Thinking Aloud

So I haven't posted in a while but I have been playing a lot despite how busy I've been lately, I recently picked up both Mass Effect 2 and Minecraft, two games that have garnered a lot of attention for vastly different reasons. Minecraft is for those who do not know, a randomly generated sandbox with a sort of collection/building premise, its a really interesting game that I'd like to go into further detail on in the future, the game is entirely player-motivated and is something truthfully unique. Mass Effect 2 on the other hand is a game most everyone is familiar with, and has received a lot of praise for the ever evident amount of polish and depth that had gone into creating its world. I'm enjoying it tremendously but I can't help but launch one complaint against it, the Karma system. 

Now I know this isn't exactly a new criticism, black and white karma systems have been critiqued since they became the video-game equivalent of 'now in Imax 3D' some time during the awkward Console generation shift a few years back. Infamous being a particularly guilty example with the way it beat your over the head with the most arbitrary karma dilemma since whether Moses should have freed the Jews from Egypt. 

Mass Effect brings up a unique issue in that everything about the dialogue and the choices were so well crafted, so subtly nuanced and at times incredibly clever that I never felt the need for a shoe horned karma system. Now I have nothing against the idea of incorporating the concept of good and evil choices in a video-game, in fact I think its wonderfully suited to the medium  but the way in which most video-games handle it makes an otherwise emotional and intellectual decision a more mechanical and reward based one. The (+2 Paragon Points) that pop up on the screen every time I successfully get my Jesus on makes all the excellent work that had gone into the previous scenario rather meaningless. Mass Effect 2 actually pulls the karma system off far better than most but it doesn't excuse the fact that its still there, simply hiding the information would have made the game more meaningful and interesting. That's all the energy I have for today, until next time ....