Games Where You're the Bad Guy

[digitalpress]

It's been a fascination of mine for a long time. Really, from the first time I played Ice Trek back in the 80's. In Ice Trek, you're a nomadish viking warrior performing various tasks en route to the Ice Castle. One of the tasks involves dodging an onslaught of caribou. If you're in a tight spot - or feeling evil - you can unsheathe your axe and kill the caribou. When you do this, an angry Norse goddess appears and fires a very accurate arrow at you. You can dodge it, but it's tough and you've still got those caribou ahead of you. Naturally I've played the game where I never put the axe away, and try to get through the stage dodging those very tough arrows.

That was the first opportunity I ever had to BE evil in a game, and it's stuck with me ever since. Though I had played Death Race in an arcade at the Jersey shore years earlier, I didn't get the same impression that I was doing something *bad* by running those guys down - they WERE "gremlins", after all.

The Grand Theft Auto series and the games it has inspired clearly allow this same kind of behavior even though your character isn't necessarily inherently evil - it's a choice you make.

What other games can you think of that you're either the bad guy by default or have options to do some things that society might deem "not at all good"?

[Ackman]

Manhunt yeah I love Manhunt....

killing has never been so nasty and violent, I like showing it to my friends, most of them are like OMG WTH? it really freaks them out.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Donkey Kong Junior, baby! I mean...Mario! What an utter bastard! Kidnap the kid's father and then dangle daddy like a carrot on a stick, and then send vicious birds and freakin' sentient bear traps after the kid!? Man. Was that Wario maybe? Trying to rob Mario of his good name? Or has Mario always had this hidden sadistic streak?

Okay, granted, the player isn't Mario in DKjr, but it sure makes you think twice about him in everything else where you can be Mario, don't it? LOL

[esquire]

It seems like games like these have become more popular recently, especially with the advent of Grand Theft Auto. Other games that I can think of include:

Hitman series - obviously you play a Hitman, regardless of the fact you may be killing other bad guys.
Postal - Kill, Kill, Kill
Carmageddon - Mowing down innocent bystanders and cows
Goldeneye Rogue Agent - like Hitman, you play a bad guy, albeit, offing other bad guys (Goldfinger vs. Dr. No)
The Suffering - You play as a convict
Star Wars Bounty Hunter - Boba Fett is no nice guy
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic I & II - play for the dark side
Manhunt
Blood Omen series
Soul Reaver series

[robotriot]

God of War and the Jedi Knight games come to mind ...

[AB Positive]

Although the lines blurred in the sequels, Tecmo's Deception the original put you firmly in the spot of the evil villain at the castle on the hill. I love the Deception series.

-AG

[emumuumuucowgomoo]

Can't forget Rampage....

[Slimedog]

How about Texas Chainsaw Massacre for 2600? You got to kill crippled kids. Thats fairly evil.

[jajaja]

Depends on how you see it. Like Hitman mentioned earlier. Is he the bad guy i the game? He takes out druglords and kingpins etc.
I think Postal (also mentioned earlier) is a good canditate for this category.

[anagrama]

Black & White - the whole good/evil thing was pretty key there.

[IntvGene]

Imagic must have been built on some sort of haunted pet cemetary, because not only did their make Ice Trek, but also Dracula where you are in control of Dracula for once, enslaving the townspeople, while avoiding the constables... all in 1983. Those evil bastards!

Dungeon Keeper (PC) was a more recent example where they really marketed the fact that you were creating monsters to fight the heroes in the dungeon, as opposed to the typical dungeon crawler.

[Flack]

The new NARC game falls into that "choose your destiny" type of games. You can kill innocent people, take drugs away from dealers and shoot them up for improved skills.

I'd throw the Mortal Kombat games in there, since you can pick any of the bad guys to play. And for that matter, most of the fighting games like Street Fighter, Tekken, etc. will let you play the baddies.

[Sniderman]

The original Legend of Kain. Top-down "you're the vampire" game. Awesome.

[legov8]

Vigilante 8/vigilante 8 2nd Offense: You can be the Coyotes (bad guys).

[joshnickerson]

Any of the Wario games.

[SpasticFuctard]

Let's see:

Fable - Choose the darkside and go bald
Any number of a billion PC D&D games post SSI goldbox (notables: Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale 1&2, Baldur's Gate 1&2)
Warcraft 1&2&3 (though 3 tried to portray the orcs as misunderstood)
The Getaway (again, more misunderstood; and you get to play as the cop when you beat it)
all those Wario games


SF - Evilchu, i choose you!

[esquire]

Imagic must have been built on some sort of haunted pet cemetary, because not only did their make Ice Trek, but also Dracula where you are in control of Dracula for once, enslaving the townspeople, while avoiding the constables... all in 1983. Those evil bastards!

Dungeon Keeper (PC) was a more recent example where they really marketed the fact that you were creating monsters to fight the heroes in the dungeon, as opposed to the typical dungeon crawler.

Good calls. I completely forgot about Dungeon Keeper, or Dungeon Keeper 2. That game got me thinking about a current game that completely fills Joe description to a tee....EVIL GENIUS. This game looked promising, but got so-so reviews. I always wanted to build an evil empire, and hold the world ransom for 1 MILLION DOLLARS, erh I mean 100 BILLION DOLLARS, MUHAHAHA! :evil: Has anyone played it??

Additionally, I would add practically every RTS game where you can play as the bad guys, such as in Command & Conquer, Red Alert 1 & 2, Warcraft, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, and even turn based games like Heroes of Might & Magic where you can play as a Necromancer, and other evil heroes. I'd have to say Red Alert 2 and C&C Generals would be the most notorious. In Red Alert, the Soviet faction has the Cuban terrorist and Libyan suicide bomber truck. In Generals you can play as the GLA, a world-wide terrorist organization.

Lastly, I recall the JFK assassination game that came out in the last year. Truely tasteless, but evil nevertheless.

[MegaManFan]

You know I always thought the best part of the original Sim City was not to create a city where people were happy and the tax revenues flowed in. It was to piss them off as much as possible - create gridlock everywhere, not supply them enough electricity for their homes and business, keep jacking the tax rate up, and then if they bitched about it too much I'd unleash a biblical spanking on their ass with floods, fires, and Godzilla attacks. I guess for me that was the original "be an evil bastard" game, cause being a goody two-shoes omnipotent city builder was no fun at all.

[GobopopRevisited]

Dark-Half on SFC from westone...

[ventrra]

Funny about this topic...I just got through playing Star Wars Battlefront in which I almost always play either the Empire or the CIS. Walking around in the AT-ST picking off Ewoks is a fun way to play. :evil: (For that matter, blowing Mace Windu off of the landing platforms is pretty amusing, too.)

[vintagegamecrazy]

Another game that you can choose your destiny is Ogre Battle, that game is a pain to finish on the good side, Are we forgetting AvP for the jaguar and snes, you can be the predator in that game, Also Predator Concrete Jungle for the X Box you can play as the predator and rip the crap out of humans.

[dieourumov]

Morrowind sorta, it's an open ended game and i usually choose to be the bad guy :evil:

[tylerwillis]

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age has an evil mode where you can fight against the heroes of the story and win cool prizes.

Nice extra concept, horrible game.


There's also a story branch in Growlanser II where the main character can choose to rebel and ends up fighting a good number of former friends - it's much darker than the "normal" storyline.

[Scissorman]

Resident Evil Outbreak. If you die, you become a zombie for a few minutes and get to stumble around and groan. Grabbing and attacking asshole teammates was always fun.

And we cant forget Jurassic Park on Genesis. You get to be the Velociraptor. Going through the various areas of the island and getting to kill Sam Neil.

Front Mission 3 on PSOne. Well, it really depends on how you look at it. If you choose Emma's scenario, you fight everyone you get to befriend if you choose Alisa's scenario.

Strider 2 on PSOne. After you beat the game with Hiryu, it lets you play as Strider Hein.

[dbiersdorf]

Doshin the Giant.

[Dahne]

There's also Planescape: Torment in the PC crowd. You can be hella evil if you want. Excellent game that doesn't get enough respect.

Destroy All Humans definately falls into the bad guy category. :)

I've heard there are lots of people who play The Sims just to find new and amusing ways of killing people off.

One very entertaining part of Psychonauts (just rented this game and man, I may have to buy it. So much damn fun. And the voice of Zim!) has you as a giant rampaging through a fish-people city a la Godzilla. They call you Goggalor and have some extremely funny newscasts about you. Then you fight a character dressed as Ultraman. ("DIFFICULT TO AVOIIIIID....AREA ATTACK!")

[Milk]

Go Go Ackman! and sequels - You play a devil fighting self-rightgeous angels

Ancient Domains of Mystery - Besides playing orcs and necromancers, you can give poisoned candy to children and kill the local healer, among many other creative options for evil.

Guardian Heroes Advance - You can play through Story Mode as various baddies

Liberal Crime Squad - Obscure little PC freeware. Ever want to lead your very own version of the SLA or Black Panthers?

[undead455]

How about 1942 :)