I often think of how much of an asshole I am in a video game compared to real life. It's great therapy! Not having to worry about people's feelings or politics... just do what you REALLY want to do! But any game will let you screw around and try to break the rules. Here's five moments I found that developers specifically coded into the game that stuck with me for how ridiculous they are.
5. Fable 3
"Whore House or Orphanage?"
The Fable series is an incredibly boring group of games where you mash X until all the bad guys are dead. Unless you spec'ed differently. Then you sighed heavily at the lack of depth the game warrants you. But one thing it delivered on was giving the player infinite ways to screw around: get married, kill your spouse, buy a store, vandalize your own store, get a job that's far more tedious than a real life job, etc. So after playing Fable 2 I was confused and ended up playing Fable 3 for no reason.
One thing I didn't count on being so much fun was the premise of becoming king. Little did I know, a king's duty is apparently to sit on his throne and make hilariously blatant bad decisions all day. And one of these decisions stuck with me:
A woman asks that money from the treasury be used to rebuild an orphanage.
A man asks that a whore house be built in that spot instead, which will BRING money into the treasury.
I slammed the button to choose the whore house before they were done talking! Money AND whores? Sorry kids, no one wants you anyway! I immediately had to scope out this new whore house and hired every single one of them, male and female, to give me a 14ish person orgy. Allllllllllright!
...and then I embezzled all the profit for myself, despite having bought everything in the game and had millions of dollars leftover. Ha!
4. Mass Effect 2 and 3
"No! Robots aren't people!"
In the universe of the Mass Effect series, there is a race of robots called the Geth. They are somewhat sentient (they have a collective mind) so there are frequent debates on whether they should be treated with the same respect as other, more sapient humanoids.
Over the course of two of the games, there are a couple decisions that come up. Without getting into spoilers, some of them are not favorable for the Geth (what with their constantly showing up as "things to shoot at" in the series, not many people in this universe seem to like them). Sometimes when I play a roleplaying game, I roleplay! My Shepard doesn't give a fuck about machines! Robots ain't PEOPLE like you and me! It ain't "genocide" to kill 'em all! I am space president, I say fuck 'em!
If only I could give Shepard a southern accent and a cowboy hat...
3. Deux Ex: Human Revolution
"Murder your Boss"
Throughout the whole game, the player is meant to question the whole meaning of life and the consequences of human augmentation. The player's boss, David Sarif, is the head of a company that is a major player in the cybernetics field so obviously he is rather FOR aug'ing. The player, Adam Jensen, is basically Robocop'ed and arguably might not see eye to eye with David on every issue.
At the end of the game (again, avoiding spoilers) David hits you with one last request as to how to conclude the final resolution. But that's not what's important to me. What's important to me is that David is finally standing in a level where the player is allowed to use his weapons. And, sure enough, Mr. Sarif is killable.
Wham! Just like the picture above (that's not Sarif there) I assassinated that chump. "I quit." I imagined whispering. And then I went and performed his request anyway because I am an odd individual. Good thing this quest didn't have a turn in! Whoops!
2. Dragon Age II
"Ol' Square Jaw"
Aveline Vallen is a fighter, quite literally. She wears heavy armor and takes hits in the front lines: a bad ass of sorts. So she doesn't look like some dainty chick in a plate bikini. I respect that. But Jerk Hawke, my player character, is a completely superficial asshole. And that jawline... that's, like, a man's jawline... man.
Unfortunately I can't really talk much about this without spoilers. But basically there are just dozens and dozens of opportunities to piss this chick off. It has nothing to do with her appearance, though, so I was just getting into the RP of Jerk Hawke doing so subconsciously. I blamed her for everything that happened and made wild jumps in logic to stick it to her.
At some point she said she had an opportunity to leave for some reason. Obviously she didn't feel welcome in my town. So what did I do? I called her a Goddamn lazy coward! Just gonna leave? I was right about you all along! And so she beat the shit out of me.
Good times.
1. Fallout 3
"Stop Screwing Around!"
In Fallout 3, you are forced to go through a sequence where you are born (uh, gross?) and then have to do a bunch of boring shit as a little kid before you actually get to roam the wastelands. You are introduced to your father, who you might immediately recognize is voiced by Liam Neeson. His manly tone is caring and wise so it works well. And then you get a BB gun.
Most people probably just wanted to get through the "starter zone" so they could play the real game. Those people would have used that gun and followed the objectives: shooting targets and a giant roach with it. Me? I turned around and shot Mr. Neeson right in the eye! "Stop screwing around!" Your father yells in an instantly angry tone.
I'm still laughing about it to this day! And it's one of my favorite video game quotes alongside "No! I can't move!" and "What is this? I hope this isn't Chris' blood!" so you'd likely hear me saying this out loud if you are around me long enough.
I have a tendency to think of Mr. Neeson being in that little recording room going through his lines. At some point, the VO Director would tell him, "Alright, Mr. Neeson. For this next line, this is for if the player decides to brutally attack their own father as a ten year old." And he'd just stare blankly for a moment before going along with it reluctantly, "Um... okay?"
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