So I’m playing Red Dead Redemption, much like everyone else, and I asked multiplayer friends if they’re a Good Guy or a Bad Buy in the single player campaign. There’s a stunned silence before I get back, “Why the hell would you play a good guy in the Old West?” To which I half heartedly mumble, “… I think you get discounts in stores …”
I’m not going to go into a long diatribe about the problems with moral systems in video games. That’s been done to death. But what I do want highlight is a few good times I’ve had with moral systems.
Take Red Dead. When you’re “honorable”, you generally have to try not to kill anyone if you can help it. In my game, this means a lot of prostitutes die while I switch to the lasso and try to hog tie a guy with a gun. Whoops, guess they shouldn’t have short changed them, or whatever they’re yelling about before they start beating the crap out of the girls. Although I have to admit that an equal number of bad guys get thrown from my horse over a cliff while I attempt to bring them back to jail, which I think is kind of worth all the effort.
Fallout 3 is one of the few games where I felt the balance between good and evil perks worked well. You could either kill a bunch of vampires and steal all their stuff, or you could help them and end up with an ability to get bonus health off of all the blood packs laying about. Bad = money, good = presents. Pretty decent trade off in my book.
Not really a moral system, but I loved being a “good guy” in Prototype. I went out of my way not to eat civilians, and only take out guys who were attacking me. I’d avoid bumping into pedestrians, and the one time I ate one was when I found a character model that I found more interesting to look at than Mercer’s Emo/Goth hoody (what can I say, I’m vain).
Speaking of bumping into people, is everyone in Red Dead a basketball player? Give someone the slightest nudge and they flail their arms wildly before doing a prat fall. I swear these people must be top heavy.
Fable 2 was an interesting one. Good and evil were kind of blah, but I thought it was hilarious that depending on what kind of foods you eat pretty much determined your level of corruption. Apparently the beef and pork in that world was tainted *ba dum tish*. Although I was a little annoyed that I had to be corrupt to be fat, I just wanted to play a good aligned bear, the craggly skin really threw off appreciation for my character… although that may have been enhanced by my, “husband in every port” mentality. What, no open relationships in the world of Albion?
There are two reasons why I play good in video games. For one, you tend to get more dialogue out of characters if you don’t shoot them dead. And two, it’s the same reason I play gay (if it’s an option), I’m generally a nice guy, and forcing myself to play evil doesn’t come naturally. I feel bad for the imaginary characters that I hurt. On the other hand, I have no problem playing an established evil character, so long as the story and the game tells me to. I can fail the Milgram test if the plot dictates it so. But when you give me the choice between good and evil, well then I’m good baby.