Why Aren't You The Villain In More Games?

[Flailing Escapist]

Now I'm not talking about you, the player, I'm talking about the game protagonist. And while you can definately be villainous in some games like Mass Effect and Fable you're end game is usually somewhere on the lines of saving the world. And thats <- generally a good thing.

I was thinking about it and I realized that in most games today the protagonist is usually a complete dick. He's still saving the world but I suppose shoving glass into people's mouths, shoving people out windows or tying a whore to your horse and galloping across the countryside makes me think that this is something an antagonist should be doing. Not that we can't have (loosely defined) "gritty realism" in games but if we're standing right at the edge of the divingboard of a pool of crazy batshit insane whats stopping us from jumping right on in?

The closest I've ever been to being a straight up villian was in Fallout 3. If only because I took the term survival to the utter extreme and was bent on killing everyone I could because that meant that there was no chance that they could kill me later. Don't get me wrong, I killed everybody. I even killed everybody except for the two litte kids (because they're invincible) in Megaton before I blew it to kingdom come. Because if I had blown it to the moon beforehand I couldn't have gotten all that delicious exp and all their stuff. But unfortuantly Fallout 3 karmatically balances itself out because the game gave you the option to massacre in the same hand as the option to save everyone. And thats the problem, its perfectly fine to suffocate an entire village in their sleep because you also could (but won't) fix their house to look better than a shiny car on a warm day, buy them nice clothes and do their dirty laundry.

But Flailing," you might say. "Games do exist where you do nothing but be a massive twat." And while I guess thats true those games are generally shit. For example I had the misfortune of playing Overlord 2 a couple months ago because it sounded like a good idea. Who doesn't want to play as a cruel and satanic overlord that destroys the entire world by throwing little, retarded monkeys at it. The stupid part is that destroying the world slowly becomes more of a day job than anything else. Sure, you're destroying the world but its so tedious by the end all I wanted to do was sit in my evil fortress and mope all day.

My point is in a bucket load of games today you can fuck, maim, torture and massacre your way to saving the known world. I remember thinking at the end of Dragon Age II that Kirkwall must be pretty empty by now; because I had killed thousands of people by then and I still got the good ending. And if you can shoot kneecaps, break bones, strangle people in their sleep, cut off fingers, fuck prostitutes and extinguish entire villages while still being completely "Paragon" whats stoping games from letting us play as Pyramid Head or a serial killer. The MO may be different (mostly bandits and Nazis) but thats exactly what we're doing.

So yes, games do exist where you are nothing but a total and complete asshole. But too few games exist where you are nothing but a total and complete asshole that are actually good. There are games out there that "allow you" to be a total and complete asshole but thats not your only choice. And I've been seeing fewer and fewer games where being a good guy is a hard and difficult slope to climb (like it should be).

I don't know if many of you remember the Dragon Age: Origin's dlc where you get to replay the final battle through the eyes of a darkspawn but imagine if there was an entire game like that. Where your ultimate goal is pretty much to destroy the world. Instead of having the option to help people you could just have the option to not kill them. Which is just as good by some rights. Imagine in Limbo instead of playing as the little large head boy you played as the world itself. And carefully set and set off traps as little large headed boys wandered through them. The death animations wouldn't be anymore gruesome than in regular Limbo but whats stopping an idea like that from taking flight?
...
I guess so 16 year olds won't think that shooting up their school or punching their little sister in the face is a good idea.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Edit: And to all the people who keep pointing out games where you are an evil bastard (all 5 of them) I'm not saying that there are no games where your an evil bastard theres just a overall general lack of games where you're an evil bastard.

 

[Grotch Willis]

I usually play through as both Evil and Good and available Switzerland, to get the full experience of the game. In Fallout 3, I was a Good Samaritan, Neutral Switzerland, and an Evil Bastard, same with Fable III and the Mass Effect series.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

I usually play through as both Evil and Good and available Switzerland, to get the full experience of the game. In Fallout 3, I was a Good Samaritan, Neutral Switzerland, and an Evil Bastard, same with Fable III and the Mass Effect series.

That wasn't exactly my point but alright.

 

[FalloutJack]

Speaking upon my title's particular series, you can be as much a dick as you want in Fallout.

 

[Smertnik]

You should play Stubbs the Zombie.

Come to think of it, you're technically a villain in pretty much every Rockstar game.

 

[SAMAS]

Honestly, I have never really been interested in playing the villain.

Mostly because the bad guy is usually the biggest, baddest mofo in the game universe, and there's no real challenge to beating up everyone weaker than you.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Honestly, I have never really been interested in playing the villain.

Mostly because the bad guy is usually the biggest, baddest mofo in the game universe, and there's no real challenge to beating up everyone weaker than you.

So the solution would be playing an Anti-hero hey? Not exactly the big bad but on the quest to become him by killing everything in his way.

Anyway, people like cheering for the good guys and the classic story arc is of the hero

 

[Suicida1 Midget]

Well if the press has a slow day, you can guess what they will beat up on, otherwise most ppl tend to play the hero and stuff. Villianish acts are more so done due to boredom and what ifs.

 

[SAMAS]

Honestly, I have never really been interested in playing the villain.

Mostly because the bad guy is usually the biggest, baddest mofo in the game universe, and there's no real challenge to beating up everyone weaker than you.

So the solution would be playing an Anti-hero hey? Not exactly the big bad but on the quest to become him by killing everything in his way.

Probably not. What I think would be better (Or at least would like to see) is to give the protagonist a bad situation, and then the option of solving it in a heroic or villainous fashion. And I don't mean villainous in the "Go around being a dick to helpless NPCs" variety like you find nowadays. Good villains come in two varieties: The first, being so over-the-top EVIL that it's entertaining, is done by most games now. But the second, usually found in (J)RPGs, is the guy who has a legitimate grievance, but is solving it in a way that will hurt a lot of innocent people in the process. That is the kind of Bad Guy I would be more interested in playing.

 

[Gyrohelix]

Not the villain? Tell that to all the children i've orphande, it's all dependant on which side of the gun you're on. Both sides wholeheartedly believe their way is the proper path to paradise, and Good/Evil are completely arbitrary terms.

 

[YawningAngel]

People only do things that are right from their perspective. Either you sell them on the idea that it's right to be an utter tosser, or they likely won't want to do it.

 

[BristolBerserker]

In infamous 2 i found the good girl (lucy kuo) hotter then the other one and you get a south african friend for a while. However, the evil powers are more powerful, so i was good first, bad second time around.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

I've wondered that too. While making choices is all the rage, you usually otherwise get lumped in the comfy shoes or sandals of a do gooder or an anti-hero. It'd be nice, I dare say refreshing, to play as a villain. Even better if you could make it work with character development and everything without it ending up like a variation on a typical good guy plot.

I think God of War got to this by the third game. While it probably wasn't intended for his character development, by the third game Kratos was a villain. Everyone had shunned him. he'd shunned everyone and was just in it for himself. He was doing all he knew how to do; kill. From the first God of War we saw his descent from wronged anti-hero to chaotic, murderous villain and it was done really well.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

Bioware is usually off-the mark on their good and evil system. I wish there was a politician path you could take in games: acting on the outside good and great to the general populace, while, behind the scenes, bribing and cutting throats to get the "real" work done. A basic example: a father sends you on a quest for his son, who supposedly found a treasure in some cave. Upon arriving there, you find out he did. The usual, for sake of a better term, Bioware choice is to kill him or help him carry the loot home. Why not kill him, scapegoat a bandit or two, split half the treasure with the father, and gain some face? Set this decision in a game where you are running for a political reason, and this sounds like a lot of fun.

In DA2, my favorite thing so far (still playing) is how the story is more about personal gain and coming up in the world. There's a ton of games about saving the world, but next to none about the very human need to gain and build self, and for those to gain more weight, games need to find a way to break the "Good" and "Evil".

To shorten: I want to have a game that embraces the concept of building up the appearance of your actions in ways that praise or subvert said actions past their true meaning and purpose, hopefully abandoning the questionable "good" and "evil" choices. And, no Bioware, being a dick isn't the same thing.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

You're the villain in Prototype you just think you're hero, maybe even hero is the wrong word but you definitely think you're the wrong party, on a justified roaring rampage of revenge.

Oh boy you are not. I mean, you're the experiment gone wrong but even the guy you think you are is a freaking psycho.

 

[Deverfro]

I'd say its because people like to be a dick in games.And when the game is telling you to be a dick, its just ebcomes less fun. But games like Saints Row 2 keep score, but dont tell you to do it, its just a fun mini game.

 

[Raggedstar]

Still waiting for a game where I can play Team Rocket *taps foot*. Ok, so that might not be the point of the post but it WOULD be nice. Come on, did NO ONE want to play the part of Team Rocket as a kid?

 

[KiloFox]

because good guys sell games... and some of these games have that whole "moral lesson" BS... but a game i found where you play an anti-hero is Disgaea... (yet it still pulls that moral lesson stuff... but in the end you're still the Demon Overlord and traveled to Heaven for the sole intention of killing the Seraph and taking it over...) only Disgaea ONE mind you though... Disgaea 2 has you playing a good guy the whole time, and Disgaea 3 has you START as an evil prick, but then some BS happens where you change sides and stuff... you still become the overlord and are evil and stuff... but still have that whole "you just saved everyone" kinda bull to go with it... i'd like to see what they do with Disgaea 4... personally i'd LOVE to see more games where you play the villain... (also by NIS is "What have i done to deserve this my lord" 1&2, but that's kinda just a dungeon maker... ) whenever the "moral choice" thing is given me, i almost always pick evil, mostly because i AM an evil prick, but also because you don't see many "evil" games, and hence you kinda feel bad for the guys... i mean... they never seem to catch a break... always have some "good"guy cramping their style...

 

[Swifty714]

Honestly, I have never really been interested in playing the villain.

Mostly because the bad guy is usually the biggest, baddest mofo in the game universe, and there's no real challenge to beating up everyone weaker than you.

Why not make a game where you have to build up your force of evil, or even your evil prowess itself, like overlord did.

HOWEVER, take out the annoying imps, horrible controls, bad story line, horrible characters, lack of interest from the start ect...

 

[DEAD34345]

If not a single person has mentioned Dungeon Keeper by the time I've posted this, then I will be greatly, greatly disappointed with this community.

As to why there aren't enough games where you play as the bad-guy, it's because game developers are idiots (that statement is hyperbolic, please don't take offence). They tend to think that when we play games we want to play as characters that think like us. Since almost everyone at least thinks of themselves as good people, almost every game has us playing good characters. This is almost the exact opposite of what many of us want. I play games to do things I can't (or just don't) do in real life, and being evil is one of the big ones.

It's a shame very few developers seem to have realised this yet.

Edit: Seriously, no-one mentions Dungeon Keeper!? Pathetic. I thought better of you guys (or gals I guess, but let's face it, mostly guys).