[note: if you have not yet played BioShock and plan to, you may want to wait on reading this, as it contains spoilers]

As an Xbox achievements addict, I was recently attempting to replay BioShock, to scoop up all the points I had missed. Unfortunately, I was having trouble getting into it a second time. I had to try and figure out why. I'm an infamous re-player, not just of games (you and I both don't want to count the number of times I've played through Deus Ex) but I re-read books and re-watch TV and movies constantly (I've even re-read the Diablo manual a few times. . . I love the story in that thing). I have a number of friends who are enjoying their replays of the game, why was I having some much trouble making myself push through the second run of BioShock, a game which I thoroughly enjoyed on the first play through.

To figure it out, I first through of what it is that attracts me to those things I re-read. Humor, plot, philosophy. BioShock has those in spades. What was missing? Then I realized the very thing that would have me glued to even the crappiest TV show was something that BioShock lacked -- character development. Not only was the main player character shallower then most puddles, but his choices were one-dimensional and the supporting cast seemed to have developed at some point, but when the game starts, they pretty much stay glued into place on their character arcs.

The problem isn't the linier plot, that's common enough in games and in BioShock it's (at least) half the point. No, at issue is the player character. The "faceless voiceless nameless dork," to use Yahtzee's term, whom you play as throughout the game lacks any sort of development arc. Here is a man with chains tattooed on his wrists, who is in a plane crash, stumbles across a wondrous underwater city, is beset by strange people and thought-provoking ideas, but he barely reacts. Yes, the story explains, he is programmed, but even so, he has human elements and a memory and therefore some sort of personality. It seems wholly unlikely that Mr. Chain-Wrists would take this in stride. There might be a little resistance towards the end of the game, but the plot and the game's mechanics dictate a static character.

This odd resistance towards character development is built into the game at every level. For example, when I started off the game, I killed the Little Sisters. Persuaded by Atlas and the fact that they looked more like little demons then little girls, I heartlessly decided to harvest them. Admit it, if you were faced by beings with glowing eyes, horrifyingly creepy voices, and a thirst for the blood of dead bodies, you'd think they were evil too. Hell, as far as I'm concerned that's one step away from zombie-ville. As the plot progressed and I learned more about Rapture, ADAM and the Little Sisters themselves, I came to realize my mistake. These were little girls after all, they had been altered and their lives destroyed, but I had the power to save them. If this were a novel, it would be the classic turning point for Chain-Wrists' character arc: an epiphany or revelation. Yet, with the exception of a change in basic rewards, there was no change in how the game reacted to me. The end of the game came along and any thought I had invested into my character was nixed, as it became apparent that harvesting even one Little Sister would put me on the path to become an unstoppable world-killing super-villain. They had made the path between good and evil a binary one, with a switch flipped at the very first Little Sister. A choice like that, where you make it without even having the full story, is barely a choice at all. It is ironic that a game so steeped in philosophy would be unable to recognize the moral grays. Despite its role playing elements, BioShock does not even give you the mental wiggle room to imagine character development.

BioShock has no character development. In other games you can infer development, through the ways that NPCs react to the player. In others, it may simply be the game developers giving you enough room to imagine that your character is developing in some way, in accordance to how you play and perceive feelings and ideas throughout the game, a sort of gamer response. Even in my (long sold off) World of Warcraft account, I could imagine my characters having some sort of development, in accordance with the quests they took, their allegiances and alignment changes. Yet BioShock shuts down even an imaginary character development. It's not the only one, many games, especially first person shooters, seem to leave the player character out in the cold. For some reason, many developers believe that if they put you behind the gun, that frees them from having to create a character. This can be seen even in the leaders of the industry, the cold and silent Gordon Freeman, the DOOM series, Unreal, even the vaunted Master Chief is little more than a cardboard cut-out of a hero. It's not just FPSs either, just recently I picked up Crackdown, which is a lot of fun, but you often end up killing civilians with the only result being a temporary period where the police shoot you. Think about the untapped potential there for a development of the character, for taking what is a good game and turning it into an amazing one.

Of course, you can argue that the industry is free from the need to create a main character for their games. However, you'd be wrong. Video games provide a new form and format for storytelling, but this does not free them of the basic responsibilities involved in creating a narrative. Think back to the best games you've played, Thief, Grim Fandigo, Deus Ex and the more recent Mass Effect. What makes them memorable? Their player characters: Garrett, Manny Calavera, JC Denton, and the ever mutable Commander Shepard, are what makes these games so good, and what gives them staying power. The impact of an effective character arc on a story is remarkable, and should be inspiring game developers to continue to create good characters, as that is what will make their games last.

While the in-game events of Half-Life are a technological marvel, their value for storytelling is lost. Think about how boring it would be to watch a movie where the character has no development, never changes, and you never see his face. Why do you think the DOOM movie was such a failure? Why do you think the fans were so excited to try and see the Master Chief's face? TV gets it, everything from Sitcoms to Sci-Fi understand the value of effective characters, that's what lies behind the success of shows like Battlestar Galactica, you're watching a show about people, fallible and human. Characterization and development are most important things storytelling in every other medium can have, but in games it seems as if developers feel that leaving the main character out gives you a better experience.

I disagree. Gamers deserve good narratives, and for that character is essential. This is where the future of gaming lies. While game provide all sorts of new ways to tell stories and a revolution in the way they can be structured and laid out, they still require the same things that make any good story. Characters with depth are essential, they need to have feelings and they need to make you feel something about them. They need to have value, otherwise what's the point?

Phifty, a.k.a Aram Zucker-Scharff, is the Fiction Lead for the Angels Fall First project and maintains a blog on convergence in the media and interactive storytelling called Read, Write & View.

I don't even give silent protagonists that much credit. What they are is a crutch. Since the developers are nervous about isolating players because the character they love & adore might say the wrong thing (or be unlikable etc.) they just cheat. They make them have no character at all and the whole game's experience suffers as a result.

How realistic is it for all of these people to be total mutes? Even if it was just a dialog tree, it's better than nothing at all.

At least he said something at some point, rather than nothing at all (yes, I'm glaring at you Gordon Freeman)

However in the case of Bioshock, it's not quite the same case. Because no one in the game cares what the character wants, they don't care to listen, however the player can emote and that's what I did. I felt shocked at the revelation, betrayed afterwards, and I had a drive before that to avenge Atlas' family. Perhaps I'm just rather sensitive, but I think that was the point. I would have liked to have been able to say something in game, anything really, even just have a neutral character to have a conversation with. However, that simply wasn't an option, and while I regret that, I do believe that Jack (as labeled on the present) did have character development, through the player.

Gordon Freeman on the other hand is a mute, with no reflection, which has simply become a long running gag. I'm glad they were forced to give some sort of in game appearance to Portal's character (I can't remember her name).

Prey on the other-hand shows what a little too much player character chattiness can do. Dodgy voice acting didn't help.

I'm confused, is this an advertisement for your website?

I agree with SwiftVengeance that non-developed main characters are there so the player can fill in that role nicely. Obviously some dialogue (where you have control mind you; I hate it when my character just says something I have no control over, but that's just me) can make things more interesting, but in all honesty actions do in fact speak louder than words, so if the game is going to let you have choice, a silent protagonist can fit in fine anyway. In the end, I'd personally rather play a non-character than play a character who's development is out of my control. Otherwise I feel too much like a puppeteer rather than a participant.

Okay, and I have a soft spot for silent protagonists, I guess. Sue me =p

However, aside from that, I think Phifty makes some good points. I haven't played BioShock, so I can't really comment on the other static characters, but I will agree that outside of a main character, other characters in games should develop and change. I also agree about the whole "good vs. evil" fad in so many games these days, that's really just a lie. They always talk about complex moral issues, but it always comes out the same: a choice between good (Being principled, in most games) and being evil (disguised as "doing whatever it takes to survive", but really just evil). And it really, really frustrates me that in BioShock, apparently, it's all determined by the first "little sister".

I was going to make a point that the revelation you had, Phifty, was supposed to happen to you -- since you were really intended to be the "character" experiencing the whole thing. I thought it was pretty impressive that they managed to make that occur. But given how simplistically they divide the good vs. evil thing, it's just a joke. I guess the problem is people view games as something to do to relax and have fun. That's good and all (no one wants games to be work, so far as I know), but I think it is taken too far. Games have incredible potential as serious art. It's not a passive thing, like someone looking at a picture -- it's a world that's created for the player to explore and experiment in. That said, it would have to be done carefully to explore serious moral issues, otherwise it may become too "preachy" (The only way to win is to do what the developers saw as the "best" option in a game of moral grays). Perhaps that's another reason it's avoided; everyone takes their own morals very seriously. But now I'm really rambling.

Sure, you could have some complex moral system and well developed charachters and thirty different endigs-but wouldn't that take away from the gameplay? I want a game to be fun, first and foremost, and if it isn't I won't play it. I liked Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance because it really went in depth with the main charecters (and sometimes the side ones) but disliked how little a role some of my favorite charechters were given. I really liked Zihark; It upset me that he wasn't even mentioned after you kill the Ravens. But the game was fun. Crap, I ranted. Sorry.

To anyone offended that I only have a Gamecube; I apologize. My family's cheap, but we live with what we got.

I agree, silent protagonists suck. Any personality is better than no personality.

It doesn't strike me as particularly sporting to drop a blog post here once in a while, stick a link to your blog at the end and never look back. I suspect one of the reasons there's no sigs on this forum is that the nice ladies and gentlemen running it want people to advertise in their own webspace in their own time.

This odd resistance towards character development is built into the game at every level. For example, when I started off the game, I killed the Little Sisters. Persuaded by Atlas and the fact that they looked more like little demons then little girls, I heartlessly decided to harvest them. Admit it, if you were faced by beings with glowing eyes, horrifyingly creepy voices, and a thirst for the blood of dead bodies, you'd think they were evil too. Hell, as far as I'm concerned that's one step away from zombie-ville. As the plot progressed and I learned more about Rapture, ADAM and the Little Sisters themselves, I came to realize my mistake. These were little girls after all, they had been altered and their lives destroyed, but I had the power to save them.

You realize what happened there? YOU realized what you did wrong. YOU changed your mind as a result of what you learned over the course of the game. That's something I've never seen a game do before. By removing the personality of the protagonist, you tend to place yourself as the main character. So instead of the character developing, YOU develop.

Gordon Freeman is supposed to be a player-insert, hence the generic name. Half-Life is probably the only game that can get away with this (full-body awareness would go a long, long way to helping, though), because of its cutsceneless nature. You were happy with your character until the end cutscene showed him doing something you wouldn't do. In Half-Life, the only things Gordon does are the things that you make him do. This is nice, because when the citizens of City 17 praise him, they're basically praising you, which is never a bad thing :D

This thread seems to have turned into Gordon Freeman describing, so I'm going to go with DMC....Again :P

Now I didn't really like the character in #1 far too much cliches and although he was cool (to an extent) anyone could have filled the role. #2 got rid of all the cliche but then left a hollow husk, which is why everyone hated him. #3 got it right but again, having a character be cocky to the enemies, is rather easy. haven't played #4 (But I hear its not worthwhile)

Development wise, Dante really doesn't go thru any. Take DMC 1, a woman trashes his place and impales him, he gets up, hey hey, then later on, he gets impaled AGAIN but nothing seems to bother him, he's not careful, he doesn't welcome it to show off, he doesn't really change at all. The only time you really see anything remotely development is when he saves Trish then has a go at her. But then he's still the same even after that.
Now I'm not expected huge amounts of development here but if I were impaled and could live, I'd rush into combat, be overly reckless, Devil-may-care if you will, I wouldn't step back 3 paces every time a boss showed up. In fact no matter what the boss is, I'd be scaring them.

Like many others have already said, the lack of character development in Bioshock can be attributed to the fact that YOU are meant to be the character. Hence the lack of a name and lack of facial revelation. Even if this was not the case, the man's stoicism can be blamed on the pshychological programming done on him as at a young age. He may very well have been conditioned to feel impassive when a nut-job leaps from the shadows swinging a pipe into his face.

All-in-all, the main point is that if the main character has no real name and his face is never shown, what is the point of him talking since there is clearly not meant to be any real character development throughout the game aside from the whole "revalation of who and what he is" bit.

Interesting perspective, which I do appreciate hearing.

As a half-life fan, I can see how the voicelessness can get on one's nerves if the interaction with NPCs isn't handled right. Fortunately, both Half Life and Bioshock allow for smooth transitions between the combat/puzzle sections and the scripted sequences, allowing one to flow with the story provides one doesn't do something particularly out of character (such as whack old friend Eli Vance with the crowbar for giggles).

Half Life 2 worked for me particularly because of how the game allowed me to watch other characters' relationships evolve over time, from the silly bickering between Dr Kleiner and r Magnusson to the tender father-daughter relationship of Eli and Alyx. I was witness to these characters' trails and traumas, effectively a truly objective observer of their lives when the game asked me to stop punting blunt objects into the transgenic skulls of Overwatch elites and smell the roses.

I side with SwiftVengence and Sun_and_Earth, given how the tabula rasa of the faceless, nameless dork allow one to more completely immerse oneself into the character's adventure and make it your own experience. While I agree with you on the ending of Bioshock (the manichean split between sweet protector or Sweeney Todd) was too jarring for so layered a game, the silent protagonist can work in a world that lacks a moral evaluation system and has an innate linearity to it. Bioshock didn't work for you because of how it the endings didn't accommodate the subtlety of your changing attitudes towards the little sisters. I'd imagine Half Life 2 would probably fail the same way if you had the choice between either killing or 'converting' Civil Protection officers in City 17, and were to radically different endings depending on those choices.

Lets just hope for Bioshock 2 they fathom out how to deal with these narrative glitches

When you have those memory flashbacks of your parents on the farm in Bioshock there is a rather large dude standing in between them with his arms around them. This is about the closest you come to seeing who you are. Given that Jack's character is pretty much an artificial construct, which is torn down during the game, I can forgive the lack of lengthy exposition by the man. I would be in stunned into silence if I had the revelations he did. Also prior to that, as soon as Atlas first uttered those immortal words, Jack became his robotic, single-minded instrument of death.
The second time I played this through I was actually amazed at how some of the voice logs actually refer to you in some way. In a way they serve to colour in the parts of your character that your actions haven't already defined. I kind of see it the same way as if you had amnesia and you wake surrounded by your relatives. The only way you can gain insight on who you are is by listening to what they have to say, and even then they could be lying. You're so busy reacting to what you discover or are being told that you don't have time to process it.

The only thing that did bother me was the lack of explanation of the chain tattoo on the wrist. Is it something metaphoric that you are meant to figure out for yourself, was the part that explained this cut from the final build or were they simply banking on a sequel/prequel?

Both formats have merit, I think. The faceless, voiceless protagonist is a very valid technique for immersion - I especially enjoyed it in HL2, but F.E.A.R also did it well. When playing HL2, for example, I quite often find myself doing things like shaking or nodding my "head" and pantomiming the sort of motions I'd go through if it were me in the HEV suit, so there's definitely a greater sense that it's "you" who's involved in the game scenario.

Controlling an actual character is fun as well, though. I keep replaying the Deus Ex games for precisely that reason. And I especially like the fact that Mass Effect's Commander Shepard is only loosely under your control when it comes to what s/he says and how s/he expresses him/herself. That wheel only gives you the general outline of what's going to be said, not the entire thing, and that, for me, reinforced the sense that you were just steering a developed, intelligent character with their own preconceptions and opinions.

Where Bioshock fell flat was in trying to gently hybridize both techniques. Honestly, I reckon that it would have been better with a fixed, different ending that didn't involve the Little Sisters in any way. By presenting you a consequence of choice at the end of the game, it implies a measure of character development that has never previously been expressed.

If anything, the chains are a metaphor for the mental conditioning that allows Atlas/Fontaine to controll you.

Before I start, Neflame, I believe the chains on Jack's wrists symbolise his being a slave:

Now, to the OP, whether he be bot or not. A silent protagonist is, in all truth, a door. He's a door into whatever world you enter. Through this protagonist, you are able to see, in this instance, the once glorious Rapture, fallen into disarray, with splicers driven insane with ADAM, the zombie Little Sisters, their massive Big Daddy protectors, and the power struggle between Ryan and Fontaine. This door allows you work your way through, experiencing whatever the game has in store for you, without a pesky, scaredy-cat jumping at the sight of splicers (Seriously, I can do that myself).

While an actual character, who've got very well done fleshed-out back stories, can be beneficial to the plot of some games, IMO, games like Bioshock, and even HL, would be done a disservice.

It would make little sense to have your character talking in bioshock. The thing about games is that they take you in the hot-seat and give you control. You are "whatizface" and because of the very differant people in the wide world of gaming you can not put in actions and dialoge and still have that.

FPS often have this more then RPG's because it is supposed to be you killing the aliens not Mr Big Balls doing all the work. Besides if there was talking by the main character in Bioshock then people would complain that it ruins the atmosphere of the game or that it dosn't make sense.

I agree,the binary ending was somehow not really satisfying.
Especially because the little sisters had hardly any impact on the gameplay,besides a very little bit more adam or the feeling of doing something good. I would have liked it better if there had been more difference between the two,something that makes you think more about it.

And about the lack of developement regarding Jack, you could say that he had no chance to develope because of the mind control,but that would seem like a weak excuse.

But,in fact,I did not buy Bioshock to discover the "birthplace" of the protagonist in the first place,assuming he was a random survivor of a plane crash. I bought it because I wanted to discover the secrets of the creepy Underwater-City Rapture. The most important developement in the story is ,in my opinion, the rise and fall of Rapture and the way YOU think about this city.

Piorn:

Especially because the little sisters had hardly any impact on the gameplay,besides a very little bit more adam or the feeling of doing something good. I would have liked it better if there had been more difference between the two,something that makes you think more about it.

Considering the rewards from that Doctor Lady, you were actually getting more Adam for saving sisters which is UTTER BULLSHIT!

sun_and_earth:

This odd resistance towards character development is built into the game at every level. For example, when I started off the game, I killed the Little Sisters. Persuaded by Atlas and the fact that they looked more like little demons then little girls, I heartlessly decided to harvest them. Admit it, if you were faced by beings with glowing eyes, horrifyingly creepy voices, and a thirst for the blood of dead bodies, you'd think they were evil too. Hell, as far as I'm concerned that's one step away from zombie-ville. As the plot progressed and I learned more about Rapture, ADAM and the Little Sisters themselves, I came to realize my mistake. These were little girls after all, they had been altered and their lives destroyed, but I had the power to save them.

You realize what happened there? YOU realized what you did wrong. YOU changed your mind as a result of what you learned over the course of the game. That's something I've never seen a game do before. By removing the personality of the protagonist, you tend to place yourself as the main character. So instead of the character developing, YOU develop.

This guy's completely right. Silent protagonists make you the main character.

JakubK666:

Piorn:

Especially because the little sisters had hardly any impact on the gameplay,besides a very little bit more adam or the feeling of doing something good. I would have liked it better if there had been more difference between the two,something that makes you think more about it.

Considering the rewards from that Doctor Lady, you were actually getting more Adam for saving sisters which is UTTER BULLSHIT!

Yeah, but that's slower. You get rewards from Tenenbaum for every three Sister you save. You might not have ADAM when you need it.

I don't know. I could excuse the silent protagnist if you had a little human interaction. Other then Ryan yelling at you and Atlas telling you what to do, everyone you talk either leaves after 6 seconds or is killed. I know it has been said before but at least some human interaction was necessary.

Copter400:

JakubK666:

Considering the rewards from that Doctor Lady, you were actually getting more Adam for saving sisters which is UTTER BULLSHIT!

Yeah, but that's slower. You get rewards from Tenenbaum for every three Sister you save. You might not have ADAM when you need it.

Not to mention you don't actually *know* that you get more ADAM in the end when you actually make the choice--I specifically saved the Little Sisters first time through figuring I'd harvest them when I replayed the game on a higher difficulty. Piorn's comment talked about having something to "think about" which I found I did: maybe I was just better at insulating myself from spoilers.

Even if it turns out there are no consequences to a choice, that doesn't mean it wasn't a choice: a choice (from the perspective of the person doing the choosing) is made anytime a person believes they have picked one consequence over another.

Neflame:
He may very well have been conditioned to feel impassive when a nut-job leaps from the shadows swinging a pipe into his face.

Heh--good point. I know the whole conditioning thing was supposed to be a jab at games where the character just does whatever the NPCs tell him to do, but it also makes for a good jab at how almost no main characters freak out over meeting grotesque and horrific things, when really, it should be more like _Eternal Darkness_. Only someone conditioned to be almost a zombie wouldn't totally freak out over some of the stuff you see in _BioShock_, especially stuff right at the beginning.

I may be the only one thinking this way but I don't mind Face-less Characters except when they try to make that character have psuedo-conversations to advance the plot. Half-life 2(I haven't played Half-life) was fun But didn't make me feel like the main character, it made me feel as if the Developers were being condescending towards me and i half-expected them to make the characters pause after they ask you something so you can relpy to what the other character askeed then have them give a general response to what ever you yelled at the T.V. like you're Three years old. Being mute as Gordon Freeman din't really make me feel his role. He's supposed to be this Genious scientist but I feel more like a Retard seeing as all of the complex tasks were performed by NPCs and I was useful for What? Throwing a few levers? Plugging in a few things? And the characters treat you like a retard too. Door not opening? I'll stand here being Generic person 12 and all I'm too valuble to rick Crawling in those decreoit ducts.Hey! Lets send that Retar-Er Theoretical Physicist Gordon in!But to get on-topic I felt that The Face-less protagonist thing worked well for Bioshock because at first You were just an Unfortunate Witness to Rapture's downfall as atlas and Andrew were battling but got pulled into the middle of it and introduced to a third party. This continued to work if you played as a good person and didn't harvest little sisters but if you did harvest them It had the Fable Effect where it doesn't mater who you brutally murder the story will continue. Aside from issues with being a little sister harvester the Choice didn't carry any weight the gifts more than compensated for not getting maximal Adam. Being good should have made the game get gradually harder but i've found that its easier being good in Bioshock! and thats why it seems a bit off to me at least. Still incredibly fun though.

Gigantor:
It doesn't strike me as particularly sporting to drop a blog post here once in a while, stick a link to your blog at the end and never look back. I suspect one of the reasons there's no sigs on this forum is that the nice ladies and gentlemen running it want people to advertise in their own webspace in their own time.

Its called "hit and run posting"

Also god so many links!

Gigantor:
It doesn't strike me as particularly sporting to drop a blog post here once in a while, stick a link to your blog at the end and never look back. I suspect one of the reasons there's no sigs on this forum is that the nice ladies and gentlemen running it want people to advertise in their own webspace in their own time.

quoted for the truth.

I kind of agree with the OP but only in the types of games such as CoD4 where you are given a character in which you play, Soap MacTavish and Paul Jackson, but then they say nothing whatsoever. The character whos eyes you see the world through should already have personality, emotions, opinions etc. therefore they should have development on these things. Instead they stand there gargling a concotion of Cpt. Prices' mayonaise and bullets

However I couldn't give a shit if WE'RE supposed to be the character, then that means I can be as emotionless and heartless as I want. I can call my character "Dicklips" if I want to (and I did on Pokémon) because i'm supposed to be him.

stompy:
Before I start, Neflame, I believe the chains on Jack's wrists symbolise his being a slave:

Spoiler: Click to View

That's exactly what I meant with the metaphor thing.

JakubK666:

Considering the rewards from that Doctor Lady, you were actually getting more Adam for saving sisters which is UTTER BULLSHIT!

I completely agree. You should get less ADAM for doing the right thing, making it more of a temptation to fall to the dark side. I also agree that the binary choice of good and evil is a bit ridiculous. I'm not saying that the game should have 700 endings (off-topic: someone in Bethesda recently claimed fallout 3 was going to have that many endings... sounds sucky to me...), rather that the game should take a more balanced view of your activities in deciding whether you are good or evil. If you kill one little sister and then work for the rest of the game to save them to absolve yourself of guilt (or merely to get the good ending... which sucked), surely your character is not one of pure evil?

Anyway, my point is that the binary choice was a bit silly and I hope that it's fixed for the sequel. Same with the vita chambers, lack of effective offensive plasmids and super-intelligent evil AI with a God complex...

Strafe Mcgee:

JakubK666:

Considering the rewards from that Doctor Lady, you were actually getting more Adam for saving sisters which is UTTER BULLSHIT!

I completely agree. You should get less ADAM for doing the right thing, making it more of a temptation to fall to the dark side.

Again, though: why wasn't there a temptation when you didn't know before making your decision that you'd get more ADAM?

Am I just totally misremembering the game--which is very possible--but when you play the game, aren't you under the *impression* that harvesting the Little Sisters will give you significantly more ADAM? Until you actually make the choice to save the Sisters isn't the "temptation" there because you think you'll get less ADAM for saving them?

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Again, though: why wasn't there a temptation when you didn't know before making your decision that you'd get more ADAM?

Yes, but when you find out that you do get more ADAM by saving the little sisters (as I did, I didn't kill all the sisters), you instantly switch to the more advantageous point, which is what an evil character would do. So ironically the best way to advance yourself through the game is to play as a good character, no matter the alignment the player wishes to choose. It would give the game more integrity and noble players a greater sense of self righteousness when they managed to beat the game despite having less ADAM to play with.

In addition, the noble player would also retain more of his humanity due to the lack of genetic manipulation, further developing the dominant themes of lost humanity, nature versus science etc.

It really did annoy me that they took the soft option in a game that otherwise pulls very hard punches. System Shock 2 was far better at this sort of thing, but that's probably best saved for another thread...

Strafe Mcgee:

Cheeze_Pavilion:

Again, though: why wasn't there a temptation when you didn't know before making your decision that you'd get more ADAM?

Yes, but when you find out that you do get more ADAM by saving the little sisters (as I did, I didn't kill all the sisters), you instantly switch to the more advantageous point, which is what an evil character would do. So ironically the best way to advance yourself through the game is to play as a good character, no matter the alignment the player wishes to choose. It would give the game more integrity and noble players a greater sense of self righteousness when they managed to beat the game despite having less ADAM to play with.

In addition, the noble player would also retain more of his humanity due to the lack of genetic manipulation, further developing the dominant themes of lost humanity, nature versus science etc.

It really did annoy me that they took the soft option in a game that otherwise pulls very hard punches. System Shock 2 was far better at this sort of thing, but that's probably best saved for another thread...

I've got a little daughter(sans glowing eyes) so there was no way I could bring myself to "harvesting" the little sisters. I must admit it was a very nice surprise when the little sisters dropped off the teddy bear with 200 Adam. I was expecting to pay a certain price for saving all of the little sisters but in the end it didn't seem to matter. A touch disappointing.
I must be a big softy; the "good" ending made me cry. First game that has ever elicited that response (apart from a few others that have reduced me to tears with absolute frustration).