10 Video Games That Let You Be An Utter Scumbag

5. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Remember Kane & Lynch? Eidos' third-person shooter franchise came and went without much of a peep in the late 2000s, and perhaps part of the reason for its middling popularity was the thoroughly reprehensible nature of its titular protagonists.

While most of the douchebag characters on this list at least have some charm or sense of moral justification, Kane and Lynch are just pure, immoral trash from start to finish.

Player character Kane may love his kidnapped wife and daughter, but that doesn't mean he's a good guy by any means - he acts purely out of selfishness throughout the entire game, slaughtering hundreds of anonymous goons with little remorse or justification.

Lynch, meanwhile, is a psychotic who literally murders innocent hostages when his meds wear off, so there's that.

To be clear, neither of the two games care much for moralising or justifying the characters' actions, but they certainly leave the player yearning for a shower afterwards.

There's definitely a refreshing appeal to the game making virtually no effort at all to render these characters sympathetic - they don't drop charming one-liners and they sure don't look handsome - even if it's also understandable why so many would be turned off by their pervasive ugliness both inside and out.