Games where you are the bad guy (but don't know it)

[AdorkableSoul]

In a way, Altair in Assassin's Creed 1.
You believe you're 'peacekeeping' all game and taking out these violent individuals trying to start a war, then realise Al Mualim, your master, is actually the kingpin of them all. All of a sudden, you aren't a White Knight of vigilante justice; you're just a tool for his power struggles.

You cold, cold bastard.

 

[The Scythian]

Crusader Kings. It's all about the dynasty. At least, that's what your telling yourself as you have your mother assassinated to inherit her land.

 

[books of war 13]

sorry i slipped

 

[tonyh900]

Would persona 3 count because the main character at the end of the game * becomes a seal that's holding back a creature that's supposed bring about the end of the world. Buuuuuut, It turns out that the main character became the seal to keep the creature back until it was ready to perform its job. Annnnnd, secretly each and every person wants the world to end.*end spoiler*

 

[Ultress]

Phoenix Wright,I find it kind of odd that every person he represents just happens to be innocent. What if most of the people he defends really did do it and are pulling an elaborate ruse Ala Matt Engaurde.His clients alter the crime scenes and pay off the witness(perjury seems to be little more than a slap on the wrist). After that the pick a person who was there/ they have a beef with and nudge the evidence so there is a possibility that it said person. After that let Phoenix pull his turnabout and voila your walking free. It nicely emphasis that idea that evidence is everything that the games hate by making you the biggest abuser of said evidence.

This would explain Phoenix's convoluted plan in Apollo Justice, after realizing that the above might have happened he loses faith in himself and therefore wants a jury so that if and when he does defend people he can have objective eyes discern the truth that he may not be able to see.

Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass.

I also dig Slowbeef's idea that Justin Baily Samus is a vallygirl home wrecker because it fits with the utter goofiness of that hack.

 

[fezgod]

Call of Duty 4. Price is a fucking War Criminal! Murdering prisoners should get him tried at the Hague. COD4 is bleak game, very bleak.

I feel like that was the reason why COD4 is the only good 'modern' Call of Duty because there was some moral ambiguity:

- The Americans are gung-ho and overly aggressive, invading a country just because its new leader is not an ally of the US and getting 50,000 marines and soldiers killed in the process
- The SAS were pretty brutal and underhanded in their tactics

OP:
Fallout: New Vegas did a pretty good job (especially in the DLCs) in pointing out why the player character was a scumbag, regardless of what decisions you made. Even good decisions often had long-term negative consequences.
In Dead Money, the villain calls you out for being just as greedy and shortsighted as he is, since you willingly entered the Sierra Madre Casino. In Honest Hearts, when you arm a tribe so that they can defend themselves, you can inadvertently turn them into a warlike band of raiders. In Lonesome Road, your habit of doing random quests led to the detonation of a bunch of nukes, wiping out a growing civilization.

 

[Benpasko]

In the instance 'Escape from Durnhold Keep' some of the guards you murder even say "I was only doing my job". These poor guards simply wanted to stop you freeing the war criminal and known terrorist Thrall. They probably had wives and children!

Pretty sure that's meant as a reference to the Nuremberg Trials, when Nazis convicted of war crimes tried to say they were just doing their job. You're rescuing Thrall from a concentration camp for orcs, after all.