Today's Top 10 features those characters that you love to hate in just about every single game: the villains. Whether they're trying to take over the world or exterminate all life as they know it, an excellent villain can turn a generic game into a good one and elevate a great title to a classic.
So today we're going to take a look at ten of the most memorable villains of all time. Yes, we know there are many more; in fact, we could've easily fielded a Top Twenty of evil between everyone in the office, but these ten stand out as some of the baddest guys around thanks to their wicked contribution to gaming history.
| 10) Bowser // Mario series | |
| Forget "evil twin" knockoffs Wario and Waluigi -- the real nemesis of the Mushroom Kingdom and of gaming's favorite plumber has to be Bowser. The bipedal turtle-like Koopa keeps ruining Mario's day by kidnapping Princess Peach simply because he has a crush on her. Plus, he wins father-of-the-century points for continually throwing his kids at the plumbing duo as fodder. It's too bad that instead of threatening kingdoms, he's now stuck in countless sports titles and party games. | |
| 9) Dr. Robotnik // Sonic series | |
| Anyone have an idea why every evil genius builds robots in his quest for world domination? PETA's videogame public enemy number one, Robotnik creates funky contraptions which prove that eggs aren't always good for you. Case in point: the Death Egg, which appeared in at least five Sonic titles. Robotnik does get street cred for being obsessed with Chaos Emeralds bling before most rappers were into jewelry. | |
| 8) Dracula // Castlevania series | |
| Tormenting a game character over a series is one way to establish yourself as a villain, but to completely seek out the destruction of one family of vampire hunters over multiple generations is a major grudge. You have to give Dracula some credit: he's the Timex of villains. He takes the Belmont licking and keeps on ticking to threaten the land again and again. | |
| 7) Evil Otto // Berzerk | |
| You may not remember his name, but you certainly remember his face. That's all there is to remember, actually. Patience definitely was not a virtue in Berzerk, the arcade quarter-muncher that gave children of the '80s nightmares about springy smiley faces. Just when you were doing great, taking your time to line up every shot so you could send the evil robots to the great scrapheap in the sky, along came Evil Otto, taunting you with his perverted smile. He would bounce toward you like a giddy-yet-nefarious rubber ball of death. Making matters worse, the indestructible Otto was relentless in his pursuit, and your only escape was to run to another robot-filled room. | |
| 6) Psycho Mantis // Metal Gear Solid | |
| Players of the Metal Gear series are accustomed to fighting strange bosses, but one of the weirdest has to be the psychic member of FOXHOUND known as Psycho Mantis. Not only was he deranged, he pulled off some of the best tricks in gaming history: he messed with the player's mind by turning off the screen, "mind reading" every move you made with your controller and "scanning" your memory cards for specific games. Definitely attention-grabbing, especially the first time through when you don't expect it. | |
| 5) Kerrigan // Starcraft | |
| In any battle scenario, the cardinal sin of warfare is leaving your soldiers behind. It's even worse when these warriors are so powerful that their very existence can come back to destroy you when you least expect it. When Kerrigan, a high-ranking psychic soldier (and playable hero) in the Terran army was left behind to be overtaken and infected by the Zerg, the factions of StarCraft were never the same. Reborn as the Queen of Blades, she wrested control of the entire Zerg race, tricked the Protoss into killing one of their own leaders, infested a number of worlds and betrayed her former allies. As she eloquently put it, "I'm pretty much the Queen Bitch of the Universe." | |
| 4) SHODAN // System Shock series | |
| Make sure you treat your computers well. Don't hack them, don't abuse them, and certainly don't assert your dominance, because if they're anything like SHODAN, they'll kill you if they're having a bad day. They'll also taunt you the entire time they're doing it. Whether on a space station or a starship, SHODAN's virtual omnipotence meant that everything from communications and security cameras to video terminals were under her control to do as she saw fit. Plus, she loved sending mutants, robots, and cyborgs of tortured victims after you, all the while ridiculing your insignificance. Each time she called you an insect or an irritant, it actually felt like a slap across the face. | |
| 3) Wesker // Resident Evil series | |
| It's one thing to fight a horrific viral outbreak alongside teammates; it's another thing entirely to completely abandon them when they need you most. Worse still, it's downright despicable to turn out to be one of the causes of the bio-toxin. Wesker isn't just a corporate suit pulling strings behind the scenes; he's also a willing participant in its mutation, having willingly experimented on himself with the T-Virus and its numerous variations to become less than human. Res Evil fans know that whenever Wesker shows up, trouble isn't far behind. | |
| 2) Sephiroth // Final Fantasy VII | |
| When you can coldly murder one of the most beloved characters of a role-playing franchise because she stands in the way of your destroying a planet and becoming a god, you've ascended to the top ranks of villainy. Sephiroth's psychotic fixation on being the sole survivor of an ancient race and meting out its vengeance made many a Final Fantasy player infuriated and eager to get into a fight with this lunatic. | |
| 1) The Nazis // Too many games to count | |
| The Nazis have been a mainstay of videogame villainy since the early years of gaming. Raiders of the Lost Ark on the Atari 2600 was full of them, Medal of Honor on the PlayStation was teeming with them, and most recently Call of Duty 2 on the Xbox 360 showed us that digital Nazis remain among the nastiest of foes. From the first digital shouts of "Achtung!" and "Kommen Sie!" in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein in the early 80s to similar cries in today's titles, Nazis remain a formidible force of evil in videogames. | |
