tag.

Now that you've played the game, on to my discussion:

Execution is a short and clever game where you are told via a splash screen to "do the right thing" right before you are seemingly presented with a single gameplay option of shooting a man who is tied up. Shoot him though, and you are informed that you have lost the game. There's no retry option presented, so naturally one will close out of the game and re-launch it in order to figure out a way to win. It won't do them any good. The game's splash screen will clearly state that it's too late. Worrying, but the player may still press space to start with the hope that they'll find the man alive. To their regret, they'll find that he iss still dead, and there's absolutely no reset button you can press to change this (unless you modify the registry). So how do you "win" Execution? Simply do not kill the man. Close the game. Do so, and you'll be informed that you have won.

I love the concept, and it is executed with style as well. Some may not be thrilled by the graphical style, but I certainly was. The art was detailed not in a graphical sense, but in an emotional sense. Shoot the guy, and the sprite of the dead man evokes genuine regret. But graphically, it's not too sorry either. There are plenty of nice graphical touches, such as tumbleweed that rolls by. Audio-wise, it is very solid. There is some nice ambient noise in the background, and the sound effect for the gun is top-notch.

Personally though, I feel it goes a little too far by requiring you to find and delete some keys it made in the registry just to get a second chance to not kill the man. But this is a minor issue with me, and I'm even able to accept it as even if someone doesn't know how to modify their registry, or can't be bothered to do so, they probably understand that they were not supposed to kill the man. And any guilt one could feel for killing the man is negated because they probably only killed him because they just didn't bother to put enough thought into how they could avoid killing the virtual man.

I would love to see a larger-scale game feature elements of Execution within it. No, not like KOTOR, Fable, or even BioShock. I'm not talking about the ability to be good or evil. I would like to see a game world where there are certain actions are just not accepted, period. Doing these taboo actions will result in the game world virtually shunning you, drastically impeding your progress. It would be a refreshing change from all the games where you can be bad, but it doesn't really hurt you. Also, it would be great for role playing. You could play a character who commits one of these taboo actions, and thus has to struggle to succeed within the game's world. Maybe he can still succeed, and maybe he can't. Maybe he can repent for his actions and even slowly garner forgiveness from the people of the world.

I doubt we'll see any big commercial title take such a concept that far. Perhaps some bold developer will come along and surprise me, but still, I don't expect anyone to be booing or showing resentment toward a mass murderer in Fable 2 right after he has vanquished a baddie. I know they'll all be cheering.