Philoso-Wiighing the Options: Kant and Elebits
Video gamers have grown older. Their sensibilities more complicated. Following a recent demand for games that feature karmic consequences for each action, Playstation offers games like Fallout 3 and Bioshock. The Wii, of course, was way ahead of other platforms.
Here is an article I wrote (I swear) the day Elebits came out. Though it seems that I am a hack who just came up with this a day ago, I promise I’ve spent an inordinately depressing time editing the piece to perfection. And I believe it is time I presented it to you:
Kant and Elebits
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Have you spent a lot of time thinking about objective ethical truths in a moral vacuum? Well, now you can use that same vacuum to suck up the tiny animals that KANTrol electricity!
Elebits is a game that explores Kant’s work Metaphysics and Morals by forcing the gamer to use his reason to decide which karmic path he will follow. Is he good? Is he evil? A person can only use his or her unified mind and heart to find the answer. First, using deductive reasoning “Am I hurting another person?” Then by following a “feeling of reason” to discern what effect his KANTduct will have on the world, and whether those actions connect with his innate spirit of right-doing.
Unlike other games about ethics, where the line between good and bad is bogged down by “characters” and “full sentences,” Elebits make has children story fun-time good and.
Elebits begins with an exceedingly more simple presentation of morality than its PS3 counterparts: a cartoon about a young boy who resents his parents because they like electricity more than they like him. The entertaining yet poignant dilemmas smoothly progress as the gamer learns (through a series of 20-minute tutorials) how to capture the small Pokemon-like critters that hide in light bulbs and toasters.
The sheer thought-provoking moral conundrums only evolve in multiplayer mode, when the gamers are given the choice to save their home and parents by zapping imaginary electrical monsters with a toy gun, or to just turn those KANTraptions on full blast and throw heavy machinery into the ocean. Oh, also you have to open doors by turning the Wii-mote sideways to mimic the motion of opening a door. Or you can just make the moral compromise (that every Wii game offers if no one is there to judge you) and whip your hand around with reckless abandon until you beat the game.
If you’re interested in a game that forces you to rethink everything from Freudian Analysis to the way this country supplies and expends energy, then it is categorically imperative that you purchase Elebits!
I had so much fun I’m inKANTinent.
Wii-d out the lesser games! This is one for the ages!
Dan
Philosophy’s never been this FUN!
Elebits touches the heart and saves at least one actor from unemployment:
