Good vs Evil in Video Games
In my early years of gaming I began like many others, first watching my siblings and then trying my own hand at classics like Super Mario Brothers and Burger Time.
I eventually matured to the Final Fantasy series, Xenogears, Diablo, and Metal Gear Solid, and was just as willing to attempt the next RPG as I was a mindless excuse to kill things as can be found in most Blizzard Games.
Those styles of gaming all still exist, but many of them have something a little extra these days—a choice between good and evil.
What I mean by a ‘good vs evil’ game is this: A game where the storyline is directly affected by the player’s choices, which determines whether the protagonist will become a selfless hero or a self-serving bastard.
EXAMPLES
While I adore Dragon Age: Origins, and games like it, I am NOT talking about every game out there that allows for choices to shape the story. Dragon Age’s choices are much more immediate. You may be doing something good or evil, but that will really only affect how your teammates see you, not any overall moral stance of the character you created, unless you choose to see them that way.
I am talking about the games that are much more blatant, the ones that make you decide between dark side and light side as an end goal.
And since I just gave that classic Star Wars description, why don’t we start with one of the best earlier games to follow this method.
Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic
This Bioware game was in many ways the precursor to Mass Effect. You first create your character—male or female, whether you are more combat specific, tech, or otherwise—and as the storyline progresses, you get to decide much more than just the order of events in the story.
The decisions you make, say to help an alien that is being harassed by a Sith soldier, kill the soldier, or do nothing, give you points toward being more dark side or light side. When you have the ability to grow as a Jedi, you only have access to certain abilities depending on if you veer more one direction or another, and you will be more effective with those powers as well.
The game wants you to choose between good or evil. It gives incentives for being more one than the other and proves more difficult if you become middle-of-the-road instead.
I have not yet finished KotOR, as for years I did not have a powerful enough computer. My goal is to finish it before the Old Republic MMO comes out next year, but games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 have been getting in the way.
However, while I do not know firsthand how the story can potentially end—and I don’t want any spoilers please—I do know that being light side or dark side has a drastic effect on that ending.
Fable
I have not played Fable because I would need to get it on PC. Xbox is evil. However, Fable is one of the most well known games of this kind.
Fable came out in 2004 and was a bit more limited in that you had to play as a male character, starting off as a boy, and then growing up with the decisions you make affecting the appearance, specialties, and moral nature of the character. He is a hero, but he doesn’t have to be good.
Fable II was really where this series took off, coming out in 2008, and even getting named “Game of the Year”. Set 500 years after the original storyline, this time the player can choose to be either male or female. The player also has a dog they befriend as a child that will change in appearance, like the character, depending on their choices.
One of the larger decisions comes at the very end, when, as a reward, the character Theresa offers the Hero a choice between several wishes. He/She can bring someone back to life, like his dog, sister, or family, or just ask for a huge amount of gold.
I wouldn’t say that Fable is just like KotOR, since it doesn’t really give incentives for choosing to be more one way. In fact, I would almost prefer going middle-of-the-road here because being really good gives you a halo and being really evil gives you horns. A bit too obvious and silly, in my opinion. But the choices you make not only affect the story and how others see you, but how good or evil your character is.
What sets Fable apart from my other examples is that there is also a gauge for being corrupted or pure, separate from being good or evil. You can be good but still corrupted.
So you might do good things that make you appear like the stalwart hero on the outside, but deep down you’re not so good after all. That adds a whole new element, which makes me very eager to eventually play this game.
Overlord
To be fair, Overlord doesn’t have a choice between good and evil so much as between benevolent dictator and cruel tyrant. I mean, it is called Overlord.
The point of the game is to train your gremlin-like minions and reclaim your rightful place as ruler over all the nearby people and lands.
It is generally believed that you inherently evil.
But you do get to choose whether you are lawful or chaotic in that evil. Decisions you make throughout the game allow you to gain the love and respect of your people, or randomly kill and starve them so that they fear you instead.
There is also the female companionship choice. You are first introduced to Rose, who is a little crazy in the head, but mostly good, and thinks the minions are adorable cherubs. She nags a lot, but she does make a good wife.
A bit later you encounter her much sexier sister, Velvet, who nags less, sleeps with you more, and comes off as more of a mistress or consort than a wife.
Choosing to stay with Rose or dump her for Velvet affects how the castle looks and what items you can use to decorate it.
With Overlord your decisions may be more the lesser of two evils vs pure evil, but it still counts and can be a lot of fun
Mass Effect 1 & 2
Ah, my obsession of late. Having recently gotten a glorious new laptop, I finally got to play through Mass Effect and finished it just in time for the release of Mass Effect 2. I am already on my second run through and I can tell you it is a wonderful and entertaining series.
In both the first and second games (with a third on the way) the decisions you make as your created male or female protagonist, Commander Shepard, will veer you very much like KotOR toward light or dark. In Mass Effect they are referred to as the Renegade or Paragon paths.
Like with KotOR, you are encouraged to be one or the other, not a happy medium, because having enough points in Renegade or Paragon opens up additional dialogue options that can make the scene, and sometimes the story, take a very different turn.
There are incentives for choosing your moral agenda. The game even taunts you with what might have been.
You can always see the possible options available for Renegade and Paragon dialogue, but if your points are not high enough then you cannot actually select those options.
Mass Effect has many choices throughout both games that vastly affect the story, the biggest being final decisions at the very end. What is exciting about the series is how your decisions in each game directly carry over if you import your previous saved data, so that the trilogy has a continuing cohesive plot tailored by your choices from beginning to end.
CONCLUSION
There is something so much more personal about getting to choose a moral path in a video game and seeing the consequences of those choices affect the story.
My husband and I have been discussing this, and it is not that we no longer appreciate linear games. We still love our classic and often stereotypical RPGs.
But the ability to create a character whose path and personality can drastically change because of what you choose is an exciting development.
Being downright evil sometimes can be pretty fun too.
I recommend all of these games, so whatever moral paths you might follow while playing them, good hunting.
~G³
Next week I will be returning to comics with a look at “Comic Book Movie Adaptations That Failed” and why.
I will try to keep the list as concise as possible, but no promises.
Thanks for tuning in.
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I think that the greatest hand in allowing for these types of games are mostly do to the advancement of technology in the game community. Theres no game that i can really think of that gave the choice of good or evil and actually have an impact on the actually game itself until late 90s early 00s. Both the linear and non-linear variety with game have their place the market and I hope both continue to improve in quality.
@Janskoller: Completely true. The closest we had to this before the technology existed was pen and paper rpgs like DnD, where we basically have complete freedom to make our characters as righteous or amoral as we want.
And of course the DM will always think up interesting consequences for that.
Morality systems… oh, morality systems. I used to love them for the choice they offered; I mean there we were, as you say playing first simple platformers like Super Mario Bros, and then more complicated games like final fantasy, and then in swoops a game offering choice as to the ending, how things turned out. It was as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes; I was in heaven! I couldn’t get enough! But then it just… stopped. I mean, what exactly is the point of them besides getting us to play the game again? I began to think. We’re still the same characters who begin the same way. One can talk about choices, but there’s only so many places it can go with just two choices for each decision. Oh, how does our mutual friend Yahzee put it? “[You're either] a virtuous flower child with love and a smile for all the shiny-coated beasts of God’s kingdom, [or you're] some kind of hybrid of Hitler and Skeletor whose very piss is pure liquid malevolence.” This isn’t to say that I thought all such games bad; far from it. Good writing and characterization, for me, covers a multitude of sins. But it was all so shallow.
And then came the consequence system, and the light shineth again. This is a system which rewards every decision you make not only with given points (if it even does that) but consequences for your actions that effect the whole world, some of which you cant see until much later. It’s glorious! To make things even better, some games have even included more than two endings based on the choices you make. I mean, let’s talk about mass effect; that was the first time a game company stepped away from the traditional realms of good/evil, for the most part. Lots of people, for example complained about the Star wars system because it’s system of morality is completely infantile. It’a always the right thing to do to be sweet and kind and wise and generous, except when it comes to fighting bad guys with lightsabers, because then it’s time to SHOW NO MERCY and not get punished for it. And a single lapse in the no-killing-non-bad-guys code is enough to turn you moustash twirlingly evil, but dont worry; it doesn’t matter if you condemn whole planets to death, you’ll be forgiven if you repent. KOTOR did what it could to alleviate the stupidity of this, but it was an early attempt, so it still boiled down to baby eating vs Mother Theresa. In Mass effect, the lines are not so clear cut. In some quests, there are two opposing sides that are both defensible, and have no true right answers. Every major descision gives you the opportunity to defend yourself using paragon/renegade reasoning, and get the corresponding points, no matter what you actually choose; it’s all up to the player. So Paragon/Renegade isn’t good vs. evil per se, it’s more law abiding diplomat vs. necessary jerk. Jean Luc Picard vs Dirty Harry if you will, or perhaps Gil Grissom vs. Horatio Caine. Now this isn’t perfect, mind… I sometimes choose a renegade action expecting to get badassness and getting unnecessary cruelty or space racism, and sometimes it’s a bit too clear what action to take, but it’s a START, friends and neighbors, and I for one cannot wait to see where this leads games.
I also fully endorse your collection of games as good and playable. KOTOR is a fantastic example of this and Bioware and Obsidian are to be commended for trying to break the cycle of infantil concepts and (let’s face it) writing that has plagued the series since the old movies, the last two of them anyway. KOTOR 1 was a fine, replayable game, and KOTOR 2… well, LuasArts wanted the game out for the christmas rush, so they slapped together a joke of an ending and shipped it out with 25%, yes, a FULL QUARTER of the game unfinished in code in the discs, and the whole thing was met with disappointment and disillusionment. This is a particular shame, because let me tell you: that 75% was better than the first game in every way, and made me really excited for the third. (Too bad it’s a MMORPG…) Fable was pretty good as well; I was never part of the hype that surrounds such games, so I wasn’t let down by that, and I found it to be a simple but solid game, if a bit jeuvenile in parts. (the only real problem I had with it was how damned old I got by the end; I like to explore a game at my leisure and you age quite rapidly in this game. And you’re right; the halo and horns are silly. ) No consensus on the second, because I’d have to get an XBox for that, and that platforms a bit too unstable for me. And I have a special place in my heart for Overlord. Seriously, that game puts a smile on my face every time; it’s just so fun tearing around the countryside with a horde of giggling imps tearing things apart whenever I wave my hand. It has some design flaws and isn’t the deepest game ever, but I like it a lot more than Fable, and I think part of the secret is that unlike Fable and its creator Peter Molyneux, Overlord doesn’t take itself seriously. Like at all. It’s also written by Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of famed fantasy satirist Terry Pratchett, and it seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree; like the discworld novels, Overlord pokes a lot of fun at the tropes and stereotypes of the fantasy genre, and has a lot of surprisingly deep ideas about the nature of good and evil. And I find the minions hilarious. And mass effect I’ve already talked enough about.
Besides the games G3 has mentioned, there are a few other grand old games that make use of the old morality mechanic as well:
The Baldur’s Gate series: This series is notable for being among the first to include morality points. Being a D&D game, it was based on the system of Good and Evil, Law and Chaos. Set in the Forgotten Realms world of Abeir-Toril, the series is a saga about a young child who is torn from the place of his birth who learns that s/he is the child of a dead god, specifically Bhall, Lord of Murder. The moral crux here is whether the player embraces this dark heritage or rejects it, and being one of the first games to promote the morality system, it isn’t complicated. The graphics are somewhat dated, too, but This, I believe, is the first series to include the concept of Party Morale: If you do a bad act with good party members, or a good act with bad, the morale will drop, and if it gets too low for a party member, the party member leaves. It forces the player to consider actions not only in terms of right and wrong, but the gestalt of the party as well. Other innovations of this series included the option to import characters between games, party interaction between your NPC mates, romance options (three female, one male), and even interparty fights that break out if the main characters charisma isn’t high enough. It’s really well written too, so check it out if you can.
The Neverwinter Nights series: And this series was a step up further still. I’ve never actually played the first game (and now can’t because something about it doesn’t like windows vista) but I heard it’s graphics are somewhat blocky. The second one, however, I have played and liked very much. The stories of the two games are connected superficially, but the essential story of both is this: in Abeir Toril (again), an ancient evil rises to threaten the city of Neverwinter, and a hero rises to stop said evil, yadda yadda yadda. The expansion pack of the second, however, takes the story in a new direction, as the hero of the second game is transported halfway across the world to the land of Rashemen uknowingly, and awakes to hind him/herself the victiom of a horrible curse. Like Baldur’s Gate, these games have both good/evil acts and endings, but unlike baldur’s gate, party morale is different. In BG, character loyalty was dependent on whether the main character performed good or evil acts, but in NN, the loyalty depends on the influence you have on your characters. You gain or lose influence with the characters, yes, by doing certain things in game, but also by engaging them in debate and talking about their ideas, or doing things for/to them that they like of dislike, and if your influence is high enough, they’ll stay in the party no matter what you do. This isn’t the first franchise to have tried this out, that was KOTOR 2, but that system was hair pullingly frustrating, unintuitive, and even impossible to win in some places. And this one, is a bit too simple; you can max out influence by verbally fellating your characters and doing the things they like, and lose it by doing the opposite, so this technique really wasn’t improved until later. Still, a great series.
Planescape: Torment: Ooh, I know I don’t have to mention this, because there’s nothing really new that it brings to the industry, but I just cant resist: this is an AMAZING game, well written, compelling, and using a really interesting setting that gets away from traditional fantasy fare. The story is thus: the main character wakes up to find himself in a mausoleum in Sigil, the main hub of the Planescape setting, a city in the center of all the plains anywhere. He discovers he doesn’t know who he is, and finds out the hard way that he cannot die. The entire game is spent trying to figure out why this is, and who he is besides. The setting includes races who are from the plains themselves, the first to really do so: aasimar, tieflings, tana’ari and baaetezu, bauriur, githzerai, and several others besides, and the writing is phenominal, so definitely check this out. Oh wait, there is one thing it has that others don’t: it was the first game to give the player options in what kind of good/evil they want. Sometimes there were Lawful good and chaotic good, lawful evil and chaotic evil, and sometimes lawful neutral and chaotic neutral responses as well as neutral. It only actually gives you a good/evil ending thogh, but I love it so much!
The Vampire: the Masquerade series: Yes, this was a video game series! Neither of these games is particularly remembered now; the first game was pretty much a diablo clone and wasn’t really reminiscent of the tabletop games at all, and the second game, while it was reminiscent of the games, was riddled with so many bugs that it was pretty much unplayable without patches both official and unofficial. But I had lots of fun playing them both. The second one, in particular, captures perfectly the feeling of the tabletop games, and it has seriously some of the best expressions and voice acting in any game ever. The morality systems in these games are very important to the story and characters. You play vampires, so it’s not really a question of good/evil, but you have to have something, some form of code of honor or morality, because if you don’t, the beast comes from inside and takes you over, rendering you a wight (that is, a vampire that’s completely subsumed by the beast). So morality is represented here by Humanity, and it has to stay above a certain threshold, or the game ends. Fortunately, it’s relatively simple to keep it up.
The Fallout series: Okay, this is a series that has to be mentioned in any discussion of this nature, because while its morality is fairly simple, they’re the first games that actually offered different ending consequences based on your actions in the game, offering the player exactly what kind of impact he had on the game world in a montage in the end. The first games ever to do so. The story of this series is also kind of an odd duck in terms of themes and setting. It has to do with the Art Deco period in history, the time period from the late 1920′s to about the mid 60′s or so. It is from this period that most people draw the setting of typical americana; you know, iceboxes, the typical nuclear family unit of dad, mom and 2.5 kids, quirky light advertisements, radio shows, you know, Leave It to Beaver, Andy Griffeth type stuff. It is what most conservatives say is “the good old days,” even though this period was also marked by nuclear paranoia, McCarthyism, racism, and misogyny. You with me so far? Well, imagine a world it never truly died out, just continued until the year 2000 or so, where the people are entrapped in a cycle of paranoia and arms races, but don’t notice for all the advertising, gee-whiz inventions like robots and laser guns, and keeping up with the jonses… until somebody dropped the bomb, inviting nuclear holocaust. Fortunatly some people were kept safe by going into Vaults under the ground, and the idea was that they would be able to leave once the radiation died away. The games take place some 100 years later, when the main character is let out of the vault to see what’s what. Here was an RPG set in a nuclear holocaust wasteland, and came along with (then) never before seen innovations like the use of guns in combat, the ability to shoot anybody at any time (even children), new races and monsters that the radiation created, and interesting settings and antagonists. It’s all so beautiful.
The Bioshock series: Here’s the darling of 2007, the spiritual sucessor to system shock 2 that left people reeling. This game also makes use of the Art Deco period heavily, references Fallout a lot too. A man planecrashes in the middle of the Atlantic ocean in 1960, only to discover Rapture, a city under the ocean designed and built by billionaire tycoon Andrew Ryan, and run using the fundamentals of Objectivism… only something has gon very wrong. It was billed as an RPG shooter a la Deus Ex, but it barely had any RPG elements at all. The only choice the player has at all is this: kill a little girl to get more power, or get less power to save her. HMMM I WONDER WHAT THE RIGHT CHOICE IS! There were multiple endings as well, but they were short and abrupt, booted you to the game menu without so much as a credits role, and were quite simple compared to the rest of the game. Although to be fair, the game was not supposed to have a morality system at all; it was forced on the game by execs who wanted the “moral choice” feather for their cap. But the game was really well written, really atmospheric and resoundingly imaginative. The second game caught fans of the first off guard, because although the gameplay and graphics were vastly improved, the story was somewhat different, far more character driven and containing less ideas than the first. I still think it’s really good, though; the ending is much better, and connects with the story much better than the first. So check these out.
The Witcher: One more and then I promise I’ll stop. The Witcher should be mentioned because it was the first game to drop its morality system entirely in favor of consequences seen in game. Each action taken is defended by the main character, Geralt, and it does not seem to be so much about right action and wrong action, but how to get the job done the best. Also, the Big Ending Choice doesn’t seem to between good and evil either; each ending has good and bad parts to it, and really just makes for a more mature game over all. Of course some people don’t like it because they think it somewhat boring because of the beginning slog, and jeuvenile because of all the women you can have sex with and how much people swear, but I never got that impression about it, and I never found it so boring I wanterd to stop. So seriously, check this out, but for the love of Sweet Jesus, get the extended directors cut version; it’s like a whole different, better game; a more cohesive script, more complete quests, and even better voice acting, although if you really want a jump in quality, listen in the original Polish, it’s great and oddly hilarious. So check that out, and the sequel!
HOLY WORD HEMMORAGE, BATMAN! Wow, I think I’ve talked enough, don’t you? Keep writing these, though, at times they’re the only things keeping me through Grad school. Give my love to hubby; Can’t wait to see you both in April!
@Sean R.: I had intended to only cover games I had played myself (and added Fable because I’ve been meaning to play it) but these others are good examples as well. I was trying to focus only on examples with a clear moral choice differentiation, like Light vs Dark. I don’t see as so bad. I find it thrilling. Most people who comment negatively do so for those reasons that there is no room to be middle of the road in anything, and that it limits you. Well, yes it does, but I kind of like that. Sometimes it pisses me off, don’t get me wrong, but every once in a while it’s fun to play a game where you have to choose to be saintly or evil. I’d like to see the next generation of this where we have even more moral choices, that can be more ambiguous in moral meaning, but I think we might be headed there.
Wow what theme is this? i really love it
@Jona Studt: Thanks! I made it myself using Artisteer. I like having more control over the details.
Hehe, the website took quite a long time to load but it was worth it
))