Fable
Last Thursday I rented Fable for XBOX, and I have been playing it off and on for the last few days. It is an interesting game made by the EA subsidiary that put Black and White together. In the game you run around as this little adventurer guy doing different deeds throughout the guy’s country, which reminds me of the British Isles in a way.
The interesting part of the game is that you run around doing deeds, but you can do good deeds or evil deeds and still progress through the game.
I typically do good deeds, because I like to think of myself as a good guy, but I have done a few bad deeds too. I mistakenly hit people who I am fighting with, and I have a hard time sparing the lives of characters that I think I should kill. I also stole some stuff thinking that it was laying there for the taking like in a more typcial RPG.
I have put under ten hours into the game so far and I am nearly done with the story… according to the walkthrough that I looked up yesterday afternoon. Other interesting parts of the game are the fact that you can invest in real estate, trade to make money, and even get married. I was close to getting married, before I even realized you could get married, but when the virtual woman suggested I get a wedding ring for her I didn’t have one on me.
After reading through the walkthrough I found out that gay marriages are also possible — as is polygamy. The game is interesting, but completely devoid of what I consider to be morality. Sure, you could say that morality is intrinsic to the game, because the game is constantly judging your actions, but you can succeed in the game by being moral or completely immoral.
Actually, thinking about it more, I guess the game is like life. You get to act out your free will and choose to be either good or bad. The game gives you instant feedback on what it feels your actions are — good or bad — and the extent of the goodness or badness is also measured and reported to you instantantly. Unfortunately, even in the game (like in life) I have been unsuccessful in being completely good, and that kinda disappoints me.
As I was reading all about the details and scenario behind this game of yours, it struck me that this game is actually a fairly accurate portrayal of reality (actually, it struck me about 2 seconds before I came to the part where you said the same thing)….both the moral and the immoral succeed…but what I do like about the game is, as is with our world, there does seem to be a moral law…some intrinsic morality to our lives, that this game measures you on. Morality is not subjective and relative to each person….there is a good and evil…each defined in some manner by the great “programmer” of this game….who has designed it to perhaps bless those who do the good will (or his will), all the same not intruding on the individual will and freedom of the “players”….such an analogous game to life….
Comment by JennyJ — January 28, 2005 @ 10:07 am