Such is the case for many very bad people. Even a fraction of 's hoard could actually "save humanity" by ending world hunger, which the UN tried to convince him to do when he demanded a plan to do it with a budget, received it, then ignored it.

it's called 'The Line' because you have to cross it

While the white phosphorus part doesn't give you a choice, isn't it basically that they used it only intending to hit military targets, then it turns out it hit civilians too?

I think it's not a choice precisely because it's the worst or most blatant war crime in the game IIRC and most people would decide against it even for "only military targets" and that would stop them from getting the point across.

It's been a long time since I've played it so I might not be remembering entirely right. I might play it again now.

Yeah the white phosphorus scene was really dumb but the rest felt justified.

I also think it's worth mentioning that there are plenty of choices in Witcher 3 that have pretty obviously good and bad options. Anyone ratting out that godling to the property owner is doing so to be evil. Refusing money from poor folks is plain good and never comes back to bite you. Killing Whoreson Junior might as well have had [Everyone loved that.] pop up in the top left corner and even rewards you with a cute little easter egg later.

But all these examples don't really get remembered because they're less impactful than the choices that aren't so obvious

with sparing and helping magical creatures that are intelligent non-human persons that are just trying to survive being the clearly correct choice

While this mostly holds true there is one quest I remember that annoyed the shit out of me

You had to investigate some haunted tower, and were presented with two options essentially: destroy the spirit outright or try to put it to rest gently by performing a ritual

The game was mostly chill about that style of peaceful ritual exorcism being the way to deal with spirits nonviolently, but if you do it the spirit reveals itself to be some evil spirit that murders her lover then flees, with the game implying she'll just keep killing

Can't remember it fully but that one quest did throw me

You can like the games all you like, but my initial impressions in both CDPR-made series were that straying too far from the sometimes-obvious narrative lead (if the game even allowed it; even less choices or even potential mission path availability in CP2077) were routinely punished early on.

Call it "wholesome peaceful YA novel protagonists who win by being ontologically good" if you want (which is bullshit, I'm more than fine with surprises if it doesn't just feel like a punitive narrator), but don't bother accusing me of a bad faith position if that's what you're leading with.

I enjoyed Disco Elysium greatly, and yet at no point did I feel like I was punished by the narrator for playing Harry "wrong" and in a way unbecoming of some Revacholian equivalent of the Witcherino code or whatever. Sure, I got my comeuppance more than a few times (especially after bad die rolls) but it didn't feel like punitive soft railroading the way CDPR writes its games.

Unless you'd argue that Harry was a "wholesome peaceful YA novel protagonist who wins by being ontologically good?" That'd be a fun mind unlock in the game, maybe.

much more materialist understanding of how things fit together

In the "bringing about meaningful change is impossible and attempting to change things outside of immediate personal fuckbuddy and adopted family circumstances is naive at best and probably worse than the status quo" way, maybe. I guess there's a sprinkle of materialism in capitalist realism propaganda.

type :shrug to look up emojis

took the one of the argumentative lawyerman

That's... a bit of a stretch to consider that using a shrugging emoji of an antagonist in a video game means my argument is inherently wrong?

I think the sidebar in the emoji comm is helpful to remember. It says "emojis are what they convey", so expecting everyone to know the direct reference to the video game (and by extension all other 2400 emojis) is a little much. You can use it that way or as a lil guy shrugging.

The whole point of the ace attorney games is if you are on the left, you are good and correct. If you are on the right, you are evil and wrong. And if you are in the center, you are either a hopelessly confused idiot, or evil.

Gif reference aside, I don't really buy that if you're not joking, because that'd be like seriously saying anyone using Breaking Bad emojis cooks meth and sells it to high school kids and makes deals with neo-nazis.

Games are art but as soon as they are critiqued the way art is critiqued that is a direct threat to the treats and requires a decade-long culture war