Choices

Oh, games, they are so full of choices. This is what we are led to believe, is it not? Choices. This is what separates the medium, or is what is said to separate it. It is something largely dominates the discussion.

This year, however, there have been three absolutely excellent games that have tackled the idea in three completely different ways. In fact, these three games could each very easily be the game of the year, when it comes time to hand out awards for such things, even though the three of them are so vastly different it is a little bit staggering. I speak of Portal 2, The Witcher 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution. These are games which have had their share of spilled ink, but which should be examined up close in relation to each other to look briefly at how we approach the ideas of choice.

This is because I feel that this discussion is one that is going to dominate in the future. Control is something which comes up again and again, how it is good, how it is bad, and it seems best to have some sort of a primer, some sort of a baseline in which I discuss what I believe, where I am coming from and what I hope to accomplish in the discussion.

I will go at the games chronologically, starting with Portal 2 and working myself up to the latest Deus Ex game. Am I sorry that all three games are sequels of some sort? The hipster part of me is, sure. Wouldn't it be nice to start with some tiny little game which only a dozen people have heard of so that readers may later congratulate me on my excellent, obscure taste? Sure. More important, though, is we discuss things that are exececuted well, and I can think of no better games for each of their playstyles than these. So read on, if you are visiting from the future, or if you are attending in the present and thus restricted to the slow forward arrow of time, come back in a few days when the journey of control begins.