What kind of heartless monster are you? It’s a question we’ve all faced in the last year of gaming. Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Fable II are just a few recent titles with an ethical focus — games that offer us conscious decisions to be self-sacrificing, noble, or wicked. It’s no longer just about being the star of the show; the most satisfying games in recent memory offer you the choice between being good and evil. They give us the freedom to explore the extremes of human behavior with none of the real-world consequences.

Case in point: Call of Duty: World at War. Late in the game there’s a scene where you get a choice to execute some German P.O.W.s or leave them to an even more horrific fate. I tried to consider what a retaliating Russian soldier would do in that situation, and decided to Molotov them to death. Pretty nasty. I wonder what that says about me.

Curiosity ignited, I decided to ask almost everyone I met over the following month whether they’re a good or evil gamer. Is the entire games industry festering with malevolence?

Hard Shell, Soft Center

Rock Band 2 lead designer Dan Teasedale was the first. “I have the hots for playing evil in games that let you have the choice,” he says. “The one that springs to mind is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, where I had deliberately set out to be bad. But if I get to a mission where you have to get someone to kill their friend, I just can’t do it. I always have to stop playing evil.”

Dan Cornelius, busy right now with marketing Halo Wars and other Microsoft Games Studios titles, also found it a challenge to be totally evil. “When I was playing Fable II, I asked myself exactly that question about the different kinds of people, and what would be going through their heads to make those decisions,” he tells us. “I don’t know why, but whenever I’m faced with a potentially evil decision, I do shy away from it and tend to go for the good decisions. I don’t know what that means in deep psychological terms.

“At the end of Fable II, you get three choices: get a load of money, save your loved ones, or save all the people who died during the saga. I chose to save my friends. It was an interesting game in that respect because it did give a real emotional dimension to gaming.”

Separation Anxiety

We do a lot of things in videogames because of the way they make us feel. After all, there are rarely any actual material consequences. However, it seems very difficult to convince our consciences that what we’re doing isn’t real.

Some gamers do have a stronger ability to immerse themselves, however. “I love to play as a hero, but I also tend to play the extremes,” says F.E.A.R. 2’s primary art lead, Dave Matthews. “In Knights of the Old Republic, I played all the way through as good. Then, as soon as I’d finished the game, I turned around and played the most evil way possible, using Force Lightning on just about everyone I met.”

Playing both sides is often the only way to experience everything a game has to offer. Many side quests, unlockables, and storylines become available only after you take a certain path. This is always in the mind of the most pragmatic gamers.

For instance, Capcom PR manager Leo Tan takes a practical approach — though for different reasons. “I play exclusively as a good character in Fable II because the outcome affects your physical appearance,” he reveals. “I play as a female and I want her to be as beautiful as possible. I’m halfway through, and I’ve never unsheathed my sword. If she gets all muscular, I’m not interested. It’s really an aesthetic choice.”

Play Nice With Others

But what about those times when our actions do have a real-world consequence? In multiplayer games, your acts of kindness or cruelty can have an impact on other people — and your moral choices move beyond the safe borders of a fantasy world.

Lisa Bidder, editor of community site XboxGameZone.co.uk, wants to be bad, but her conscience stands in the way, making her a saintly figure online. “I play shooters, and in many of them, you have the ability to save your friends and heal them,” she explains. “Going back into the firing line to rescue people is my thing.”

She might have enjoyed joining Emergency Service Unit, a clan that specialized in running ambulance and fire-truck patrols in Grand Theft Auto IV. Unfortunately, it closed due to a shortage of members. Take that for what you will.

Meanwhile, Hidden League Gaming is going strong. This Halo 3 clan loves winding up other players by getting a single kill and then hiding outside the confines of the maps by glitching. “HLG has been labeled as the official bad-kid group by most players who disapprove of such tactics,” says one of the group’s members, who wishes to remain nameless. “Some have accepted it, knowing that they can’t fight it because it doesn’t directly violate the Code Of Conduct itself.”

The group’s actions are undoubtedly intended to irritate other people, a process more commonly known as griefing. There are even clans springing up specifically to counter the HLG by exposing their hiding places and posting about them on forums. Halo may be just a game, but how people choose to play it clearly matters.

Beyond Good And Evil

There will always be people playing on the dark side, as well as the light. What’s more, fresh DLC for Fallout 3 and Mass Effect is on the way, with even more moral quandaries within. The next time you face one, don’t ask yourself “What should I do?” but “Why do I want to do it this way?” The answer might not be easy to find, but it will be illuminating.

Next up: The Gamer's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins!

The Gamer's Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins

Greed

Zombie-hunting first-person shooter Left 4 Dead is all about teamwork and survival. So there’s nothing more annoying than a player who runs off to the next safe area and uses up all the medikits before you even get there. As a reward for being a good player, healing others is fractionally quicker than healing yourself. Who knows, they might even return the favor!

Sloth

Even the most innocent co-op game can be transformed into a complete nightmare by sloth. There’s nothing more infuriating in Lego Indiana Jones than the other player standing in the corner, stopping you from progressing. It’s even worse if they force you to fall into pits over and over again. Mercenaries 2 co-op can also make you see red if the other player stands around like a statue.

Pride

Like a lot of people, Prince of Persia community developer Chris Easton has landed in trouble for trying to show off in Team Fortress 2. “I managed to get to the flag, rocket-jumped and threw it to get it through the window. However, I ended up throwing it into the rafters of the flag room. The rafters are completely inaccessible to any class. Everyone on my team was shouting abuse at me, in between messages from the enemy team laughing at us.” We’ve all been there, Chris.

Gluttony

It’s appropriate that Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom actually has an Achievement called Gluttony. It’s a game where you’ll see other players running off to hoard all the rare items, leaving you to do the fighting. You’ll often hear players boasting that they’ve collected over 100,000 potions and have no intention of sharing. Gluttony is also something to be avoided in Fable II, as it makes your character look terrible.

Wrath

“The most evil thing you can do in F.E.A.R. 2 is get the Penetrator nailgun and hide under a walkway,” says the game’s art lead, Dave Matthews. “When someone walks over it, you can fire right through them and nail them to the ceiling.”

Left 4 Dead’s writer, Chet Faliszek, adds: “When you’re at the finale of No Mercy in Left 4 Dead, on top of the roof, you can actually punch people off the roof and they’ll go sailing. When we play co-op in the office, there’s a lot of screaming and excitement, whereas in Versus mode, there’s just profanity.”

Lust

As if games like Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 and Rumble Roses XX weren’t pervy enough, someone went and added a photo mode. Anyone with a serious interest in aperture and lighting need not apply, but fans of exposure will probably quite enjoy it. Just remember, there are no Achievement points for zooming in on lady lumps.

Envy

There can be no bigger case of mass envy than Halo 3's Recon armor. Only members of Bungie (and a tiny number of community members) have it, but that hasn't stopped thousands from begging "Can I has Recon?" on the game's forums. The problem becames so bad that Bungie now just immediately bans anyone who even mentions it.