Good versus Evil

[Benji]

Despite the title, please do put spoilers in spoiler tags.

When it comes to playing video games with the choice - do you tend to play good first, or evil? I've noticed that despite the fact I like being an unrepentant dick in games, I actually always do my first game as a good character.

Also, what decisions in games have made you genuinely sit and contemplate for a moment which decision to choose? I recently finished inFamous 2, and the final decision was a toughie. Despite the decision being "Evil", I could absolutely understand the reasoning for it...

Basically, you have to choose whether to save all the super powered people and kill anyone without, in order to give humanity a genuine chance against a plague because the super powered people were immune, or choose whether to go by luck and kill the super powered people, and hope that solves the plague.

One decision I never struggled with was in Heavy Rain. People often mention to me that they weren't sure whether to...

... kill a man who had shown himself to be a pretty horrible parent in order to help find the main character's son. I pulled the trigger without a second thought, but others said that when they put themselves in his shoes, they struggled with taking the life.

I did struggle in Dragon Age 2 with the choice as to whether to...

... help Isabella and potentially save her life or hand her over to the Arishok and basically calm the war they had been waging on Kirkwall. I initially chose to hand her over, in the hopes it would bring peace. As soon as I chose it, I regretted it, and thankfully my game froze before I could save, allowing me a rare moment where I actually went back on my original decision.

[Dan]

I usually end up a tweener, half the time they make the evil choices REALLY harsh and I don't like to do them but some of them are cool.

[Skummy]

I don't play all that many games where's the option, though generally when I do, I try not to consciously play "good" or "evil", but just to take each problem and situation as they come, and assess them on their own merits.

That said, I tend to end up being a bit of a dick. In Fable 2, which is the last game I can think of with this kind of option, just following my standard RPG playing instincts was enough to have me branded "evil" - because it's just too damn tempting to search every chest and cupboard in every house I go to, damn it!

A lot of the time it comes down to cutting corners. Being "evil" in Black & White, for example, tends to be a lot easier than being good.

I've not really played anything like InFamous that gives you that definitive choice between Good Guy and Bad Guy, though.

[Benji]

I don't start off intending to be good, but it usually goes that way. Like I say, I prefer to be evil, but I think my natural feeling whilst playing games is that I should be the hero, so I accidentally just choosing all the good options

[Cactus Drags]

I'm usually a good guy, largely because they tend to make the evil option so outlandish and I just can't see why someone would do what it's suggesting. I can't actually think of any examples at the moment.

Generally, if it involves harming innocents, I won't do it.

[Skummy]

Generally, if it involves harming innocents, I won't do it.

Going back to Fable 2, I tried to play sensibly, only really breaking the "law" now and then, and only when I wouldn't get caught.

But then, I kind of snapped. In the middle of a forest, with nobody else around, a monk laughed at my hat. So I shot him in the face with a crossbow.

Later on, I wasn't allowed to enter the colliseum because I wasn't notorious enough. So, naturally, I slaughtered the entire village. Killing that games guy in the pub was so satisfying.

After that, I realised there wasn't really any turning back, so started to amuse myself by using the "wanna come back to my place?" command to lure women into mineshafts and murder them.

God, I'm a monster.

[METALMAN]

Assessing each situation on its merits there, skummy? >_>

[Your Mom]

Dragon Age 2: Benji

How could you hand her over?!? Besides Merill she was my best friend in the whole game. That decision took me about 4 seconds

[King Ellis]

Can't we get Beyond Good and Evil?

[Benji]

Dragon Age 2: Benji

How could you hand her over?!? Besides Merill she was my best friend in the whole game. That decision took me about 4 seconds

I know, right? I immediately felt like the biggest scumbag around, and took the game freezing as a sign that I shouldn't do that. Thank fuck for buying second hand discs that happen to be scratched in the right places

[Skummy]

Assessing each situation on its merits there, skummy? >_>

Completely. I wouldn't have shot the monk if there was anyone else around to see it, and his slightly camp insult was entirely unprovoked.

I needed to be notorious - massacring a village seemed like it would do the job (spoiler: it didn't), and was the quickest option available to me.

The massacre of susceptible women....yeah, not so much. By that point I guess I'd already gone past the point of redemption.

But the prices on my vegetable stand remained fair and reasonable!

[Poneglyph]

I usually try to be a good guy. However, it isn't easy when you're playing Total War and your population start thinking it's a good idea to revolt against you. Once you kill half the people in the city, the survivors won't feel so tough

[Dan]

Aha I forgot about Fable 2/3.

Commit mass murder? meh.

Overcharge for veg? burn the bastard!

[deli]

It depends really.

In Fable 2 I'm the biggest dick to people. Killing. Stealing. All that shit.

In Skyrim my alignment depends on what mood I'm in. If I have a bad day I tend to take it out on innocent citizens. Same for Mass Effect

However, I've recently started playing RDR and haven't made a single bad choice. Probably never will. Don't know why though. Does anyone else play RDR like that?

Edited March 2, 2012 by deli2000

[Benji]

RDR is one of those games that has the meter for no reason whatsoever. It only affects tiny bonuses that add nothing to the game. Do not understand it being there at all.

[deli]

It affected how people would react to you when they saw you on the street, how much law enforcement would be on your case, how much certain things cost. Who would challenge you to a duel. Not much to you maybe. But it makes a difference to me at least.

[Your Mom]

I tend to lean to the very very good side. Do anything I can for my in game friends, pretty much doing anything for any random that asks for help, always try to save everyone let no innocents die. I seriously think the worst thing I ever did in a game when I wasn't trying to play bad on purpose was kill that hunter and her dog in Skyrim.

[Liam]

Fallout 3

So who blew up Megaton?

[Adam]

Fallout 3

So who blew up Megaton?

This was the first thing I thought of when I read the first post of the thread. I diffused the bomb after accidentally getting the sheriff killed, even though I was really tempted to blow the whole thing up. I figured I'd blow it up when I played through it for a second time but never got around to it in the end. When my brother played through it and blew it up I was watching him playing later on in the game when he met that inventor woman I think it was after she'd become a ghoul. Made me glad I kept Megaton alive!

I agree deli, RDR is one I played through as a good guy pretty much all the way through. Very, very rarely got a bounty on my head and made 'good guy' choices 95% of the time.

GTA IV:

I know it isn't majorly a good/bad karma type of game, but it did bring in the occasional "choose one or the other" storyline option and I always found myself falling on the good side - saving Ivan's life instead of dropping him, killing Francis instead of Derek McReary and not taking the deal at the end. All this despite the fact that I routinely went around the game mowing down pedestrians and murdering prostitutes for the hell of it.

[Ruki]

I usually try and go for neutral. I'll help people, for a price Plus, I steal anything of value. I do that in Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and New Vegas.

But, if the only real choice is good or evil, I usually do a good playthrough first.