Seriously? One of the worst examples of "evil is being a dick for the sake of being a dick, no matter how little sense it makes in the given context" in video games? That game's "evil" decisions were on par with tying women to railroad tracks, they were so phoned in and forced.
Put it this way. When I suggested my character for an 'evil' D&D game, I got about a minute straight of silence before one of the guys I've been playing D&D with for nearly two years said
'What the fuck is wrong with you?'
Videogame, I can do evil, but the options for video game evil seem so Snidely Whiplash these days.
(For anyone who wants to know, my character was a half-orc supremacist who led a tribe of orcs on missions to deliberately increase the number of half-orcs there were in the world. He thought that by doing this, he could eventually make his race the master race. Killing all of the human/ not half orc children in each village was also part of the plan.)
I find it easier to be totally black-hearted and psychotic than to be evil in a less extreme sense.
I mean, running people through indiscriminately is somehow less daunting than planting evidence on the same people and letting the law wrongfully deal with them. I guess because it is just so extreme it doesn't register as a moral judgement and just the usual 'lolkill' in games you normally experience.
I felt awful playing the Thieves Guild in Skyrim yet had no problem being in the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion.
Opposite to you OP, Evil in vidyer games, and good in P&P. Although the P&P thing is because most of my friends are dick blisters, so I just don't feel like pissing them off too much. Although I've only done one P&P session game whatever you call them.
I find it difficult. I did it in KOTOR and KOTOR 2 on my second play through of each game, and while I prefer to play the good guy, I can't say it gave me any trouble.
Oddly though, I'm on my second playthrough of ME2 trying to play as a bad bloke, it's turning out more as an anti-hero playthrough rather than an outright evil one. I am struggling to take the bad choices when I don't need to. More accurately, I will take an "evil" decision if I decide that it helps with the mission (killing a mechanic who will repair a gunship you will later face in combat, shooting an adversary in cold blood before he can draw a weapon), but if I decide that there is nothing to be gained in terms of completing the mission then I won't do it. To give a better idea, some of the choices I've made in this ME playthrough:
- Spared the wossname insect thingy queen (not mission critical).
- Killed Wrex (the facility was the primary goal. Wrex was an obstacle).
- Sacrificed the council (they were collateral damage, replaceable and not the primary goal).
- Executed Sgt Kafkha (sp?) (reducing the capability of the merc gunship).
- Spared Daniels captors (not mission critical, not the primary goal).
When it comes to dialogue choices I generally don't go out of my way to be an asshole though. Once on a mission though, I do choose the no-nonsense "do it NOW, bitches!" options, and generally avoid getting into long conversations. Mission comes first.
I'm also playing from the perspective that Shepard, having been invested in so heavily by Cerberus, and sharing the same goals as them, is loyal to them until given reason not to be. This leads to obvious moments of dickwaddery when dealing with non-humans sometimes.
So yeah, I'm not doing so great at being the total **** that I was in KOTOR. The nearest comparison I can think of in pop culture is Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond. No nonsense, ruthless, violent and will do the job at any and all costs, but still just about one of the good guys.
I think that's a testament to the strength of the Mass Effect story telling though. I know how much criticism it's had, but I find it to be one of the most engaging game series I've played in many, many years. I only wish the original had gotten a PS3 release, but never mind. I enjoyed the interactive comic anyway!
EDIT:
Tuxedoman said:
A better example of being a dick though is in Multiplayer games with friends, like Civ 5 when we were playing 'Co-op', I betrayed two of my mates when they were about to crush someone simply to keep the game going on.
I did something similar not so long ago, in a driving game of all things! I was playing a game of F1 with a few friends. My team mate and I had qualified 3rd and 4th but we knew we could go faster in the race than the 2 guys in front of us. We made a "gentlemen's agreement" that if one of us got into the lead of the race, the other would not challenge for the win, but assume the role of "rear gunner" and we could get a 1-2 finish. A not uncommon arrangement in F1 (often at the instruction of the team), and not the first time we had done similar just to get the 1-2, even doing the occasional formation finish.
Thing is, my mate got into the lead early, and I took a while to get to second but by the end I had closed up to within a second (different tyre strategies) but had just settled in behind him as agreed. Last lap of the race (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal), and the second half of the lap is basically a tight hairpin which leads on to a looooong fast straight (known as "the chute") which also happens to be the DRS zone (DRS is a "go-faster" gadget that reduces drag) and then braking from 195mph to 60mph for a tricky right-left chicane bordered by the infamous "Champions' Wall", which spits you out onto the start/finish.
As we exit the hairpin and pick up speed, I get a sudden, irresistable urge...
Turning the engine revs to "max" (we had turned them down to conserve fuel and save the tyres) as we started off down the chute, I popped the DRS and dropped all the KERS (another "go-fast" gadget) I had left, powering past my helpless chum about halfway down the chute. He never saw it coming, and there was nothing he could do by the time he realised I had just mugged him.
I bet it makes the next race a hell of a lot more interesting though...
Have you ever played Valkyrie profile on the DS? the main character is basically completely evil, and its REAL evil.
E.g: to satisfy your own selfish motivations, you make a pact with the devil. With this you are encouraged to make friends with the people you meet and genuinely befriend them. They must grow to like you, perhaps even love you, for greater effect. Then, once this is done, you can embody them with great powers that will aid you in battle.
The price of this however, is that you are condemning their soul to an eternity in hell itself.
The game CAN theoretically be beaten without sacrifcing anyone, but good luck. Even using cheats I still couldn't beat the game like this.
Well I usually am the good guy, try to help out as much as i can.
Once in a while i feel the urge to be a dick and play "Evil with a E", let me tell you the story.
This was during a table top RPG session, it was a Warhammer first edition, may that book be praised.
I went for a hafling cook/rogue, i my objective was too kill the whole party without being seen or suspected.
It was a session with several "beginners", and 1 of them was toying with a cell phone during the GM's explanations. So of course i poisoned him once inside the dungeon, and the main monsters where chaos beast-men, with their limited knowledge of how the corruption works, when he fell to the ground convulsing i started to yell that he is transforming into one of those creatures, by luck one of the warriors chopped his head off without asking questions.
Later on we find a magical barrier, just before our priest almost lost his leg to a trap with a tree trunk (thanks to destiny points). I was able to convince the group to use the tree trunk to bash the barrier in, of course i couldn't with my limited size and strength. So they did just that, the barrier did give in but only after the ceiling (they continued even after the GM said "cracks start to appear on the ceiling") so most of them got crushed by boulders but destiny saved them (they used some thing like 5 destiny points total to survive).
On our way to the main quest a nice merchant was generous enough to sell me a Garrot wire and some tasty poison. Fortunately my companions were relatively thick and still didn't suspect me, it is only after our two warriors died during their sleep (i wonder how ) that i was starting to be suspected, but with an agile tong I was able to shift the blame on the mage.
During our travels wee encountered a sylvain (or ent cant remember the name) who gave a very important item to our druid, a chestnut, hopefully one off the players recently killed joined our grouped, angered the sylvain while i whisper venomous words in his ear, and then got gutted but the angered.
Further down the road during a difficult combat, i was able to get ride of the chestnut (which we later discovered was a vital quest item), and then one more died mysteriously with his bowels liquefied (hmmm lovely mix of mushrooms and poison).
Even after that we where able to join the quest temple, two more died because they were extremely thick (3 zombies raises every turn we can kill 2 with allot of luck... lets stay and fight). Once inside one triggered a trap and i "accidentally" pushed him to his doom, and the last one tried to attack me so i defended my self and opened a new mouth on his throat.
That was when wee all agreed to stop and only then most off them understood i was the guy picking them off.
I do like playing evil once in a while but more like the evil diplomat, which you can never accuse without some severe backlash. Usually, especially on PC, when i play a RPG i tend to be the nice guy, even in "evil mode" i really want to do the right stuff.
Fable was the only game I liked being totally evil. I just didn't give a fuck about anyone and wanted to see them all die, and they all sucked and weren't interesting... fucking hilarious and cathartic.
Video games? No,because I can't really bring myself to it,for some reason...Or,when I want to,I don't have the means to do so. However,when I RP,I have a habit of making the most gloriously evil characters EVER. Chessmastery and psychopathy are generally my brands of villainy.
My recent one is both. A psychopathic chessmaster. He blew up a mall. For kicks. And to figure out just what his opponents are capable of...
Evil doesn't mean getting off in the morning and then having a cup of evil coffee and a plate of evil toast. Evil has become a parody. Just like good it truely doesn't exists.
My Fallout: New Vegas character is possibly the closest I've come to being truly evil in a video game. You see, I didn't even realise how evil I was until I checked the karma meter. I'd stolen, lied, cheated, backstabbed, betrayed, mugged, murdered and executed innocent individuals, and still honestly believed my character was still "good".
Maybe the karma system is broken, I don't know. But my point still remains. In 90% of stories, my character would have been the violent extremist who always believed the ends justified the means, the sort of anti-hero that antagonises regular anti-heroes.
I thought the Overlord games didn't go far enough and I have never played a game without being evil if it's possible to be such (it gives me extreme pleasure like you wouldn't believe).
Oh and it's my birthday. Never had a better reason to gut someone needlessly... in a game... in front of their loved ones... while mentally-(and physically) raping their closest female loved one. I need evil like I need air and blood... in my veins... I may be a psychotic sociopath... just saiyan.
The problem is, computer games that allow you to roleplay as evil generally take the route of allowing you to be brutish or assholish, but rarely ever allow you to be truly evil. In PNP RPGs I tend to go the route of the evil corrupter (i.e. I butter up good characters to manipulate them and slowly turn them into a sort of an evil themselves), which computer games simply will rarely (not saying never, because that seems to be rather too absolute for this discussion) let me take.
I can only ever bring myself to be evil in a video game if I've already beaten the game on the good guy path... except for the game Evil Genius, that shit's hilarious.
I can only ever bring myself to be evil in a video game if I've already beaten the game on the good guy path... except for the game Evil Genius, that shit's hilarious.
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) that i was starting to be suspected, but with an agile tong I was able to shift the blame on the mage.
