Games where you play as a villain.

Psych the Psycho

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Note: Anti-heroes, heroes tricked in to doing bad things, neutral protagonists or anti-villains, (villains who have a sense of "honour") don't count. Only characters who willing do evil things (be it for money, power or just for kicks), also, games where you can choose to be a villain could still could.

Does anyone know if there are any games where you can play as a villain? The only examples I can think of are the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series.

Does anyone know any other games?
 

Thr33X

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Saints Row is the first one that comes to mind, in particular Saints Row 1 & 2. In the 3rd and 4th games the boss has been made into a bit of an anti-hero, but in the first two it's simple...he/she is a gang banger willing and ready to take out anyone to get the Saints on top.
 

PsychicTaco115

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Overlord is definitely one

Also Dungeon Keeper

Does it count if you can do totally dickish things to random people? Because you can do that in [PROTOTYPE]
 

Soundwave

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Does the hunting and wearing of endangered species count? Because that's like all I do in Far Cry 3
 

ScrabbitRabbit

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Whilst you are kinda trying to stop the world ending, you're pretty much a villain in Drakengard. One optional mission involves killing a bunch of child conscripts as they scream out for their mothers and one of your party members begs you to stop. In the Japanese version, said party member is also a paedophile.

Nobody is really a good guy in that game... nor is it a good game!

Almost every WRPG lets you be the bad guy. Playing an evil Nameless One in Planescape: Torment is probably the second cruellest I've been in a game next to Fallout: NV.
 

The Wykydtron

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I sense an excuse to rave about BlazBlue's Hazama... You can pick him in character select so that must count, in a kind of roundabout reason anyway.

He is the most powerful thing in the cast by a country mile and what are his weapons? Swords? Guns? Guns that are also swords? Massive power fists? No. A whip and two small butterfly knives while wearing only a black suit and hat with zero protective value. That's not a good enough description actually, hold on:

[http://media.photobucket.com/user/KingRQM/media/Hazama.jpg.html]

Yes, that has been by desktop for months on end. How did you guess?

You can go on about "best villain" or "most justified villain" or "most tragic villain" but Hazama will forever remain as the villain with the absolute most swag ever.

He lives to troll people. As in if people stop hating him he outright ceases to exist. Hence why he takes every opportunity to say mean things to everyone then beats them into the ground without even trying. He can go on 5 minute prolonged rants about how fucking shit *insert character here* is, it's awesome.
 

The Madman

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God of War obviously. Kratos has got to be one of the most psychopathic game characters I've seen in quite some time.

Although speaking of psychopaths 'The Boss' from the Saints Row games is fun. Not necessarily a villain in 2, 3 or 4 he/she is still a very morally questionable character even if they have taken to trying to get people to call them a 'puckish rogue' as opposed to 'easily bored psychopath'. Of course it's mostly played for laughs, but even so the games still have a couple moments where they call the Boss out on their utter insanity.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Generally speaking I'm a bit disappointed with games claiming to feature "a villain for player character", as if killing enemies or doing it for the money makes you a villain. Also characters that claim to be bad and put up a badass act while doing nothing but good do not count (I'm looking at you Catwoman).
 

Evonisia

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In all honesty I didn't know that "doing bad things" made one the villain. The Rapture Family wasn't exactly doing anything that evil in BioShock 2 (until the end but whatever).

But if this is the case: All crime based RPG/Sandbox games. There's also a bit in Black Ops II where you play as Menendez for about 5 minutes.
 

Roxas1359

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Technically in Ratchet and Clank All 4 One you can play as Dr. Nefarious, who was the main villain of the previous game A Crack in Time and who was the main villain of Up Your Arsenal.
 

Oroboros

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The Baldur's gate and Neverwinter Nights games always have evil options. Granted, like with most rpgs the devs devote less time and money to fleshing them out and making them enjoyable (and hence evil characters in rpgs usually tend to get less money, loot, and experience)but they were there.

Icewind Dale lets you have evil characters, but is even less in depth in catering to those that might want to play evil.

Temple of Elemental Evil: Similar situation to Icewind Dale. There are evil options-shallow, bare-bones evil options but they are there, and there is an evil ending.

Planescape Torment can be incredibly cruel at times with its evil options, and not in the typical sort of mustache twirler that seems to be the shortcut most devs seem to take. I haven't managed to complete a playthrough as an evil nameless one yet, and I generally trend towards evil characters in rpgs.

Arcanum of Steamwork and Magick Obscura also lets you be evil, although it can be even more punishing than your typical BG playthrough and has a bad ending for folks who play evil.

Geneforge 1-5: These games switch between Rebel and Shaper perspectives a bit, with 1-3 from the Shaper perspective, and 4-5 from the Rebel perspective, but one thing's for certain, both sides are completely monstrous, although it's up to the player to choose if they want to be a geneforge-mutated canister junkie with anger issues and a superiority complex carrying out assassinations and/or genocide for your equally crazy masters or someone who's trying to salvage what they think is the least bad group.

Enclave is an action hack and slash PC game with both a good campaign and an evil one, though you have to beat the good campaign to unlock the evil one.

Evil genius: Name says it all-basically you get to play as a James bond villain parody and do evil stuff in your evil lair staffed by evil henchmen. A bit tongue in cheek but very fun.

Sadly most devs seem to put the bare minimum into 'evil campaigns' possible, if they are there at all. RPGs have a chronic problem with writing everything from the perspective of a lawful good-aligned human and plopping down only token evil options. Seriously, how many rpgs have quests where the evil 'solution' is basically just 'kill quest giver and take their money'-which is usually much shorter, less complex (obviously) and less rewarding (in all senses of the word) than their good options. heck, in your average Neverwinter Nights 1/2 game you are likely to have trouble keeping your evil character out of Neutral territory if you RP them as anything other than a mass-murdering psychopath because most actions that don't involve burning all your bridges behind you (or in front of you) like a shortsighted fool result in 'good' points. You shouldn't have to murder someone to counteract the goodie points you get from being polite to the last 1-2 people you talked with.
 

krazykidd

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I'd say bayonetta . She kills angels . We need a bayonetta/DMC crossover .

Also GTA San andreas . You start the game fresh out of prison .

The suffering . You murdered your children and ended up in jail.

Silent hill 3 . If you believe what vincent says.
 

Tazzman

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Kane and Lynch are villians I guess. Their worst crime was being the playable characters in that terrible game.
 

evilengine

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I suppose technically Stubbs the Zombie is the villain in his game, he is hell bent on getting Maggie Monday and will zombiefy the whole city of Punchbowl to do so, causing mass death, hysteria, etc. He has antagonists, but they only want to kill him because of his destruction and the plague he is causing. So yeah, sorry Stubbs but you are the villain. On the plus side he had some great moves!

 

Aerosteam

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I've never played Braid so I'm not sure, but as you play through the game you play as Tim and his journey on get the girl he wants. At the end it's revealed that she was running away from him the entire time...
 

white_wolf

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My most memorable one was back during the Sega Saturn and the Command and Conquer you could play as Kane and destroy the allies.
 

Zeckt

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Soul Nomad, the game where you can be so evil the villains and hero's literally team up to stop you from destroying all of existence.