Now last part I said that games with Good/Evil choices rarely have a good motive for the main character to do the evil actions.
So that's where I'll start today. Motives.
Most actions are not good or evil. It's not the what, it's the why that makes a person evil.
Of course, games don't think about the why.
You are given points based on what you do, not why. For example, in Knights of the Old Republic, you gain light-side points for saving a sith from killing themselves, they then side with you.
However, my evil character saved her for the sole purpose of using her later.
And of course, the game didn't know what I meant to do with her, and just assumed that it was a good action.
Or what about Fable I? It gives you good points for killing bandits or undead, but why? I'm being attacked by them, I'm not killing them to free the souls of the dead, I'm not killing the bandits to stop crime, I'm killing them so they'll stop killing me!
Though probably the worst kind of good/evil choice system, in my opinion, is when there is one pivotal choice near the end.
This pivotal choice being something like "Destroy the world" or "Don't destroy the world"
It's ridiculous. Why? Because everything that the player has done, heroic or evil, until now is cancelled out by one action. I can understand forgiving someone after they repent and start doing good actions, but I don't understand forgiving the mass murderer evil psychopath because he saved a few hundred people compared to the thousands he's already slaughtered.
At the very least they'd still be cautious about him instead of just worshipping him as a hero.
And as one Mr Croshaw pointed out, being Evil isn't fun if the game expects you to be evil.
The entire point of being evil is breaking the rules. If the rules tell us to be evil, there's no winning. There's no evil. The only reason anyone wants to be evil in a videogame is because they want to screw everything over. It's the reason Trolling exists, the reason Griefing exists. People like breaking rules.
If you want to be evil in a videogame, don't play Fable, don't play InFamous, don't play Knights of the Old Republic...
Play Sims. Watch them burn. Slowly. Perhaps starving or drowning might be more entertaining. Then see if you can kill Death itself when it arrives.
Play Halo. Kill all of the other soldiers. Who cares if they might be useful later? You don't need them. You're evil.
Play any game where you are expected to be good and do the complete opposite. It is much more satisfying than being evil in a game that expects you to be evil.
Wednesday 12 August 2009
Tuesday 11 August 2009
Evil Review: Choices Part 1
Hello.
I'm Evil.
The subject today is choices.
Choices are becoming much more common in videogames. Choices between good and...
...I thought it would be fitting for my first review.
But to be entirely honest, I dislike games that offer the choice between good and evil.
Why? Because there is never any motive.
Why did you kill those 500 villagers in Oakvale? Why did you walk away instead of disarming that bomb? Why did you steal that hat, it's not like you're going to use it?
For the evil points, of course.
Even worse, it is such a distraction from the real story that it annoys me that they offered some choices at all. For example, in any game with choices, the main character will have absolutely no character development. They'll be an evil bastard from the start, and they'll never change.
It's entirely possible to create character development by changing your characters alignment based on the actions in the game, but when the player has to add content to the story himself, the game has failed.
Though I would personally find it interesting to explore the consequences of a measurable force of good and evil existing in a universe, especially if there were powers linked with the forces. Imagine a universe where hundreds of people die every day just to provide "Evil points" to the evil characters.
But moving away from that, most games don't understand evil properly. Fable, for example, gives you evil points for killing people and good points for helping people, fair enough, but it never gives you the chance to be cruel.
Cruel is not killing people. Cruel is watching them squirm, then killing their children and force feeding them the remains. Cruel is the evil that all of us fear and love to be.
Instead, games just provide us with a choice between pacifism and killing everyone in sight. It's not evil, it's just violent.
Knights of the Old Republic II managed to avoid this. The Dark-side Light-side meter only goes up and down, but there are actually three branches. Light-side, Dark-side, and what I like to call the "Palpatine" meter.
Characters react slightly differently whether you are on the violent version of evil or the Palpatine version. The violent serving as the normal videogame evil choice, "Kill this guy because he's pissing you off" but the Palpatine evil is much more cruel. It doesn't involve killing people meaninglessly, it involves manipulating them from the shadows without them even realizing it. Siding with both sides of a conflict, then killing the victor before they realize that this battle was yours from the beginning.
One of the reasons I love that game.
Before I end this short review, nobody ask for my opinion on Mass Effect's choice system. It is not good or evil, it is Optimistic or Cynical.
You may have noticed the "Part 1" in the title. I will be doing a part 2 tommorow. For now, goodnight.
I'm Evil.
The subject today is choices.
Choices are becoming much more common in videogames. Choices between good and...
...I thought it would be fitting for my first review.
But to be entirely honest, I dislike games that offer the choice between good and evil.
Why? Because there is never any motive.
Why did you kill those 500 villagers in Oakvale? Why did you walk away instead of disarming that bomb? Why did you steal that hat, it's not like you're going to use it?
For the evil points, of course.
Even worse, it is such a distraction from the real story that it annoys me that they offered some choices at all. For example, in any game with choices, the main character will have absolutely no character development. They'll be an evil bastard from the start, and they'll never change.
It's entirely possible to create character development by changing your characters alignment based on the actions in the game, but when the player has to add content to the story himself, the game has failed.
Though I would personally find it interesting to explore the consequences of a measurable force of good and evil existing in a universe, especially if there were powers linked with the forces. Imagine a universe where hundreds of people die every day just to provide "Evil points" to the evil characters.
But moving away from that, most games don't understand evil properly. Fable, for example, gives you evil points for killing people and good points for helping people, fair enough, but it never gives you the chance to be cruel.
Cruel is not killing people. Cruel is watching them squirm, then killing their children and force feeding them the remains. Cruel is the evil that all of us fear and love to be.
Instead, games just provide us with a choice between pacifism and killing everyone in sight. It's not evil, it's just violent.
Knights of the Old Republic II managed to avoid this. The Dark-side Light-side meter only goes up and down, but there are actually three branches. Light-side, Dark-side, and what I like to call the "Palpatine" meter.
Characters react slightly differently whether you are on the violent version of evil or the Palpatine version. The violent serving as the normal videogame evil choice, "Kill this guy because he's pissing you off" but the Palpatine evil is much more cruel. It doesn't involve killing people meaninglessly, it involves manipulating them from the shadows without them even realizing it. Siding with both sides of a conflict, then killing the victor before they realize that this battle was yours from the beginning.
One of the reasons I love that game.
Before I end this short review, nobody ask for my opinion on Mass Effect's choice system. It is not good or evil, it is Optimistic or Cynical.
You may have noticed the "Part 1" in the title. I will be doing a part 2 tommorow. For now, goodnight.
Welcome
Hello.
I'm Evil.
On this page, I review media. Mostly Videogames and Movies, but I'm open to requests.
However, I don't focus on the action, or the story, no, I focus on the characters. A specific kind of characters. The Evil ones.
I review them based on their motives, their powers, how the effect the story, what they actually do and whether or not they can be called Evil at all.
I ask that any visitors to this page spread it around to their friends, enemies, aquantances, whatever.
If not, said friends might have a little accident.
Welcome to the site.
I hope you enjoy it.
I'm Evil.
On this page, I review media. Mostly Videogames and Movies, but I'm open to requests.
However, I don't focus on the action, or the story, no, I focus on the characters. A specific kind of characters. The Evil ones.
I review them based on their motives, their powers, how the effect the story, what they actually do and whether or not they can be called Evil at all.
I ask that any visitors to this page spread it around to their friends, enemies, aquantances, whatever.
If not, said friends might have a little accident.
Welcome to the site.
I hope you enjoy it.
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