10 Video Games That Let You Be An Utter Scumbag

8. Black & White

Peter Molyneux's legendary God simulator may not have fully delivered on the designer's typically ambitious vision, but it nevertheless served as a fantastic test of the player's capacity to cope with having immense power at their disposal.

As the deity overseeing a number of island tribes, you're able to act as a benevolent, evil or "tweener" God, with your behaviours reflected by the state of your worshippers.

Hilariously, the player is shepherded by a good and evil adviser, each trying to pull them in their respective direction. And though the appeal of building an idyllic settlement speaks for itself, who among us could resist becoming Death, the Destroyer of Worlds?

Your evil actions can range from simply neglecting your tribes, ignoring their prayers and allowing them to starve, to more directly insidious actions like destroying their settlements and even using your God-hand to physically abuse individual villagers. Furthermore, you can unleash your gigantic pet on the village if you want to, uh, send a message.

Elsewhere you can instil fear and create a malevolent theocracy of sorts, expending your followers like cattle and violently murdering them when they're either disobedient or no longer useful.

Carry out enough terrible acts and the game's aesthetic will even change to reflect your evil-doing.

Both the original Black and White and its sequel (pictured above) gave players a blank slate and let them do their best or worst - but if reality teaches us anything, it's that power corrupts far more often than it emboldens people to do good.