Ridiculously evil villains

[Nerexor]

So I got Prototype 2 yesterday, and in between the fun of hulk smashing my way through things it became very obvious that the writers were trying a little too hard to make the bad guys, well, bad.

As in there are sections where you see flashbacks of a soldier complaining about killing zombies because he wanted to kill people instead. His commander, instead of writing him up as psychotic and unfit for duty, basically tells him "I like your attitude son, you're gonna go far."

Then later there's a group of scientists trying to make a virus to wipe out those in low income brackets and immigrants. Not joking. This is like Captain Planet villain level evil. "Pollution is evil and since I am evil I will do all in my power to pollute!" Or in this case it would be more like "Orphanages cost money? Lets do horrible lab experiments on the orphans and kill them all! No more money drain, and SCIENCE!"

So my question is, is this unique to Prototype 2, or can people think of any other similarly over the top evil video game villains/organizations?

 

[hazabaza1]

As in there are sections where you see flashbacks of a soldier complaining about killing zombies because he wanted to kill people instead. His commander, instead of writing him up as psychotic and unfit for duty, basically tells him "I like your attitude son, you're gonna go far."

HAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA
WHAT
FUCKING WHAT
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAH
OH MY GOD THIS SHIT IS FUCKING HILARIOUS
AAAAHAHAHHAHA

OT: I dunno... Kefka, I guess? Maybe the Reapers too, if they count.
Any game where Liam O'Brien plays the bad guy too. Mainly because his "Poncy evil British voice" is just fucking fantastic.

 

[RJ 17]

This is like Captain Planet villain level evil. "Pollution is evil and since I am evil I will do all in my power to pollute!"

This was actually going to be my suggestion for the topic: every villain in Captain Planet. Seriously, there's no benefit to their evilness, no over-arching goal they're trying to reach. It's just "Blargh! I'm a big fat CEO who smokes cigars and clubs baby seals! I'm n ur oshuns, poelootin' ur beechez!"

Which reminds me of one of my favorite Robot Chicken sketches that parodies Captain Planet, ending with the line "Protect the environment, or I'll FUCKING kill you! CAPTAAAAAAAIN PLANET!!!"

 

[Ryotknife]

like the other poster mentioned, kefka.

there was one game called soul nomad (PS2) where you are the ridiculously evil villain (game was not very well known). after playing through the game as a typical hero who has to save the world, you can start a new game at the beginning of the story where you become the main villain instead of the hero.

at one point during your journey of basically trolling the world, you save an angel you have captured from an ambush attempt on your life (wait for it). later during a prison break, this same angel asks why you saved her and if you are truly evil or if the possessed sword (with an evil god of destruction inside of it) is basically pulling your strings.

Angel: hey demon spawn!
your character: what?
angel: before, why did you save me? You know, when you got in the way of Dio's lightning bolt.
God of destruction (Gig): oh that? when you shoved the midget (the angel) out of the way i thought you had gone soft
angel: soo...you're actually good...right? You just have a devil inside of you.
Gig: heh, does it look like I have any control here?
angel: then...why did you do it?
char: it would not have been any fun if you died then.
angel: what do you mean?
char: (skewers the angel's brother right in front of her)
char: i wanted you to be here for this.
Gig: dang, kid. this is just wrong.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

p.s. that's not even touching on Nintendo villains, who have "kidnap princesses" and "twirling my moustache" on their resumes.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

A lot of those guys had more complex motivations than "Bwahahaha! Evil!". Not brilliant motivations by any means, but slightly better than you're implying.

In terms of bad guys with interesting motivations, how about Planescape?

 

[pure.Wasted]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

A lot of those guys had more complex motivations than "Bwahahaha! Evil!". Not brilliant motivations by any means, but slightly better than you're implying.

Yeah, I suppose I broadened the definition to include anyone who was more gratuitously evil than they had a need to be. If we're focusing on just the Captain Planet variety, then I think that between Bowser and Ganondorf, the Nintendo princess-stealing squad takes this one. Unless Team Rocket has something to say about it.

In terms of bad guys with interesting motivations, how about Planescape?

Good call.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Wesker from Resident Evil. Pretty much defines "I'm evil for the sake of Evil". At least most villains have SOME sort of motivation for their evil, be it money or power or whatever. By the end of RE5 it's pretty clear Wesker doesn't actually have a plan and just wants to fuck stuff up for the lulz.

 

[Saladfork]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

p.s. that's not even touching on Nintendo villains, who have "kidnap princesses" and "twirling my moustache" on their resumes.

Er... gonna have to disagree with you on basically all of those that I've actually played.

I suspect we have a different definition of 'evil', though.

I can't really think of many cartoonishly evil characters off the top of my head, though, besides the captain planet villains who were already mentioned.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

p.s. that's not even touching on Nintendo villains, who have "kidnap princesses" and "twirling my moustache" on their resumes.

Er... gonna have to disagree with you on basically all of those that I've actually played.

I suspect we have a different definition of 'evil', though.

I can't really think of many cartoonishly evil characters off the top of my head, though, besides the captain planet villains who were already mentioned.

Yeah, I retracted my point a few posts down. I was giving examples of bad guys especially prone to shooting the dog [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheDog], but the thread's really asking about doing stuff for the evulz [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz].

They're not entirely dissimilar tropes, but different enough that a "my bad" was appropriate.

Don't hate me.

 

[Saladfork]

Pretty much every game I can think of has someone in it who's trying to turn babies into a fast food item. Bioshock has Fontaine, Final Fantasy has every villain ever, StarCraft has Mengsk, LA Noire has the homicide desk partner, CoD has General Shepard, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have every single bad guy in the game, Warcraft 3 has Arthas, Fallout 3 has John Henry Eden, Mass Effect has the Illusive Man, the list goes on and on.

Hell, I can only think of two games where the antagonists aren't ridiculously evil, or more to the point, evil at all. Bastion and Shadow of the Colossus.

p.s. that's not even touching on Nintendo villains, who have "kidnap princesses" and "twirling my moustache" on their resumes.

Er... gonna have to disagree with you on basically all of those that I've actually played.

I suspect we have a different definition of 'evil', though.

I can't really think of many cartoonishly evil characters off the top of my head, though, besides the captain planet villains who were already mentioned.

Yeah, I retracted my point a few posts down. I was giving examples of bad guys especially prone to shooting the dog [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheDog], but the thread's really asking about doing stuff for the evulz [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz].

They're not entirely dissimilar tropes, but different enough that a "my bad" was appropriate.

Don't hate me.

No worries. 'Evil' is such a nebulous and unclear concept that it's bound to differ in interpretation from person to person anyway.

OT: I gather a lot of slashers from the movies are like this, though I don't actually watch slasher movies myself.

Edit: Oh, and that doctor guy from the human centipede, too.

 

[Leemaster777]

Wesker from Resident Evil. Pretty much defines "I'm evil for the sake of Evil". At least most villains have SOME sort of motivation for their evil, be it money or power or whatever. By the end of RE5 it's pretty clear Wesker doesn't actually have a plan and just wants to fuck stuff up for the lulz.

Gotta agree with this. Hell, the description the TC posted for the bad guys in Prototype 2 sounds eerily similar to Resident Evil, anyways.

Also, I think (Persona 4 spoilers):

Spoiler

Adachi deserves mention. I mean, the guy's whole motivation basically boiled down to "I was bored".

 

[DoPo]

The Pentex corporation from the old World of Darkness. They are pretty much Capitan Planet villains on crack. I'm serious, they do their fair share of pollution. They just dump toxic waste in the world on purpose. They also produce Wyrm (read: Evil) tainted products like food or medicine, presumably just for the evulz. Oh, yeah, their food directly contributes to the obesity of the population and the apathy. But that's just a side effect, the food's major function is to fattens the population and make them ripe for evil spirits to feed off and possess them. A fun bunch. Oh, and I should mention that Pentext also mass produces dolls for the children. The "lucky" child who gets the doll may start to appear irrational and tell of how the doll talks to them. And eventually the doll will murder the child's parents and frame the child, to make them look like a they went psycho.

Among Pentex's personnel, there are normal people, actual psychos, seriously evil dudes, insane werewolves who have been soul raped[footnote]because "mind rape" is not really evocative enough[/footnote] and enslaved into being evil, Banes - literally spirits of evil, Fomori - humans who are fused with those spirits[footnote]imagine a servant of the Chaos Gods. yeah, some of them sprout tentacles, have 17 eyes and probably drip toxic saliva or something. But they'll be the lucky ones if they can still pass for human.[/footnote], and a marketing department.

That's a very basic overview, though. I assure you, there is much more to them. All of it evil as fuck.

 

[culpeo]

Darth Malak. Even for a Sith. First he backstabs his best friend in what could at best be described as a cowardly and underhanded maneuver. Then he attempts to carry out and take credit for Revan's plan for galactic domination, only to fall victim to his own hubris and screw it up before getting the job done. And finally, in his last moments, he has the audacity to blame Revan for leading him down the dark path to begin with, never taking personal accountability into account. HE HATH RECEIVED NO REDEMPTION FROM ME.

Also, what was Sephiroth's deal?

 

[Ryotknife]

Darth Malak. Even for a Sith. First he backstabs his best friend in what could at best be described as a cowardly and underhanded maneuver. Then he attempts to carry out and take credit for Revan's plan for galactic domination, only to fall victim to his own hubris and screw it up before getting the job done. And finally, in his last moments, he has the audacity to blame Revan for leading him down the dark path to begin with, never taking personal accountability into account. HE HATH RECEIVED NO REDEMPTION FROM ME.

Also, what was Sephiroth's deal?

he wanted to become a god? also he kinda hated the world. So his plan was a win-win. at least originally, after FF7 he just gets....weird.

 

[Nerexor]

Snip

Yeah, I retracted my point a few posts down. I was giving examples of bad guys especially prone to shooting the dog [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheDog], but the thread's really asking about doing stuff for the evulz [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz].

They're not entirely dissimilar tropes, but different enough that a "my bad" was appropriate.

Don't hate me.

Hurrah for TVtropes and it's clarification. Yes, I largely meant villains (because it's always the villains) doing stuff for the evulz.

I haven't played the resident evil games, but it seems like Blackwatch (The prototype 2 villains) and Umbrella would get along very well. Evil bioweapon research and gleeful murder? GOOOO TEAM!

 

[Sean Hollyman]

So I got Prototype 2 yesterday, and in between the fun of hulk smashing my way through things it became very obvious that the writers were trying a little too hard to make the bad guys, well, bad.

As in there are sections where you see flashbacks of a soldier complaining about killing zombies because he wanted to kill people instead. His commander, instead of writing him up as psychotic and unfit for duty, basically tells him "I like your attitude son, you're gonna go far."

Then later there's a group of scientists trying to make a virus to wipe out those in low income brackets and immigrants. Not joking. This is like Captain Planet villain level evil. "Pollution is evil and since I am evil I will do all in my power to pollute!" Or in this case it would be more like "Orphanages cost money? Lets do horrible lab experiments on the orphans and kill them all! No more money drain, and SCIENCE!"

So my question is, is this unique to Prototype 2, or can people think of any other similarly over the top evil video game villains/organizations?

Prototype 2's Blackwatch chatter sounded weird I have to admit, something about burning down orphanages or something...

 

[Freechoice]

Wesker from Resident Evil. Pretty much defines "I'm evil for the sake of Evil". At least most villains have SOME sort of motivation for their evil, be it money or power or whatever. By the end of RE5 it's pretty clear Wesker doesn't actually have a plan and just wants to fuck stuff up for the lulz.

No, it's more like he's evil Cole McGrath in Infamous 2, only more proactively so. Wipe out most of humanity, make way for the superhumans. Oh, the reapers too.