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"Playing As The Baddie"

So, who's your favourite character? Would it be the classic Nintendo mascot (and unsuccessful plumber,) Mario? What does he do? He saves all the strange worlds with Mushrooms in them, controlled by strange men like Wario.

Could it be Sega's Sonic? What does he do? He saves the world and other people from the evil Dr Robotnik (or however you spell it.)

Perhaps it's Solid Snake, the star of Metal Gear Solid. He goes around destroying nuclear weapons and other nuclear threats, as well as making some nice friends on the way.

But there are many more to choose from. It could be Crash Bandicoot, it could be Spyro the Dragon, maybe it's Lara Croft-there are loads of them. And what do they ALL do? They save worlds by beating the baddies.

Now, I was thinking, what would it be like to play the baddie in games? Perhaps you'd like to be Liquid Snake in MGS, or Wario in any 1 of the thousands of the Mario games. I think it would be very exciting, and perhaps a little tougher, as the goodies always seem to have much more health than the baddies, right?

There are many advantages to playing the baddie in a game. It would be much more interesting and fun, if once you completed the game you went and blew up some countries. It would probably be a lot of fun to watch all Mario and all his little friends disappear in a chorus of, "Mum-am-mia!"

It could also lead to some very enticing plot lines. You're some assasin who's been sent by Sadamn Hussein (dunno how to spell his name either,) to kill someone who is trying to thwart Sadamn's plans of world domination. You find this man, and your about to kill him when he pipes up with, "Please...think about what you're doing! You're going to send the whole world into slavery, and that will include you as well! Please stop this madness, and help me to defeat Sadamn!"

Then you have a choice. You can blow this man's brains out like Sadamn told you to...or, you can put your gun away, and help defeat Sadamn. Either way, you will end up completing the game. Would there be a 'right' way of doing it? No, not really. You can either watch the ending sequence where President Bush is rolling around with his trousers on fire, or you can see the one where you and your friend are standing on a podium being given a medal by President Bush.

BUT, there are some problems.

If you were, say, a monster in Doom 2, then the game wouldn't be very exciting, would it? In most shooters you have to kill many people, and go through many different challenges to get to the final boss. Where as if all you had to do was run around trying to find someone, killing them and seeing the end movie, it's rather dull. The only I can see them getting round this is by sending you into the goodies base, where your basically doing the same thing as you would've done controlling the goodie.

There have been some games around lately where your character is the bad guy. But nearly all of the time, your enemies are the police. Games such as Driver and Smugglers Run are notable examples. These type of games are not what I'm talking about, as I'm sure you'll have guessed.

So, where do we go from here? Do we continue always being the good guy, against all odds trying to save worlds and other people. Or are we given a game where we take control of the enemy. Where we can inflict much punishment on the annoying good-looking guy, who always gets the girl and beats up the baddies.

With some innovation, and someone as good as Kojima or Miyamoto, I believe we can get their.

Thanks for reading, Ant.

The only games I can think of where you play as the baddie, apart from Perfect dark (which had the problems Ant mentioned about Doom) are the Dungeon Keeper games. Here you play the evil dungeon keper battling his way through the underworld which is gaurded by Heroes in an attempt to get to the world above and take it over. Playing as the baddie in this game is definately a welcome twist, and being able to torture the good guys untill they join your side is cool too.

Hmmm...some interesting ideas there, I reckon game companies (Konami!) should get to work on a game like this. It would be tough, but after reading Goatboy's topic about people getting bored playing games, it would be original and innovative, and would hopefully give the gaming world a new boost.

You can play as a baddie in PD Counter-Operative mode.

Fun but not fun if you catch my drift.

Playing the baddie is so much more fun! There is more danger. Driver is a good example. Getaway driver eh? Yes please! But you are still an undercover cop.

Say being a baddie you would buy guns through the black market, run from cops, kill people, rob banks etc etc. GTA3D is like this I think but I haven't seen much about this game.

Maybe the gaming industry need a change around and this might be it. Or better still you could get a choise. Playing the cop or the robber.

Thats what I would call a "good" game.

In dungeon keeper you had to kill off the heroes using hordes of your monsters... but that was crap so we'll talk no more about it.

Surely some part of the 'bad guy' campaign would be some facility to allow you to plot HOW you're going to take over the world? (Buy an extinct volcano, hollow it out into a rocket launching facility, complete with pirhana lakes, etc)

What about the 'baddie' from pitch black? (you ought ot have seen it by now) He carries out the sort of hero rolé, whilst being a baddie.

I would like to play a game where I am a twisted assassin hired by some megalomaniac to take out all the world's important leaders.
Mission 1: assassinate the Queen at Balmoral.
Mission 2: assassinate Tony Blair at Downing Street. etc.
I'm sure it would be banned. Then again, perhaps I could do it in real life?
*Nomad_Soul realizes his predestined purpose and begins to polish his sniper rifle*

If you controlled and wanted a baddy to win, surely he would then be a goody? The goodies trying to kill you would then be baddies.
Hmmmm.

If you controlled a tiger in tomb raider, just going about your business, and a woman turned up and tried to shoot you, she would become the baddy!
Is it possible to control a baddy without them turning into a goody in the players mind?
After all, who would want to play as someone they genuinly didn't like???

Many badies have turned to goodies for other games. e.g. Donkey Kong and Wario. They may be baddies, but as soon as they are the star of their own game, they become goodies...

Does that make any sense?! =P

wrote:
> Perfect Dark lets you play as the bad guys.

One player can start a mission as normal, but player 2 can then jump into the body of an enemy and try to kill you.

That is a great laugh....

Strafex wrote:
> That's an interesting idea. It could also bring new life to the real
> time strategy genre.

In Perfect Dark or Metal Gear Solid, you're
> always one lone agent against a small army.

Now reverse it and
> how about if you have to direct your army to deal with several
> agents trying to bring down your organisation.

Sometimes you make
> them fail the mission. Other times you actually manage to kill
> them.

You get losses and new recruits with each mission.
You
> have to decide where to post them in ways to trick and surprise the
> enemy IA.

I need to go home now. Expand my idea a bit.

Yeah, that's another idea I was thinking of, it could be a bit like a strategy game. Somehow trying to trick Solid Snake, and managing to capture him. The more people you defeat, and the more countries you gain control of, the deeper you get into world conquest!

That's an interesting idea. It could also bring new life to the real time strategy genre.

In Perfect Dark or Metal Gear Solid, you're always one lone agent against a small army.

Now reverse it and how about if you have to direct your army to deal with several agents trying to bring down your organisation.

Sometimes you make them fail the mission. Other times you actually manage to kill them.

You get losses and new recruits with each mission.
You have to decide where to post them in ways to trick and surprise the enemy IA.

I need to go home now. Expand my idea a bit.

I would love to come up with evil robots to destroy the good guys. And then I can take over the world! HA HA HA!

Sorry!