GCP – Episode 96 - 07/20
Interview with Frictional Games - 07/14
GCP – Episode 95 - 07/13
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I Just Can’t Be The Bad GuyPosted June 24, 2009, Comments (3) |
This editorial was originally published on Andy Salisbury’s blog.
Today’s video games are amazing things. As a player, you’re given a gigantic, (usually) well thought out infrastructure for you to play in, and you can do amazing things within them.
Many games now give you the opportunity to forge your way as a good or a bad guy. Sure, both paths are meant to be equally accessible, but I just can’t draw myself to be evil. And, in my gaming career this started as early as Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. In the late stages of the game, you’re given the opportunity to choose the dark or light side of the force (I, unsurprisingly, chose the selfless path of the Jedi).
In Grand Theft Auto IV you have plenty of opportunities to kill people that have wronged you or your friends. Early in the game you’re told to hunt down a man that’s supposedly stealing from your cousin, Roman. After a short car chase, you corner the bad guy on top of a construction site, where he falls off a ledge and is left hanging for dear life. It is here where I was given the opportunity to let him fall to his death, or pick up back up, dust him off and send him on his way. I did the unthinkable: I offed him.
What was the immoral choice: Surrendering, or that facial hair style?
Not long after, you’re engaged in missions where you have to help out a friend of a friend, who’s fresh out of the joint and still adjusting to the outside world. His girlfriend has apparently been unfaithful, and it’s up to you to work things out (the only way you know how). After tracking her down and killing her then boyfriend, you’re left standing in front of her. You can either let her live, hoping that she’ll learn her lesson, or grant her a dirt nap.
Here I was, standing at a moral dilemma. Sure, this is a video game complete with a loading screen and save function — but what does it say about me if I kill her? Am I really that cold hearted? I like to think I’m compassionate.
After a short self-mediated, self-engaged debate, I let her off the hook. I just couldn’t do it! As hard as I try, and as evil as I attempt to be in video games I just have to be the hero. Sure, Niko Bellic may not be a shining example of chivalry, but I’d like to be.
As bad as I can get in video games, I just can’t take the bad route. Sure, being an evil son of a bitch looks like a good time, but I end up feeling genuinely disheartened. If I’m able to work, and mold the virtual world around me, I want it to be a place where those that inhabit it can be free to do as they wish — because of me.
Now, next on the list is Mass Effect. Let’s hope that I can continue to keep my morality in check (for the good of the galaxy).
Yes, I have never been able to go “all bad” in games, I just can’t do it. But games like Mass Effect force you into either “angelic” or “spawn of Satan” choices, with little in the way of gray area options.
Games that DO focus on gray area choices, like Fallout or Planescape, make it much much tougher to choose, to the point where you must make your own decision, as the “good” and “bad” paths are not clear.
Try making choices in The Witcher. You actually have deep consequences in that one….
And I also can never really do the bad guy.
I’m usually the good guy too, though I try to go back and take the path of the Dark Side in every RPG. Sometimes it’s worth it, but I find I’m typically let down by the sorts of choices I’m given to pursue my evil path.
Mostly it comes down to “Give me all your money” demands when finishing a side quest. Very disappointing.
Jade Empire tried to skirt around the good/evil dichotomy with the competing ideologies of “better other people through self-sacrifice” and “better other people by showing self-reliance.” The ideologies start out interesting and vibrant, but the individualist road pretty quickly turns into “Give me all your money.” Disappointing.