Video Game Evil

I promised a more light-hearted post this time around, and what can be more light-hearted than acting despicably in a video game!

Yes, it can be fun to be evil in video games.  Just ask the folks over at Bitmob (and the video game people they talked to).  In "The Evil Things We Do," they chronicle a lot of the horrible acts you can do in various video games.  And I don't just mean the typical killing that happens in an online shooter.  I'm talking about truly evil acts that you would never even imagine doing to somebody in real life.  But to a bunch of pixels on your computer or TV screen?  Damn, they're fun.

So what's your favourite act of video game depravity?  One that gets a lot of mention in the article is The Sims, where some people really like to torture their virtual people.  Even I've been guilty of that, but only twice just to see what happens.  For those who don't know, The Sims is a game where you create virtual people and have them live out their daily lives.  They have "needs" that must be taken care of.  Usually, the artificial intelligence (AI) is good enough that they'll try to take care of many of these needs by themselves, like the need to use the bathroom before they lose control.  Or the need to eat something if their "hunger" rating is high.  So what happens if they go into a room and then you remove the door, locking them in?  Or get them in the pool and then remove the ladder so they can't get out?  You can probably guess.

And I have to admit, as sad as it was, it also made me laugh.

Another one mentioned in the article by one of the people interviewed is something that I've actually done too.  In Fallout 3, it's possible to pickpocket people.  If you're really sneaky, you can get away with it, too.  Of course, you don't have to pickpocket them.  You can instead put things into their pockets too.  What happens when you put a grenade that's in your inventory into the pocket of a random passerby?  Or a store clerk?  It goes live!  Seconds later (you'd better move away quickly!), BOOM!  You actually get an achievement for this on the Xbox, and I can be a gamerscore whore as long as you don't have to do something *really* outlandish and difficult.  Since I was playing a good character, I couldn't actually do this and then keep going.  So what I did was plant the grenade, get the achievement, and then reload my last saved game.  You don't lose the achievement when you do that, and I could then go on being the hero I actually was.

I also have to admit that watching that civilian run screaming from me and then blow up gave me a laugh as well.

Generally, I'm not an evil person in video games.  Many games are now coming out where you can be both good and bad (or sometimes just "nice" and "total dick").  I generally take the good route.  If I decide to play it again after I'm done, I might play the evil side, but it's not as enjoyable.  But the occasional despicable act when the game allows it can be downright hilarious.

So, any evil acts you'd like to share?  I promise I won't tell.