Bad Guys
Ben Bastian
is a relationship that games along with other media heavily depend on. My
opinion, is that while you don't necessarily need an antagonist, a really
good antagonist can really bring something to a game.
What are your favourite antagonists and what makes them so good at being
bad? Either from games, or any other media.
I chose four to start with, but there are plenty more:
Davros (Dr Who): The Bad guys in the BBC tv series "Dr Who" were a huge part
of what made the show great, but one of the nastiest of them all was Davros,
the creator of the Daleks. Not only was he a bastard but he was an UGLY,
mean, smart bastard who mutated his entire race into green slime in the
pursuit of genetic greatness.
http://members.aol.com/corgibox/images/davros.jpg
Megatron(The Transformers): Megatron is great. The quintessential crazy
meglaomaniacal bastard. AND he had a canon welded to his arm which he used
to blow fellow decepticons to scrap with. I suspect that in the comic
Megatron killed more decepticons than the autobots ever did. He's nowhere
near as cool as Davros, though.
Shodan: My favorite computer game bad ... er .. thing. Shodan is the bad guy
who's always with you, insulting you, pushing you and goading you through
every second of system shock and system shock two. And the bitch killed
Delacroix. I tells you. I'm pissed off.
Darth Vader: That kid better be strangling people by the end of the third
movie or George Lucas is going to have hell to pay. But the original Darth
Vader was very cool. Big, black and mean. Does anyone remember the first
time they saw him striding into the rebel ship in Star Wars? Or the sickly
crunch as he crushed the rebel captain's throat? Good times.
Tim Lister
>While sometimes it can be a cliche, the eternal conflict of good versus evil
>is a relationship that games along with other media heavily depend on. My
>opinion, is that while you don't necessarily need an antagonist, a really
>good antagonist can really bring something to a game.
>
>What are your favourite antagonists and what makes them so good at being
>bad? Either from games, or any other media.
>
>I chose four to start with, but there are plenty more:
>
>Davros (Dr Who): The Bad guys in the BBC tv series "Dr Who" were a huge part
>of what made the show great, but one of the nastiest of them all was Davros,
>the creator of the Daleks. Not only was he a bastard but he was an UGLY,
>mean, smart bastard who mutated his entire race into green slime in the
>pursuit of genetic greatness.
>http://members.aol.com/corgibox/images/davros.jpg
as i get older, i have more sympathy with the bad dudes - i'm told
that i'm *worse* than Davros before i have my 2nd cup of coffee in the
morning. EX-TER-MIN-ATE!!! - but yes, he _has_ to be in everybody's
Top 10 bad dudes.
>Megatron(The Transformers): Megatron is great. The quintessential crazy
>meglaomaniacal bastard. AND he had a canon welded to his arm which he used
>to blow fellow decepticons to scrap with. I suspect that in the comic
>Megatron killed more decepticons than the autobots ever did. He's nowhere
>near as cool as Davros, though.
alas, after my time ...
>Shodan: My favorite computer game bad ... er .. thing. Shodan is the bad guy
>who's always with you, insulting you, pushing you and goading you through
>every second of system shock and system shock two. And the bitch killed
>Delacroix. I tells you. I'm pissed off.
don't know this one.
>Darth Vader: That kid better be strangling people by the end of the third
>movie or George Lucas is going to have hell to pay. But the original Darth
>Vader was very cool. Big, black and mean. Does anyone remember the first
>time they saw him striding into the rebel ship in Star Wars? Or the sickly
>crunch as he crushed the rebel captain's throat? Good times.
do you suppose he started small, pulling the wings off flies?
say, suppose we had an Evil Dude contest, who would win?
"In the left Galaxy, wearing black shorts, weighing in at Seriously
Warped, we have Darth Vader, 23 fights, 21 KOs, 1 drawn, and one loss.
And in the Right Galaxy, wearing the Silver Walking Frame, is the
undefeated Champeen, Davros of the Daleks!!!"
"Gents, i want a nice clean fight, no Black Holes, hand weapons only,
Light Sabres and Disintegrator Rays ready, shake hands, and ...
FIGHT!!!"
There could be a few crowd control problems though, DeathStar Troopers
getting tanked and starting fights with Daleks ...
as for my favourite Evil Dudes, you're being a tad sexist here - some
of the very best are Female!
1) Servilan (the Dictator of Earth in Blake's Seven). She was
seriously sexy, i wanted to crawl across the floor on my stomach and
lick her boots ... and then work upwards <sigh>. I lurv strong women!
2) Even you young sprogs should know about Glory from that silly
Vampire slaying show.
3) and who could forget Vampirella?
... and the list goes on, but it's late and i'm tired <yawn>.
goodnight,
tal
=============
[Tim Lister, EYE CANDY web spinning, NSW 2042, Australia]
[Phone: 61 2 9557 4050]
[mailto: eye-...@webspinning.org]
[WWW: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~tal/eyecandy ]
"He walks the streets like an ordinary man"
Gerry Quinn
>1) Servilan (the Dictator of Earth in Blake's Seven). She was
>seriously sexy, i wanted to crawl across the floor on my stomach and
>lick her boots ... and then work upwards <sigh>. I lurv strong women!
>
>2) Even you young sprogs should know about Glory from that silly
>Vampire slaying show.
Better work your way up Glory quickly, she has a tendency to change into
Ben...
- Gerry Quinn
Jason Shankel
news:fhUj8.54$wU4....@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net...
> While sometimes it can be a cliche, the eternal conflict of good versus
evil
> is a relationship that games along with other media heavily depend on. My
> opinion, is that while you don't necessarily need an antagonist, a really
> good antagonist can really bring something to a game.
>
> What are your favourite antagonists and what makes them so good at being
> bad? Either from games, or any other media.
>
Personally, I'm not big on the whole "Good vs. Evil" thing. In real-world
adversarial situations, rarely does one side self-identify as "evil". Evil
is a term that "we" apply to "them".
In reality, most people (even your McVeighs and your bin Ladens) believe
that they are good. Even when mental defects (narcissism, grandiosity,
scapegoating, delusion) drive them to the worst possible behaviors, they
still think they're on the side of the angels.
In an age where we're being sold the "Axis of Evil" like just another brand
name product, I'd personally like to see us embrace a more nuanced world
view. Good vs. Evil may be easy to understand, but moral ambiguity is
infinitely more interesting.
So, here's my list:
The Caine Mutiny
A Few Good Men
(and, to a lesser extent) Crimson Tide
What I like about these movies is that, while you do have a nominal "good
guy" and "bad guy" relationship, the "bad guys" aren't evil. They just
over-adhere to one set of principles to the detriment of others.
In "Caine" Bogart is paranoid, yes. But his men *do* conspire against him,
so his paranoia is in part justified. Near the end of the movie, Jose
Ferrer dresses down the so-called "heroes" for their behavior and that's
when you realize that there's really no one in this story to admire.
A Few Good Men pits good guy Cruise against bad guy Nicholson. For my
money, the heroism of Cruise and the villainy of Nicholson is a bit
overplayed. The meat of the story is the situation that Dawson and Downey
(the two marines charged with murder after a hazing gone bad) find
themselves in. Their code: "unit, corps, God, country" clearly places
"unit" first, and the unit demanded that they torture and brutalize an unfit
soldier. But corps, God and country would have them do otherwise. Corps,
God and country would have them to defend, not persecute, the weak.
"Crimson Tide" is really a synthesis of "Caine" and "AFGM". While you
sympathize more with Denzel Washington than with Gene Hackman, it is Hackman
who has the better argument, by the book. Ah, but what if the book is
wrong? When do you throw out the book? How can you trust the judgement of
one person over established military procedure?
Here's a few more:
Paradise Lost (or "The Devil's Advocate", aka "Jim Henson's Paradise Lost
Babies")
Babylon 5
With both of these stories, we are presented with what looks like a classic
G vs. E situation (angels and devils, Shadows and Vorlons). In both, we get
a bit of table-turning.
Paradise Lost gives us the great all-time villain (could it
beeeee....SATAN?). Oooh, how we'd love to blame this guy for all our
problems. But, guess what? Sorry. The Devil doesn't make you do anything.
He only offers opportunity and temptation. You are still responsible for
your own actions and Satan's reasons for behaving the way he does stems from
a love of God that no human can match. Satan is, after all, an angel and
the nature of angels is pure love, fallen or no. But Satan's love is
twisted. It isn't so much pure love as it is pure jealousy. But can you
really blame him? Say you loved someone deeply, but that person was more in
love with their cat than with you; wouldn't you really have it in for that
cat? This is why Satan can't force us to do wrong. He's trying to alienate
us from God's affection. If we are forced to do bad, then it isn't our
fault and God won't see how unworthy we are.
Babylon 5 (aka "Lord of the Rings In Space")
WARNING SPOILERS FOR ANYONE WHO WAS IN A COMA BETWEEN 1994 and 1999
In B5, we were given a G vs. E scenario that any Tolkien fan could spot a
mile away. A dark force rising in a distant land...I mean, on a distant
planet. Signs. Portents. Prophecies. An ancient struggle. The forces of
chaos and darkness versus order and light. Even friggin' Rangers
ferchrissakes. Enter Bilbo Sinclair and his nephew Frodo Sheridan to save
the day with the help of Delenn The Grey.
Ah, but after a few seasons of evil-looking Shadows and noble-sounding
Vorlons competing for the attention of the various Hobbit-like "younger
races", we ultimately discover that the Vorlons are not all that good and
the Shadows are not all that bad. For all the goodness and light of the
Vorlons, they demand strict adherence to their particular vision of cultural
evolution. They're not all that big on the whole "finding your own way"
thing. For all the sinister creepiness and psychopathic tendencies of the
Shadows, we ultimately discover that they have our best interests at heart.
They firmly believe (however misguided) that kicking over an anthill makes
the ants stronger.
But both species have lost their way. The Shadows believe that the ends
justify the means, no matter how brutal the means. The Vorlons, on the
other hand, believe that there is only One True Means, no matter how dubious
the ends.
One last one: Inherit the Wind
It bugs the hell out of me that this play is still deeply relevant today.
Anyway.
What we have here is a confrontation, not between Good and Evil, but between
modernism and tradition (or between intellect and dogma). For those of us
who fall passionately on one side or the other, it is hard to accept the
idea that anyone on the other side has anything resembling a valid point of
view (personally, I sympathize more with E.K. Hornbeck aka H.L. Mencken than
anyone else in the story, but that's my problem).
While the play puts Henry Drummond squarely in the "right" and Matt Brady
squarely in the "wrong", it does not condemn Brady nor overly praise
Drummond. Brady is portrayed as a good man who allowed one conception of
the Truth to end his search for the Truth (the classic flaw of those who
would rather believe the unreal than accept uncertainty).
Both Drummond and Brady have devils on their shoulders. Brady's comes in
the form Rev. Jeremiah Brown, a fire and brimstone preacher who uses the
Bible to persecute rather than comfort. Drummond's comes in the person of
E.K. Hornbeck, a cyncial, exploitative reporter less interested in the
substance of the debate than in showing up the local yokels for the idiots
they are ("those are the boobs who write our laws"). Brown and Hornbeck
suffer from the same deficiency: they see no good in mankind only sin (in
the case of Brown) and ignorance (in the case of Hornbeck).
Drummond and Brady each have their confrontations with these devils.
Brady's comes at the the prayer meeting where Brown calls down the wrath of
God and, even worse, the wrath of the torch-wielding mob on Bertram Cates.
Brady calms the reverend and the crowd, by reminding them (title reference):
"He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
Drummond's comes at the end of the play when Hornbeck cynically chooses
these very words for Brady's epitaph, pointing out that no one did more
"troubleth"-ing than Brady. Drummond chastizes Hornbeck, challenging him to
name one thing that he believes in, one thing that gives him joy or to name
one person that will mourn his (Hornbeck's) passing. Horbeck retorts: "You
will, Henry. Who else would defend my right to be miserable?"
Ultimately, that's the game these four men play out: to balance ignorance,
happiness, enlightenment and misery.
That's all.
--
Jason Shankel
Maxis/EA
s h a n k e l "at" p o b o x . c o m
Play rich, creamery OpenTrek at www.pobox.com/~shankel/opentrek.html
Nolite quaerere, nolite loquere
Tom Sloper
>Personally, I'm not big on the whole "Good vs. Evil" thing. In real-world
>adversarial situations, rarely does one side self-identify as "evil".
[snip] In reality, most people (even your McVeighs and your bin Ladens)
believe
>that they are good. [snip] I'd personally like to see us embrace a more
nuanced world
>view. Good vs. Evil may be easy to understand, but moral ambiguity is
>infinitely more interesting.
Precisely why the preferred term is "antagonist" rather than "bad guy" or
"enemy." Some of the more interesting stories have antagonists who have a
nice (or human) side to them, and protagonists who have a flawed or dark
side.
Best to just use the terms "antagonist" and "protagonist" to avoid side
discussions about "bad guy but he really isn't all that bad in the long run"
and such...
Tom
Tom Sloper
http://www.sloperama.com
Robert Tweed
news:fhUj8.54$wU4....@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net...
>
> bad? Either from games, or any other media.
>
Dr Robotnick. He locks up small helpless animals - the scoundrel.
- Robert
MNT
news:Ms8k8.10165$A%3.8...@ord-read.news.verio.net...
> "Ben Bastian" <be...@NOSPAMaccess.com.au> wrote in message
> news:fhUj8.54$wU4....@nsw.nnrp.telstra.net...
> > While sometimes it can be a cliche, the eternal conflict of good versus
> evil
> > is a relationship that games along with other media heavily depend on.
My
> > opinion, is that while you don't necessarily need an antagonist, a
really
> > good antagonist can really bring something to a game.
> >
> > What are your favourite antagonists and what makes them so good at being
> > bad? Either from games, or any other media.
> >
>
>
> Personally, I'm not big on the whole "Good vs. Evil" thing. In real-world
> adversarial situations, rarely does one side self-identify as "evil".
Evil
> is a term that "we" apply to "them".
Wow, but how do you really feel about the subject? :)
I share the same view about shades of gray being more interesting than black
& white, but as difficult as it is to make the grays interesting in a static
medium like movies, it's got to be 10x as hard to do it in games. I mean,
while running around mazes chomping on pills, we just didn't have an
opportunity to get to know "Pinky". How he's really not a bad guy. He's
really a father of two, trying to do his best. He recently got this gig
where he's paid to chase a giant mouth around... OK, I'll stop... but
really, even today, are there sucessful story-driven games around? I don't
think I've seen them. Is the technology mature enough for them?
Taren Durbank
> that they are good. Even when mental defects (narcissism, grandiosity,
> scapegoating, delusion) drive them to the worst possible behaviors, they
> still think they're on the side of the angels.
I agree that some are like that. However, I would also add that some others
don't use the word "good" to describe themselves. Many antagonists know full
well that they are evil and perform evil acts. However, they usually do evil
out of selfishness and self-centredness, and use words like _practical_ or
_necessary_ to justify their actions or their cause.
eric leaf
"MNT" <mi...@one.net> wrote in message
news:u945qco...@corp.supernews.com...
> medium like movies, it's got to be 10x as hard to do it in games. I mean,
> while running around mazes chomping on pills, we just didn't have an
> opportunity to get to know "Pinky". How he's really not a bad guy. He's
> really a father of two, trying to do his best. He recently got this gig
> where he's paid to chase a giant mouth around... OK, I'll stop... but
> really, even today, are there sucessful story-driven games around? I don't
> think I've seen them. Is the technology mature enough for them?
Ha, too funny. Actually character development was done in those cheesy cut
scenes, I never got to see many of them.
Also I would lean more towards Pac being the "bad guy". It seemed to me that
the dots were being guarded by the ghosts and he just came stomping in
stealing them all.
Brandon Van Every
"eric leaf" <ericleaf_DEL@DEL_pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:QbEl8.17549$o_3.41...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>
> Also I would lean more towards Pac being the "bad guy". It seemed to me
that
> the dots were being guarded by the ghosts and he just came stomping in
> stealing them all.
A blob's gotta eat. Those ghosts are capitalist landowner pigs, look how
they persecute him!
--
Cheers, www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Bent C Dalager
Brandon Van Every <vane...@3DProgrammer.com> wrote:
>
>"eric leaf" <ericleaf_DEL@DEL_pacbell.net> wrote in message
>news:QbEl8.17549$o_3.41...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
>>
>> Also I would lean more towards Pac being the "bad guy". It seemed to me
>that
>> the dots were being guarded by the ghosts and he just came stomping in
>> stealing them all.
>
>A blob's gotta eat. Those ghosts are capitalist landowner pigs, look how
>they persecute him!
I agree. It is _clearly_ the ghosts' fault for not setting up an
appropriate wellfare system so that Pac can get a meal a day without
stealing it. You really can't fault someone for stealing food for
themselves and their familty so long as society around them doesn't
allow for any other means of providing food on the table.
Someone should check the Stasi archives - I am getting a feeling that
Pac Man was probably co-funded by the Soviet state ...
Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Brandon Van Every
"Bent C Dalager" <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote in message
news:a78e59$k8p$3...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
The power pills are clearly the symbols of the worker revolution.
Hammer, sickle, pill! VIVA LA BLOB!!!
Ben Bastian
concepts, I mean game design is certainly a rich enough field to be able to
handle it adequately, for instance look at "A mind forever voyaging". This
game certainly has the conceptual depth without a high technology base.
(For those who haven't played it, you can probably find it at
www.theunderdogs.org)
What I wanted to look at with my initial post was the situation where a game
is being made and that it has already been decided that this game will have
an antagonist, and I wanted people's responses of good examples that could
be used as a jump off point with a view of designing a suitable antagonist.
With this in mind I think Jason's post makes a pretty good point: Motivation
counts towards making an antagonist more believable.(If you've decided to
have one).
I also think that it's better if the motivation is flawed in some way:-
after all the main goal here is to increase the player's enjoyment, so it's
better if the player has a good reason to oppose them. A good example is
Davros' desire for genetic purity :- in a sort of UberNazi kind of way. His
motivation is very plain, and he thinks that what he is doing is correct,
but we're pretty sure that he isn't.
Ben
"MNT" <mi...@one.net> wrote in message
news:u945qco...@corp.supernews.com...
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> "Bent C Dalager" <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote in message
> news:a78e59$k8p$3...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
>> In article <zkMl8.1673$s8.1...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>> Brandon Van Every <vane...@3DProgrammer.com> wrote:
>> >A blob's gotta eat. Those ghosts are capitalist landowner pigs, look how
>> >they persecute him!
>> I agree. It is _clearly_ the ghosts' fault for not setting up an
>> appropriate wellfare system so that Pac can get a meal a day without
>> stealing it. You really can't fault someone for stealing food for
>> themselves and their familty so long as society around them doesn't
>> allow for any other means of providing food on the table.
>> Someone should check the Stasi archives - I am getting a feeling that
>> Pac Man was probably co-funded by the Soviet state ...
> The power pills are clearly the symbols of the worker revolution.
> Hammer, sickle, pill! VIVA LA BLOB!!!
Man, I wish I didn't have so many projects already in development -
now I want to make WARSAW-PACT-MAN, where you can choose to play either
the communist "redistribution expert" ("thief" in capitalist lingo)
Pact-Man, or the heroic capitalist landowner ghosts, who are trying to
defend the property they've purchased. There must be some way they
expect to make a profit, I dunno what, though.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"No one is safe. We will print no letters to the editor. We will give no
space to opposing points of view. They are wrong. The Underground Grammarian
is at war and will give the enemy nothing but battle." -TUG, v1n1
Bent C Dalager
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> wrote:
>
> Man, I wish I didn't have so many projects already in development -
>now I want to make WARSAW-PACT-MAN, where you can choose to play either
>the communist "redistribution expert" ("thief" in capitalist lingo)
>Pact-Man, or the heroic capitalist landowner ghosts, who are trying to
>defend the property they've purchased. There must be some way they
>expect to make a profit, I dunno what, though.
They might not be ghosts at all. I think they are spooks.
Leon B Bullock
[SNIP]
> after all the main goal here is to increase the player's enjoyment, so it's
> better if the player has a good reason to oppose them. A good example is
> Davros' desire for genetic purity :- in a sort of UberNazi kind of way. His
> motivation is very plain, and he thinks that what he is doing is correct,
> but we're pretty sure that he isn't.
Thats sort of the way that a lot of games go anyway. The person is doing something
for "the good of the people", but along the way their perceptions just got a little
twisted.
Or another nice plot line is about a great honourable guy, but for his people to
survive they need to conquer your people. This guy doesn't want a war, but he has to
for his pople to survive.
Leon.
(First ever post to the group)