Sick of playing the nice guy

[SonicKaos]

I haven't written anything in a while now for various reasons... I'm sure you all loved reading my walls of text back in the day anyway. Well I wrote something today if anyone feels like reading it. It's about how moral choices in games don't matter:

Sick of playing the Nice guy

They say nice guys always finish last, and for the most part it's true. In business you'll never get ahead without stepping on someone's toes once in a while, and with woman... well they just love jerks. All too many times I've heard "Well you're a really nice guy, but..."

But what? Is "nice" a synonym for boring? Does it mean I'm not cool because I don't treat people poorly for no reason? Am I just too perfect of a guy so I must be too good to be true? In short, yes. All my life I've been playing the nice guy, whether it be in video games or in real life... and I think it's about time for a change.

No, this isn't a blog post about personal self discovery as it may seem so far, it was simply the reason I thought of writing this post in the first place. The real issue here is about moral choices in video games, how they effect you, and how they mirror you're own being.



Let me use Fallout 3 as an example, as I'm sure many people at least know of the decisions you must make in the game. I, being the nice guy I am have difficulty choosing options that hurt other people, even though they aren't real. Thus, my character is on his way to becoming a hero of the wastelands, and I'm missing out on a few cool abilities. I've noticed that at certain points in the game, the game would reward you with some form of power upgrade for doing something morally wrong... but nothing if you make the nice choice. Doing the "right" thing often leads to extra quests where you can work towards gaining something, but often it's of equal power or worse then the "bad" item anyway. What did you really gain from this experience besides the chance to help yet another person?



When you think about it, what do you really gain from being a good guy that you can't from being a bad one?

You can earn respect by spending a lot of time helping others and creating a positive influence, or you could just take it all at once by killing those who already have it (fear). You can do boring chores and side jobs for people to gain fortune over a long period of time, or you can just steal it. You could save the town from enemies and survive many battles to be declared a hero, or you could burn it to the ground and become infamous. What is the real difference between these two moral choices then? Either way you can end up with fame, fortune, respect, (positive or not) and haven't you noticed how the hot chicks always hang around the badass? It seems that the amount of work you must put into it is the real deciding factor.

Bad guys get what they want when they want it, while good guys have to suffer through chores they don't want to do only to receive the same item or worse. Then my question to you now is this:

How can we change this? Should there not be a greater reward for doing the right thing if that's what we believe to be the honest way? Could there be a way to encourage one action over the other through certain rewards, and is it fair for one side to get different abilities that the other cannot attain just because of their chosen path? Is it even possible to fully convey this message through your personal actions in a video game at all?

In order to get a real feeling from a game, you must take pride in your actions. Seeing as how your actions in a video game don't effect your own quality of life, can we really take true pride in saving a virtual town or simply slaughtering it?



The above reasoning is why I'm going to buy InFAMOUS shortly, and play through the entire game killing everyone who gives me a funny look... just because I can. Being a nice guy hasn't gotten me anything special, so it's time to try my hand at the opposite end of the spectrum. I know I'm going to have to sit down and force myself to make the morally wrong decision many times in doing so, but for once I'm going to bite my lip and see where it takes me. As far as I can tell from playing the demo multiple times, all the evil moves are more powerful then the good ones anyway, so what's the point in being nice when being bad is more explosive. And hey, maybe being a badass for once will help me change a little bit in real life as well, because I'm tired of always being the nice guy... no? Oh well.

Nice guys always finish last... and it's time for a change.

[jest118]

It's a great game. I think you'll enjoy it. Also.. you moral choices in the game change the way your powers work. Whether or not one way is better than another is a matter of playstyle I think.

But have a blast man. I have been for the past 3 days.

[SonicKaos]

Cool. I'm trying to finish off the Godfather 2 so I can get rid of it in favour of this game lol. I'll probably pick it up some time this weekend.

Evil powers are always more fun anyway though lol. They're more about killing and power instead of helping others.

[Anjo606]

Cool. I'm trying to finish off the Godfather 2 so I can get rid of it in favour of this game lol. I'll probably pick it up some time this weekend.

Evil powers are always more fun anyway though lol. They're more about killing and power instead of helping others.

Pretty much. Rather than everyone walking all over you, you'll do the walking over their dead corpses

[thesignguy]

usually when chics say "your a nice guy but...."

it means that is your good point and they don't want to be mean and tell you how they really feel:

your not attractive
your boring
you play to many video games haha
you got nothing going for you
your cheap
your a dork

chics dont like putting someone down if they have been nice to them. Like i'm sure when she is talking to her friend she is all "I just have no interest in him, he laughs at the stupidest parts of the movie, he listens to country, he drives a taurus, he wears a Obama shirt, he had a bugger balloon coming out of his nose when he breathed, but he is such a nice guy."

so when she talks to you, she just mentions the nice guy part.

P.S. in no way was the above directed at you just examples

The only difference if you were a jerk to her is that she would have told you what truly bothers her about you

[SonicKaos]

Yea I figured as much... though almost none of those examples apply to me lol. I went to break up with her actually because she was pretty boring and just didn't seem to care about anything, but I guess she was expecting it because of how I acted before doing so and that was her response.

I would really like an explaination though lol... these things help you improve yourself.

I'm not the hottest thing around, but I've got a good look to me, I do consider myself boring but others often don't for whatever reason... She didn't want to do anything though and I can't keep thinking up stuff to do every single time, especially when she's uninterested in things I do think of (and wont even tell me what she wants to do when I ask). Too many games, sure when I'm not with her probably, but not when she's around lol. Nothing going for me I can't really say... I can agree to it somewhat but I can't at the same time. I'm cheap, but not when it came to her... I payed for nearly everything, and a dork is hard to define, but probably.

Just using the same examples... I'd like to know what I did wrong, but I probably never will unless I just guess at it.

Girls like jerks though lol, it's a fact. That's not what the whole article is about though, and I wish I hadn't put that full thing in there now.