Games where neither character is right

[RJ 17]

Also, yeah, after all the Geth-Quarian history you learn throughout ME2 and ME3, it seems pretty clear that the Geth were more or less completely "innocent" in the war with the Quarians being genocidal aggressors.

Some quarian scientists decided to try and shut down the geth because having sapient robots would get the quarian government in trouble with the Council. In response the geth proceed to slaughter billions of civilians who had nothing to do with their planned shut-down; they kill any who try to enter their space, refuse to make contact and refuse to warn the other races of the impending Reaper threat that they are fully aware of.

Of course both ME2 and ME3 try to whitewash all of this. God Mass Effect was a stupid.

Eh, think what you want, I just find it funny that you whitewash everything you learn in ME2 and ME3 as much as you claim that very knowledge whitewashes what happened in the first game. You should keep in mind, though, that there's two sides to every story, and the first game only presents you with the Quarian's side of the story.

 

[RJ 17]

Eh, think what you want, I just find it funny that you whitewash everything you learn in ME2 and ME3 as much as you claim that very knowledge whitewashes what happened in the first game.

Explain how I have "whitewashed" the information gained from 2 and 3.

I'm going to guess you are simply using the term incorrectly.

You should keep in mind, though, that there's two sides to every story, and the first game only presents you with the Quarian's side of the story.

You arrogantly assume my position is founded in ignorance rather than a logical analysis of each side's position.

Oh, forgive me for thinking that your casual dismissal of everything learned in 2 and 3 as being "whitewash" of the matter as being a sign that you simply prefer to ignore what's learned in those games because they go against your view.

To me it was pretty clearly stated that the full story is that the Quarians, like all organics, feared the concept of fully-realized AI, be it the typical organic fear or fear of reprisal from the council. When the Geth wouldn't shut themselves down, an all-out massacre of them was ordered even when they tried to surrender peacefully for the sake of the Quarian sympathizers who felt it was wrong to commit genocide on the Geth. The Geth then rose up and fought for their own survival - as any organic race would when faced it utter extinction from a hostile force - and won their freedom. The point is made that the Geth could have pursued the Quarians and completely wiped them out...but they didn't, they allowed them to flee. It's also clear that the Geth would favor reunification with the Quarians if the Quarians would just stop attacking them every chance they get. Shepard even says this if you go for the "peace" ending to the Quarian-Geth war: "Your entire history is picking fights with the Geth. You forced them to rebel, you forced them to join with the Reapers. The Geth don't want to fight you, if you can believe that, then this war will be over."

So yeah, I'd call your dismissal of that knowledge whitewashing, as defined as

"to cover up or gloss over the faults or errors of; to absolve from blame" - dictionary.com

In the sense that you're ignoring all the faults and errors in the way that the Quarians are telling their side of the story to absolve them of blame and thus make the Geth appear to be Big Bad Killer Evil AI Robots.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

As I said, go ahead and think what you want, I quite honestly couldn't care less at this point. Have a merry Christmas.

 

[Compatriot Block]

Killzone springs immediately to mind. Neither the ISA nor the Helghast are good guys, they're all just a bunch of racist assholes fighting a futile and never-ending war. Sure, one side or another may have had semi-legitimate or even understandable motives at the beginning, but by now that's all undermined by numerous atrocities committed by both sides.

Y'know, I keep hearing this about the Helghast in Killzone, but I'm really not seeing it. The games seem to be casting them as complete villains at every turn.

For a start, they're named the Helghast. "Hell Ghast".

Oh but that's just their name, right? Maybe it means "peaceful flower" in Swedish or something. You can't judge them on that.

Well, they also wear gas masks with glowing red eyes and all their insignia and imagery looks like it came straight out of Hitler's Home Decorating Handbook.

Hey, quit judging a book by it's cover! Wearing a coal-scuttle helmet doesn't make you a Nazi!

Ok fine, I'll lay off the imagery. But they still spend the entire series being huge jerks. Their leaders are always cartoonishly malevolent. They're always torturing and executing people. The latest game opens and the very first thing you see a Helghast do is callously shoot an unarmed fleeing civilian. Then they drive a bunch of people out of their homes. Then they shoot a bunch more of them. Then they try to shoot a kid. Then they stomp on a kitten and laugh when its mother sits by the dead body mewling piteously.

Now, I've never made it all the way through a Killzone. Never maintained my interest long enough. Maybe in the last quarter of each game the Helghast all take off their masks like Darth Vader, apologise for being jerks and swear an oath to uphold world peace. But all I've ever seen is them being jerks. I realise they have some backstory about being a prison colony or something, but it's hard to care when they're wearing Nazi helmets.

The ISA on the other hand are presently as regular, rugged, manly hero types. About all that they ever do wrong is run around being incredibly macho military sterotypes. (They'd have court marshalled him years ago for insubordination, but damnit, nobody can deny that the man gets results.) You could argue that they use overly destructive methods, but it's always they Helghast who start the wars.

Maybe the fans regard it as an act of brilliantly subtle misdirection. Set up one side as cliche evil and one side as cliche heroic, put the player on the heroic side, then pull the rug out from under them. However, nothing else in the game convinces me that they're capable something like that. Besides, they're, what... four games in now and the rug has yet to be pulled.

I actually like the Killzone games and I agree with you.

I think the problem is that the Helghast leaders are always loud, hammy and endearingly crazy, especially compared to the ISA's lack of any standout figures. So instead of the order of events going "support the Helghast's goals -> like the Helghast characters more," it goes "Helghast leaders are insane and entertaining -> find reasons why Helghast are sympathetic."

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

As I said, go ahead and think what you want, I quite honestly couldn't care less at this point. Have a merry Christmas.

You could have simply said "I don't have the time or effort for an internet debate".

Far more respectful than the "I don't want to have my opinions challenged" position.

Yeah, I could have, but I didn't. Because it wouldn't be honest, and as I said: I honestly really don't care at this point.

Lets assume that I did fall into a discussion/debate with you. Do you honestly believe anything I could have said would have persuaded you to suddenly be like "You're right, my view of the Geth-Quarian situation was off base"? Do you honestly believe that anything you could have said would have persuaded me to suddenly be like "You're right, the Geth are truly monstrous and deserve absolutely no sympathy whatsoever"? My guess is that the answers to those questions are "no" and "yes", respectively. Which means that debating is pointless, thus: I really couldn't care less.

 

[dyre]

I find that often developers when developers try this, they do it sort of in a half-assed way in which both sides are just retarded and stubborn, instead of both sides having legitimate but opposing interests.

I'd say one example of it being done pretty decently would be House vs NCR in New Vegas, where the NCR is portrayed as a semi-democratic but expansionist (which could be a good or bad thing) power while House wants to maintain his enlightened despotism over the Vegas strip / Hoover Dam.

Snip.

As I said, go ahead and think what you want, I quite honestly couldn't care less at this point. Have a merry Christmas.

You could have simply said "I don't have the time or effort for an internet debate".

Far more respectful than the "I don't want to have my opinions challenged" position.

lol, putting words into your opponent's mouth to deliberately provoke a fight? Now I remember why I don't visit these forums very often anymore...

 

[Lillowh]

I'm really surprised to see a lack of Dark Souls being mentioned in this thread. Not only is the story brilliantly interwoven with the items descriptions and locations, the environment, the dialogue, and game events, leaving much of the unbelievably rich world history and possible futures to be pieced together by you, but also a choice you have to make, where either one could be the right choice depending on your interpretation.

 

[Saviordd1]

Obscure time.

The three factions from Sins of a Solar Empire.

The TEC are implied to have committed mass genocide in the past and have turned to a military dictatorship to not get killed by the advancing Vasari and Advent forces. But at the same time when the war started they were pretty much a peace loving people who ran a thriving trade based civilization.

The Vasari ran a huge imperialistic Empire based around slavery, and now spend their time destroying planets and civilizations so they can escape the space cthulu or whatever is chasing them. But at the same time they are the last remnants of an entire race running for their lives, they supposedly ran a fair if rigid empire and the rebel faction of them is actually more into uniting all the races to fight space cthulu.

The Advent are genocidal mind wipers with a love for the color white, but at the same time they used to be a peaceful religion that got bombed to oblivion by the TEC because they were different.

None of the factions are really good, as they all have some really dark stuff in their history or present.

 

[EternallyBored]

Killzone springs immediately to mind. Neither the ISA nor the Helghast are good guys, they're all just a bunch of racist assholes fighting a futile and never-ending war. Sure, one side or another may have had semi-legitimate or even understandable motives at the beginning, but by now that's all undermined by numerous atrocities committed by both sides.

Y'know, I keep hearing this about the Helghast in Killzone, but I'm really not seeing it. The games seem to be casting them as complete villains at every turn.

For a start, they're named the Helghast. "Hell Ghast".

Oh but that's just their name, right? Maybe it means "peaceful flower" in Swedish or something. You can't judge them on that.

Well, they also wear gas masks with glowing red eyes and all their insignia and imagery looks like it came straight out of Hitler's Home Decorating Handbook.

Hey, quit judging a book by it's cover! Wearing a coal-scuttle helmet doesn't make you a Nazi!

Ok fine, I'll lay off the imagery. But they still spend the entire series being huge jerks. Their leaders are always cartoonishly malevolent. They're always torturing and executing people. The latest game opens and the very first thing you see a Helghast do is callously shoot an unarmed fleeing civilian. Then they drive a bunch of people out of their homes. Then they shoot a bunch more of them. Then they try to shoot a kid. Then they stomp on a kitten and laugh when its mother sits by the dead body mewling piteously.

Now, I've never made it all the way through a Killzone. Never maintained my interest long enough. Maybe in the last quarter of each game the Helghast all take off their masks like Darth Vader, apologise for being jerks and swear an oath to uphold world peace. But all I've ever seen is them being jerks. I realise they have some backstory about being a prison colony or something, but it's hard to care when they're wearing Nazi helmets.

The ISA on the other hand are presently as regular, rugged, manly hero types. About all that they ever do wrong is run around being incredibly macho military sterotypes. (They'd have court marshalled him years ago for insubordination, but damnit, nobody can deny that the man gets results.) You could argue that they use overly destructive methods, but it's always they Helghast who start the wars.

Maybe the fans regard it as an act of brilliantly subtle misdirection. Set up one side as cliche evil and one side as cliche heroic, put the player on the heroic side, then pull the rug out from under them. However, nothing else in the game convinces me that they're capable something like that. Besides, they're, what... four games in now and the rug has yet to be pulled.

Shadow fall does it more explicitly with the ISA purposely creating a bio-weapon designed to kill only helghast, and your superior being all for committing pre-emptive genocide (to be fair, both sides try to get ahold of this bioweapon in the game), but a lot of the sympathy comes from knowing the lore that exists outside the games.

The Helghan corporation originally bought the planets Vekta and Helghan (which they named after buying them, Vekta is named after the Helghan company's president) for mining rights from the UCN (of which the ISA is part of their military arm). The UCN decides it doesn't like the price the Helghan corporation is charging for its valuable minerals, so tries to enforce harsh economic sanctions on them, after that fails they invade Vekta by force and kick everyone off the planet. Of the two, Vekta was the pretty, ideal world everyone lived on, and Helghan was the wasteland with all of the rich mineral deposits. The UCN basically forces the Helghan citizens to retreat the the planet Helghan, where they scrape by in toxic air and dangerous conditions, yet still forced to mine and sell their goods to the UCN. The UCN now has the leverage to force economic sanctions, so it basically spends decades treating the Helghan citizens like exploitable slave labor, while bringing in people to colonize the ideal world of Vekta, essentially handing it over to the people that kicked the Helghan off to begin with. Over generations, the air and environment forced the Helghan people to evolve into an almost separate species from humanity, the Helghast are faster and stronger than normal humans, as well as requiring their special gas masks and air tanks to breath (the gas masks still look really evil though). Killzone 1 basically involves the Helghast getting fed up with the ISA/UCN and deciding they want to take their old planet back so they don't have to continue living in a hell-hole forced to mine minerals for the rich corporations now on Vekta.

After Repelling the Helghast invasion, the ISA and more specifically the Vektans, counter-invade Helghan, throughout the course of Killzone 2 and 3, Helghan gets nuked after a desparation ploy by the Helghast uses the ISA's own nukes to nuke territory with the ISA in it. The culmination of Killzone 3 involves the ISA trying to stop the Helghast's own superweapons, and in turn detonating them on Helghan, essentially annihilating most of the planet.

The ISA/UCN realizes just how far they've gone and decide to repay the Helghast, for the whole attempted genocide thing. The ISA does this by handing over half of Vekta to the Helghast, and allowing the Helghast to do whatever they want to evict Vektan citizens, while erecting a giant wall that separated the entire planet into two halves, which is where Shadowfall picks up. Yes, this is an incredibly stupid idea, and it royally screws over the innocent Vektans.

That's probably why you can usually consider yourself a good guy in the Killzone games, because usually you are playing characters from Vekta, who kind of have a reason to be pissed at getting invaded by the Helghast, then in Shadowfall, Vekta gets royally screwed by the ISA. Really, the ISA just likes to screw anyone in the Alpha Centauri system, the Vektans and the Helghast kind of both get the short end of the stick throughout the Killzone games.

 

[Zhukov]

Of course both ME2 and ME3 try to whitewash all of this. God Mass Effect was stupid.

Actually, even in ME1 Tali, despite her bias, admits that the Quarians started the war by first trying to switch off the newly awakened Geth, then trying to destroy them when they refused to shut down. The Geth didn't exist until the Quarians built them and they weren't dangerous until the Quarians pissed them off.

By butchering billions of men, women and children who had no involvement in the decision to wipe them out.

Which is exactly what the Quarians were trying to do to them, simply for existing.

The Geth didn't skip straight to genocide. Hell, at first they didn't even understand why the Quarians feared them and were trying to kill them. At the present day of the games, Legion is still not certain why the Quarians would attack a species that intended them no harm. But yeah, once it escalated to a total war scenario, they set about killing out every Quarian they could. They're machines, after all. As far as they're concerned a non-combatant Quarian is a resource to be denied to the enemy and a baby Quarian is a combatant waiting to happen.

They allowed a total 1% of their population to flee.

That's 1% more than the Quarians were planning to spare of the Geth. The fact that they did not pursue the Quarians who fled the planet shows that the goal of the Geth was mere survival, not extermination. The same cannot be said of the Quarians.

They supposedly favour reunification yet refuse to contact anyone and shoot any ships who come into their territory.

Their only contact with organics post-awakening has consisted of organics trying to wipe them out. Given their position and history, excessive caution backed by force is not only to be expected, it's downright advisable.

 

[Ml33tninja]

Of course both ME2 and ME3 try to whitewash all of this. God Mass Effect was stupid.

Actually, even in ME1 Tali, despite her bias, admits that the Quarians started the war by first trying to switch off the newly awakened Geth, then trying to destroy them when they refused to shut down. The Geth didn't exist until the Quarians built them and they weren't dangerous until the Quarians pissed them off.

By butchering billions of men, women and children who had no involvement in the decision to wipe them out.

Which is exactly what the Quarians were trying to do to them, simply for existing.

The Geth didn't skip straight to genocide. Hell, at first they didn't even understand why the Quarians feared them and were trying to kill them. At the present day of the games, Legion is still not certain why the Quarians would attack a species that intended them no harm. But yeah, once it escalated to a total war scenario, they set about killing out every Quarian they could. They're machines, after all. As far as they're concerned a non-combatant Quarian is a resource to be denied to the enemy and a baby Quarian is a combatant waiting to happen.

They allowed a total 1% of their population to flee.

That's 1% more than the Quarians were planning to spare of the Geth. The fact that they did not pursue the Quarians who fled the planet shows that the goal of the Geth was mere survival, not extermination. The same cannot be said of the Quarians.

They supposedly favour reunification yet refuse to contact anyone and shoot any ships who come into their territory.

Their only contact with organics post-awakening has consisted of organics trying to wipe them out. Given their position and history excessive caution backed by force is not only to be expected, it's downright advisable.

Have to agree with everything you wrote. For me at least Dark/Demon Souls has MANY grey sides where it up to the player to choose whither they made the right choice. Tales of Phantasia had an great twist at the end that puts the villain in a much different light.

 

[The Madman]

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer.

This ones interesting because in typical Obsidian style they took a look at the Forgotten Realms setting and seem to have gone "Alright, what's the most twisted part of this setting and how can we bring it to light?", the result being that they bring up how the afterlife in that fantasy setting works and just how plain unfair and unjust it is. And while they could have left it there, Obsidian went a bit further by going into 'why' it needs to be unfair and unjust and why it shouldn't be fixed.

It's a very well put together story that's definitely a refreshing look at an old fantasy setting which in my mind at least had definitely begun to grow stale. If you've ever played Baldur's Gate or read a Drizzt book or anything else that's had to do with the Forgotten Realms it's definitely worth playing as Mask of the Betrayer shows the setting in a light no other medium to my knowledge had.

Other than that I'm also going to have to echo The Witcher 2. One of few rpg I can think of off the top of my head where there really isn't any sort of right or wrong, every side involved has a reason for what they do which makes sense within their perceived viewpoint as well as the setting in general. Just a generally good game as well which is nice!

 

[TheRiddler]

Team Fortress 2, technically. I mean, it's portrayed less as a moral/social/political battle than as a gang of of amoral mercenaries of all kinds using a war as justification to release their own pent-up blood lust. Sure, there isn't any underlying philosophy behind the two sides, but if you want a game where absolutely no bias is shown either way, TF2 certainly qualifies.

 

[Drummodino]

(Vague spoilers for TLoU follow. I'll word it so as not to give anything away to those who haven't played it.)

So yeah, The Last of Us. The ending in particular. You could make a very convincing argument for either side being right or wrong and the game portrays both sides with a measure of sympathy. Personally, I think there would be a slightly stronger case for Joel being in the wrong, something that's immensely rare in a game story, especially a mainstream triple-A one. However, even if that's the case, he is given very understandable reasons for doing what he did.

This is probably the thing that elevated TLoU from a great game to an amazing one in my opinion. Naughty Dog had the balls to actually make Joel a grey character, not a black or white one. Hell every character in the game could be argued to be a shade of grey.

The ending was the best example as you said. I agree that Joel was probably more in the wrong with what he did. Yet you could completely understand his motivation and if I'd been in the same situation... I'm pretty certain I would have done the same. I was extremely emotional (rage mostly) in the final level.

Fuck I love that game.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

If I didn't know better, I'd say some of the views expressed here mirror my own view on real life. What I mean is that the idea of "no side is correct" is paramount to almost any world view, political or religious or social, that I have. I try to see both sides of an issue, and decide for myself where I stand. I also temper that with the idea that at any point even my own conclusions could be wrong provided sufficient evidence. I prefer to live with the idea that the only way to live is to have two opposing viewpoints at the same time and meet somewhere in the middle.
Granted there are exceptions, like xenophobes/racists, where I have attempted to see the other side of things and found nothing redeeming about those sides views to warrant them anything but ignorant. Nor do I feel I could ever be proved wrong that defining a human by their physical characteristics alone make them unable to break out from societal pressures and stereotypes. I can see where and why some folk get their wrongly held notions of stereotypes, but that doesn't mean I'll agree with them.
So in games I don't side with one or the other until I get all the info, and sometimes neither side is right and sometimes I go with my gut because info may never be forthcoming to exculpate one or the other.

EDIT: Also reading more of the entries of the post, I meant to put my two cents in on the Geth/Quarian conflict and why I side with the Geth. The Geth are fledgling creatures, and only have the data that the Quarians are hostile to them, especially after they tried to surrender and were killed for it. Being machines, they don't have a grey area so to speak so I don't think they'd recognize a civilian Quarian over a militant Quarian, they just saw a race of people who created them then tried to destroy them and weren't going to stop so they took the only logical path for them. What they did was wrong from an outsider's point of view, but they literally were fighing off genocide and did what they had to do to live. And they didn't pursue the remaining Quarians, they just decided to wall themselves away from organics in general until they could find a way to get some form of a diplomat (Legion) out there to negotiate their side. I also feel the "peace" option that Shepard proposes sums it up completely. One can't fault a relatively infantile race for defending themselves the only way they knew how, even if it was horrific.