Poll: Playing as the bad guy

[Zirat]

It depends for me.

Morality system evil is not as tantalizing as it should be for me. IN most games now you can be the good guy or you can be the ammoral bad ass, like in the Fable Series or prety much any RPG now,this can be changed on a whim with no negative repurcussions and simply be swept under the rug and never thought of again. This just dosent sit right with me.

Meanwhile in other games where you actually play the big bad as in Overlord II. You WILL rule the world it's only two ways to do it. Enslave or destroy everyone. Likewise, in the game Evil Genius, there isnt any justification in what you do. You are one of three people hell-bent on taking over the world and killing the hereos of the world to get there.

Pretty much what im saying is that I think that when you can choose to be Evil, it isnt as satisfying as when you are placed in as the actual villain of the story.

 

[NeutralDrow]

No. I hate playing the villain. It's one of the problems of easily reaching immersion: I have serious difficulty playing any character so completely against my own morality. Anti-villains and anti-heroes, fine. I can deal with those, to a great extent.

City of Villains offers me some great opportunities to do both of those (I just pretend the flavor text doesn't have my exact motivations correct)...but even thinking about Westin motherfucking Phipps makes me sick. If the devs ever put in a system where you could kill NPCs, I'd push my way to the head of the line, teleport that son of a ***** to the middle of the bay, and have every single Thug under my command surround and Brawl him to a bloody pulp. If they threw him into a Mayhem mission, I would completely forget what I was doing and chase him around, shooting and laughing insanely.

<color=white>...

"Desperation, deprivation and despair are floating through the halls of Haven House now that everyone has heard about what you've done. I had a young mother bring her little children to me in tears.

'Oh, Mr. Phipps! My little Elsie and Sophia ate some of the food [my character] poisoned, and now they've gone blind! What will we do?'

Oh, I tell you, it took all the control I had to stop myself from laughing. But I put on my most sorrowful and sympathetic face for them, and took them all in. You've made this dreary charity case a simply delightful situation.

Now, whatever will I do with a desperate mother and her blind twin daughters? Hmmm... "

<color=white>...

<color=red>...must not think of...little blind children. Must think of...kittens .

<url=http://fuzzywuzzyblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/di-ram-kittens-on-tree031204.jpg>Kittens... *sigh*

...on the other hand, it looks like they've added souvenirs if you deliberately fail certain missions of his, so I'll keep that in mind when I go back.

 

[Julianking93]

Yeah, its fun. I tend to like it more with moral choices (sorry Yahtzee!) so I can choose. But a lot of times, its hard for me to make the bad decision. I always feel like shit afterwords, unless they make it fun or without ramifications like on Prototype, God of War, GTA, or Saint's Row.

 

[BoxCutter]

Never could really get into a really evil character. I've always enjoyed playing through on the "light side" or good path. Like the story more that way I guess. The exception though is Kratos, love the GoW series.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Characters need to be expanded from stock Good and Evil. There usually isn't a moral gray. No I'm not talking about Grand Theft Auto. That's just sadistic, not necessarily evil.

There are never any decent faults in a good character, nor subversions of a villain role. Think Theo from Children of Men or Ozymandias from The Watchmen respectively. When games implement stories, they can go farther then what they're doing now. And now that writers are catching on to how to implement interactive or non-linear stories, they need to be less straddled or restrained by making a higher priority the graphics or marketing gimmicks. Give me a story or give me a Demoreel. Not subpar both and we already have enough Demoreels [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_Salvation] in the world [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Revenge_of_the_Fallen] from major corperations.

 

[-Drifter-]

I already did this thread, but whatever. And no, I can't stand playing as the evil guy. When it comes to games that give you a choice, I always wind up feeling like I'm playing it wrong, or something, and when it comes to games like [prototype] and Wad of Gore, I find it impossible to care about the character and become uninterested. It's not like the character has to be a completely selfless saint. I just rather that he not be a total dick, and for him to have a sense of right and wrong.

 

[Aunel]

The problem with every game with a moral choice system is in the end you still save the world, you just eat puppies along the way.

HA this is so true... I know a lot of people who were mad about not being able to join the Enclave.

I am one of them, and this also happened to me with Prototype, I gave the black watch all the right to kill half the city. If you phrase it like that sure, they sound evil, but a virus is eating and turning your civilian population into zombies, I say that that is more then enough reason to nuke the city.

 

[hxcfreak]

i love playing as the total immoral asshole cause i actually get to do what i want

 

[YuheJi]

I think there should be more games where you are the evil guy fighting the good guys. That is very rare, and the people you fight are typically evil, even in moral choice games.

 

[Kollega]

Developers are increasingly putting moral choices into games these days.

It sometimes seems like 'moral choice' will become the new 'cover mechanic' style gimmick on the back of every box.

As I write I have two friends ranting about Prototype and how awesome it is and how I should get it.

Thing is, I have absolutely no interest in Prototype and I couldn't work out why until a few mintues ago.

It's because you play a total immoral asshole.

Now maybe I'm just a wuss, but every time a game makes me play an evil character I'm not immersed and not interested. I can't relate to some dick with no regard for life.

I like an antihero as much as anyone else, for example I loved God of War because Kratos is such a cartoon angry emo and his rage is bad ass and funny, and his violence fits in with the time period, culture and myths the game is set in.

But I felt so guilty after blowing up Megaton in Fallout 3 that I erased the entire save game and started over. I just don't get any kick out of being the bad guy in games that require deep immersion.

Is anyone else like this, or do you all revel in the opportunity to unleash your evil bastard upon some hapless NPCs?

Basically,this. I can play as anti-hero,but immoral assholes (not funny ones like Overlord,but true assholes like Alex Mercer) is NOT people i can actually like.

 

[neoontime]

I like to be in the middle. That way if murder a couple innocent people, I just save a kitty kat from a tree and im back to normal

 

[Xan Krieger]

I can't relate to some dick with no regard for life.

I can and really enjoy games where I play as the bad guy. I guess it's a result of how society treats people who aren't the norm (people with dissabilites [where I fit into], people with emotional issues, etc etc...). People suck and it's when you play as the bad guy that it's like you're having revenge on everyone.

 

[neoontime]

another way too be in the middle is too save the princess and then shooting her in the face with a gun

 

[Nemorov]

I freaking love playing a baddie. I find it so much more fun to loose the moral limitations of every day life, if only for a few hours. Keeps me level headed.

 

[Chartic]

I like playing both sides, but only if the heroes and villains are flawed. IN fact I sometimes like it if the villains have problems that made them a villain and a hero isn't a hero just to save the world. I agree with your statement, I love being the antihero.

 

[ShotgunSmoke]

I usually play pretty neutral.

Being a child-slaughtering villain has little appeal to me, because...
Well, I play games to get away from my day job.

You won the Internet.

I enjoy playing as a bastard, but only if they're not complete assholes. That makes them impossible to like and ruins the game.
In games, where you have a choice (i.e. Mass Effect) I'm usually good to my allies and civilians, but mean as f*ck to my enemies.

 

[Stryc9]

I can't honestly vote here because, "I'd like to think I can but can't bring myself to do it.", isn't an option. In most cases that's how it works for me, except Postal 2, I never had much of a problem blowing away all the civilians and stuff.

 

[Blackadder51]

The bad guy is so much better then the good guy, there funny more powerful and just more awesome

 

[Terramax]

Now maybe I'm just a wuss, but every time a game makes me play an evil character I'm not immersed and not interested. I can't relate to some dick with no regard for life.

Have you played Disgaea: Hour of Darkness? It's debateble as to whether Laharl is a complete bastard, maybe a semi one, but could be worth you time.

Personally, I lean towards you about the relatable issue... but then again, most goodguys in videogames are unrelatable also. When was the last time you had a heroic main character in a game that had any depth? This is perhaps the reason why so many developers have created evil characters to play as, as if they aren't that likeable, it's an easy excuse to say "well maybe you're not supposed to!"

 

[Neotericity]

When you wanna blow off some steam, and of course, liberate vital organs from virtual people, nothing beats swinging around in your electronic playground, picking on kids smaller than you with an arsenal of DNA powers or whatever Mercer uses.

It's good to be bad.

It's also hip to be square.

*ahem anyways, on occasion I'm known to become a baby-eating badass, especially in Fable.