Decline Games with the best EVIL playthrough - Poll

[Gregz]

Not all of these are RPGs, because what's an RPG?

5 choices because the top 2 or so seem pretty unanimous.

 

[Gregz]

CKII has no "Evil Playthrough", because Evil is just the normal way of playing the game.
Playing it honorably, as a nice, loyal religious type... now that's a true challenge.

Well, another interpretation of the question could be "which games feel the most evil to play?"

 

[Zep Zepo]

The game where you had to kill the heroes as they tried to get to the end of your dungeon.

I don't recall if that was Dungeon Master or Dungeon Keeper.

Zep--

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It was Dungeon Keeper.

 

[Funposter]

I made a post regarding KOTOR 2's obvious merits in this regard in the previous thread. MotB was well-explained there, too. New Vegas is less a case of being good for an "evil" playthrough, but more for having a dedicated "evil" faction which is actually interesting and not necessarily a saturday-morning cartoon villain. The player can be an enormously selfish, evil prick while working for said faction, or they can basically be a wasteland Messiah while believing that the Legion is the way forward for civilisation. Lesser factions like the Khans and the Fiends offer less interesting content in that regard, and even going Independent or House feels a bit too neutral in the end.

I feel like I will be the lone person who voted for Fable, but I have a soft spot for that game, and its unique sense of humour combined with the ability to literally let yourself be consumed by the primordial concept of evil at the end of the expansion is pretty fun. Just blast through it and try to have fun instead of lamenting the fact that it's barely an RPG.

 

[luj1]

Voted for the KotORs.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

None of them, since evil is fucking easy and pointless. Because it's easy to be a selfish asshole and pointless because reward that evil character acquired during his journey is useless in world which devastated by his actions (there no use for money if everyone dead, same goes for any other wealth).

 

[Funposter]

Limitless wealth is its own reward for those who covet it. If it weren't, billionaires would actually spend all of their money.

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Limitless wealth is its own reward for those who covet it. If it weren't, billionaires would actually spend all of their money.

Wealth is a reward only if you can spend at least part of it. If you have a shitload gold, but suffer in lifeless desert - it's punishment, not reward. I mean, what point of your billions if you can't buy a car, since nobody makes cars after devastating catastrophe caused by your actions? Right, none.

 

[Harry Easter]

Tyranny works quite fine, because you work for the evil empire and you can rationalise it with "order needs to be established." So your character can sleep soundly at night.

Alpha Protocols dickish options are just plain badass and they are still legit ways to save the world. So be a treacherous dick. It pays off.

Kotor II has some interesting options as a darkside player and one of the best pay-offs, confronting you with the futilness of your actions.

Being evil in Arcanum works at best, when you play an magical elven-terrorist, tearing down every kingdom on the continent. Quite satisfying.

And not giving in your instincts is the whole conflict of Vampire: Bloodlines. I liked the subtle changes in dialogue, when you lose more and more humanity.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Sometimes it’s hard to keep your evilness in fable (well the original). There’s some stupid exploits in the game at times too. I swear there should be no guards or townspeople left in the game when you slaughter so many (esp guards).

 

[Sceptic]

Lands of Lore 2 does evil extremely well in one particular way: there's all these NPCs who have stuff you need. Good, you do all their quests to get what you need. Evil: you kill them and take it off their corpses, thereby skipping huge chunks of the game. I don't think any other CRPG does this on the same scale.

MotB is obvious and has been discussed to death.

KOTOR 2 doesn't differ enough gameplay wise (same problem as first game), but I included it because the evil path is so well written, and getting chewed out by Kreia for killing the jedi masters is worth seeing.

Alpha Protocol because you can eschew the typical asshole-evil for no real reason and instead go the selfish, manipulative, cold and calculating evil, and it's a lot of fun doing so.

I actually couldn't pick a fifth game. I love PST, and some of the individual evil acts are extremely well done, but I wouldn't say it has a very memorable evil playthrough. Same for Fallout. I'm not a huge fan of Arcanum's - I find "evil = mass-murdering dickhead for no real reason" playthroughs pretty boring, and Arcanum's doesn't even extend into the endgame.

 

[RegionalHobo]

The thing with rpgs is that good deeds are often rewarded and rewarded very well.

As such being evil loses the cost-benefit analysis, which is really the bigger motivator for doing '' evil '' actions. Why take risks or sacrifice your reputation if you can get the same or better without doing it? There are way more opportunists than sadists.

The reason being most evil playthroughs are a meme afterthought. Even in settings like shadowrun , which is bizarre setting wise, but understandable if you look at the game as product.

If even the villains are underdeveloped, being on the verge of caricature most of the time, what can i expect from evil mcs?

That said i'll vot for AoD, it does rewards evil actions, Miltiades killing that Lord family as an classic example ( nice scimitar, gold, exp, gets almost nothing siding with the lord ). MoTb gets the honorable mentior for having a evil storyline fully integrated with the main plot

 

[ST'Ranger]

One of the reasons such a question can get so many different reactions - and so many different styles of reaction - is that it bowls over some interesting semantic concerns. Is 'evil' the opposite of 'good'? Is it an aesthetic (is an evil 'look' required?)? Is it definitional (like a legal concept) or is it intrinsic to reality?

For my part, I have come to examine the good-evil dichotomy not from the point of view of philosophical arguments but from how the terminology is used by others to further their goals. In that sense, the good-evil dichotomy is most often a slander used by those in a position of weakness against those in a position of strength.

Those who dominate, subjugate, and coerce others (no matter their cause or the effects thereof) are painted as evil by the dominated - by the subjugated. This happens regardless of actual, probable, or possible outcomes - no analysis on that front is needed for the charge to be levied. All of the crimes of the past or present are wiped free of the subjugated, and one finds them all-too-frequently without sin or fault.

This is one of the reasons PS:T is so interesting in this regard. No matter what kind of playthrough the player experiences, the 'evil' nature of his past activities are gradually uncovered - confronting him with questions about the very nature of the subject. Was it necessary or was it cruel? Is it wrong to use the loyalty of those around you? And so on - and most of these questions are not clearly answered, but hang in the balance until (and arguably after) the end. Despite any other shortcomings of the game, this is a laudable and under-celebrated aspect.

 

[TemplarGR]

I refuse to vote, all evil playthroughs up to now are shit.

 

[Egosphere]

PST isn't better than Arcanum. The latter is probably the closest to MoTB if you become an evil god.