[ssmit132]

(I'm not sure if this belongs here or in Gaming Discussion, since it's more a psychological issue I'm talking about.)

Earlier today I was playing an adventure on Adrift where my character was stuck in a cabin of a passenger spaceship, where I had a porthole that my character had broken that showed the turbine that powered the ship. I was stuck so I just decided to have my character start throwing everything out of the porthole, which then went out through a hole in the turbine into space. This included the (admittedly unhelpful and irritating) robot assistant that was in the room. I didn't expect to actually be able to throw it out, since when you tried to 'get' it you were not able to grab him. The adventure said how the little guy actually tried to grab hold of something and screamed as it flew out - this made me feel rather cruel (its description of having a 'bow tie and a smile' didn't help). I felt like I deserved the badge that appeared saying 'I am a b***ard'.

My point is, I was just wondering if any of you sometimes feel bad when you do something that can be perceived as cruel in a video game, or am I just being silly? Usually when I play I avoid doing stuff that's just being 'evil'. That's why I don't really like games like GTA. FPS like Quake and stuff though, I'm fine with.

[Jeff Vader]

Some times. When I was playing Jedi Academy as an evil person, I did feel bad about striking Rosh down, even though he was as annoying and useless as Jar-Jar Binks.

[blackhole]

 

That's absolutely hilarious.

The only time I tried to be evil was when I wanted to try getting the sith path in KOTOR 2, and I actually found it difficult to do all of the evil things necessary, even though it was only a game. Some people, however, enjoy the freedom of breaking rules and doing bad things. Games have a tendency to invoke your moral compass, because the entire point of a good game is that it is immersive and creates a believable world.

[Mars]

Bioshock anyone?

[NGTM-1R]

I tend to do what the game usually acknowledges as "the right thing" but frequently find that if there's a more blunt method of doing what's morally correct, that becomes preferable.

After all, there's no fun in being a yes-man. The end result is that in, say, KotoR I end up with a maxed-out lightside gauge, but I end up getting it late because I took on Bendak on Taris, or that in Mass Effect there's a full paragon and an eighth to a quarter renegade at the end.

[Sushi]

Some times. When I was playing Jedi Academy as an evil person, I did feel bad about striking Rosh down, even though he was as annoying and useless as Jar-Jar Binks.

Most disappointing alternate ending ever. Darkside ending of JA sucked.

Regarding the OT... I have a hard time playing as an evil dude. I still haven't seen the darkside ending of KOTOR or KOTOR2, despite making an attempt at both.

[Flipside]

Bioshock anyone?

My thoughts exactly, I could never bring myself to harvest, I always saved the little girls.

[Pred the Penguin]

KotORII....

The only way I could bring myself to play go dark was for the late game abilities. =/

[Jeff Vader]

Some times. When I was playing Jedi Academy as an evil person, I did feel bad about striking Rosh down, even though he was as annoying and useless as Jar-Jar Binks.

Most disappointing alternate ending ever. Darkside ending of JA sucked.

The storyline of the entire game smelled like feces. And not just monkey feces. Gameplay was quite good, but the story... urgh. At least in Jedi Outcast the story had a dash of sense in it.

[karajorma]

An incident in the original Wing Commander comes to mind. I was flying with Bossman and we'd finally whittled the Kilrathi forces down to the last two Dralthi. I managed to take out one of them and turned to see the the remaining one was directly below me with all its shields down and Bossman nowhere to be seen. I quickly switched to full guns and pumped out a stream of fire directly at it, only to watch the ship blow up before any of them could hit it. My fire then flew through the Kilrathi debris straight into the front of Bossman's fighter, killing him.

During the following funeral scene all I could think about was how the manual had mentioned him having a wife and young daughter.

Even though that was actually the last mission I got to fly with Bossman I had to replay it cause I couldn't leave the guy dead due to an unlucky fluke like that.

[Rodo]

Bioshock anyone?

My thoughts exactly, I could never bring myself to harvest, I always saved the little girls.

over here too... I did harvest.. once , after that I think I always saved them.

also happened in GTA.. I could not beat to death Innocent people, It just felt bad.

and also in DK & DK2 I just could not torture my creatures to death... I knew I could do that but I never did... my brother on the other side he loved to do that from time to time with useless creatures like the firefly... I didn't I just threw them into the portal again jeje.

[achtung]

I've always had a bad tendency to do whatever I can to keep AI teammates alive.  Even in Freespace, I catch myself ordering my wingmates to depart when it becomes obvious they're done for if they stay any longer.

[Sushi]

I've always had a bad tendency to do whatever I can to keep AI teammates alive.  Even in Freespace, I catch myself ordering my wingmates to depart when it becomes obvious they're done for if they stay any longer.

"Get out of there Wedge, there's nothing more you can do back there..."

Dangit, FotG, I demand a trench run!

[StarSlayer]

I tend to follow the good path, though games make a nasty habit of presenting moral choices that are akin to being either 1) Jesus/Bono 2) The Devil is Loser and he's my *****.  I think it would be much more interesting to give the player more Machiavellian options or at least making the consequences less obvious.  Making a choice that seemed like the best at the time causing an epic ****storm later would be particularly delicious.

[CP5670]

Earlier today I was playing an adventure on Adrift where my character was stuck in a cabin of a passenger spaceship, where I had a porthole that my character had broken that showed the turbine that powered the ship. I was stuck so I just decided to have my character start throwing everything out of the porthole, which then went out through a hole in the turbine into space.

I haven't heard of this game, but this sounds like the kind of thing I would do. I often go out of my way to screw around with game AI and physics as much as possible. For most "minor" choices in games, I don't think of my actions in terms of good and bad consequences so much as what maximizes the hilarity.

I don't play many RPGs but tended to have fairly neutral characters in the ones I have played. I finished Mass Effect with roughly similar Paragon and Renegade stats, and was also neutral for most of Fallout 3, until I cleaned out Paradise Falls late in the game and my karma went up through the roof. In that game, it seems like the good actions usually give more karma than the bad actions, although it is easy to influence it either way.

In Bioshock, I saved most of them, but mainly because there was nothing to be gained by harvesting them. There is way too much adam in the game as it is, and I always had a huge surplus of it.

Some times. When I was playing Jedi Academy as an evil person, I did feel bad about striking Rosh down, even though he was as annoying and useless as Jar-Jar Binks.

I didn't. That guy was getting on my nerves by that point.

I tend to follow the good path, though games make a nasty habit of presenting moral choices that are akin to being either 1) Jesus/Bono 2) The Devil is Loser and he's my *****.  I think it would be much more interesting to give the player more Machiavellian options or at least making the consequences less obvious.

This was one thing I liked about Deus Ex, and also Mass Effect to a lesser extent. Many of the decisions you made, at least the important ones, had various pros and cons instead of being obviously good or bad.

[Snail]

Weird.

I feel fine doing evil things, as long as it's what the game intends (such as killing random pedestrians in GTA). But when it's outside of the game's intention to do evil things (such as killing friendly ships in FS) I feel really uncomfortable.

[TopAce]

It's not the evil thing that you do in the game that is worrying. It's the motive behind it. If it's for example trying the dark side ending of KotOR, it's all right because it's curiosity. Killing pedestrians in Carmageddon to get some score is something else.

[redsniper]

I can never take the dark path in games that have one. And I can never let Meryl die.

[Retsof]

I agree with most of you guys, I am sometimes curious about what would happen in the dark side path, but I just done have the heart for it.  As for saving the wingmen ... usually it's a mix of too buisy staying alive to press c-1-#-0, and "nobody's gonna let me go early,so you can just stay here with me thank-you-very-much."  Of course usually c-3-8 or c-3-5 do a fair job of keeping your people alive longer.

[Turambar]

What's wrong with you guys?  I did the dark side path with glee in KotOR.

I escalated the Sandral-Matale conflict, there were no survivors
I helped enslave the wookies
I poisoned all the kolto
I took the poor woman's wraid plate and then threatened her to get more money (stranding her on tattooine forever)
I had Zaalbar KILL Mission, making Carth run away like a little pansy!

HK-47 probably even thought I was cruel