by both the narrative and gameplay.

[@maybeyourbaby6486]

@@raidenvakarian9362 I did not say it was like those games, I said that my personal experience with those games affected my negative gut reaction to SO:TL. I'm not sure how to respond to your comment without assuming you did not finish the first paragraph of mine. However, I also don't think there is a comparison of a game's meta-commentary on player agency between a game that has it and a game that does not. Beyond "x game has this, y does not". For the record. Like... which game has better spaceship controls; No Man's Sky or Dark Souls?

[@nikolasshum9321]

Love your videos and analysis! Thanks for the awesome video!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks heaps! Glad you liked it. (And you better not be lying)

[@leshiy_nd]

Great vid! But at the middle of it I thought that Soma should be mentioned, though closer to the end I'm not sure. Any elaboration would be kind of a spoiler so here it is: the story is linear but there's a few choices that aren't about consequences but about asking you new questions related to the game's themes (what means being human, what means being real and how much responsibility you can take over others). Second layer of elaboration: And not all choices are obvious to be choices, and some can be completely missed (and it's so real). And I love the damn thing!

[@heszedjim9699]

The problem with "choices matter" is how it effects the writing. Characters who may not appear depending on choices, that character gets pushed aside even if they're still around

[@battyrae1398]

I think my favourite lie in a video game was in fallout: new vegas. you get a quest to track down an enemy spy, and manage to figure out where the spy is gonna be. You then get two quest markers. One to the questgiver, the other to the next objective. Most ppl will go right back to the quest giver, cos why wouldnt you? but if you do, the spy never shows. HE was the spy! It's been a while since I played, but there are some hints, iirc. the man fits the description of the sort of person the spy would have to be, from what i can remember. but its still pretty cool and makes the quest memorable

[@RockHeiland]

A wise man once said "Men are props on the stage of life, and no matter how tender, how exquisite... A lie will remain a lie."

[@fake_healer]

IIRC, in Deus Ex biochip upgrade was warranted, cause your UI is glitching at that time and this should "fix" that problem. Elaborate ruse, all along.

[@Pixel_Whip]

Yup, exactly!

[@Cuiasodo]

I think, also, you take some HP damage when some of those glitches happen. You heal back the health over time, but it does cause a moment of panic.

[@erikvaldes4293]

Mouthwashing is the best version of this trope

[@Jon_East]

Hmmm, the section about dialogue-tree choices is kind of missing the mark for me. You seem to be presenting a few points that I don't believe line up with what those games were doing or even what they were claiming to do. 1) You interpret the opening statements in TWD and LiS as suggesting something about each game's ending, but that's not at all what they're saying. What they state is simply that the narrative will change depending on your choices - that means the narrative throughout the game, not only / not specifically the ending. The fact that e.g. in TWD different playthroughs will have different characters join and/or die throughout the game based on your choices is exactly what the opening statement promised. Same with Life is Strange. To reduce those promises to the misinterpretation of specifically the ending is disingenuous I think. 2) You then use that rationale to claim the games are lying to you, and at one point even state that the games pretend they're "better games" than they are, which is again very much a misrepresentation of what's happening, and makes me worried that you're making your viewers think badly about these games when it's really just your misinterpretation that's wrong. I don't want to come across as combatitive here, I genuinely don't actually care much about either of those games, I'm just disappointed that in an otherwise really great video with interesting points, this section just entirely misses the mark and somewhat ironically makes you fall into the exact trap that you describe for all these games (essentially lying to your viewers, whether intentionally or not). It tarnishes the credibility of the other great points you make by suddenly making the viewer think "well wait, that's just straight up not true". I still think the video overall is very well done, I just wished you approached this section differently.

[@Pixel_Whip]

I'll defend my stance a bit here, but you do make some very good points. 1) My conclusion that TWD and LiS lie to the player comes from the observation not just of the games themselves, but the vast discourse around these particular games which criticise them for their "illusion of choice" approach. There are plenty of steam reviews and reddit threads that make this assertion which are easy to come across when looking at discussions about each game, and most notably their endings, without specifically looking for criticisms (and perhaps I could have made this clearer in my video to be fair). In any case, are these criticisms warranted? I'm not too concerned, but to me it's clear that many people misinterpreted the flexibility of the games' endings. 2) In my video, I attempt to explain this common misinterpretation as being due to the games' presentation (the opening text statements, the constant player decisions, the "clementine will remember that"s). Whether intentional or not, the presentation misleads the player, which I call a lie in this context, though I admit the word lie is quite strong here. If a couple people have an incorrect misinterpretation, it's a bad read, but if everyone agrees that there is an illusory aspect to choice in these games, then there is some level of misdirection from the game's side, even if that wasn't the design intention. It's easy to see what the games are doing in retrospect, but its something else entirely at the end of a first playthrough. A large point you've made is that the presentation of the two games is more about the effect you have on the story *throughout* the game, not necessarily the endings. I make this point in my video as well, even defending the opening statement in TWD explicitly from the claim that it is a lie because of this. But I go on to say that because people expect this framing to extend to the ending, it feels like a lie once the full scope is understood by the player, so there just happens to be multiple ways that those opening statements have been interpreted by players. I agree that neither of those games claim to do more than they actually did, but that their framing made it very easy for a lot of players to misread the scope of each game, to the point that its not only the audience who can be blamed, making it a type of (unintentional) lie. Having said all of that, the way I've framed this discussion within my video does underrepresent some of the importance nuance here. Particularly using the phrase "better games" as opposed to something like "more flexible game", or something without a value judgement. I'd change those parts if I were to go back. I don't want people to look down on these games, but to take away which approaches work best when trying to make a game of meager scope feel like one of broad scope, which is the whole premise of illusion of choice. So, thank you for the extremely measured and well-thought-out criticism. I'm always trying to improve videos each time I put one together, so I appreciate comments like these a lot. I look forward to writing more unnecessarily verbose replies in the future.

[@the0neBoio]

well technically in the first Life is Strange most (if not all) of the choices (except the last one) do not effect the canon. If you save Arcadia Bay then things will take a completely different turn and Max will never have to do most of the stuff in this timeline, meaning it didn't matter if (as an example) she was nice to Victoria or not as we (as players) have no effect on this timeline. If we choose to save Chloe then basically everyone Max helped dies, meaning it doesn't matter if she helped Kate as the storm will kill her. The only choices that could be seen as canon here might be the ones regarding Chloe (like kissing her or not) but I'm not sure if they even happened in the timeline of this ending? So in a way the choices never effect the canon. Either Chloe dies and the others live but it's a new timeline or Chloe lives and everyone else dies. The other Life is Strange games do have more choices with impact on their canon (although the only other one I've played is True Colors, so I'll use it as an example). In True Colors there basically is only one "Ending" as no matter what you do the truth will come out and Jed will confess. But depending on your choices throughout the game, more or fewer people will believe Alex when she first accuses Jed. Also depending on who(/if) you romanced and either decided to stay or leave the last scene will be different. In my opinion the choices in True Colors felt way more meaningful, even though it only has one ending at least the choices effect the canon of this universe. In True Colors the choices don't effect the outcome of the grand (as usual for those games a bit unrealistic/overdramatic) mystery storyline, but instead impact the (more) realistic social relationships between characters. And something like wether I was nice to a character or not does weirdly feels more impactfull if it DOESN'T effect the "big mystery" storyline. I was nice to be nice, not to have some benefit regarding the figuring out of a mystery. Like yes, in those types of games you usually choose the "nice option" by default without thinking too much, but this way it feels more realistic. It has a personal impact, not a world changing/reality altering one. That is also why True Colors feels way more realistic and relatable, my daily choices don't change the world, but they do change the people around me. That is also why in my opinion Tell me Why (also made by DONTNOD) is the best of this type of games, all the choices only impact relationships, and (Spoiler) it doesn't have an actual solution to the mystery, instead it asks us what version of story the 2 protagonist should accept as "the truth". They do know both versions, and we don't 100% know what actually happened, but we have to choose one version and accept it as the true version, so they can move on with their lives. (Although the game does make it very clear that one is kind of the bad choice/ending as it leads to the protagonist growing apart instead of reconnecting more) (I am kinda trying not to spoil too much even though I did kinda spoil the ending already)

[@19Rinka86]

I’m glad you highlighted that sometimes the illusion of choice is done for emotional reasons. I for one loved ME3 and am dying on that hill that the colored endings don’t take away from the choices you make along the way that have real impact-just not on the ending. But they carry emotional weight at the very least and shape your experience and memories with the game. In ME3’s case I think about my choices far more often and much more as part of the experience and why I love the trilogy than which color my ending had. (btw I’m also ready defend the endings. they may not vary much but it’s their implications for your personal journey with the game that matters. how, in your mind, the world continues and in which state. One just has to give it more thought than taking what’s presented at face value)

[@Pixel_Whip]

My main issue with the ME3 endings is their lack of creativity *given* how detailed and rich the rest of the journey throughout the series was. But yes, this is why I didn't talk too much about Mass Effect in general in the video, because its choices do fall firmly into the bucket of being significant as they effect how relationships and events play out throughout the series before the ending. And I suppose they also help to contextualise the ending too (as you seem to imply). Loved reading this perspective.

[@19Rinka86]

@ Yes, totally see your point!! The execution of the different endings was lackluster for sure. Loved this video, such an interesting topic and you unpacked it in such a nuanced and differentiated way. #subbed

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks, glad to have you around 😊

[@lalogolani6151]

Great video bro, please keep it up❤️ cover the topics YOU want!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks! I'll keep doing my best

[@edenmayneoffical]

Thought this was a Daryl talks games video from the thumbnail

[@famglorie123]

Great video lad enjoyed it thourgoly

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks :)

[@jojojaja129]

Life is Strange 1 is still the masterpiece for me, Not a single game to this day has lasting impact for me.

[@EatTheRichAndTheState]

Its like in horizon zero down, i wondered if choosing different options changed anything, but soon i didn't care (it most probably didn't ) but it helped me to feel in the same head space as Aloy to the point that i felt i was her, i even walked everywhere inside populated places, and sometimes even in the wild, because doing otherwise made me feel selfconsious or that i didn't had a reason to

[@codythep]

Stunning essay, mate. 🙌🏻

[@Pixel_Whip]

Appreciate that 😊

[@azrogthesocial3020]

You’re so legitimately talented

[@Maxx__________]

The issue with game design by obfuscation is that it fundamentally requires player ignorance to function.. IMO as a dev - games should get better the more information a player acquires. Not worse.

[@dandygardner9404]

The current discussion about the conflicts between the art of storytelling and the pressure to deliver traditional gameplay mechanics is really exciting. Amongst the games I personally played, The Missing : JJ Macfield and the Island of of Memory is a fascinating example. It's not a AAA game however.

[@BeyondTheFieldsSK]

Fantastic video, holy cow!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Appreciate it 😊

[@danielpratt3794]

Wow, I can't believe i have watched yet another video on spec ops the line yet still have learned new ideas about it and gaming as a whole Great video! Two questions: Do you think that, according to your logic, that games that try to be clever with their deception but have the surprise ruined before then set it up to be despised? Like for example Tlou2 had its plot leaked so when people actually played it they were able to see all the tricks of the trade and felt the game was condescending like you said in the spec ops part? Second question: Are there any other games you love that you think lie to the player?

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks, glad you liked it! 1) Yes, this definitely happens. Despise is a strong word though. I think in the case of tlou part 2, the hate came from a very different place, but was exacerbated by the leaks and not caused by them. But like in Spec Ops, if a game tries to coerce the player into an action or mentality through deceit, but the surprise gets ruined, it can be easy to eye roll your way through the reveal instead of taking it on the game's terms. Sometimes you need to be unaware of things for them to be effective. 2) There were some other ideas I floated around for this video but didn't make it in. For example puzzle games are always trying to hide things from the player, which is deception in a way. It's especially obvious when you have red herrings which lure you into a false solution. In a similar vein, I thought about games like Tunic and Outer Wilds which hide fundamental mechanics from the player. Not outright lying, but still slightly deceitful (of course for good reason). In terms of narrative lies, I also considered Dead Space 3, where in coop mode one player can see the real scene, and the other sees a hallucination, and the only way to figure out which is real is to communicate irl! Oh, and Frog Fractions!!

[@danielpratt3794]

​@Pixel_Whip 1) Fair when you have a confirmation bias of negativity it can be easy to hardware away it's attempts to be genuine, hence why some many love it for how it made them feel and why so many dislike it for its failure to do 2)oooo puzzle games do hide the truth from you and yes the famous dead space 3 hallucination But never heard of frog factions sound neat Thanks for the articulate response!

[@arymona]

the moral of the story is, if the lie has a story telling subtext, is a good lie, if it's a mechanical subtext, is a bad lie

[@defcynodont5110]

Another example: in freespace, some briefings in story missions are simply incorrect, but in-universe it's quickly shown that your commanding officers are not infallible, and the enemy is genuinely out maneuvering your intel.

[@breadgehog]

I think I'll gently push back on the idea that ME3 didn't incorporate prior choices; setting aside completely that for sustainability it was only ever going to taper back down to a few options, I do think that having three main endings is pretty much fine. The problem was largely that the cutscenes were near-identical, in a way creating the illusion that those choices didn't matter at all when in fact they formed the basis for most of your readiness rating, for better or worse. As well, regardless of a "number go up" approach to displaying mechanical impact, I think most characters got at least compelling ends to their character arcs that lend a lot of weight to the finale depending on what actions were taken. I'm loath to really say they lied so much as they just didn't know how to stick that last landing in a game that's like, 90% great.

[@12DAMDO]

the point of Choose Your Own Adventure games isn't always the ending, but the story and the way you shaped it.. in Walking Dead, regardless of how it ends, you have a choice to either save Carley or Doug, and whoever it is you save will be there for the next 2 seasons until things escalate.. in Life Is Strange, even if you can just choose the ending in the end, your actions still impact story beats like whether or not Kate will jump or whether you want to confront Chloe's step-dad.. but this is not always the rule, because there's plenty of Choose Your Own Adventures where it's the other way around.. take Henry Stickmin, where your first choice is usually the one that decides the ending, and every choice afterwards has a linear path towards the ending, with every other choice resulting in a fail.. and then there is Black Mirror's Bandersnatch, where there are multiple endings you can achieve, up until you get the final ending and can't continue playing anymore.. you don't play Bandersnatch just to see one of the multiple endings.. rather, it is the goal to get them all, to get the full picture of what the episode is even about, and to get that full Black Mirror experience.. in other words: Choose Your Own Adventures aren't exactly games, they're interactive movies.. more so than those games that are 90% cutscene, 10% quick-time events.. some even like to combine the 2 genres..

[@kristadisgumundsdottir3658]

As my mind has been thinking about Wasteland 3 a lot after a discussion about games while waiting for FNM draft to start last week. I was surprised that game was not included as the amount of lies you are told by almost everyone involved in the main plot is just staggering.

[@lpfan4491]

"the wording was chosen really carefully". Lol, lmao. There are several ways it could have been worded to make sure the player does not feel trolled in the end. Specifically the "each time you fail" would not pass the jerk genie-test.

[@Cruntocius]

Just because you think or a % of players think this is what it say, and if not, it was a lie, doesn't mean, it was a lie or written poorly. The subjective thinking most of the time leads you to a path, which was not planned for it. Read it objectively, technically, and not put things to it, which are not present. I feel it was written correctly and carefully, and can't see the lie. Realise freely, after you know everything about it, that you were wrong, and that way you have to oportunity to learn from your mistake. But if you just listen to the haters or players, who are stuck in the "you are trolling me, I'm too genius to be mistaken" mindset, you just set yourself up to fail again in the next event.

[@lpfan4491]

@Cruntocius Of course you wouldn't see any issues with how it is written. Those constant commas in your reply alone break any reasonable syntax several times over.

[@rook6972]

As someone who has experienced psychosis, I personally think your analysis is spot on. I'm just one person, of course, so maybe others would disagree. But I was nodding along the whole time you were speaking about how the game handles evoking psychosis. I also happen to be a player who loves that the devs lied to them about permadeath. It's perfect for what the game is trying to do, and I think it's just so bold and smart.

[@Pixel_Whip]

I loved reading your perspective. It's all a testament to the effort that went into handling psychosis seriously in Hellblade.

[@MadMorriganleft]

9:46 i felt really seen by the game when under the lens of mental illness. Also, i thought it was pretty obvious lie

[@BroudbrunMusicMerge]

The Walking Dead Season 3 has a smörgåsbord of endings that can happen due to your actions in the moment, throughout the game, and even in past games. ... However, it's often considered the weakest season by far. Take that as you will

[@eyeballjay]

I think if you want a game with a story and outcome purely driven by you the player, then play like The Sims or a role-playing game. If you want a well-thought-out storyline with interesting themes, characters and emotions like you'd get in a movie or novel then idk, you need to buy into what the devs are selling you a little bit. and the thing about audiences is they often don't know what they do or don't want until it's put in front of them

[@ghostlyerlkonig]

Hellblades lie is perfect to me as someone who has experienced psychosis. The constant fear alone. Mine was because of severe anxiety from a medication. The paranoia was debilitating on top of constantly hearing sounds or whispers. I dont wish it on anyone.

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks for sharing your perspective, that's totally the impression I got. I hope things got better for you.

[@TheRiskyforever]

mostly great video but that quick note reading of life is strange was messing with me, and i don’t get it. ignoring that i think the choices in the game are more about the internal experience, eg, hearing someone say something you did, or making something harder (saving kate for example), the theme is imo quite clearly about the fact that you can’t have a perfect life. It doesn’t rob you of agency, because there’s a very clear choice, but it does say that you aren’t always going to get to be happy. Sometimes things are going to suck, no matter what you choose, SOMETHING isn’t going to be right, and you have to live with that. Grief, etc, it’s about moving on while knowing that nothing can ever be perfect. A lot of people read the ending as “you can’t change anything” but that implies that one ending is correct, and that’s just their personal emotions on the bay ending leaking in, imo it’s pretty clear that the only message that fits both endings is that sometimes you’re gonna have to take cuts, not anything about determinism or something lmaooo. wonderful video though complete aces

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks for the comment, and for a very measured critique. Honestly, looking back, I don't like the way I worded my read on Life is Strange. You're right that it's more about the futility of trying to perfect life's outcomes with your own choices. The message is that there's almost always a price to pay. This isn't really what determinism is, so I'd rephrase my take if I went back.

[@peabuddie]

I enjoyed this. Thank you.

[@MsAnimelove2102]

I'm apart of the small group of people who also felt cheated by your cboices not actually mattering at the end of Life is Strange. I do think that part of this frustration came from the fact that I finished Oxenfree first which is one where your choices actually do effect the ending so my expectations for Life Is Strange were colored by that experience.

[@justinsanity501]

I kinda feel bad about my interaction with Hellblade’s lie. I hate permadeath type stuff, so I looked it up immediately to see how lenient it is to determine whether I’d keep playing and quickly discovered it was a lie. I think its a really cool idea but I regret that I didnt get to truly experience it. Even still, I think i only died a couple of times because it was a pretty easy game

[@GlitchedVision]

what's absolutely hilarious but a lot of people don't think about is the anxiety that permadeath meahcnic can instill in players who would, were it real, suffer it's wrath. This level of anxiety has driven many people as far away from the game as they could possibly get but perhaps if the game were more truthful up front, these players may have stuck it out and endured through the story. I personally noped out of the experience until I learned the permadeath was a lie for that very reason. I'm a low vision gamer who dies a lot, even on the easiest difficulty setting. Basically being told, "suck too much and it's all over," wether true or not can easily drive a person to instant refund and go seek an experience that appears to be less punishing. It's a risk to deceive your players.

[@Buckshotyankee]

Great video!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks :)

[@Ambious]

In Life is Strange while there are two possible endings, they play out slightly differently depending on your choices. For example, Max and Chloe either kiss or not depending on how many times you went along with her shenanigans throughout the game.

[@christinkle]

33:59 I think we can say with confidence armed lee is better. Simply for that cleaver/glass shard dual wield zombie brawl, lee is a god damn machine.

[@chefrowlet]

another lie Gears has is that the last few bullets in the magazine do more damage than usual, the intent being better odds at clutching a life-saving kill as you run dry. The interview where they talked about this coming from wanting to help low-skill players who weren't nailing the active reload like high-skill players (who didn't need the help of magic bullets) was a pretty nifty listen.

[@phyphor]

This is a great video but I wanted to mention a couple of other games that lie to players. In Undertale there are two lies. The first is the one that is obvious if you've played the game, that is revealed to be a lie innit a few moments after if you believe it. The second, however, is a lie that almost everyone understands isn't meant to be believed - you are told that it is unsafe to go on alone and to wait. If you do so the game doesn't progress. You get a few phone calls but otherwise nothing happens. There is no game if you choose to believe that lie. Even if you wait for hours and hours and hours. I know, because I haven't progressed any further into the game, haven't explored the depths of it, because I have chosen to believe the lie even at the expense of playing the game. I think if i had played Spec Ops I would choose not to commit a war crime, even if it meant the game didn't progress. The second game is Tunic which lies by omission to the player in a variety of ways but the point of the game is the exploration and discovery, but to say much more would spoil too much.

[@jacobstaten2366]

The dialogue choice thing really infuriates me. Don't even include it if you're not going to allow me to affect the outcome of the game. Mass effects in Fallout do it to a minor degree in that they change the short term scenario, but they Don't change the ending of the game itself. I think the best way to handle this would be to write the story from beginning to end until you have a complete story. Then work your way backwards asking "What if?" And changing things from the end backwards to critical points in the story. Then each branch you get should result in a different ending. You might have some that are similar, but even a game like heavy rain basically has cut and paste endings regardless of who survives or doesn't.

[@iamagenius2646]

At the end fight I fought my PC instead of the enemies. The game throw more and more enemies at me as the time went by to the point I just had a square foot of moving basically relying on dodge and/or parry in order to survive. After more than 40 min the amount of lag overdone my PC and made me mistake one parry/dodge move so I finally lost. YOU WERE SUPPOSE TO LOOSE. I was sad as I did my fricking best, but I have to give it to the developer, the fight was epic, the music, the tense in my shoulders, my eyes watching carefully every inch of the screen, the fans going 120% blasting red hot air and my hopes getting smaller and smaller with every single new enemy added. I ... was crushed. In seconds after that I was just thinking that I need to redo all of that again, but better, I even thought my PC was not powerful enough to finish the game. ALL THAT TO SEE THAT IT WAS INTENTIONAL. The voices were right, "Die!" and I did NOT want to listen ...

[@Katwind]

Ok, so the lie on Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is not because it says there is permadeath but there isn't, rather, the lie lies in the perceived intention of the message. Because the line seems to be a warning and therefore something to be avoided, but it's just spoiling the end of the story. The rot gets to Senua's head, that is the end of her quest. And she ends her quest by renouncing it, which includes losing all progress towards it.

[@estan4509]

i just found out that permadeath was a lie damn because of it i was always on my toes each fight it really elevated the experience

[@kman9884]

Hellblade being a lie really kills the stress. It’d be better if they stuck to it. Removing the consequences of wiping a save for failure, means that all thematic weight of the lie is nullified; turning it into yet another action hack n slash.

[@nask0]

Nice content man, keep it up, new subscriber here

[@eadbert1935]

So, about senua, i knew the spoiler beforehand because everyone talked about it and i didn't care enough to avoid spoilers for a game i didn't know. what surprises me (i know, i come from a point of knowing it beforehand, so it's not fair), is how no one picked up on it not actually growing further. As the video has shown, no death beyond the third actually adds rot. I'm pretty sure the threshold is met even earlier, at the second or maybe even first death per chapter. And then you see it actively grow between a lot of chapters, even without you dying, which i would feel cheated for. "hey, i didn't die here and you STILL added rot? what if i died more often earlier, would i just lose all my progress in a cutscene?" which i would assume is the moment most people would realize they're being lied to. (i'm not claiming i would've realized, but if i didn't, i'd be surprised how easily i was tricked). Oh, and it "technically not being a lie" is definetly bs. removing "and all progress will be lost" would make this true, but with "this is not a lie" it basically means that their game is meaningless, as there is no progress upon finishing the game. also, i hated the ending. not because giving up is wrong per se, but it's framed in a way of "just listen to your abusive father, he was right all along".

[@Nathan_pereira]

You misunderstood the ending. First things first, this was not exactly her father, but rather her Darkness speaking through his voice (since it was he who traumatized her). It's more like a part of her subconscious that tries to manipulate and hurt her, simulating what her father did. It's also commonly known as The Shadow. Even if it was right that Dillion can't be saved, it said those things to her with the intent of making her vulnerable. It's an unreliable voice that only wants to cause harm. But Dillion appears at the very end of the game as a memory and, in a nutshell, he compassionately tells her she needs to accept it. And in the end, it's this acceptance, not only of Dillion's death but also of her condition, that kills this Shadow (unless you take the second game into account). Also, yes, the "permadeath" message is definitely a lie. There's no logical reasoning that can disprove that. And if it was a true information, the game would lose some of it's weight.

[@cameronsmith3047]

Hellblade's lie as an experience is great, Its lie as a marketing strategy was scummy.

[@echoingvistas]

A marketing strategy means that it's something that was presented in marketing for the game. This never was. This was a message in the beginning-ish of the game, and got attention through word of mouth. The devs were questioned on/talked about it after the fact. That has nothing to do with intentional marketing, which seems to be your issue.

[@Szadek23]

I would have not bought Hellblade at all if I didn't learn that perma death thing was a lie. Thing is I like both deep narative games and games with complex combat system and higher difficult settings are the best way to test the latter. If I bought the game without knowing, I would have played on easy to not have to worry about that and that type of meta-gaming does hurt the immerstion for me. Maybe it would have been better if instead of a tutorial like pop-up message, it would have been better if you were told this through a character in-game. With Senua being anything but realiable it would have been more ambgious if this was a real threat or not. The way it isn't just the devs lying straight to your face at least.

[@flugal_rere]

Great video.

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thanks!

[@kevinsiscoe]

What an amazing gem of a video. Though provoking and well explained. Sub and a like from me!

[@Pixel_Whip]

Thank you so much!

[@mydogeatspuke]

Press trapezium, lmao. That's the touch pad icon. It refers to the touch pad. A big pad in the middle of the DS4/5 controller that you can touch.

[@evey0259]

I'm surprised no one makes the comparison, but "tailored" implies equity more than equality. Say two guys go to get a suit tailored. One guy is fat, the other is skinny. At the end, they'll both have suits, but they will be wildly different. Does that matter?

[@braddalrymple8615]

I'm pausing at the 15min mark to share something. I didn't play this game i did download and start the game and i wanted to enjoy epic story game but am not a skilled gamer despite playing games actively for 25 years and when i saw this message pop up i decided this asnt for me. I have poor reaction times and sometimes my health causes me to play poorly. I played many games like War zone, fornite and such where a death can waste 30 min though nothing of consequence is taken so I often play alone to not disappoint others. I have never played a dsrksouls game because I know the permanent loss of things after a death like souls (assuming you can not reclaim them) would make me never pick up that game again and thus I didn't dive any deeper than the threat at the start of the game. It is a little sad, years later to learn if I d dug a bit deeper I would have had my fears abated.

[@victorfroes6650]

Heavy Rain implies, heavily, that you can get a distinct ending for the way you play it, but it’s always the same ending. It’s always the same killer, and it pisses me off. My wife told me I have no right to, since it makes sense, a specific killer with it specific motives. But I can’t shake the feeling that it would be way cooler to have several endings, depending on your detective skills. Also, a video about videogame lies should at least mention Arkane’s Prey, since it has a pretty big lie that kind of changes everything, without changing anything at all.

[@TheFrogEnjoyer]

I see Spec Ops The Line, I click

[@AlexanTheMan]

The diametrically opposed marketing campaigns of Metal Gear Solid V and The Last of Us Part II. As both games play up a strong revenge theme, MGSV's trailers was confidently subtle about its incredibly plot twist, one of them even partially gave it away. TLOU2 blatantly swapped in-game models to fit a false narrative that a certain character is still alive and embarking on the journey with you. When it came to the games themselves, MGSV used the element of deception tastefully as to only give the player pieces of information that you must piece together to make sense of things, only to realize you stumble into a deeper rabbit hole. It helps immerse the player into an espionage-like experience that no other game in the series could achieve before it, as it is more grounded in reality compared to its previous, more action movie oriented peers. While TLOU2, and I'm yet to play it personally, uses deception as a gut punching plot device. The players have to live with the lie throughout the whole game. But I personally think the game was less confident in exploring these themes as it makes the protagonist ravage through the country only to make a point about violence being bad, apparently. It is a creative mess, in short terms.

[@chillbro1010]

The problem with senuas was that i had it explained to me that it was a punishing game like dark souls that went one step above and had perma death to exemplify the characters mental illness. Ive tried various perma death games and modes before and i invariably get stuck on geometry or crash or have a glitch that insta-kills me. I dont enjoy dealing with bad code and faulty hardware so i prefer games with saved progression. The lies were in the marketing that either didnt understand the lie, or knew and was pushing the lie for views. Its on par with phone game advertising that shows a full 3d battle but ends up being a match 3 or a turn based auto-battler. Even if it lied in the other direction: marketing a game i dislike but it was actually good, i spent my money on other games. Games can just not show you what they are doing, thats fine. But the "real world" meta information about the game lying is unacceptable.

[@rjai5003]

I think whether or not a choice matters in a game comes from how different the experience is depending on what you do. That’s why I disagree with the take that your choices don’t matter in games like Life is Strange or Mass Effect 3. Even if their last choices are always the same, the decisions you made leading up to that point still had visible consequences that changed the world and the characters in it. Choices that I’d say really don’t matter are the ones like cutting off Lee’s arm, where the game gives you two different choices that both lead to the same outcome with different dialogue

[@jurajfrano7272]

Very good video

[@tamagothchic]

Saying your progress will be lost in Hellblade is true, it's just that as players we assume "all" means the entire game and instead it actually means "any progress made after the previous checkpoint". It isn't about technical lie, it's just weaponizing gamer experiences. They don't use any words that actually mean permadeath, they just know we'll jump to the extreme interpretation.

[@bridgettelair370]

Even though I hate Life is Strange, the every choice matters lie isn’t what makes it bad. There’s a few narrative games where it works really well. I’d say the best one I’ve seen is Refind Self, because the choices do matter for the personality part but not for the overall story. You’ve gotta play it three times, it’s fairly short though so that’s not an issue!

[@copperkabell1119]

Would you kindly, of bioshock is by far my favorite gaming lie of all time.

[@pirakax12]

Mass effect is such a weird beast. Because yeah the excution of the ending especialy before the directors cut is pretty bad and pretty baffling. But not becasue the choices dont matter like a lot of people claim. Its them trying to find a way to make choices matter and actualy having made a pretty good system for it and then still fumbling it. The war asset system that excist is suppose to be a answer to how do we make all choices matter. Wich war assets you get can actualy get quite complicated with a lot of them be depending on at least 1 if not often several choices you made up till that point between all 3 games. SImple example is the infamous punchable reporter. She can be a war asset but the only way to make her 1 is to NOT punch her in any of the three games. And yes war assets actualy have a influence on the ending. the control and later added synthys ending arent even avaible until its high enough. How well the normandy and its then active crew survives is reliant on it, As well as the additional scenes like the star gazer ending is only avaible if its high enough (before dlc stargazer was actualy impossible without doing multiplayer since it aplied a multipyer to the asset score depending how muich you done). Now the game is realy bad at commuciating this and the actual endign are still to similar, But there was defntiyl more of a attempt to make it work then people give it credit to.

[@ravenfrancis1476]

I'd argue the people insisting there should have been a choice for the White Phosphorous scene are actually reinforcing the point of that scene, and the game as a whole. Walker serves as a meta stand-in for the player - both on an individual level and a broader playerbase level. These players, especially, are committing the same sin as Walker. Bull-headedly insisting that they get to be The Big Heroes, that they're a good person and they had no choice. They want the escapist fantasy and the rush of being the altruistic metaphorical knight in shining armor, completely immune from any criticism with no need for self reflection. Anyone or anything that prevents them from indulging in their hero complex where they Always Make The Best Decisions Ever must be intrinsically Bad and Wrong. Defective. Broken. Because they're not a bad person! They're not! They just want to uncritically consume propaganda that fuels the American military industrial complex and pretend they're a manly badass action man.

[@lucyalvey2770]

i have to say that calling WP a "dangerous incendiary" is the understatement of the century given the uhm...severely atrocious kind of chemical weapon it is, to put it kindly

[@ChefJoy10]

press WHAT to close the menu??

[@victorfroes6650]

Trapeze

[@ChefJoy10]

@victorfroes6650 I've never heard that word before except in reference to some body walking a tight rope

[@Pixel_Whip]

👀 Today I have discovered that Americans have a different word for trapezium

[@Torqegood]

I don't like Life is strange just because it felt like someone given a power they didn't ask for and being punished for it. She didn't even wish to save her old friend. She was just freaking out. Then she got punished and taught not to change the past when she didn't seem like the person to want to do that to begin with. Also on the Spec ops choice is to not pay the devs for their game, since you just stop playing halfway through as the choice to not use white phosphorus.

[@Seoul_Soldier]

Spec Ops: The Line, in my opinion, did a better job of subverting expectations than The Last of Us 2. Both of them force you to do things you don't want to do, but for me at least Spec Ops was more affecting. And less dumb.

[@nowaht]

Is there a difference between deception and lying?

[@saberx4732]

People being genuinely upset about HB still makes no sense to me

[@BreakerBea]

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice kind of lies? After so many deaths you earn something called Rot Essence, and the game lorewise explains to you that the more you die, NPC's will get sick. Afflicted NPC's cant give you any special dialogue, and the first person who always gets afflicted is the Sculptor. When you talk to the sculptor, he says "that hes special and cant die" so it makes you think that the more you die, NPC's are going to start dying off. But the tutorial that pops up for it doesnt say thats what happens. It explicitly says "The more Rot Essence Wolf has, the lower the chances of receiving Unseen Aid". So maybe less of a lie, and more of a "I wouldnt be surprised if From Software actually did that" lol

[@chrisg6654]

I like Slay the Princess and its relationship with lies. Spoilers: I don’t think the narrator ever truly lies. Gaslights a little, but never lies (“don’t listen to that voice, you are happy”). Something about the game makes you feel like the narrator is lying though. So the game is lying about the narrator’s lies. This isn’t to say either the princess or narrator are right or wrong, they simply have perspectives. It isn’t until you understand those perspectives do you actually see the truth in both party’s statements

[@joekaf]

I can see how choice-based narratives like Life is Strange, Mass Effect, etc face a catch-22 when it comes to the ending. As you noted, allowing the player to choose their own ending ends up retroactively devaluing all the choices the player made during the game. On the other hand, I can see an outcome where players get upset if they are forced into an ending they don't want due to choices they've mde throughout the game. You let me make my own choices for 15 hours then all of the sudden when it comes to the biggest choice of all, you're going to railroad me into an ending I don't want? Or you end up with people removing all choice and just using guides that will get them their desired ending. I'd be curious if people have examples of games that manage to avoid this catch-22.

[@raidenvakarian9362]

Plague Tale Requiem might be one of the weakest games to have ever received a GOTY nomination. It has so many glaring problems on a story, gameplay and technical levels alike. And yeah, the way you build your character is one of the more glaring ones.

[@jumpingmoose5554]

About hellblade, i have to ask: if most the people praising the lie are people that already have the mental illness, then has it actually spread any awareness? I never let the rot spread that far in my playthrough, so i was more neutral.

[@frankvalenzoola3105]

If a game lies to me mechanically it's gone too far. It is fundamentally how I interact with the game. If you tell me it's I for inventory but it's j, you're lying to me with the reality you're creating. That is never ok. This is why spec ops is condescending and hellblade does not work.

[@valravnsshadow9422]

Nah you're wrong about hellblade and that the permadeath was a lie. You even admit it's not a lie, but you obfuscate that by saying it's "only technically not a lie" as if that somehow contradicts the truth and reality of the matter. Something being technically true or untrue at the bottom line is what matters most at the end of the day. The message is not a lie, and the director did not lie. The mechanic comes true, just not in the way we anticipate because like the director says we interpret it incorrectly.

[@jaden3602]

Great analysis, tho I’m honestly surprised the last of us 2 isn’t in the list of games mentioned. Technically, the game ITSELF doesn’t lie, which would explain why it’s not here, but the trailer definitely does and it’s really despicable that Neil made that decision

[@CrackedDota]

So it's all just vibes? 🌏👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀🌕 Always has been

[@daringwolverin]

1:29 😮what!?

[@TheOnlyTaps]

🫡🙏🏿