Once I finally get my lazy little fingers around to playing Fallout 3 there will be some interesting choices to make. To cut down to it – am I going to be good or bad? Most of the time, when presented with choice in a game, as much as I want to be nasty, corrupt and an all round bastard… I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Fable 2 is a good case in point. Good or evil choices were much mooted in the many lavish previews and I rubbed my hands with glee, imagining the disgraceful things I was going to get up to. I popped the disc into my 360 with the worst of intentions… and then bottled it in the first few minutes when some fagin-esque piece of work wanted me to smash up a load of warehouse crates. I was appalled and he was naturally told to do one and thus, my halo remained intact. Yay for me. Or perhaps not – you see, being good is so incredibly mundane.
The majority of games are spent saving useless people, doing pointless errands and gunning down baddies; the warm fuzzy feeling from such putrid niceness has been stretched thinner than Tony Blair’s credibility. In short, I’m sick of being so nice. Yes, I may receive a tasty piece of furniture from an Animal Crossing resident, but just once, I’d love to go on a rampage around the acres, razing houses to the ground and kicking Tom Nook in the bells. I’d love to slaughter Princess Peach, sledgehammer Pikmin like a Whack-A-Mole game and tarmac over Hyrule.
Why was it then, that when it came down to it with Fable 2, I couldn’t do it? I couldn’t put the rent up on a house or contemplate slaughtering the incumbent tenants to clear the way for a property take-over. Instead, I saved the day and ate a lot of tofu… in short, I sold out. I have promised myself that once I complete it as a do-gooder, I will go back and be a thorough bastard, but still, for once, it could have been the other way around. For once, I could have been bad from the get go and then been a good gal on the replay.
So Fallout 3 is my saving grace. Choices will be offered and gratefully taken – sorry, brusquely snatched. I will make the most of being a nasty piece of work for once and I plan on enjoying it. Good will wither and evil shall rise and part of me wonders that if I enjoy it as much as I feel I will in my blackening bones, will I ever cross back? After all, evil does have more fun and often the best outfits, look at the history of the best of the bad: black clothes, scary black gloves which always need to be removed very slowly, pointy teeth/horns/or hats and best of all, red lightsabers. Sold.
In an alternate universe…
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December 22nd, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I am a good guy in fable 3 but all the rent on my houses is up (at least one notch) thats just ecnomics. if they dont like it they can move out. . oh no wait they cant lol. thing is that im that wonderful and fantastic and awesome everyone still loves me despite my three wives and love of hookers :p
fallout 3 I was drawn in a lot more and felt the need make as many freinds as possible while i was trying to chase after my dad. That was a survival technique make everyone like me and hopefully no one will shoot at me.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
See, that’s different to me. I’m always a bastard.
When I played GTA IV I killed everyone that I was given a choice to kill or save. Admittedly I played it through again and saved them, but only to see what later “friend” missions I had missed out on by killing them the first time through.
And your comments about being nasty made me think of this line from Fight Club:
“I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I’d never see. I wanted to breathe smoke.”
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
If there’s ever a clear good or bad decision, I’ve always got to choose the ‘good’ one. I have a huge guilty conscience towards characters in games. I felt like crap trying to attack an enemy once in Age of Conan, instead I had accidentally targed a level 1 badger :(
December 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I to struggle with the always good or shall I be bad dilemma. I don’t feel right being bad, and go with good in me, although I did shoot the bunny and kick the chickens in Fable 2.
I’ll never sing alongside Dr. Horrible in the Evil League Of Evil if I can’t curb my decent and honourable ways.
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
You badger murderer Emily ;) Cheer up though, it may have been carrying TB ;) :D
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
We need more games based around Badgers, quality animal in my book.
I took the good approach to Fable 2 and going to try and go through Fallout 3 in the same way (when I get around to playing it.)
I do think my tendency to play as the good guy might come back to haunt me one day as I go on a rampage in the next game that gives me the choice.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Sounds more like God of War would have been your saving grace…!
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:25 am
Am even more in the mood for a rampage now after the stupid poodle woman in Animal Crossing got rid of my disgustingly pink hair and gave me what looks suspiciously like a bowl cut.
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:55 am
I tryed to be good on fallout1/2/3 but what the hell the Fat man wont fire its self.
On gta 4 i run over random peds in an ambulance, pushed roman into the sea (damn the bastard can swim), killed Roman with a remote bomb only to pick him up from hospital.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I am a good guy in games, always have been. But I would play through a second time, being bad, to see what difference it makes to the game. Never pitch black bad.
I did lead my second wife to her death in Fable 2 – first, I only married her because of a sidequest; second, she lived in the same town as Wifey number one and third I couldn’t actually kill her. Bandits were really helpful there! I don’t eat tofu though.
I like the more subtle choices in Mass Effect, for instance. They seem a bit more realistic, I guess. Nothing is ever really black and white, is it?
December 27th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
I suppose you could just be Kane in Command and Conquer. Its all bad.
On a side line, all the bad people have the best clothing, and black is always in fashion.
I looked like a Glastonbury hippy by the end of Fable 1, all beard and light and butterflies. It gave me incentive to be evil in the new one.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I’m afraid that I can relate all to readily to Lorna’s dilemma here. Much as the thought of being bad and releasing my inner demon is quite exciting I have never found myself able to do it (perhaps I don’t have an inner demon?) In GTAIV I avoid killing and violence wherever possible – I never even jack a car unless its unoccupied. In Bioshock I had to save all the little sisters and I suspect if I ever get round to playing Fable/Fallout etc I will be just as depressingly good in them as well. Damn my innate sense of doing the right thing all the time even in a pixellated fictional universe that only exists in the TV :(