Of course some of the consequences are unknown when you make the choice - just like in real life. If everyone knew the consequences of their actions before making a choice, making that choice would be fairly simple, wouldn't it?
Of course you can't know the outcome in real life. This is a game, though. I don't mind a sense of realism, but again, it needs to FEEL real. In this game, it feels RANDOM - mostly because characters are pretty absurd, and the situations strictly force you into STANCES. You can't react in any other way - except what stance you choose, and (too often) you have no idea what the game will do with that stance.
Sometimes it works, granted, and sometimes it doesn't. In real life, you have full control over what you do with your capacities, and I would never take a "stance" hoping it would somehow result in something good.
That has nothing to do with reality.
I can only speak from personal experience though, and if YOU or others get that sense of reality from what happens in the game, that's fine with me.
I'm not trying to say my reaction to the game is the only one, or the right one. But you'll never get me to say it's realistic - because it's nothing like that at all.
You might ask "then what are they supposed to do, then?" - my answer: Don't innovate without thinking it through. But that's my opinion.
Go with a traditional dialogue interface, where you get to read the sentence - or go the Bioware way, if you must.
Don't just try new stuff without having a clue about reality.
But that's MY opinion. You think it's real, so maybe it is. I'm not exactly a superspy in reality, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I wouldn't be like Mike Thorton if I was.
You make decisions based on all your currently available information, and try to predict the outcome as best as possible. This is how choices always work. You very rarely *know* the end result - other than the obvious cases (jump off a cliff and the consequence is death).
Yes, you make rigidly enforced "decisions" - without knowing what those decisions really are - because you don't know the dialogue. You also don't get to hear the lines you're responding to, which I'm pretty sure I would have to hear in real life, before responding to life/death situations.
I wouldn't just shrug and take a guess as to what I would say, and come out with dialogue over which I had no control.
That's why a traditional dialogue interface with actual text would have worked much better FOR ME. Sure, it could be timed to simulate pressure, but at least let me know what the hell I'm going to do.
Strategic decisions for a company, for example, are made based on the information available at the time. They predict a certain net gain over time, but there is no way of actually knowing untill they try, hence why so many fail at it, despite having skilled people who are eduated and trained to make such decisions.
Again, they're not handed 3 obscure stances from which to choose, without a description of what those stances are going to actually do.
To demand that you know the outcome of each and every choice you make during a game is both unrealistic and boring in my opinion, as decisions are often made in the dark with what little information you have available.
I don't demand anything.
I'm saying what I don't like about a game that I already bought. Demanding would be moronic.
I just want to know what my character is going to do, when I'm playing him. You know? That would be fine. I'd also like to hear lines spoken, before being forced into making obscure choices.
Consider being a spy: To let Nasri live so he can lead you to certain sources or kill him to avoid him meddling in the future. There is no way, no how, a spy in that situation would know any more than what Mike knows - he knows he can gamble and possibly gain information, but he also knows this might be a huge mistake that can come back to haunt him later on. What more could you ask?
That was an example of a nice clear cut choice, with no doubt about the action you took. That's fine, and I liked that.
Edit: Just to point out - I still feel that some choices are too abrupt, but not the majority. They certainly fit within the context of playing a spy in the field, where information is limited.
That's the key, isn't it.
You felt SOME choices are too abrupt. I feel TOO many choices are like I described.
But we're arguing about stuff that might just be about tastes.
You liked the C&C implementation, and I hated it.
But, I liked the game in most ways - because I don't really care about C&C.
C&C in a computer game, will never feel realistic to me, anyway. That's because my mind works in a way that the minds of developers don't. I can assure you of that
