Playing the Villain?

[Philonious]

Are there any games out there where we get to play the villain? Overlord is really the only one I can think of, even when 'good' you are acting selfishly and being at least semi-evil.

Over in the 'Death of the JRPG' thread people have been talking about freedom in Western RPGs. I'm a fan, but would argue that this is mostly window dressing and really has very little influence of how the game plays out in the end. You still save the world, you're just being a jerk while you do it... I want to know when we get to be the bad guy, and why we don't get to do it more often?

[Superman's Dead]

Dungeon Keeper 2 is my favorite game in this regard.

You can also be pretty evil successfully in Black and White?

[Tron]

Starcraft?

Assuming that the humans are the good guys you get to play as the Protoss and the Zerg too.

[LarsenNET]

If I remember correctly you don't have to "save the world" in Fallout 3.

[Hyperglide]

Perhaps you might've heard of this game:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Hyperglide/koopaslw1.jpg

I can think of some RTS' where you play as the 'bad guys,' but no action adventure game where you specifically play the bad guy.

[Tron]

Splatterhouse?

[Hyperglide]

Aliens vs Predator?? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_versus_Predator_(computer_game))

[Jboy001]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_(video_game)

This was a good one if you can find it, fun to set traps for the people that show up at your castle :)

[Philonious]

If I remember correctly you don't have to "save the world" in Fallout 3.

True but you do have to take out...

The Enclave regardless.

And certainly don't have a master plan of your own. Dungeon Keeper is a good call, but is pretty old.

[Wedge]

In Fallout 3 I just told a kid... ...his parents were getting a divorce because of him. Few minutes later I finally found my dad who told me he was disappointed in me because I blew up a city with a nuke. I told him to fuck off.

But yes, I see your point. Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 would fit the bill methinks.

[Food Nipple]

Evil Genius

[KamaItachi]

Rampage

Crackdown?

[Gerbs]

These western RPGs allow you to play as an ass, but at the end of the day you're still out to save the galaxy etc for the most part. Would be nice to see a western RPG where there is no choice but to play the villain. You murder and thwart and betray your way to the goal, which should be a truly evil goal. Instead of saving the world let's enslave it and use the new peons to construct an obelisk to power my inter dimensional gate so I can plunder other worlds.

[Superman's Dead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception_(video_game)

This was a good one if you can find it, fun to set traps for the people that show up at your castle :)

Oooooh, that looks really good.

[Blue]

Manhunt? I only played bits of the first, so I could be wrong in that. Also, a lot of people toss around the term "antihero" but the silent dude from GTA 3 wasn't all that wonderful nor was Tommy Vercetti.

[BlackPete]

I can think of a certain XLBA game that even by naming it in this thread would be a spoiler.

And yeah... you can play an evil character in Fallout 3. You can be somewhat evil in Mass Effect, although that one is probably more like an asshole character than a truly evil one.

[Superman's Dead]

And yeah... you can play an evil character in Fallout 3. You can be somewhat evil in Mass Effect, although that one is probably more like an asshole character than a truly evil one.

That's my favorite distinction about Mass Effect. No matter how much of a dick you might be playing, the character always wants to save the world. You get to give Shepherd his/her justification, as well as to what means Shepherd would go.

Really cool from a Role-playing perspective.

[Food Nipple]

I can think of a certain XLBA game that even by naming it in this thread would be a spoiler.

I was thinking about that one too, but didn't want to post it for spoiler purposes. :)

[Grifter]

Dark Messiah: Might and Magic

[alienmastermind]

City of Villains specifically lets you play a villainous character. In the most archetypal way. Bases, henchmen, etc. The whole shebangabang.

Most games that let you be 'evil', it's just a normal person being a selfish dick. None of the villainous people in games are ever bent on domination, or siding with the oppressor. Though, the old ass Bounty Hunter game for the XBox was close to this. Galaxies lets you play as part of the Empire, as well...or did at one point. I have no clue WTF is going on there now.

You could be fairly villainous in Jade Empire AND in KotOR II, in a classic villain way. Not just a jerk.

It's hard to play the villain in games, and Overlord was AWESOME in that regard...it was like a comedic version of Sauron. Great stuff (if a little annoying to control the wee minions).

[Orca]

Gears of War 1 and 2

It's THEIR planet you heartless bastards!

[Ludoc]

Off the top of my head:

There was an XBLA game where you controlled the weather and destroyed stuff while the government tried to stop you.

Kane and Lynch, maybe? I haven't played it but don't you play as bank robbers and shoot cops?

In Fable 2 it's more than window dressing you can really mess with people's lives.

Bioshock, especially if you harvest the little sisters.

[menage]

Fable 2 indeed.

1st game which actually allowed me to wipe out a whole village. And get away with it with some community service:D

[Narradisall]

Fable 2 indeed.

1st game which actually allowed me to wipe out a whole village. And get away with it with some community service:D

lol, I love how that plays out.

I broke into a families home (shot the front door out), stole everything that wasn't nailed down, then murdered the whole family and bought the home at a steal!

That community service really showed me!

[Philonious]

I don't think it counts if you don't realize that you are the villain for the majority of the game. Legacy of Kain had this problem, sure you play as a vampire, but I didn't realize that I would become the Dark Overlord. Manhunt also shouldn't apply since, as far as I know, you are in a kill or be killed environment, and really don't have much choice in the matter. GTA/Saints Row give you the opportunity to be bad, but you're usually offing other criminals, so you don't really question your actions very often. Your actions in Fable 2 do influence the world of Albion, and I need to go back and play as evil, but the endgame is always the same no matter the path you take. (I also don't think that the cooker cutter resident don't really evoke much sympathy.)

I'm not sure what XBLA game keeps getting referred too, but I'll be disappointed if it is the one I'm thinking about. Also, people are still stuck with the idea of being 'A' villain, whereas I'm asking about playing 'THE' villain. I want to off heroes, I want morally unambigious situations that make me question my actions. I want to kill Aeris.

[Telefrog]

Evil Genius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Genius_(video_game))

You play the aptly named "evil genius" in charge of a 1960's retro-themed evil organization bent on conquering the world with James Bond ripoff spies occasionally invading your base. It's a lot like Dungeon Keeper, but with spies, henchmen, and lasers.

[National Kato]

Basically any GTA game, Far Cry 2, Bioshock...I mean, I guess the term 'bad guy' is relative. A lot of games have you playing a protagonist of questionable morals.

[menage]

lol, I love how that plays out.

I broke into a families home (shot the front door out), stole everything that wasn't nailed down, then murdered the whole family and bought the home at a steal!

That community service really showed me!

Haha, yeah, I was actually knocking on the door first, yelling some obscene shit, than kicking in the door guns blazing. It really let's you get into character.

[Food Nipple]

Also, people are still stuck with the idea of being 'A' villain, whereas I'm asking about playing 'THE' villain. I want to off heroes, I want morally unambigious situations that make me question my actions. I want to kill Aeris.

You're right, anti-heroes or games that give you a choice between good and evil don't count. I think I would add Indigo Prophecy to the list though, as in the first half of the game you play as both the protagonist and the police officers hunting him down.

[Narradisall]

I think I would like a game where the whole world is full of wonderful nice people, heroes and great empires of good...... and its your job to tear it all down via any means.

[jpublic]

Wizardy 4, baby. Also the hardest game EVER.

[Ghost Rider]

Why would you want a game where you are destined to lose? Good always conquers evil!

[Mortis]

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the Atari. You just went around sawing girls, the more you killed the higher your score.

[Xydarc]

The Command and Conquer series lets you play as the "bad guy" Brotherhood of Nod.

[MagGnome]

Evil Genius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Genius_(video_game))

You play the aptly named "evil genius" in charge of a 1960's retro-themed evil organization bent on conquering the world with James Bond ripoff spies occasionally invading your base. It's a lot like Dungeon Keeper, but with spies, henchmen, and lasers.

It's almost EXACTLY like Dungeon Keeper, to the point of feeling like a total ripoff. It's still a great game though.

Master of the Monster Lair - You lure cute monsters to your dungeon with a warm place to sleep and a bucket of slop to eat, and then you mercilessly slaughter them and eat their entrails. All while being super cute. :p

Obviously games like Age of Wonders, Civilization, and Alpha Centauri allow you to be "evil"/the bad guy.

[MagGnome]

I think I would like a game where the whole world is full of wonderful nice people, heroes and great empires of good...... and its your job to tear it all down via any means.

The Grimm's Fairy Tale games on Gametap had this exact premise, although they were very simplistic gameplay-wise.

[KamaItachi]

You're right, anti-heroes or games that give you a choice between good and evil don't count. I think I would add Indigo Prophecy to the list though, as in the first half of the game you play as both the protagonist and the police officers hunting him down.

Problem with IP is that you really aren't playing the villain either, it's obvious from the start that outside forces are the ones which caused the protagonist to kill.

[KingGorilla]

If you mean villain in the sense of antagonist, I really cannot think of one. If you mean one where you take up as a traditional "evil" character, there are quite a few that come to mind.

Half-Life Opposing Forces, probably closest to being the antagonist.
Command and Conquer as well as Red Alert feature campaigns from both sides, all three sides.
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor feature Axis and Allied campaigns.
Left 4 Dead, Zombies of course.
Warhammer Online certainly lets you act as the bad guys in a major war. Dark Orcs are assholes.
Lord of the Rings Online lets players take control of NPC villains, elite mobs even, to fight against questing players.

[Narradisall]

The Grimm's Fairy Tale games on Gametap had this exact premise, although they were very simplistic gameplay-wise.


That sounds fun. Might check it out.

I did enjoy Dungeon Keeper and Overlord lots.

[Wellscha]

I think I would like a game where the whole world is full of wonderful nice people, heroes and great empires of good...... and its your job to tear it all down via any means.

This idea needs to be plagiarized. Now!

[Hyperglide]

It's almost EXACTLY like Dungeon Keeper, to the point of feeling like a total ripoff. It's still a great game though.

Master of the Monster Lair - You lure cute monsters to your dungeon with a warm place to sleep and a bucket of slop to eat, and then you mercilessly slaughter them and eat their entrails. All while being super cute. :p

Obviously games like Age of Wonders, Civilization, and Alpha Centauri allow you to be "evil"/the bad guy.

I never understood why you could play as Mao or Stalin in Civilization, but not Hitler. I mean the former are just as tyrannical communist dictators as the latter, that led to millions of their own being killed for their own selfish ends. Talk about a double standard.

Oh btw i'm not advocating or condoning Hitler be in it. What i'm saying is if they keep him out then they should keep all other Despots out as well. I guess that would make the game to boring..

[Narradisall]

I never understood why you could play as Mao or Stalin in Civilization, but not Hitler. I mean the former are just as tyrannical communist dictators as the latter, that led to millions of their own being killed for their own selfish ends. Talk about a double standard.

Oh btw i'm not advocating or condoning Hitler be in it. What i'm saying is if they keep him out then they should keep all other Despots out as well. I guess that would make the game to boring..

What would his stats be?

+1 to Insanity
-90% to Jewish population growth?

[headhunter228]

I never understood why you could play as Mao or Stalin in Civilization, but not Hitler. I mean the former are just as tyrannical communist dictators as the latter, that led to millions of their own being killed for their own selfish ends. Talk about a double standard.

Oh btw i'm not advocating or condoning Hitler be in it. What i'm saying is if they keep him out then they should keep all other Despots out as well. I guess that would make the game to boring..

Hitler was evil, no doubt. Stalin was evil AND paranoid. He ruthlessly had 20 million people murdered, most of them on a whim. In fact, whenever Stalin entered a room, everyone stood up and started clapping. Stalin had to ring a bell in order to get them to stop, because he was paranoid to the point where he would think the first person to stop clapping was out to get him. He would then greet that person with open firearms. I'm sure Hitler has his own special place in Hell, but I'm also sure Satan had to open up an entire new wing for Stalin.

Anyway, this might have been mentioned in the thread already (I didn't bother to read every post) but don't you play the villian in Destroy All Humans?

[Hyperglide]

What would his stats be?

+1 to Insanity
-90% to Jewish population growth?


You forgot the "Gypsys, Blacks, and Handicapped" or basically anyone that's not of Arian descent. :|

How about this for an ability.

"Suicide note" it would read like, 'if you are about to be conquered you can forfeit the game..'

Unique Building - (uhm.. not going there)

Unique Unit - Luftwaffe (they get +1 to getting owned by Spitfires)

[KingGorilla]

Why there was no Hitler in Civ-Germany buys a lot of straregy games. You have to be very careful about Nazis in Germany. The Swastica is illegal to portray, etc.

[jpublic]

Why there was no Hitler in Civ-Germany buys a lot of straregy games. You have to be very careful about Nazis in Germany. The Swastica is illegal to portray, etc.

My personal favorite aspect of this is how the band KISS has to change their logo for sales in Germany, because the way they write their S's looks a lot like how the 'SS' logo was done in WW2.

In the Might and Magic 6+ games, you could choose an evil path, but I don't think that changed the story much.

[Xerxes]

Tetris.

Can't you kill everyone walking in Morrowind?

[bean]

On topic:

Super Columbine Massacre RPG (http://www.columbinegame.com/)
Vampire: The Masquerade : Bloodlines - You could choose to play your vampire as a righteous bastard or not. This includes choosing to be a selfish prick at the end of the game, a mindless follower, a rebel, etc. It's a very well made game.
Evil Genius - I know someone else mentioned it, but this game is awesome and never got enough attention. Oddly, I think if it released TODAY, it would do really well. The rights holders should try to get it on Steam.
Bully - You can be a real jerk if you want to be one, but it is extremely difficult. Do anything that is really hateful like bullying little kids or girls and the prefects will suddenly be alerted by ESP and come after you with a full threat meter. As a side effect, you get really good at dodging prefects though. . . one pitiful little kid got stuffed in lockers and trash cans all the time by my young hellion. Then I'd use the friendly emote. . . I wanted to make the AI schizophrenic in how the kid remembered me, but it seemed to lean one way or the other absolutely based on how I last treated him.

You guys have mentioned all the others that I could think of.

City of Villains specifically lets you play a villainous character. In the most archetypal way. Bases, henchmen, etc. The whole shebangabang.
You can be a "villain", but you won't feel like it most of the time. 90% of the enemies you fight are not heroes but are instead the same villains you fight as a hero, and you only get to rob banks after you've done around 5 newspaper missions.

The change in CoX that would make me happiest is if they started hero vs. villain missions. You sign up for one at a contact and this puts you in a queue vs. the opossing side. Then, based on the mission, you attempt to achieve a goal. Maybe this means assisting minions in their fight to take over a base, or it means guarding (or taking) some token (precious jewels, a secret formula, a hyperdimensional bedazzler, etc.) The point is that it would be more involved and interesting than simple deathmatch, and it would simulate a comic book. Ideally, they would make these work against AI enemies too, so that players aren't forced to PvP to enjoy them and players are auto-joined against AI if a PvP player match cannot be found or a player loses connection mid-round.

Fighting waves of enemies in big groups is probably the best feature in the game right now, and I think most people would still do that because it is the best xp gain, but I have a level 50 hero and a level 50 villain, so the only reason for me to continue playing is if I'm having fun. . . and I'm not. I loved playing it and have gotten a good 16 months (or so) of fun out of it, but they haven't changed the basic gameplay formula since the game launched (except for the enhancement nerfs and inventions, but the nerfs hurt specialty classes and helped hybrids, and the inventions (while fun) are ultimately useless if you have no reason to be playing after reaching max level. . . it would be like gearing up in WoW if there was no PvP (hmm. . . okay, well I guess it is still worth something to people who aren't bored with the PvE already).

[bean]

What would his stats be?

+1 to Insanity
-90% to Jewish population growth?

What's would be worse than this is if they tried to create gameplay mechanics for totalitarian genocidal regimes. What would the disadvantages and advantages be of murdering selected millions of your population?

[Narradisall]

What's would be worse than this is if they tried to create gameplay mechanics for totalitarian genocidal regimes. What would the disadvantages and advantages be of murdering selected millions of your population?

I love Civ.

Is it bad I'm now wondering what it would be like? I think you could have some very interesting gameplay mechanics around running a civ in such a way.

Completely evil and wrong mechanics, but it would be interesting to see them pulled off.

I'm sure there are other games I've played that allow you to kill some of your population for short term performance boosts etc, I just think protraying it via Hitler would likely cause one hell of a backlash no developer wants to touch.

Look what happened with Res 5. I swear they added the African character just to avoid the racism angle.

[ShivaX]

What's would be worse than this is if they tried to create gameplay mechanics for totalitarian genocidal regimes. What would the disadvantages and advantages be of murdering selected millions of your population?

You're forgetting Civ3, which pretty much did that when you selected Fascism as a government type (think all your cities lost 1 or 2 population iirc).

http://www.strategyplanet.com/allsid/civilization%203/gov.asp for the benefits.

If I remember right your tech sucked and your upkeep was fairly high, but otherwise it was great for fighting wars since you produced units really fast.

[bean]

ShivaX - If they lost population, it was due to the Anarchy turns and not due to coded genocide.

[Illuminus]

I think i felt the most "evil" in Fallout 3. I mean, i blew up an atomic bomb to get a nice cosy suite :(.

[Ink Asylum]

Thinking about Fallout 3's evil route makes me wonder: What's the evillest action possible in any video game you can remember?

The Fallout series has a lot of them. Blowing up Megaton being one of the worst, but you can also be evil in some really personal ways, like selling your party members into slavery in Fallout 2.

[bean]

What's the evillest action possible in any video game you can remember?
As far as the maximum total evil done, I think the mass-killing of kids in Super Columbine Massacre RPG or the hundreds of police officers and civilians murdered in a Saint's Row 2 random killing spree. I guess Kain in Legacy of Kain probably clenches it by plummeting the world into darkness and relegating humans to the status of cattle.

For the sickest singular act of evil that can be achieved with a playable character, I think taking your spouse to be sacrificed at the Temple of Evil in Fable 2 is a biggie. . . Oh, I know a worse one. The worst I can remember is killing off little kids (to make ghosts) in The Sims. Drowning them in the pool, trapping them in rooms that have no doors until they starve, or placing obstructions so they can't get off exercise machines and continue using them until they die. . . all pretty freaking evil.

[Ink Asylum]

I assume you're talking about The Sims games with that last one, unless there is another game where you can kill kids that way.

Racking up huge body counts in games like GTA and Saint's Row is certainly evil, but kind of standard when it comes to video games. Although I do recall one mission in GTA II where you hijacked a bus, picked up a dozen or so random civilians, then brought them to a hot dog factory...

[Wellscha]

On topic:

Super Columbine Massacre RPG (http://www.columbinegame.com/)


That was....disturbing :(

[Xerxes]

Thinking about Fallout 3's evil route makes me wonder: What's the evillest action possible in any video game you can remember?

Kain sucking the blood from poor defenseless humans after a while got to me, in an understandable way. Shit, vampires got to live.

[VerseD]

You play the bad guy in JFK Reloaded (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_Reloaded)... Or do you?