What's So Bad About Being Bad?
By JuggertrainUK 4 Comments
What is wrong with being the bad guy? I ask this question as I am around half way through my third play through of God Of War 3. Kratos is without doubt a very angry and evil character. Sure his motivation for his anger is fueled by the death of his family, but the way in which he goes about seeking his revenge could only be done by a bad guy, a good guy character would seek revenge, get to the last boss and decide not to kill them because they are not worth it or killing that boss would mean that the good guy has become just like his enemy. To put it simply a good guy would have some redeeming qualities about himself.
Lets take a character such as Nathan Drake. Now although this character kills a serious number of people he is still considered good person. Drake has charming aspects to his personality, allowing the player to look past the fact that he is really a treasure hunting mass murderer when you look at the facts. However Kratos has no charm or even any mercy for those around him that have nothing to do with his war on the gods, and to be honest it feels great to play as this character. To long have i played as the good guy who has to save every person on the planet, who has make sacrifices for the greater good and never thinks about his own personal gain. Point is i have a lot of fun being extremely powerful and no mercy for those around me in this game, but why is this way of thinking so unexplored in the industry.
I know what your thinking, you can be evil in plenty of games such as Fable or Infamous these games are not the same for one simple reason. When playing games with moral choices such as infamous and you are forced to make a choice between good and evil, these choices are so clearly labeled as good or evil choices, and most if not all games with moral choices at least color these choices blue and red as if to symbolize some kind of heaven or hell contrast. In my opinion by labeling these choices good and bad the developer is almost suggesting their own morals on to the player. This to me means that the moral choice is extremely shallow at this point, as the choice is not made on what each individual player's morals are, but the developer telling the player what is right and what is wrong, this leads to most players choosing the good choice simply because they feel its right thing to do and not actually thinking about the choice.
Anyway back to God Of War, the reason i give the developers credit for this franchise is that they force you carry one being the bad guy, there is no point in these games where you can back out or do the right thing at the last second like the force unleashed did. Most games that have evil choices always show the innocent feeling your wrath but do it in a sympathetic way towards the innocent or good people, God Of War is completely unapologetic about it all and does not try leave the player with any guilt what so ever. Now im not saying that i want to go outside and slaughter people in real life, but in a video game where the consequences of my actions generally only affect which achievement i get, its great to be selfish, its great not to care for once and its also great not to try and save everyone and then have to play escort missions. ( I cant stand escort missions ) But this is something that i think should be explored, and not in a humorous way but with a serious tone to it like God Of War but with maybe a little less constant shouting from the main character. In closing i hope that more developers experiment with being evil or at least try to make characters that are a little more realistic because lets be honest half of these sacrifices and good choices we make in games im willing to put money on that 90% of the population would take the easy, selfish and personal gaining route, but you might know it as EVIL!!!.