BioShock
Mr. Matey by Mr. Hatey...
BioShock maps child murder to a button press; you don’t have to look hard for evil. The bastard, however, celebrates unnecessary evil. Both BioShock and its shinier sequel supply you with a Pick ‘n’ Mix of torturing abilities – less pink foam prawns, more bee attacks. For our money (salvaged from a nearby dustbin, naturally) it doesn’t get better than the electro-bath. Set a Splicer aflame with the incinerate plasmid and just as he jumps into nearby water, fire an electro bolt into the shimmering wetness. The notion that he sees his fate buzzing before him is most pleasing.
Crackdown
Driven to destruction.
Killing criminals is satisfying, but if only there were a way to parade our badness. Say hello to the harpoon gun and its rather natty ability to staple bodies to your car. Drive around and the legs wobble and everything, like an ultra-disturbo take on nodding dogs. Developers Realtime Worlds understand, offering a tasty Achievement for stapling five to a car at once.
Saw
We tried, honest.
Come on, admit it: the only reason anyone bought Saw was to see horrible things happen to whimpering meatlings. Bizarrely, the most gruesome outcomes are considered punishment for failing trap puzzles. Instead of solving logic puzzles just stand back and watch as people get poison-needled, burnt in pie ovens and fed into man-sized versions of a butcher’s ham-trimming machine. That the devs put so much time into animating death sequences proves they’re as bastardly as we are.
Fable II
Consider this a divorce.
Wives, eh? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t murder them without accruing evil points. Time to call in a friend to kill your wife. In co-op mode, the second player takes the bad karma by doing the deed and you stand idly by, dreaming of all the buxom young wenches you’re going to crap yourself in front of. Delete the second player and the world is none the wiser. It’s basically the plot of Strangers on a Train (or, if you’re a dope, Throw Momma from the Train). For extra bastard points, take control of the second player and do her in like a split personality psycho killer.
Bully: Scholarship Edition
If you can dodge a wrench...
In our school, if we remember rightly, losing a playground football match meant lining up against the wall and having the victors kick the ball as hard as possible into your eleven-year-old shins. This was a naive reward to grant to a group of lads for proving their naturally superior kicking ability. But that’s how the playground is: violence is golden, as long as you’re the practitioner. Years later and the welts may have subsided, but the scars have not, which is why we take every opportunity to lamp small children in the face with dodgeballs. Rockstar’s tumbling fat boys may not be Euphoria-powered, but euphoria is certainly felt.
Perfect Dark
Take your medicine...
Clocking Perfect Dark’s goons in the nuts isn’t unnecessary evil – it’s a rite of passage for every young gamer. So instead we turn to multiplayer, where Rare’s creative weaponry enables all kinds of cruelty. The bastard favours the tranquilizer. The primary sedate function pumps foes full of drugs, slurring their movement and blurring their view until they’re as lucid as YouTube’s stoned dentist kid. Jab a chum with several sedates and you casually mosey on up to his disorientated form, switch the tranquilizer to lethal injection and put him down. Funny in 2001. Still funny now.
