I play once through on evil, then on good, then on evil again, then try the middle ground, then good, then evil. usually in that order.

Darthracoon:
i do both on the first play through i play good and then i realise "wait a minute all of these guys are dicks ah well i made a commitment to be good and i will" next time round i kill 'em all

Yeah, thats most good charachters you encounter in games like Mass Effect are marketable steroetypes who seem like thier archetype has been beaten to a blimey pulp,and then unbeated Sands of Time Trilogy, dooming it to an eternity of pain and suffering. I usually like being tht baddest mother in a game and relish the chance for me to beat them, set their children on fire, and kick them in the nuts once evry 2 mins for 24 days in a row, or until they keel over a beg for mercy, whichever comes first.

wtichever one pays......

I flip 2 coins at the start of every 'moral choice' game (which there's like, 4 that I've played)
2 Heads =good
1 Head =neutral
2 Tails =evil

I sort of hate the Good/Evil mechanic. I think game developers need to get their head in a book once in a while and realize that very few "villains" are just in it for the cash or "taking over the world" or "bringing misery to others". Often they're motivated by the desire to change the world in a way they believe benefits it. In the end, they're TRYING to be a hero; they just have different beliefs.

That's why I liked Deus Ex. The game leaves you with three different ending choices, but none of them are plainly put as the "good" ending. One leaves the entire world in a technological dark age, and the other two involve you using a machine that tracks all communications in the world to govern it as you see fit. I'd like more games like that where whether your actions are "good" or "bad" are defined by you and what you believe.

Actually, Phoenix Wright: Justice For All ALMOST has a very, very split ending. I don't want to spoil anything, but basically before the trial ends, you're left with a decision that decides people's fate, and whatever you choose, someone is going to die.

rabidrabit:
I tend to play the good side first, as I just can't bring myself to be evil the first time round. Strangely, this conflicts with the first impressions I tend to make in the real world as I can be a downright cold-hearted, evil bastard to just about anyone.

Amen

I tend to go with whatever my whim at the moment is. The first time I played through KOTOR, I did Darkside, The first time I played the sequel, I played Lightside. The first time I played Mass Effect, I was sort of quasi-evil, I picked some evil choices, but most of them were neutral. It was just whichever I felt like at the time, and I usually don't go with every evil choice or every good choice. I tend to roleplay. In Bioshock, however, I went purely good and never harvested a single Little Sister. I wanted a challenge with the lesser amount of EVE and all. Of course, it turned out you end up getting pretty much the same amount, but whatever.

After the first playthrough I always play it again to see what each extreme is like.

My nature usually depends upon the game and it's representation of good vs evil. In games like say Overlord where it's cartoon evil with no serious quality to it I find evil to be a barrel of laughs. Whereas in a game like Bioshock, the game does a very good job of invoking emotion about your actions, and I couldn't bring myself to kill the little ones.

It also depends on how the game treats the two. Jade empire had the closed/open palm choices which ultimately amounted to good/evil and yet the closed fist path is much more satisfying then normal evil choices because it has an interesting kind of Darwinian struggle philosophy to it. Mass effect really didn't do the best job of representing evil as you more or less come across as a racist jerk instead of the typical evil which would have done just as well.

I do have a problem with the two sides with no middle ground thing. Although no one seems to understand it's very hard to make a good/evil game with a decent neutral ending. The whole game you're usually on a quest to save or control the world in an epic journey across vast distances. How do you make a decent neutral ending when your game builds the final confrontation up so much. They tried in Jade empire by giving you the surrender option and yet it leaves you feeling unsatisfied and has the same results as the evil ending in the long run.

Always i play the goodest i can be.

Because lets face it, while evil leads to immediate power, good ends up the mightiest in the end.

Also, i like the feeling of moral superiority i get.

Eh...I try all paths available to me at least once. Seems like a waste of a game to do otherwise...

whiteshodan:

Tapeworm:
I like playing games on bad side... Well, doesn't matter to me much why, it's just the way I prefer... But in most games, it's helluva lot easier to be on a good side, the developers make it more easy and stuff, so I think evil is more superior than good 'cause it's more complicated and their units in RTSs and the characters in RPGs look more... violent, stronger, but then again they look grumpy and stupid too (mostly, but that depends on whatever game you may play).

What game is it easier to be on the good side? In almost every rpg I've ever played the good side is the hard one. In Fable you just had to go around and kill people and in Bioshock you get less Adam by being nice to little girls.

I played The war of the ring (LotR) and it said that if ur playing the game for the first time you should try good side... Yeah, it kinda worked for me... And ok, not many games ^^... but still, I have to admit, I didn't play Bioshock, nor Fable...

If there's a choice, I always play as good on my first playthrough, since that's the way I would act in real life, then evil on my second playthrough to experience the differences being evil has on the gameplay & story.

It's funny how in Bioware RPG's being evil just equates to being a dick. Like in Jade Empire you find a cameo of some old guys dead wife in some recently unflooded ruins, & the Closed Fist option is just to show it to him then decide to keep it. How is that teaching him strength through adversity?

I'd like to see a parody of this in a RPG where as you make more dickish evil choices, your character starts growing a phallus from their forehead, which gets bigger the more evil you become. Or your character just turns into Dick Dastardly & all quests get halted until you catch a pigeon.

I personally hate this pseudo-duality with "good-evil" paths in games. These are so obviously moral or immoral choices and the immoral choices doesn't just exploit people or situations, but means that you are needlessly a psychotic dick. VG writers can't seem to comprehend the idea of a genuine moral dilemma; instead we have pretty much clear-cut issues that they try to colour up and grey it but most often spectacularly fail.

Personally, I think its a bit refreshing in games like The Witcher or Fallout where the lines are blurred and we see in colour rather then in black-and-white. Where developers dare you to give you a situation where despite good intentions, you may end up doing the wrong thing.

I think morality in VG have to be rethinked: its not direct physical choices we should follow but motivations. Why should we kill this woman? How seriously should we take the death of the man we accidentally killed? Is the death of a innocent worth the price of taking away someone who casually takes several times more? This person betrayed us but for understandable and good reasons, should we be the one to punish, let others or should we just give the person another chance?

However, that would require good writing and that is an unreasonable expectation of million-dollar games, now isn't it? I mean, what would they do with the time and care they put into the bump-madded, shaded, polished and what-the-fuck-ever rusting drum pile we don't even care about?

i find it really hard to play as evil character i don't why, i never managed to be a sith in Kotor and i couldn't kill any of the little girls in bioshock, the closest i've come is achieving renegade on mass effect. but then i feel bad if a NPC on my team dies in OPF or Half Life or Dead rising etc.

i guess im evil, i get plesure out of killing any NPCs, dont know why. in oblivion i killed everyone in bruma and leywin because they annoyed me and in kotor i got maximum darkside for me and most of my team

Why can't there be, like Yahtzee said, a balance between good (Mother Theresa) and evil (eating babies)?

nearly cried when I ate that crunchy chick on fable... I thought everyone would hate me for it.

I've got a habit of always going for the good guy option. Weather it be KOTOR, when everyone knows the Sith are cooler, I'll still opt for doing the right thing or Rome TW, I'll Occupy a settlemnt to give the residents a chance before exterminating them if they revolt.

Even when I play with the express intention of being a shit, I'll still end up feeling guilty(?!?!?) and chicken out.

well if you're like me and play Dawn of War 40k. this brings up a different question...who exactly is on the 'GOOD' side? All races are evil in some aspect.

These games turns me into someone I hate. I am always good, and I'm always a pushover. The reason is that I want to do all the quests, every side quest I find, I want to help, and to do that, you pretty much have to stay on the NPC's good side.

The worst example of this is when I was playing fallout 2, and I got to a guy who wanted me to go out to an enemy filled forest, find his house and get his moonshine. I wanted to scream "Asshole, do you know who I am? I'm the fucking protagonist, I'm on a mission to save the world, I don't have time to be your goddamn waiter!". But instead, I said I'd do it... and I died a little inside.

I've been trying to do better, though. For example, in Oblivion, there was a crazy guy who wanted me to spy on his neighbours, and although it took a solid ten minutes of soulsearching agony, I finally had the power to say "You know what? No, I won't help you, you paranoid psycho."

i've actually always played the good guy escpecially in fable and bioshock. ofcourse i'm a nice guy but the games also seemed to reward those who chose not to be a bastard douche.

Put me on the side of the "good-evil" haters. I can't understand why anybody would choose to go down the "good" route in Bioshock anyway when there's no "upside" in gameplay terms to not killing the Little Sisters (or at least, not one that you know about early on).

One of the reasons - in fact, probably the main reason - I play games is to escape from the humdrum greyness of real life, get into the body of a massive orc with a big club, and smash some stuff to bits. That's all the morality I need, thanks!

Most of the time I'm on the side of good, can't bring myself to kill most people in games besides the bad guys of course.

TheMadDoctorsCat:
Put me on the side of the "good-evil" haters. I can't understand why anybody would choose to go down the "good" route in Bioshock anyway when there's no "upside" in gameplay terms to not killing the Little Sisters (or at least, not one that you know about early on).

One of the reasons - in fact, probably the main reason - I play games is to escape from the humdrum greyness of real life, get into the body of a massive orc with a big club, and smash some stuff to bits. That's all the morality I need, thanks!

That's funny, I thought there was no upside in gameplay terms to killing the little sisters. If you kill them, they don't get you any presents, and you still get a lot of Adam, just not right away.

I would say I like to play good, as that is most of my characters, but I will vote both as I like being the evilest bastard that ever lived after a bad day!

I generally try and be good, esp in games like Baldur's Gate. But invariably I will start to get annoyed with something, risk life and limb in some cave dungeon only to have some mouthy kid tell me I should have done better and to get out of his house. Personally I think its fine to lamp him one in the chops with my quarterstaff but apparently the game thinks that's evil.

I tend to be an anti-hero, particularly in the Fallout games. I don't kill people for the sake of killing them, but I'll want money for any job I undertake.

I used to play morality based games as a goody-goody, giving money to the poor, saving stranded kitties and giggling as people poked my rotund belly. Not really sure why, but I do have a problem with being evil, even if it is just a game. That said, I have begun to play games a little more to my actual beliefs, which usually results in me being closer to an anti-hero, so, for example, if an enemy surrenders to me, I might still kill him anyway, either because he deserves it, or letting him go is too big of a risk.

Even my 'evil' characters end up having noble(ish) intentions. For example, I played through the Thieves Guild in Oblivion with a Robin Hood style philosophy, and even though my Renegade Shepard in Mass Effect is aggressive and heavy handed (he's just as likely to pull a gun on you as he is to say please), everything he does is for the greater good, or to uphold his own form of justice. This does occasionally lead to some collateral damage, though. For example, when confronting the Batarian terrorist who knocked asteroid X57 our of orbit, I refused to let him leave, even though it meant making a few sacrifices (though to make up for it, I did torture him and leave him to die).

Even if I have to do something evil to unlock something, I tend to do it in as neutral a way as I can. For example, to unlock Skorm's Bow in Fable, I sacrifice a Bandit or one of the evil henchmen, and in order to get Wellow's Pickhammer from the Demon Door which demands to see something evil, instead of killing someone, as the door suggests, I instead downed a handful of crunchy chicks, promptly followed by enough beer to make me vomit the whole lot back up, and a hefty meal of tofu and carrots. I guess being evil just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

i believe that giving the player a choice in a game is one of the best moves you can do in a game. It allows for freedom in a game. I cried like a girl after killing the little sister in bioshock. Im serious. But in fable, i don't tend to give a shit so i just play as the side that's more fun. as in the bad side.

defcon 1:
I have seen a lot of good and evil games along with plenty of people who played them but I haven't met one person who is the good guy. Everyone I know who played Bioshock will kill the little sisters, everyone I know playing Fable will always be the evilest bastard they can be, everyone I know playing Mass Effect will always turn Shepard into a dick and everyone I know who played Neverwinter Nights will inevitably choose some evil alliance. Even on the second play through people will just be evil again. This is of course just everyone I know, so I decided to reach out. Does anyone here play the good path?

I'm usually always good on my first play through but if a game is good enough for me to replay, I'll be the bad guy.

I'll play whatever way is the most beneficial to my character. If I get an advantage from killing civilians, I will kill them, but don`t blame me, the game rewarded me for it.

defcon 1:
I have seen a lot of good and evil games along with plenty of people who played them but I haven't met one person who is the good guy. Everyone I know who played Bioshock will kill the little sisters, everyone I know playing Fable will always be the evilest bastard they can be, everyone I know playing Mass Effect will always turn Shepard into a dick and everyone I know who played Neverwinter Nights will inevitably choose some evil alliance. Even on the second play through people will just be evil again. This is of course just everyone I know, so I decided to reach out. Does anyone here play the good path?

I'm usually always good on my first play through but if a game is good enough for me to replay, I'll be t6he bad guy.

well i do it too, am good always on the first time, but if i replay then im the evil guy

In regards to Bioshock I played through it as the good guy first. Second time through I played evil.

I remember playing Mass Effect good the first time around. Occaisionaly saying cruel things if a character annoyed me.

Second time around I played the arsehole. And it's a testament to the scripting that sometimes I just couldn't go through with it. I honestly felt THAT bad when I responded harshly and hurt a character's feelings.

I tend to find it to be much more interesting to play out the evil line, just because its different from most other games which tend to force you down the path of good. So I like the mix up basically.

I used to be evil in games, untill Postal 2. I just felt so sickened by what I was doing, it was so obivously... wrong.

Now I always like to play through as the good guy first - but not a a ridiculous sense (unless I have no choice). To be honest, my villains aren't outright sadistic crazy people, more selfish misanthropes who don't suffer fools.

*edit* Let's turn to Bruce for some wisdom
"I got God on my side
And I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing, baby
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
And fill it with devils and dust"

Thanks Boss.