The Best Villain of 2012 So Far

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

I gotta go with what a lot of others are saying.

Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. All of his lines are nothing but complete and utter badassery in vocal form.

"Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING! The shadows betray you, because they belong to me!"

"Theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated... but we are initiated, aren't we Bruce?"

"Peace has cost you your strength! Victory has defeated you!"

"I'm Gotham's reckoning, here to end the borrowed time you've all been living on."

I came out of that movie liking Tom Hardy's Bane more than I ever did Heath Ledger's Joker.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

What I'm taking away from this thread so far is that I should have seen Dark Knight Rises, despite my ever growing dislike of Christian Bale that is bordering on actual contempt.

As I haven't played many games so far this year, because there hasn't been a lot worth playing, I'll say that I think Julien and the Duke in Dragon's Dogma were good villians.

Elysian was totally ineffectual as a character. If I hadn't read about him on the official website I wouldn't know a damn thing at all about him other than he is useless.

I honestly thought Festus was gonna have more to do with the plot after all the backstory they gave him on the same site. He gives you a silly hat, and has ONE good one-liner. That's it.

He isn't some master manipulator behind the scenes with some network of spies or something. He is just a fool with too much backstory.

 

[Terminate421]

Tough choice:

One does what I like as a villain and another completely changes up the game strategy.

I go with a tie on them.

 

[Mirroga]

Anyone answering Bane clearly doesn't understand TDKR. Talia was the real villain, Bane had the same role he did in Batman & Robin. He was muscle, and that's about it.

Thanos might be my answer in a few years, we'll see how the Untitled Avengers Movie Sequel plays out. Personally, my worst enemy is Alexander in Civ 5 G&K. He always steals city states and starts wars, and then never knows when to quit. More seriously, Balon Greyjoy from Game of Thrones is part of the reason I hate the Greyjoys even more than I hate the Lannisters.

I think most of us here agree that the movie would've been better if Talia wasn't there and possibly no mentions of the League of Assassins if possible.

 

[Evil Smurf]

The board of directors at Umbrella Corp. Seriously, they release a zombie virus every day! Henceforth they are the best.

 

[Scarecrow]

Discord from My Little Pony: Friendship is magic. A twisted dragon like creature who turns your friends into hollow monsters, twists your world into a mess and cackles at you with the voice of Q from Star Trek is a villain who just can't be beaten.

 

[Karoshi]

I have to agree with Terminate421, Banshees are the ultimate evil. There isn't a single villain or enemy which has induced so much horror inside me.

 

[RJ 17]

I know how to win this thread--not that it's a competition.

EA.

Any questions?

And I know how to negate your win by making it a split contest.

Does the name Blizzard-Activision mean anything to you? Angry Birds for $40 AND Diablo 3?

I guess they realized that EA was running away with the prize of "Biggest Bag of Dicks in the Industry" and decided to step up their game. They certainly seem like they want to prove that they're not to be outdone.

As for a real suggestion for best villian, I dunno. The OP said it can just be a game that we finished this year...well a couple weeks ago I got bored and played through FF6 again, so I'll say Kefka.

 

[dimensional]

Er Nightmare from Soul Calibur V because he looks badass (ignore the story its rubbish) and he isnt cheap like many fighting game main villains alternatively if we go for any villain Tira from the same game wins for me because she is just crazy and makes me smile Hazama from Blazblue would be up there as well for the same reason its just I dont like his fighting style much.

Must admit my selection is a bit limited as I havent exactly played a staggering amount of story driven games this year.

 

[Vivi22]

The number of villains isn't the issue. The issue is that, after TDKR reveals its plot twist, it turns out Bane wasn't the villain at all. He was just another henchman. He wasn't the one doing the planning and the manipulating, he was simply doing what he was told to. Which isn't really all that interesting a motivator.

Sorry, but nothing in the movie actually indicates that he has no hand in the planning and manipulating when you consider that he and Talia were basically running the League of Shadows together. You're inferring something here that there isn't enough evidence to support one way or the other.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It's been quite a meager year for game villains, hasn't it?

I'll throw in the freaking Space Kid from Mass Eff-...

My second choice would be the Starchild, because trololololol...

Honestly, he's the only character this year I truly despised. Oh, and Kai Lang. Not because he was a good villian, but because he was so ridiculously out of place for the series. It was like watching Lord of the Rings and all of a sudden someone shows up with smurf make-up on.

 

[Baldry]

You, the player, in Spec Ops: The Line. Now that had storytelling!

Yeaaaah I'm going with this. I genuinely can't stop feeling bad when playing other games where I'm supposed to be the good guy and I kill enemies or civi's.

 

[el_kabong]

Anyone answering Bane clearly doesn't understand TDKR. Talia was the real villain, Bane had the same role he did in Batman & Robin. He was muscle, and that's about it.

Because a game or a movie can't possibly have more than one villain, right?

OT: I'm going with Bane as well.

The number of villains isn't the issue. The issue is that, after TDKR reveals its plot twist, it turns out Bane wasn't the villain at all. He was just another henchman. He wasn't the one doing the planning and the manipulating, he was simply doing what he was told to. Which isn't really all that interesting a motivator.

Actually, I have to go with Bane, too. I've always liked Bane (except in Batman and Robin) and Christopher Nolan really took it to an interesting place, if you read between the lines. Essentially, Bane is Batman from an alternate timeline/universe (in a manner of speaking). Bane and Batman, in Nolan's movie, are the two sides of Harvey Dent's coin. The coin flip both occurred when they both tried to save their loved ones (Rachel Dawes and Talia). One succeeds, but is physically scarred. The other fails and is emotionally scarred. They both hide their different kinds of pain with the masks they wear. The similarities are incredibly numerous and range from plot points to behavior and costume design.

Ask yourself this: if Joker had told Batman exactly where Rachel was and he saved her instead of Dent, would they live happily ever after or would Rachel's pain over Harvey's death make her want to punish criminals with enough fervor to use her influence over Batman to lead him to great evils?

 

[cojo965]

I had a long explanation for why I like Grigori the red dragon from Dragon's Dogma as a villain but the internet went out before I could get it up and I'll be damned before I type it up again. So if anyone has the same pick I'll let you figure it out. Now, go!

In my mind hes not so much a villan as he is someone forced into a required role.

Yes, he has to go on a mindless rampage, maybe destroy a few worlds, but none of it is really on his terms.

Which to my mind makes him kind of pitiable because a few dialogue lines from him hint that he doesn't want to do the things he does but has no say in the matter since look who his boss is.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

Megatron from Transformers Fall of Cybertron, it seems he's just evil for the sake of being evil.