Are there any games with conflicting goals?

[Curlypaul]

Epic Mickey. You can solve most puzzles with either the paint or the the thinner, and that has a influence on which missions you are given later on. Its not possible to see the entire game in one play through as the game excludes things based on your choices.

Kind if irritated my OCD tendency to see everything in a game, but it is kind of cool.

[Gamerforlife]

How about Dead Rising?

There were tons of people to rescue in that game, but often times you would try rescuing one person, which would make you unable to save someone else, or it would make you unable to be somewhere important at a specific time thus making the story go in a very negative direction. That game was always pulling at you from different directions and made it hard for you to do everything that you wanted to do

Actually rescuing everyone and getting the game's good ending pretty much required you to nearly be everywhere at once, and was damn near impossible to pull off without a guide or faq. Ironically, I actually think the game's good ending has the worst outcome. So even in choosing which ending you want to get there is conflict

Heavy Rain is a good choice. I was thinking about that one

[johnnyonthespot]

How about Grand Theft Auto 2?

With there being rival gangs in the city, completing a mission for one gang makes you lose rep with another.

[fastbilly1]

The Witcher had my favorite version of this. RPS had a great article on it that Ill try to dig up.

[CDGR]

I remember Fallout 3 having a few where it's really not clear who is the better group to help, and helping one faction really screws over the other group.
As a couple of examples; In the beginning at Megaton, you meet a man who wants you to blow up the city. Do you blow it up and get a ton of reward, or do you save the town for a free place to stay.
At Tenpenny Tower, do you help the snobby rich people get rid of the violent ghouls so they let you in peacefully, or do you help the ghouls kill every normal human inside.
And on the DLC, The Pitt, it had the ultimate conflicting objective in my opinion. You have the people who are being forced to work and rebuild the town, and you have the people who are overseeing them, making sure they work. At first, freeing the slaves seems to be the clear cut good guy objective, but when you realize that in order to free the slaves, you have to kidnap the leader's newly born child so the slaves can kill it. Once you meet the head of the city and his wife, you actually come to realize they aren't that bad of people. They unified their city in the chaos to begin rebuilding with promise of freedom once said rebuilding was finished. So keep slaves enslaved or kill baby? Took me a good while to decide.

[Hobie-wan]

Fallout 3

Just wait until you play New Vegas. There are a few clear ones, then a ton of muddy ones. I'm putting off one part until I get more side stuff out of the way. I don't know which way I'm going to go yet.