[General Discussion] Best 'justice system' or 'checks and balances'

So one of the things that has evolved in games is being responsible for your own actions. Truth be told, this has been in games since the 80's. One somewhat popular example would be in Dragon Warrior I in which if you...

Spoiler:

Say yes to the Dragonlord that you want half the world, then say yes again, the game will end. the screen will then turn red.

As times went on, at least in the States, things progressed such as in Super Mario RPG where:

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You can go to Merryland or whatever it's called and continually sleep at the hotel. However, upon exiting the hotel, the clerk will state that you actually slept too many times and must work off the debt.

or Chrono Trigger where:

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The things you do determine whether or not you are guilty in your trial. One example is eating another person's pig meat.

Now, while consoles have taken a bit of time to develop such mechanics, PC-based games have had it for quite a long time. One need only look at the Ultima series where you can ATTACK VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING ON SCREEN. Also, most Dungeon and Dragon games are very similar where attacking say, a King, causes his entire army to go at you. You can even go back as far as the old DOS, command line games where you can 'break the rules' by doing things such as having Sam kill virtually everyone in fellowship of the ring until he faints. Of course, it should be noted that games that are ported from PC to Consoles DID have these characteristics in them.

Yet, overall, very few games had a fully defined justice system / checks and balances. Do X crime, get penalty Y. What do you think has the best justice system? What do you think has the worst? What is medicore?

Medicore:

Fable - Petty crimes cost something like 40 gold up a pop. More devasting crimes like murder is a 1000 a pop, and you get thrown out of town. While it does seem silly that after 10 minutes, even if you have completely obliterated a down of it's populaton and guards, that you are free to go back for a friendly visit, the game still has a decent set of checks and balances where you are fined in proposition to the seriousness of the crime.

Ultima VIII - Basically, if you commit a crime, you die. On one hand, it does a nice job of stopping you from doing anything wrong but every crime results in the death penalty which is a bit of an extreme.


Best:
Elder Scrolls III - Similar to Fable, stealing or other minor crimes have a minor penalty. Items stolen are returned. Can;t pay? You go to jail. More serious crimes have a costlier penalty, and eventually if you do enough, basically the guards will attack you on sight. After that, you pretty much can't go to any town without being attacked unless you have the bounty removed. A good set of checks and balances in proportion to your crime AND constant murder is not taken lightly.

Worst:

Grand Theft Auto X - Virtually any in the series will do at least up to 3 which is when I really stopped playing. You can get in a car and mow over tons of people before the police bother to stop you. Even then, it takes quite a while for them to really go for you. And if you paint your car, problems are gone. Now, one could argue that Fable is worse as you can do a ton of damage, then leave town for 10 minutes, and come back as if nothing has happened. However, in Fable, you are much more likely to get caughti n town and have instant repercussions than in GTA. in GTA, you have to do something right in front of the police for them to stop you. And even THEN, you will most likely get one star, something that will fade away after a minute or so if you hop in a car and drive off.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I never said GTA was expected to have the greatest 'justice system' but rather was comparing it to other games. Given the plot and missions in GTA, I think a justice system is a mood point for that game, but yet it exists nonetheless in some degree.

I used SMRPG more as an example of how games (mainly console games in the States. I can't say the same for those in Japan though because I haven't played that many games in Japanese. This was what I meant by 'At least...') progressed where choices had consequences.

I'm not going at this with a 'we must make every game realistic to the fullest extent of the law' but rather comparing (given my opinion) how the checks and balances are handled. Some may feel that GTA has the best justice system around, and if you feel so, that's totally fine as you are justified to your opinion (just give your reasoning...which many of you did ). I felt it was a bit lacking but on the same token realize that that wasn't the focal point by the designers.

There's nowhere I can't reach.