I can't bring myself to act like a jerk in moral choice games.

I might be alone on this, but does anyone else have a problem being mean in games where there is a moral choice system? I find that I have trouble in many of these games, depending on how the system is implemented.

For example, in a cartoonish game where Good versus Evil are binary choices and the good characters are paragons of light and virtue while the bad characters are Snidely Whiplash-type caricatures it's easy before it doesn't feel real. Fable, Infamous, and a few others I don't have a problem with because "bad" is depicted as the "hero" running around wholesale slaughtering nameless faces while growing evil horns or a general red glow. These are silly and cartoonish and, as a result, don't feel particularly connected to reality.

It's the games that are more dialog driven or have moral grey areas. Games where you don't have to necessarily be good or bad, but you can just act like a giant tool to everyone you meet or control other characters to do the same. Bioware games are a good example of this. In Jade Empire you can act like a humble yet skilled kung-fu fighter to all of your classmates and encourage them to improve their skills while simultaneously not lording your ability over them. Or, you can act like a cocky jerkwad and shove the fact that you're better than them in their faces literally every chance you get. I tried that latter and I felt like such an @ss by the time I got done with the first part I was compelled to restart, partially because the reactions from the other characters are pretty realistic in their basically deciding that the main character is a worthless piece of poo. It was kind of funny, but at the same time incredibly awkward and horrible as I made the main character ostracize every friend they had.

Indigo Prophect was another good example. When controller Tyler and Carla early on in the game, they get into an argument regarding some rough spot in their relationship. Controlling Tyler, you can choose conversational options to try to bring them back to common ground and mend their damaged relationship (which is what I did the first time) or you can act like a complete jerk towards her, eventually storming out of the apartment with nothing resolved and leaving Carla crying. A friend and I were playing and we intentionally tried to see how bad we could make it, but the decent voice acting and general cinematic feel of that left us looking at each other with an expression that basically said "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!" by the end. You can actually push their relationship to the breaking point which effectively ends the game on a particularly sour note.

So these are my questions:

A) Do you have this happen in games where playing the bad choices makes you feel like a jerk and...

B) What games have you played in which it was particularly painful to play the bad choices?

-Byshop

I also have trouble being a 'bad guy' in video games. I have an immoral character in Fallout 3 but that's it. I just can't do it, I guess I just like the stories better when the hero is at least partially benevolent.

it's the opposite with me. with the morally gray choices, i could go either way. like with the choices in the ME series between paragon and renegade, the connection between the two extremes is that both want to save the galaxy. one will do whatever it takes while the other won't sacrifice anything, but they both have the same just goal so i could see the value of either choice.

there are games with no morality and i could go either way with that too. for instance, i don't know how much is intentional with fallout 3, but the morality system there is so preposterous that i laugh it off. i do something good, a satisfying ding sounds, and pipboy gives a thumbs up with a big grin on his face and i just think "there's no way it could be that simple." the only reminder of morality is the occasional chastising words from liam neeson :P

it's the game that convinces me that one choice is clearly evil where i hesitate. it's not necessarily cartoonishly evil, like i think the world in infamous is so shallow that i don't care what happens, but there its either so believable or likable that i don't want to mess it up. a recent example would be dishonored. the way the few likable characters react to violence and small things like how long blood stays your blade are surprisingly powerful.

So these are my questions:

A) Do you have this happen in games where playing the bad choices makes you feel like a jerk and...

B) What games have you played in which it was particularly painful to play the bad choices?

-Byshop

Byshop

A) Whenever I play these types of games I generally try to decide my characters disposition before I start. Even still, I find it hard to be a complete jerk.

B)Mass Effect was the first game I played where I felt guilty over some of my choices. Fallout 3 was another game where I just couldn't bring myself to be evil. I did one evil thing to someone and I felt like a huge jerk afterwards. I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins now and there's huge scope for you to be a jerk but I just cant do it.

Lol I have the same problem. I just dont like to play as the bad guy. I have been palying red dead recently and I want to be a BA cowboy hero. Even though I could rob banks and kill people with a bandanna I still cant bring myself to make my character really bad. I want him to be a good guy. I played Mass Effect 1 on Renegade my second time through, but thats really not a huge deal because you still remain the hero you just make rough decisions. I dont like GTA because of its concept. I didnt like beast mode in gears of war 3, I will break my rules sometimes, but it always feels off. Like my characters character has been comprimised. I cant explain it well, but I feel similarly.

Not me. I prefer to be the bad guy. Fable 1 was the best at being a badguy. I played through Infamous as the bad guy on my first time through.

I hate it when no matter what you choose you still feel like a jerk.

I usually play as my own personality. I don't go around killing people without some reason, etc. Unless somebody kind of rubs me the wrong way lol. About the only game I've ever played by making all evil choices was Infamous and only because you got a trophy for making ALL evil choices or ALL good choices. That didn't really bother me because I didn't take it seriously.

Fallout 3 had some great choices to make. I remember putting the game on pause for 10 minutes just to think over the decision I was about to make. It was sort of a gray area, either choice would have both good and bad effects.

A friend of mine told me he just kills everybody in those games and I'm like "Seriously?" LOL.

Bioshock, especially bioshock 2, I just....just can't kill the little sisters. They are too innocent, and they help me gather adam. Even the main characters, I see no reason to kill. Gracie, I just want to prove her wrong that I'm not a monster, and that other guy, I don't care if he made me a big daddy, infact, that's awesome.

That's the main flaw with bioshock 2, I just see no reason to choose the bad choices.

Nice to know I'm not the only one.

Blueresident87: Yeah, Fallout 3 would be another game where I found it difficult. I went back in a subsequent game and blew up Megaton just to see what happens, but I felt like a pretty big tool afterwards so I didn't continue the game.

MentatAssassin and Log-Sacrement: With Mass Effect specifically I agree that it's more a question of a philosphical difference between two different approaches on how to be the good guy, and even the Paragon choices may involve sacrificing soldiers, etc. so in the case of that game I don't consider it to be that big a deal. I also like that in that game you had seperate meters for so you don't get penalized for trying to earn points in both, unlike Infamous where staying True Neutral results in you not being able to unlock the best abilities on either side.

Log, to your point I agree that Infamous is so shallow and [spoiler] your choices don't make much difference to the story in the end anyway [/spoiler] . Not to get too off topic, but I also think that a linear, binary morality meter pretty much ruins moral choice in games. I find this to be particularly true of games like Fable, where putting your own needs ahead of anyone else regardless of circumstances is regarded as "evil". At that point there's no morality question or ambiguity as to whether you are doing the "right" thing because the developer has already defined that for you based on their morality.

DJ_Headshot: Yes, I agree that voice acted games make the horrible choices far more impactful. I don't remember having this problem with Fallout 1 and 2, although maybe that's because I was a twisted kid. :)

Jackc8: Although I'm not a fan of binary morality choices, there were some fun choices in Fallout 3. Overall I liked that game very much. NV was a little bit different for me, becuase I felt the game cornered me into some crappy choices where there should have been a way out without taking evil points but I coudln't find it.

Yoshi9000: Bioshock is another great example of mediocre moral choice. When there's such a strong dicotomy between the choices it's just silly. Either you're a child murderer or you aren't. Period. No realy middle ground. You don't have to spend a lot of time agonizing over that choice, and as you play the rewards you collect for saving the little sisters balance out pretty heavily.

-Byshop

For me it's also almost the same... I couldn't ignore or kill NPCs. In games like Fallout, Mass Effect or Witcher I was always playing as a good guy. I think in the end it's just deep inside you, it reflects to some points who you really are and how you view other people and life in general. No wonder there've been some studies on psychology and Video game analysis and gamer's behaviour were recorded. Video games nowadays are tools, life simulations or moral simulations I dunno call them whatever you like. Of course that doesn't mean that all the people that developed bad or evil characters in video games are also "evil" in real life, they might simply not view it the way we do. Some people get attached with virtual worlds and characters while some other simply think "Well it's just fake so no matter what I do it does not exists".

Anyway just check online for some analysis and psycology tests, you'll be amazed by the results.

Me neither :P

It's the games that are more dialog driven or have moral grey areas. Games where you don't have to necessarily be good or bad, but you can just act like a giant tool to everyone you meet or control other characters to do the same. Bioware games are a good example of this. In Jade Empire you can act like a humble yet skilled kung-fu fighter to all of your classmates and encourage them to improve their skills while simultaneously not lording your ability over them. Or, you can act like a cocky jerkwadand shove the fact that you're better than them in their faces literally every chance you get. I tried that latter and I felt like such an @ss by the time I got done with the first part I was compelled to restart, partially because the reactions from the other characters are pretty realistic in their basically deciding that the main character is a worthless piece of poo. It was kind of funny, but at the same time incredibly awkward and horrible as I made the main character ostracize every friend they had.

Indigo Prophect was another good example. When controller Tyler and Carla early on in the game, they get into an argument regarding some rough spot in their relationship. Controlling Tyler, you can choose conversational options to try to bring them back to common ground and mend their damaged relationship (which is what I did the first time) or you can act like a complete jerk towards her, eventually storming out of the apartment with nothing resolved and leaving Carla crying. A friend and I were playing and we intentionally tried to see how bad we could make it, but the decent voice acting and general cinematic feel of that left us looking at each other with an expression that basically said "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!" by the end. You can actually push their relationship to the breaking point which effectively ends the game on a particularly sour note.

So these are my questions:

A) Do you have this happen in games where playing the bad choices makes you feel like a jerk and...

B) What games have you played in which it was particularly painful to play the bad choices?

-Byshop

Byshop

In every example you use the word "jerk." And i think that's key to why so many of us that play these games (myself included) don't want to make the "evil" choices: they're often poorly written. I think it's an issue of what's more satisfying from a story standpoint rather than a moral one, and bad guy choices are rarely satisfying. You know, we signed up to play Keyser Soze and got Snidely Whiplash. If the choice is between being the hero and being a schoolyard bully, the choice is easy. But a well scripted villain, with sensible (though perhaps not agreeable) motivations could get a lot of us to at least sample the darkside.

It's a creativity issue, but it's also a logistics issue. To really script a satisfying bad guy, the path has to strongly diverge from the heroic playthrough, and that involes a lot of additional scripting and development that devs haven't really shown much willingness to take on at this point. But i think we would all enjoy playing the part of that sympathetic villain that makes a lot rather imperfect choices if at the end we could enjoy the satisfaction of leading him back into the light, so to speak. Or even just playing a through and through unlikeable guy if his actions made some kind of logical sense apart from "i'm a bad guy, i do bad things." Outside of watching the world burn with Stephen Heck in Alpha Protocol, the bad guy just isn't fun to play in games right now.

Well, games with good moral choices shouldnt have the choices be so black and white ...but instead,They should be gray and morally ambiguous along with reactions or consequences depending on Town's/NPC's/Faction's own ideas of what's right or wrong.

Unfortunately, alot of the mainstream games that are supposed to be choice driven usually end up as shallow "Be an angelic boy scout or a Mustache twirling Villain" black and white choices ....which you see in most Bioware and Bethesda games.

I hate it when no matter what you choose you still feel like a jerk.

wiouds

Aye, I often feel the same in real life.

As for player actions, I find that very few games actually impede orbroaden your ability to interact with NPCs based on prior character interaction. Character interaction, of course, is never limited to merely dialogue options. I guess I should add that this is only relevent if you're speaking of consequences, and not morality itself, which is absolute regardless of outcome.

Bioshock, especially bioshock 2, I just....just can't kill the little sisters. They are too innocent, and they help me gather adam.

Yoshi9000

What if fat, elderly men took the place of little sisters? Would you be so inclined to spare their lives?

I can be a total douche in Bethesda games/Mass Effect/The Witcher/etc.

I find it hard to be a douche in The Walking Dead, though, because I actually feel like a douche when I do it lol.

I'm in the same boat, I'm the kind of player that goes out of his way to save every little sister in Bioshock. When it comes to moral choices, I always end up playing the "White Knight" role as it was categorized in the "Gamer Types" series that GS posted not too long ago.SciFiCat

I could never harvest a little sister...

I did get mad at red dead yesterday so I killed everyone in the saloon and fought off the law enforcment.

I had never problems to do so, after all, it's just a game and it can add a whole new level of depht or fun to it to play as the villain / insanely evil.

For example, in my first Playthrough of Fallout 3 I played a "nice guy", second time I played with an "insane, taking no BS villain" mindset and shot EVERYONE who insulted my character the slightest or who stood in my way. Well, in this case, to put it in terms of Baldur's Gate, I played "Rightful Evil" ^^ That's usually the most fun to play anyways for me, and I have no problem to to so, because as already stated, it's just games.

Well the problem with morality in games is there's no shades of grey.

You're either a complete pantywaste or a raging jackhole.

In FO3 you either sacrifice your life to get water to the wasteland, or you nuke an innocent town for 500 caps.

Hero or Slaver, there's no in-between.

Same with Mass Effect series.

I find myself constantly shaking my head going "wtf kind of dumbass choices are these."

So naturally to avoid being a raging jackhole, I end up being the reluctant golden hero that doesn't really appeal to the badboy side.

There's a difference between an intelligent "evil" where you manipulate situations to your advantage vs killing everyone you meet for jollies.

There's a difference between lending a helping hand vs sacrificing your life.

In most games "evil" = stupid and "good" = chode.

In every example you use the word "jerk." And i think that's key to why so many of us that play these games (myself included) don't want to make the "evil" choices: they're often poorly written. I think it's an issue of what's more satisfying from a story standpoint rather than a moral one, and bad guy choices are rarely satisfying. You know, we signed up to play Keyser Soze and got Snidely Whiplash. If the choice is between being the hero and being a schoolyard bully, the choice is easy. But a well scripted villain, with sensible (though perhaps not agreeable) motivations could get a lot of us to at least sample the darkside.

It's a creativity issue, but it's also a logistics issue. To really script a satisfying bad guy, the path has to strongly diverge from the heroic playthrough, and that involes a lot of additional scripting and development that devs haven't really shown much willingness to take on at this point. But i think we would all enjoy playing the part of that sympathetic villain that makes a lot rather imperfect choices if at the end we could enjoy the satisfaction of leading him back into the light, so to speak. Or even just playing a through and through unlikeable guy if his actions made some kind of logical sense apart from "i'm a bad guy, i do bad things." Outside of watching the world burn with Stephen Heck in Alpha Protocol, the bad guy just isn't fun to play in games right now.

Ish_basic

Yeah, I phrased it that way intentionally so I could cover a wide variety of games that have "good" and "bad" choices. The choices are typically ludicrously polarizing with no subtlety in between. In many cases, the dialog behind the choices is even well written, but the negative choice gives you no incentive to pick it beyond just trying it to see what happens. Making Tyler act like a jerkwad towards Carla in Indigo Prophecy gains you literally nothing in the game, plus the dialog and voice acting were both natural enough that I really felt like I had just ruined this poor couple's relationship. :(

As for your point about a sympathetic villain, I know of one game that you might want to check out. Although it's a mostly linear game with only a few minor choice options throughout, I highly recommend Spec Ops: The Line. While as a shooter it's nothing particularly special, the story is amazing and filled with moral ambiguity. It's very hard to define throughout that game whether your character is really the good guy or the bad guy or something in between. I'm not going to spoil the plot, but one review I saw of the game called it possibly "the first true interactive drama" because in many ways it's not really very fun, but it is extremely compelling. Much in the same way that Full Metal Jacket or Requiem for a Dream are excellent movies, but do you know anyone who could honestly say that they had "fun" watching them?

Alpha Protocol, that you mentioned, is also worth considering since there's no binary good/bad in that game either. Just a lot of choices, some tougher than others. I also really liked the "influence" system you had with NPCs and that depending on the character or situation it was actually beneficial to get someone to hate you instead of like you. That game lacked polish in many ways, but much like Vampire Bloodlines (which was another extremely interesting but deeply flawed game) I really enjoyed it.

-Byshop

Haha I thought I was the only one witht with that issue.

I have had "evil" saves in fallout 3, infamous etc. but they were all forced. I have been playing Mass Effect 3 (first timeplaying any in the series) and I have been making decisions based off of how I would react in the situation which happens to be "good". Although morality between paragon and renegade are somewhat ambigous at times in this game I do try to be the good hero. Decisions in this game rely more heavily on what is being sacrificed rather than core good/evil differeneces but for a lack of a better word I try not to act like a "jerk".

I naturally play games as the virtuous hero with flaws but ultimately someone who is "good". Evil playthroughs are for funsies.

Actually I find it interesting how most people would agree that they play through the game as a paragon of light... I wonder how those people who enjoy playing evil-ly are in their everyday lives haha.

...Spec Ops: The Line... it's not really very fun, but it is extremely compelling.

Alpha Protocol, that you mentioned, is also worth considering since there's no binary good/bad in that game either. Just a lot of choices, some tougher than others. I also really liked the "influence" system you had with NPCs and that depending on the character or situation it was actually beneficial to get someone to hate you instead of like you. That game lacked polish in many ways, but much like Vampire Bloodlines (which was another extremely interesting but deeply flawed game) I really enjoyed it.

-Byshop

Spec Ops: the Line was one of the worse when it came to choice in a game. They set up one part of the game where there was no way to win without using this weapon and ten made it so you can not exit it until they wanted you to. Then the rub that force choice in your face as if you made it all on your own.

I like more practical choices.

Spec Ops: the Line was one of the worse when it came to choice in a game. They set up one part of the game where there was no way to win without using this weapon and ten made it so you can not exit it until they wanted you to. Then the rub that force choice in your face as if you made it all on your own.

I like more practical choices.

wiouds

[spoiler] the white phosphorus scene was a one shot deal. Are you telling me you saw that mass of people the first time and knew they were civvys? [/spoiler] El_Zo1212o

Spec Ops spoiler

[spoiler] I had a pretty good feeling they were, but only because I already knew in advance that something very bad happens at some point and I spent half the game "waiting for the other shoe to drop". I was also very pleasantly surprised to find out that this scene wasn't even the most surprising story twist. [/spoiler]

Yeah, Spec Ops wasn't that great in terms of choice since it's a mostly linear story with little branching. However, what it -did- do really well (besides the awesome story) was present the player with choices that weren't even obviously choices or where there might have been more options than the player realizes.

A good example was when:

[spoiler] Your squadmate is getting the living snot beat out of him near the end of the game by pissed off civilians. At first I tried for a peaceful solution until they started beating the crap out of me. At this point in the story I didn't feel it would be off if the main character plugged a few civilians to disperse the crowd, so I did. Later in review, the reviewer said he tried shooing over their heads and he was able to disperse the crowd without killing anyone. It didn't even occur to me that the developers would have made this a viable option. There are a few other points in this game that are like that. [/spoiler]

-Byshop

[QUOTE="wiouds"]

Spec Ops: the Line was one of the worse when it came to choice in a game. They set up one part of the game where there was no way to win without using this weapon and ten made it so you can not exit it until they wanted you to. Then the rub that force choice in your face as if you made it all on your own.

I like more practical choices.

El_Zo1212o

[spoiler] I knew nothing about the game going in. At that moment, I could not tell they were but I could not tell that they were soldiers so I choose to stop the attack and accept I may need to fight more soldiers but at least I know I would not be killing non-combative. The all buttons but the fire button stop working. I know I press them all twice. By walking through that area I was more jaded by the game that I did not care about what was happening. [/spoiler]

Fixed your spoiler tags for ya. They can be really picky, sometimes. -c_rake

Use spoiler tags if you're going to talk about what happens in the game.

Edit: Thanks for fixing that. The game is an absolute gem and everyone should get to enjoy the Apocalypse Now-like hell that is Spec Ops.

-Byshop

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"] [spoiler] the white phosphorus scene was a one shot deal. Are you telling me you saw that mass of people the first time and knew they were civvys? [/spoiler] Byshop

Spec Ops spoiler

[spoiler] I had a pretty good feeling they were, but only because I already knew in advance that something very bad happens at some point and I spent half the game "waiting for the other shoe to drop". I was also very pleasantly surprised to find out that this scene wasn't even the most surprising story twist. [/spoiler]

Yeah, Spec Ops wasn't that great in terms of choice since it's a mostly linear story with little branching. However, what it -did- do really well (besides the awesome story) was present the player with choices that weren't even obviously choices or where there might have been more options than the player realizes.

A good example was when:

[spoiler] Your squadmate is getting the living snot beat out of him near the end of the game by pissed off civilians. At first I tried for a peaceful solution until they started beating the crap out of me. At this point in the story I didn't feel it would be off if the main character plugged a few civilians to disperse the crowd, so I did. Later in review, the reviewer said he tried shooing over their heads and he was able to disperse the crowd without killing anyone. It didn't even occur to me that the developers would have made this a viable option. There are a few other points in this game that are like that. [/spoiler]

-Byshop

I might be alone on this, but does anyone else have a problem being mean in games where there is a moral choice system? I find that I have trouble in many of these games, depending on how the system is implemented.

For example, in a cartoonish game where Good versus Evil are binary choices and the good characters are paragons of light and virtue while the bad characters are Snidely Whiplash-type caricatures it's easy before it doesn't feel real. Fable, Infamous, and a few others I don't have a problem with because "bad" is depicted as the "hero" running around wholesale slaughtering nameless faces while growing evil horns or a general red glow. These are silly and cartoonish and, as a result, don't feel particularly connected to reality.

It's the games that are more dialog driven or have moral grey areas. Games where you don't have to necessarily be good or bad, but you can just act like a giant tool to everyone you meet or control other characters to do the same. Bioware games are a good example of this. In Jade Empire you can act like a humble yet skilled kung-fu fighter to all of your classmates and encourage them to improve their skills while simultaneously not lording your ability over them. Or, you can act like a cocky jerkwad and shove the fact that you're better than them in their faces literally every chance you get. I tried that latter and I felt like such an @ss by the time I got done with the first part I was compelled to restart, partially because the reactions from the other characters are pretty realistic in their basically deciding that the main character is a worthless piece of poo. It was kind of funny, but at the same time incredibly awkward and horrible as I made the main character ostracize every friend they had.

Indigo Prophect was another good example. When controller Tyler and Carla early on in the game, they get into an argument regarding some rough spot in their relationship. Controlling Tyler, you can choose conversational options to try to bring them back to common ground and mend their damaged relationship (which is what I did the first time) or you can act like a complete jerk towards her, eventually storming out of the apartment with nothing resolved and leaving Carla crying. A friend and I were playing and we intentionally tried to see how bad we could make it, but the decent voice acting and general cinematic feel of that left us looking at each other with an expression that basically said "THAT WAS HORRIBLE!!" by the end. You can actually push their relationship to the breaking point which effectively ends the game on a particularly sour note.

So these are my questions:

A) Do you have this happen in games where playing the bad choices makes you feel like a jerk and...

B) What games have you played in which it was particularly painful to play the bad choices?

-Byshop

Byshop

I find that the older I get the more I tend to go the evil route in moral choices. After a bad day of work maybe it just helps to cheat some old woman out of her money or to cut some old dudes throat. I found I was most evil in Neverwinter Nights.

I have the same issue. I can't help but be mister goody two-shoes all the time. Good or bad I'm still the guy with the gun so in the end it doesn't hinder me when I pick the good choice all the time.Darkmoone1

And this is how you played the Army of Darkness game? :)

-Byshop

I always wanted to be a badass Sith chick in KOTOR but I couldn't bring myself to be nasty to anyone so that didn't really work out.tempertress

Our female Jedi in KOTOR 1 was called Darth Cookie, which was a reference to The Bloodhound Gang's song Fire Water Burn ("I'm the root of all that's evil, yeah, but you can call me 'Cookie'"). Of course in the end Darth Cookie was the galaxy's most benevolent savior so it turned out to be an ironic moniker.

-Byshop

A) Do you have this happen in games where playing the bad choices makes you feel like a jerk and...

B) What games have you played in which it was particularly painful to play the bad choices?

-Byshop

Byshop

A) Yeah. It's usually not worth it being a dick in those games simply because you get better rewards for being the good guy. I mean, occasionally you might get an awesome weapon/skill/whatever for being bad, but in general terms, it pays off (literally) being the good guy. B) I guess I'd have to say RDR. From the start you're shown that Marston is trying to get his life back together and turn over a new leaf. So it really felt out of place going around and robbing or just killing people for fun. Especially in those missions where you're forced to help people. It just felt very strange playing a bad guy in that game.Kravyn81

First of all, thanks to everyone for the great replies. This has turned into an even more interesting discussion than I thought it would.

To your point, Kravyn81, yeah it would have felt out of place in RDR. What you said about the rewards, however, got me thinking. It's true that in many games the rewards for the good guy path are generally better. To be fair, the good guy path is also typically the harder path so it could be said that the greater reward is for the additional effort.

That being said, I just thought of -another- game that I hadn't really considered in this discussion but is actually a great example of choice and consequence. I know when someone brings up the topic of moral choice we think of good/evil action games like Infamous, RPGs or action games with RPG elements like Fallout or Deus Ex, open world sandbox games like GTA or Sleeping Dogs, or finally the branching path cinematic games like Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain. All of these games have heavy story elements in common.

I just realized from Kravyn81's point that Dark Souls is actually a great example, even though it's pretty light on story. Some people might argue with me on that point but I'll say that Dark Souls has a rich -lore-, but that's not the same as story since, over the course of the actual game, very little happens beyond the direct actions taken by your character.

Where Dark Souls actually does a good job on the choice is through it's gameplay rather than through story branches or dialog trees. There are certain covenants and items in the game (really cool ones, too) that can only be joined or obtained through NPC murder. The Dark Wood Grain ring, which is the ring that allows your character to do flips and cartwheels instead of the standard slower dodge move, can only be obtained by joining the Forest Hunter Covenant and then murdering one of its members. Besides that fact that you have to commit a murder, you also in turn have to betray the covenant because you -have- to be a member in order for the character to appear. NPC death is permanent in this game and you only have a single save slot that is constantly autosaved with virtually every action you take.

In Dark Souls, commiting evil acts makes it easier for other players to invade your game and try to kill you. Even if you are playing offline, there are a few NPC "invaders" who will try to gank you. The only problem is this is offset by the fact that you can buy your way out of sin with enough currency, but it's still pretty interesting. Absolution doesn't revive anyone you killed, but it makes the covenant non-hostile towards you and lets you rejoin if you like (at half your previous covenant ranking).

That ring is one of the first things players get if they plan on playing PvP. Also, there's an evil covenant that allows you to invade anyone's world (not just sinners) but you can only join -that- one through murder, as far as I know. You need access to this one area that an NPC has the key for. He'll give it to you if you make sufficient progress in the main objectives and ask him. If you haven't made that progress, you can just kill him and take it which will get you access to the area early and gives you the ability to join the evil covenant.

-Byshop

As for your point about a sympathetic villain, I know of one game that you might want to check out. Although it's a mostly linear game with only a few minor choice options throughout, I highly recommend Spec Ops: The Line. While as a shooter it's nothing particularly special, the story is amazing and filled with moral ambiguity. It's very hard to define throughout that game whether your character is really the good guy or the bad guy or something in between. I'm not going to spoil the plot, but one review I saw of the game called it possibly "the first true interactive drama" because in many ways it's not really very fun, but it is extremely compelling. Much in the same way that Full Metal Jacket or Requiem for a Dream are excellent movies, but do you know anyone who could honestly say that they had "fun" watching them?

Alpha Protocol, that you mentioned, is also worth considering since there's no binary good/bad in that game either. Just a lot of choices, some tougher than others. I also really liked the "influence" system you had with NPCs and that depending on the character or situation it was actually beneficial to get someone to hate you instead of like you. That game lacked polish in many ways, but much like Vampire Bloodlines (which was another extremely interesting but deeply flawed game) I really enjoyed it.

-Byshop

Byshop

yeah, i played Spec Ops, and it is a good example of presenting the player with reasonable choices. Now, if you knew the consequences before making the choice, they wouldn't seem so reasonable, but the game does a good job of recreating the fog of war so that you have to make split second choices with very little knowledge of what you're diving into...and then you have to live with them. It wouldn't work in every story, but for a soldier's story it works very well and Spec Ops is a pretty captivating game for it. It also suggests that we are not always in control of what we become, which sort of spits in the face games like ME which suggest being the hero is as simple as selecting the blue text. It'll probably go overlooked by some because it isn't the most memorable shooter, though it is solid, and that's a shame because someone making a game like a Mass Effect could find a lot of inspiration here.

As for AP, one of the things I most remember was the concept of playing a character that's pretending to be something that he's not, which is kind of sophisticated...like role-playing within role-playing. So maybe i'm playing as the dedicated professional, but when certain people are in the room I put up a front that I know will get me somewhere with that character later down the road. The most obvious example is when a certain character, fed up with all your antics over the course of the game, decides to stand and fight instead of running away.

[QUOTE="tempertress"]I always wanted to be a badass Sith chick in KOTOR but I couldn't bring myself to be nasty to anyone so that didn't really work out.Byshop

Our female Jedi in KOTOR 1 was called Darth Cookie, which was a reference to The Bloodhound Gang's song Fire Water Burn ("I'm the root of all that's evil, yeah, but you can call me 'Cookie'"). Of course in the end Darth Cookie was the galaxy's most benevolent savior so it turned out to be an ironic moniker.

-Byshop

I always feel like being a bad guy in games, but for some odd reason some games I never can do it. Bioshock and Infamous being two that come to my mind. Bioshock in particular.

It's just a game. It doesn't bother me.

I play Grand Theft Auto and it doesn't change anything about me in real life.