With it being Father’s Day in the United Kingdom it’s time to celebrate all of those great and worthwhile Dads who will do absolutely anything for their children and are truly beloved by their kids. However, this post is about their video game counterparts that don’t quite cut it. That’s right, for every great video game Dad there is a suitably bad one, and this is a list of all those Dads in Video Games who won’t be winning a ‘Father-of-the-Year award’ any time soon.
Big Daddy’s – Bioshock Series
On the outset the Big Daddies from the sub-aqua FPS RPG Bioshock show certain qualities that put them in the ‘Great Dad’ column. They are diligent, protective of their wards and will defend them to the death if they are threatened. However, there are other qualities that don’t show them in such a great light.
Most parents who catch their daughters, crawling through the vents, extracting genetic material from corpses with large syringes are likely to at least have a polite word with them, maybe reduce their video-game privileges. Not so for the Big Daddies, there is practically no parental guidance from these large hulking soulless machines. Not to mention killing attackers with a giant mechanical drill in front of their kids, would give most Child Services cause for concern.
Nate – Fallout 4
“What! Nate a bad Father?” I hear you cry, “Surely not. When he finds out his son’s been kidnapped he goes to the ends o the earth to rescue him.” Sure, that is true. However, the speed in which he does it, does at least cast doubt on his morality. Nate wakes up in a destroyed future, his wife killed, his son kidnapped by said murderer.
So, off he pops on the great quest to rescue him, “oh but wait! Let me single-handedly charge into this giant facility filled with murdering giant super-mutants first.” or “Sure my son’s gone to god knows where, but these two complete strangers need me to go into an ex-military satellite and retrieve a locket from their dead daughter first. Sure, why not?”
Even if you go straight through the main quest as quickly as possible, the confused devastation or just plain rage that any other Father would be feeling in a similar position just doesn’t come across in any of your conversations. You just have to question his morality..
Dad – Fallout 3
Speaking of Fallout Dads that leave a lot to be desired, what about your father in Fallout 3. There’s no real problem with his fatherhood until your Lone Wanderer’s tenth birthday. At which point his present to you is a BB Gun and your first experience in killing something. We can skip past that, obviously life in a vault is different.
However, your Dad’s real time to shine is when you’re 19 when he up’s and does a runner with absolutely no information. He runs and leaves you in the isolationist Vault 101 under the oppressive care of the overseer, until you put all your radroach kill training to good use and bludgeon to death or shot anyone who gets in your path.
Then after tracking him down across the ruined landscape of Washington DC, your Dad not only get’s himself killed by severe radiation poisoning, but unless you’re a complete swine (which by this point you probably would be) you’ll suffer a similar fate yourself.
Jecht – Final Fantasy X
Jecht is the father of Tidus, an ex Blitzball player and hero of Final Fantasy X. Jecht’s alter-ego is a giant whale like creature that fly’s through the sky covered in armour plating destroying whole cities. We’ll put that to one side, as SPOILER, there might be semi-noble motives.
However, what there is a less noble motive for is the fact that Jecht, when he was alive belittled his son, called him weak, and a cry-baby and said he would never be as good a blitzball player as him. This constant berating psychologically damaged Tidus, for many years.
Henry Lawson – Mass Effect 2
Of, all the heartless and deranged father’s out there, you can’t get many worse than Henry Lawson, the father of Miranda Lawson, the genetically perfect crewmember aboard the Normandy in Mass Effect 2. Firstly, Miranda was created from the tweaked genetic code of Henry himself and was made to be as perfect as a human being could be. He gave her everything, but there was always a sinister self-serving motive.
Oh, and when Henry got bored with Miranda he used her DNA to create an even more ideal sister. It’s also worth saying, that Miranda wasn’t his first daughter, so he’s done this on several occasions. How many ‘failed’ experiments has he had?
Not all video game dads are bad though, here is our list of good video game dads.
