Why Aren't You The Villain In More Games?

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Innegativeion

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Feb 18, 2011
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Salad Is Murder said:
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.
Yeah I was going to mention prototype.

One of few decent games I've played where the protagonist is unobjectively "the bad guy", or at least "a bad guy". He doesn't tromp about saying "I shall conquer the world, for teh evulz!", but by everything he does, if you were an onlooking bystander, or maybe a marine, it'd be obvious that this alex mercer is certainly a monster that screams main antagonist.
 

Tonythion

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Aug 28, 2010
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Scow2 said:
Generally, the superheroes have a worse lot in life than the Villains. And the truly charismatic villains don't have targic, wangsty backstories. The most recent "Critical Miss" sums up my feelings on "Society makes people into villains!"

In Fable, you can choose to not save the world, instead taking the power of the Sword of Aeons and mantling Jack of Blades yourself. Unfortunately, the game doesn't change to reflect whether you're the conqueror or savior of the world. The only reason you "save" the world is jealousy: This is your world to fuck with, not some pussy-ass wannabe "Dark Force"s.

What I don't get is how destroying Jack of Blades at the end of "Lost Chapters" is an inherently good act, especially if you end up being worse than the monster you destroyed.

However... as I noted above: you need underlings or oppressable people in order to actually feel like a villain. The Stronghold series is particularly great in that regard (as long as you don't play the campaign :/)
True, Batman had his parents murdered, Superman (the twat) his whole planet was destroyed and I think his adoptive father died, the x-men are hated by mostly everyone, Spiderman his uncle died, and so on and so forth. Most of my favorite villains have crap life stories, Magneto was a doctor in a third world country and his patients were being killed by guirillas or he was in an concentration camp. Mr. Freeze was only trying to find a way to bring his wife back to life, hell even Darth Vader had a semi crap life.

Most of the villains I liked where the crazy ones that people tended to avoid but I understand that most of the villains out there are just douche bags (like me).

Oh in Fable one I never got to finish because my baby niece broke it but I was talking about Fable two. And the whole underling oppressive nature thing is true. Most villains can't get anywhere by themselves unless they have super powers themselves or the means to control the world (money, smarts, the super hero's weakness) but you could easily have a game where you gather underlings, there are tons of people that will follow you if you give the right speech or something. Hell just gather up a bunch of crazies and give them false promises.

Stronghold? which is that?
 

Havzad

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Oct 9, 2010
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Smertnik said:
You should play Stubbs the Zombie.

Come to think of it, you're technically a villain in pretty much every Rockstar game.
Actually in most rockstar games your the good guy but your working outside the law.
its exactly the point being made in this forum, your a complete asshole but your still saving the world/making it a better place. the best examples of those are probably bully and San andreas.
 

fatal2704

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May 8, 2010
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Dunno if someone already mentioned this, but in KOTOR you can be completely evil or good but there comes a point late in the game when the game flat out asks you which side you want, regardless of what you had been doing up to that point. Just kinda wanted to point that out as it goes along with your theme of prostitute fucking, murder hungry "good guys".
 

Flailing Escapist

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Apr 13, 2011
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fatal2704 said:
Dunno if someone already mentioned this, but in KOTOR you can be completely evil or good but there comes a point late in the game when the game flat out asks you which side you want, regardless of what you had been doing up to that point. Just kinda wanted to point that out as it goes along with your theme of prostitute fucking, murder hungry "good guys".
The only problem with KOTOR is that you're still stopping the Sith. And yeah you may still take the "evil" path but in the end you saved a whole bunch of people.
 

Zergadooful

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Sep 30, 2010
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I like being the villain, mainly because it's fun to fuck with NPCs, but also because it's usually pretty fun.
 

Manji187

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Jan 29, 2009
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I know of no game where you can be an INTERESTING villain. A game in which you can corrupt the good and pit them against each other...while they believe to be doing the right thing all the while doing you a huge favor.

Massacre and destruction is overdone to the point of numbing apathy. Now, tragic and "meaningful" massacre and destruction....that is rare.
 

Azure-Supernova

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Aug 5, 2009
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Inkidu said:
No villain ever thinks of themselves as a villain. They might think what they're doing is wrong, but ultimately for the greater good. So a straight villain would be a psychopathic asshole. They're the stuff of cartoons. Easily identifiable foils to the heroes so they can be the laughingstock of children.
But that's where the potential lies for a deep, involving plot with character growth. In Warcraft III Arthas knows that the people of Stratholme will become servants of Mal'Ganis and so he chooses to slaughter his own people rather than Mal'Ganis raising them for the Scourge. Now murder is an inherently evil act, as Uther and Jaina both point out to Arthas, but he proceeds anyway because he believes he is right. The Culling marks the start of Arthas' path to becoming the Lich King. Sure what he did was downright evil and he knew it was wrong, yet he did it believing that and settled on becoming the lesser of two evils. Despite his noble intentions Arthas eventually became the Lich King and solidified himself as a villain.

I'm also desperately trying to think of a video game or a series in which your character from the first becomes the villain in a subsequent game, maybe I've just made it up in my head but I swear one exists...
 

Robert Ewing

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Mar 2, 2011
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If you're the villain, a game company needs to give the game the capacity to realize your inner evil. This would only work in games like Prototype, or Evil genius. An open world with lots of things to do is the only way to go. Because if you're playing as the bad guy, chances are you want to break the rules of the game a bit more. As Yahtzee said 'it's all very well being a dick, but when the game wants you to be a dick, it doesn't fly'... or something along those lines.

And game developers hate it when you break any of their rules. So that's why. Making a game of this sort is hard.
 

Weaver

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Apr 28, 2008
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In Postal 1 you had to be a bad guy. The story goes you've gone insane and have to kill everyone. If I recall correctly, you can't move on to the next level until you've killed a certain percentage of the people on your current level.
 

Havzad

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Oct 9, 2010
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SgtFoley said:
Dungeon Keeper
Prototype
Overlord
GTA

I cant think of any others but it would be nice if their was more.


Havzad said:
Smertnik said:
You should play Stubbs the Zombie.

Come to think of it, you're technically a villain in pretty much every Rockstar game.
Actually in most rockstar games your the good guy but your working outside the law.
its exactly the point being made in this forum, your a complete asshole but your still saving the world/making it a better place. the best examples of those are probably bully and San andreas.
I dont think that is true in the GTA games. The only way you are saving the world or making it a better place is through an all out gang/mob war so its you who controls everything. The world doesnt get better because one gang took over anothers territiory its still ruled by gangs and just as bad.

but in san andreas tempenny starts the riots because the populace is pissed that he wasn't thrown in jail. then you and your brother kill tempenny, restabalizing the area and ending the riots the way i see it you just made the world better...am i wrong?
 

Omegalus

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Nov 8, 2010
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Don't know if anyone else thought of this, but whilst playing the villan would be fun it would probably be more expensive in the long term compared to the hero since you'd have to build/rebuild or decorate lairs, you'd have to also hire if not all most of your underlings.

Plus in the end you'd have to be bumbed off by a Hero or a Villan/Anti-hero that wants the world for themself. Villans rarely get to live as long as the Hero, usualy because of betrayal.
 

Suicidejim

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Jul 1, 2011
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As much as people like to play the asshole card in stuff like Fallout (my friends have often shown nothing but contempt when I buy things from stores rather than stab everyone, stack the bodies into a human pyramid, steal everything, then decide I don't want any of it anyway), it's harder to relate to a story when you're the antagonist. If you want to make a meaningful story, then you're probably going to need better motivations for your villainy than moustache-twirling, tie the damsel to the train tracks, meaningless malevolence. However, that sort of approach doesn't seem right either, I mean, people have probably bought this game just to be an evil ass and wreck stuff like the Hulk on cocaine. So then maybe you DO want pure, unadulterated chaos to be your villain's motive, or something like the old 'world-domination' chestnut. It's a difficult project to approach, and it's easy to have so much evil at your disposal that it just loses all weight. Some games are able to pull it off every now and then, but if it was that easy then more people would have created them.
Personally, I enjoyed Dragon Age: Origin's approach, which was to give you multiple options to choose from, but not just label them things like 'good' and 'bad,' which gives you the opportunity to set up moral dilemmas, where there is no 'right' answer. Do you kill a young, possessed boy, or sacrifice his mother so you can confront the demon possessing him and spare the boy's life, or do you travel for help, but risk the possibility of the boy killing more people in your absence? I realize that was something of a digression, but I doubt many villains simply label themselves as 'evil,' and generally have their own justifications for their actions, so making a player go through the same process, committing heinous or forbidden acts for a cause they believe in (or just giving them the option to be 'Captain Asshole'), is perhaps a good compromise to the dilemma I suggested.

And no, I'm no expert, so by all means, point out all the holes in the logic I just set forward. There's probably some gaping ones.
 

Havzad

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Oct 9, 2010
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Well sort of. The riots had absolutely no reason at all with why he was killed. Sure by killing him you made the world a better place but that was not your intention. You wanted him dead for revenge and thats why you were trying to kill him. Plus there is all sorts of other missions where you do the exact opposite. You go around robbing houses and dont forget that the majority of the game you are out there killing innocent people. Half your quests are about killing witnesses to Tenpennys crimes. You are the very reason that tenpenny didnt go to jail.[/quote]

tenpenny forced you to kill the witnesses tho, the point of the whole game was that you were leashed to him and eagerly trying to get your freedom and he thretend your loved ones to do it, and you cant forget that he started it by killing your mother. In almost all the missions you do, your killing people who have attacked you first(like the mob) your just delivering justice without having the law actually intervening. Dont forget how you actually save lives too, like mad dog and the Chinese gang boss (and the whole chinese gang actually) im not saying that CJ is the great good guy, but hes definitely more good then bad
 

Tragiverse

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Jul 6, 2010
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Depends on your definition of Evil. Not everyone considers Evil as being a psycho who kills and tortures for no reason - because that just honestly doesn't happen, not without context.

My personal definition would be having a selfish point of view. Garrett from the Thief series is a perfect example. He's not a killer, and most of his objectives require that you don't kill. However, all of his motivations are selfish and exist only to further his own goals. Break into a prison to save an old friend - well there's some pretty hefty treasure hidden there, plus maybe i can get with his sister. The only reason he chooses to "save the world" is simply out of revenge for his eye and the attempt on his life.

There's also the fact that good and evil are based solely on whose side you're on.
 

Son of a Mitch

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Aug 7, 2011
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I think there should be a game like Fable, but it's multiplayer (hear me out single player fans). One person gets to play as the hero of the story, just like in every game ever, while the other person starts off as the main bad guy and last boss. The hero goes through the game normally, while the villain just has to defeat the hero. The villain plays almost like an RTS game, controlling your forces to try and take out the hero, but your units evolve in strength with the player to keep things balanced. You can choose where the hero fights them, which units are in each mob, etc. Only when the hero player makes it near the end of the game does the villain actually fight him. Or, the villain can be like the Harbinger from ME2 and occasionally take control of one of his units to fight the hero him/herself.

I'm kind of surprised at how much of this I came up with on the spot.