Top 7 Villains of Video Games

Stop your whining! I know you love it as much as I do. As indicated by all the recent articles, it’s top list fever this week! But I promise, this is the last list you’ll be seeing… this week. From me. Maybe.

Villains come in all shapes and sizes, but the greatest ones aren’t necessarily the most badass of them all. It’s the antagonists who somehow found their ways into our memories that stand out among the rest. Like it or not, here’s my top 7 villains of video games. It’s spoilerific!

 

An upgraded version of the Tyrant design, Nemesis destroyed his way into gamer’s hearts when he appeared in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, receiving praise ever since, except for when he showed up looking like a miniture version of himself in the 2004 film Resident Evil: Apocalypse. This beast was created by the Umbrella Corporation as a bio-organic weapon by infecting a Tyrant with a parasite. Upon doing so, it takes control of the nervous system to form its own brain, making it intelligent enough to use weapons and to track his victims down. Nemesis also shows off his intelligence by walking around with some fashion sense, draping himself in a trench coat and actually wearing shoes. he pops in and out throughout the game muttering “S.T.A.R.S,” scaring the bejeebuz out of us. Everyone who played the game would agree, Nemesis made surviving fun.

 

 

 

Stalking Jill through the entire game was scary enough, killing other members of the task force as she watched, chasing her across game screens, trying to attack with his huge arms or a freaking rocket launcher, but fighting a mutated version of this mutant in confined spaces was frantic and chaotic. And even after hitting it with a rail cannon, not once but twice, the thing still gets up enough to spew out acid! It would have all been even more satisfying if Jill didn’t have to say that god awful line. “You want Stars? I’ll give you stars.” Bang!

 

 

The Legend of Zelda fanchise remains sucessful because it keeps things ultra simple. You play as Link, a kind and soft-hearted boy who goes from a nobody to a hero, embarking on a quest to save Princess Zelda, a symbol for all suffering in the world, from the evil clutches of Ganon, the ultimate embodiment of evil. Ganon appears in most of the games in the series, yet is usually not recognized as the main villain until around the half-way point. Even though there’s been some confusion on what his actual name is, his usual backstory involves being the pervious leader of the Gerudos who eventually gains magical abilities—which apparently are powerful enough to call himself a king of darkness, but not enough to rule the world, which usually becomes his key objective. Too bad Link is in the way to stop him from even taking over Hyrule, every time.

 

 

 

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say every battle involving Ganon has been nothing short of epic. But to keep things short and current, I’m going to reference the Twilight Princess battle, if nothing else but the fact that he shapeshifts into a giant boar. Link’s a wolf and Ganon’s a boar? Way to fit with the theme. After a bit of stampeding, Zelda’s spirit being released, Hyrule Castle being engulfed in darkness, and some horse dueling, Link and Ganon goes one on one in a sword duel. In the end, Link impales him. But the way he really dies? Cinematic Awesomeness.

 

 

Metal Gear Solid was all kinds of genius. Say what you want about Hideo Kojima, but at least the man knew how to make boss battles memorable. And out of all of them, Psycho Mantis easily shines brighter than the rest. As a character, he was dangerous enough: born in a small Russian village, he realized his telekinetic abilities when he accidentally read the mind of his homicidal father. Fearing his father’s wrath, Mantis burned down the whole village, killing everyone. He was soon found by the KGB, who taught him how to control his powers. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he worked for the FBI, probing the minds of criminals. But one day, he dove too deep into a particular killer and adopted his personality, becoming the psycho we all know and love. Years later, after going AWOL with the rest of the FOXHOUND crew, he and protagonist Solid Snake finally cross paths on Shadow Moses Island.

 

 

 

This is where Kojima earns his credentials. Just when you’re set to fight, Psycho Mantis performs one of the greatest feats at the time by reading your memory card! His telekinetic abilities break the fourth wall and tell you a few things about yourself, like how many times you saved the game, as well as reading off a couple of other games you’ve played, given that they’re made by Konami. In the remake Twin Snakes, he’ll read Nintendo games—and there’s something strangely therapeutic about Psycho Mantis saying “Super Mario Sunshine.” If that wasn’t enough, he’ll instruct you to put the controller down on a flat surface, at which point he’ll “turn it on,” utilizing the rumble feature to move it sideways. He’ll even cause the screen to go black, with a HIDEO in green text plastered at the top-right corner like a VCR display. First time around, I was impressed, and a little scared. In Metal Gear Solid 4, Kojima takes us back down memory lane with a certain battle, reminding us how much of an icon this villain has become.

 

 

Computers becoming sentient—and therefore evil—is definitely a plot element that’s been beaten to death, but SHODAN, or Sentient Hyper-Optimized Data Access Network, is a whole new breed. By the time you wake up in System Shock, the crafty AI has already taken over the station, reprogrammed all the robots to hate you, dealt with the crew, either by death or transforming them into mutants and cyborgs, and, at the time, was charging up the station’s laser targeted at Earth’s major cities, all in order to become a god. Yea, you got work to do.

 

 

 

Aside from the remarkable gameplay at the time of release, the plot was really something. The creation of SHODAN developed an interlaced story filled with twists and turns. As a character, the AI was intelligent, arrogant, cunning, and just damn evil. There was depth, and that depth created moments in the game where you as the player was met with intense situations. And if that wasn’t enough, SHODAN is with you every step of the way, calling you all kinds of insignificant names through any means of communication that’s near you. I get chills remembering when she said, “Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?” SHODAN earns this spot.

 

 

What can beat an omnipotent computer? An effeminate man wielding a katana ridiculously longer than his body size. Don’t bother shouting out your complaints about this overrated villain; they will be drowned under a flood of fanboy retaliation. Final Fantasy VII carries a legacy because it’s, by popular vote, the greatest installment in the FF franchise. And riding at the top of memorable elements from the game (read: most heard name in gaming history) is Sephiroth. Already a known legend at the beginning of the game, this tall, long-haired gigolo of a man eventually finds out he was the result of a genetic experiment, causing him to try and destroy the world in anger. Talk about issues.

 

 

 

Truth be told, his final boss battle, while filled with your awe-inspiring scene of levitating rocks in an about-to-explode mountain which could spew out life-stream juices enough to cover everything, isn’t the reason he inched his way up to number 3. No, aside from attempting to send a meteor to destroy Earth (where was Sephiroth planning to live after?), he does the one thing that instantly sends anyone up the ladder of notorious villains: he killed an innocent, sweet girl—unexpectedly I might add—while she was praying! And when a nice, beautiful young girl can’t stop the warpath of someone, you know you’re in trouble. I’ll tell you what I said when the moment happened. “WTF DUDE?”

 

Mother Brain remains one of the most popular video game villains around, and it’s fairly apparent why. This villain is your brain on steroids, except instead of drugs it’s pumped on computers. Mother Brain is an artificial life form decked out with metal spikes and enough power cables to run a planet. Contained in a glass tank, the giant cerebrum sits safely guarded by tons of automated defense systems over a pool of acid. You have to get through all that while conserving your ammo just to get face to face with it’s all-knowing eye.

 

 

 

The reason Mother Brain, another supercomputer who wishes to reset everything back to zero by becoming general of the Space Pirates, makes it into the top 5 at a well-respected number 2 is its damn boss battle. In the original Metroid, even though the thing had no means of attack, it regenerated life, indicated by the rate of its pulsing. It added a bit of frustration, but after destroying the damn thing, you’re told the place is going to blow, so you’re forced to hightail it out of there by jumping across minuscule platforms over and over again. In the end, you’re treated to a surprise, because you just went through one of the most epic battles in gaming history. But others will stand by the Super Metroid version, which is, at first, the same battle, until Mother Brain decides to grow a dinosaur body and shoot beams at you. Yea, you heard me right. And I don’t blame them; those graphics are sweet.

 

 

Okay, go ahead and berate me. Admittedly, If you give me an assignment of listing the top 50 video game villains, 45 of them would be from Final Fantasy, but hear me out! I came face to face with Kefka Palazzo at the tender age of six, coincidentally in Final Fantasy VI (called III at the time in America), marking the years to follow with bouts of crying from seeing the lunatic clown in my nightmares, from the horrow of his 16-bit laughter. Originally serving as Emperor Gestahl’s Court Mage, he underwent an experimental Magitek process, granting him magic, but also warping his mind to make him the madman we’ve all come to lovingly hate. It’s bad enough he runs away at the first signs of trouble, but he was also the one who placed the slave crown on Terra’s head, thus making her the servant of their empire and setting the gears of the game into motion. Then he goes on to do even more diabolical villainy, from poisoning the waters of Doma, backstabbing Leo, to even betraying Gestahl, unceremoniously booting him off the floating continent and becoming the expected true villain of the game.

 

 

 

His greatest feat though, was killing millions of civilians and reshaping the virtual continents of the world to such an extent that it felt like a whole new game. At the final confrontation, Kefka reveals some crazy stuff, insisting that all life is meaningless, all lives purposeless, urging him to try and eradicate EVERYTHING. But in one of my favorite gaming moments of all time, your ragtag crew fights him to the end, citing the meaning in all of their individual lives. Destroying Kefka was satisfying, pushing the feeling of saving the world to immeasurable heights.

One of the greatest elements about video games are its villains. They give you the purpose to pick up that controller and fight for a just cause. Villains shape and change you by giving you something to fight for, even if it is all just a game. You start to understand your protagonist’s motives, their beliefs, and in doing so, question your own. So give respect where respect is due. Villains give you a reason to finish the game.