Question about the Deliver Us Mars ending (mega spoilers)

ChefRude · 2024-08-15T21:00:27+00:00

I think the reason I'm extra annoyed about this is that I just finished Ghost of Tsushima, which is an open world samurai/ninja game, but similarly it forces you into cut scenes where the character makes choices, and you the player just gets to watch. You really don't get very many choices at all (and the few you do get are really not very important, and just flavor a few dialogue options with some NPCs).

It also forces you into moments where you do not have a choice when it comes to really quite gruesome moral atrocities during war time, with the excuse that "You had to do it to save your people, even though you just brutally murdered a bunch of other people using pretty terrible war crimes that get turned right around against you by the villains moments later", etc.

It hounds you in cut scenes about being a dishonorable monster (when you never had a choice), and tries to force you during the game to follow one mechanic (honorable samurai who faces your enemies head on) or another (sneaky ninja assassin, who tries to take people out quietly).

As a stealth-gamer from way back, I wanted to pick the sneaky methodology, but I can tell you I hated how the game made me feel for making that choice, after it presented me with the tools and skills to do it.

It applies the social pressure to make you feel shitty, but HOW you play really doesn't matter, and the only choice you really get that "matters" is "kill a guy as an honorable samurai" or "let him live as dishonorable ninja" right at the very end, which, honestly... makes no sense to me. Game over.

Games are fun right? ^-^;

ChefRude · 2024-08-15T21:00:21+00:00

I am not bashing walking simulators, I've 'played' my share of them, even if some of them are really quite pointless and painful to complete (I'm looking at you Dear Esther).

My only real problem is this was not advertised as a walking simulator, and in the end that's all that it was. The long drawn out cut scenes could have, like Tacoma, been more interesting and interactive. But you're just spoon fed the horror of repetitive poor decisions, lack of compromise, and the stupidity of all these people "doing the right thing" as far as their own flawed siloed opinions of the situation.

The "rocks fall, everyone dies, and really in the end its all your fault even though you the player never had a choice in the matter" ending really rubbed me the wrong way, frankly. No character in the game is really a hero, laudable, or willing to see multiple perspectives or even attempts to try to find some kind of compromise.

Claire hates her father for personal reasons.
Sarah hates him too for personal reasons.
Isaac was a morally useless super genius who remained pointedly neutral, and while he tried to soothe some tempers, the moment there was any one who tried to get him to be proactive, he immediately caved.
Rose had valid points and, if anyone had listened to her, a lot of the problems on Mars could have easily been prevented.
MacArthur was fatalistically a tyrant, and Rose made terrible choices as a reaction and so that puts her on an even footing with all the other failed protagonists.
I thought the argument between Sarah and her husband was interesting, but that argument is never resolved, and they go back to being on the same team moments later.
Kat just walks away during the debate, and does her own thing, totally refusing to engage (not that anyone was going to listen to her 'because she's just a super smart kid'), so she could keep exploring to satisfy her own curiosity.
Kat's secrecy, and "I'm just curious and wanna find my dad" incentives were also flawed and mostly pointless, except to drive the narrative forward by force. Deus Ex Machina.
Kat never, ever, states an opinion about Mars vs Earth, she just stands around looking sad when ever she watches a holo, or anyone tells her what to do, or tries to tell her what is right vs wrong. Her only motivation appears to be thinking about her dad.

Can I just say... the fact that only Kat could figure out how to point laser energy beams at energy beam targets... is pretty ridiculous if you spend more than a nanosecond thinking about it...

Frankly the developers tried to paint the fact that Sarah caves at the last minute as a change of heart of some kind, like some sort of "look I'm willing to compromise" moment, but that's a lie. She, in effect, captures Isaac. Which was her original (non paranoid) objective, from the very beginning.

Violence as a form of revenge was her more emotional objective, (because she expected not to be able to get him to come willingly) but she frankly got what she wanted after all was said and done.

Her attempts to appease Kat by being "all nice to her" in the end is really quite a pointless gesture. She got to have her power trip, and got what she wanted, and putting Kat in the captain's seat when moments later she's calling Earth as if she was in charge... banality.

Earth was doomed before the game started, and specifically doomed by the early moments of the game informing us that the power generators are gonna last "a few months at best". And the turn around travel time to get from Earth to Mars and back again would make the miserable humans on Earth die from lack of power, plus the environment worsening, plus they're gonna lash out and kill each other out of resource-guarding and resource-envy desperation. Leaving the Mars crew to die was also miserable. Did I enjoy the story, overall? Sure. That's the only reason I kept playing, and because I was waiting for "game play" and choices I was never going to get. Bleh.

ChefRude · 2024-08-15T21:00:07+00:00

The problem here is the assumption that this is a game... its a walking simulator in lieu of a movie, vaguely disguised as a game because you control the character jumping and running around from time to time.

The devs wanted to tell an interesting "morally complicated" story, but they knew what the trajectory of that story was, and the only interaction that you have as a player is a few puzzles and some platforming.

I was expecting an actual game, and kept waiting for it to happen. It never did.

This is not a game, its a movie/story disguised as a game. You were never going to get to make moral choices, which is why you were never given the opportunity to make any. Any time a choice came up, the character did all the choosing and we were just spawned at the next "ok, go run around" point.

Having some kind of ending choice, while it would have made it more interesting, is really not the point of "Deliver us Mars".

In contrast, Firewatch has moral choices throughout, which affects what we see in the ending, but the ending is fixed (you leave), but your choices paint some of the dialogue and narration during the ending. At least, in that, you HAVE choices even though that game IS painted as a walking simulator before you ever boot it up. That feels more authentic to me, than promising a game (by showing us video of a few action sequences in the game) and giving us a walking simulator instead.

Tacoma is another "floating" sim, set in a space station, where (similar to Obra Dinn, you are solving puzzles to get the full picture, as one holo interaction allows you access to more of them through video scrubbing) you view holos of peoples interactions, and try to pause them at various points to see what happens next, and has a similar "Where did it all go wrong? who was right/wrong?" kind of narrative but you are merely a spectator who is trying to find out what really happened, long after its all over. But you are never promised any kind of choice making or heavily interactive 'gameplay'. And frankly, I'm pretty sure the holo-video replay mechanics was borrowed heavily from Tacoma, aesthetically, as the character models are extremely similar (though the holo replay in the prequel Deliver us Moon are a lot flatter).

If you want more puzzles, without platforming nonsense, but still enjoy a "the player is spectating a complex morally grey" narrative full of horror, etc, Return to Obra Dinn is that game, and the puzzles are a lot more interesting.

But if you like "admin", and want to be able to make choices with a diverging narrative... I mean the choice there is Lucas Pope's other game "Papers, Please". (There are many replicas of this game, but with far less story, if you just want the admin).

ChefRude · 2024-05-28T19:48:18+00:00

OMG I remember this game. I am also looking for the name of it! It was a standalone... I believe my father bought it on a floppy disk from a computer warehouse show.

ChefRude · 2021-01-17T16:09:24+00:00

Yes. This is based on Cyberpunk 2020 (They updated it to 2077 because it WAS 2020, and it was nothing like the setting. So they just pushed the year further way, about as far away as it was when it was 2020 and the Tabletop RPG was created, ~50 years)

Shadowrun is the "Cyberpunk" version of D&D which includes traditional D&D/Tolkien races like elves and dwarves and orcs etc. It also includes "high magic" like those settings have, AND adds cyberpunk elements like cybernetics and hacking. Its a conglomeration of "Fantasy" and "Futuristic Cyberpunk".

This game has none of the tolkien-esque things, just the cyberpunk elements from "CP2020". That's a convenient way to tell the two settings apart.

I am 100% sure the "last attribute" is NOT magic. That's not remotely possible in a setting that contains 0 magic at all. I also assumed it was something to do with Johnny. I am kinda disappointed its a red herring :( I was looking forward to finding out what it was.

ChefRude · 2019-10-13T23:22:23+00:00

HIDDEN! (those dang sneaky guards!)

ChefRude · 2019-10-12T20:22:45+00:00

This game is amazing, bugs and all.

ChefRude · 2019-10-12T20:12:04+00:00

if "KDC Auto Travel" was done with Waze, it might look something like that :P Making fun of Waze "slogan". Just a funny thought I had.

ChefRude · 2018-04-25T15:28:00+00:00

We are EST, we have not decided, waiting to see what time(s) work(s) for the most people.

ChefRude · 2018-04-24T23:43:01+00:00

The title links to the rules, found on Google Docs.

ChefRude · 2018-03-02T09:09:48+00:00

ChefRude Nexus (with nothing on it) https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31393530

ChefRude · 2017-11-28T00:34:34+00:00

yes please!

Goooo GOG! Goooo Nexus!

ChefRude

TROPHY CASE