From a very young age, at least most of us, are taught the difference between choosing right and wrong, being good or evil, acting polite or being rude, supporting Liverpool or Man U and so on. It inevitably becomes ingrained in our brain and there is not much room in the average person's mind to contemplate different courses of action when it comes to making a decision during predicaments encountered throughout one's time spent in the real world.

For example, if some medallion wearing taxi driver cuts you up without indicating and causes you to swerve violently to avoid him in the process, the average range of responses will be somewhere between signing in genuine relief that everyone escaped unharmed to experiencing a bout of road rage resulting in a barrage of "yo - mamma" insults, honking of horn, some manly eyeballing and puffing of chest. 

But what happens when you remove those irritating things known as true consequence and reprocussions? What happens when you are put into an environment where your actions will not result in an extortionate increase in your insurance premiums, were your family does not go hungry because you told your boss exactly what you thought of them or when it is acceptable to after first having killed someone to proceed and stand over their mutilated corpse, empty a clip or two into their lifeless space marine body and then teabag (photo definition) them for good measure?  

The world of gaming has provided us with a portal where we may experiment with our morality for no other reason that to put a smile on our face. I have always played as a morally grounded virtual  individual making the same kind of decisions as I would in the real world had I for example been asked to "harvest" a small child or save her, I guess my chivalry just always shines through. Then it dawned on me that, what is the fun of always being good when I can be evil at not cost. With last weeks launch of Lionhead Studio's Fable 2 I opted to start walking down the evil and dark road, taking no flak from anyone and blazing a trail of wrath and vengeance in the mythical setting of Albion. 

The plan was simple: cause mayhem, kill innocents, horde, embrace bigamy, decapitate, burn and eventually peticure the inevitable devil horns that would sprout from my cranium. 

During the first hours of the game I was proper nasty and I must admit I had acquired a taste for the dark side and I wanted more. On one occasion I had my female hero's eye on a sweet hard working lesbian barmaid who knew how to pull a pint or two down in Bowerstone's local. Problem was she was a bit stubborn and even though we got married and I cared for her she was always running away and unhappy, so I decided to part ways with Gwen the Barmaid and I divorced her using my Blunderbuss Rifle ... then I smiled, took back my ring and rented out her now vacant abode to make some cash. 

Then it suddenly happened, I started finding it progressively more uncomfortable with being a total bastard. I was still a bastard but the kind with a heart of gold. I was actually surprised that the game managed to pull off this weird sense of morality in a virtual world and allowed me the option to explore my evil persona.