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Tell me you haven't played Undertale without telling me you haven't played Undertale.
On that note, the problem with "evil" runs in video games is that it basically just handicaps you, removes content from the game, and slowly makes your experience worse with very little to actually show for it and very little external motivation other than "for the evilz". There's literally zero reason to (for example) explode Megaton other than "some character asked you to do it"; same thing with the slavery mechanics (it barely pays and nobody really cares or reacts anyway- you'd think companions would have a reaction to you enslaving a little kid, but they just stand around and watch) and doing what the President suggests you do at the end of the game. Fallout 4 had a DLC that let you do this sort of thing, but it's very surface level and confined to the settlements; basically nobody in the large areas reacts (and to my knowledge there aren't really any mods that make the townsfolk react).
At least Mass Effect's Renegade prompts were entertaining, but that was always conflated with the sub-optimal choices in the wider world and choosing them sometimes even locked you out of major plot points down the road (that you couldn't see).
I think the other problem with choice in video games is that sometimes, that's not actually the point. Someone mentioned HL2 and Mario as prime examples of "the journey, not the destination" thinking, where HL2 is designed to test your puzzle-solving abilities (and the fights themselves being puzzles- though admittedly HL1 did that better) and Mario is designed to test your reflexes and timing. Sure, you could just watch a playthrough of them to extract the whole movie-like experience- and many do- but the interactivity is kind of the point.
Good point re undertale. That game had a pretty decent core gameplay loop to underpin the experience, but the dialogue was actually decent and emotionally investible. My specific complaint about 'choice' is that Mass Effect, Fallouts and to a lesser extent Skyrim had really poor consequences for choices, they were just different coloured lights and minimal FMV cutscenes. Perhaps the challenge of working in a Universe means you can't have wild ranging consequences, any sequel requires certain base states to persist: I can't nuke the universe in ME3 or kill Preston Garvey in FO4, and that cheapens the 'freedom of choice' in the game.
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Yes. Most games get this wrong. They try to make good and evil completely equivalent options that only differ in flavour, rather than recognising the nature of evil as a temptation. The evil options need to be the ones that provide the most immediate material gain to the player, not just "you can be a jerk if you want to, I guess." Bioshock almost manages it, and then walks it back at the last moment; the per-choice resource reward for good vs evil has a difference of double the rate, 80 for good vs 160 for evil. This would be great, making the player make do with less resources for the satisfaction of doing the right thing, or forcing the player to commit evil acts if they are struggling... only the game then undermines its own choice system by having the good route provide the player with additional resource gifts such that the overall difference between playthroughs is a mere 280 as opposed to the 1680 it would otherwise have been. Plus some other (exclusive to good route!) goodies on top that more than account for that difference. Now there's basically no reason not to be good all the time.
To make evil options worth taking, imo, they need to provide immediate and overwhelmingly lucrative rewards that you can't get any other way. Taking the Megaton example, I struggle to think of what could be offered that would be enough to make me blow up the town; maybe something on the level of New Vegas' Euclid's C-Finder, plus ten thousand caps and a unique companion who is extremely good. But that would also undermine the point of the Tenpenny quest; he's destroying an entire town for a trivial reason, doesn't think it's a big deal, and therefore probably shouldn't reward you so highly. So one can argue that the point of the quest is not to be able to complete it in an evil way at all; you're supposed to refuse, it's all a vehicle to make you hate Tenpenny.
Personally, I've always found the "We now interrupt your regularly scheduled gameplay to ask: are you feeling evil today?" style of game morality systems a bit... disappointing? I'd rather something that tracks less interrupty choices (did you punch-out fluffy, or did you distract him with KFC?), and have those kinda accumulate to influence how the game perceives your character's personality over time. Ex, if you get into fights you could have avoided, or if you perform acts of altruism, or whatever, NPCs might treat you differently, different shops might be open or closed to you, etc.
The big, "we'll be right back after you tell us whether or not you're up for genocide this time" sorts of things feel like a choose-your-adventure story got mixed in with whatever the normal playstyle is, and how often do they effectively balance the character Vs the player's agency, or make it seem plausible that the character might choose either way, etc?
What you're describing is the trial sequence from Chrono Trigger. We used to have these things in games, back when they were still made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts, and not by massive megacorporations beholden to suits and shareholders for maximum profit. Sigh.
But yes I agree completely.
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