Top 100 Videogame Villains - IGN

[Tel Aviv]

The Top 100 Videogame Villains according to IGN.

 

It's an all round mixed bag. I mean ...Dagoth Ur, seriously? The most memorable Morrowind NPC was that House Hlaalu dude who made you take your pants off. And ineffectuals like Malak and Saren rate relatively high, as does Harbinger who is a total non-entity in ME2. What do you make of it? And while we're at it, who would you rate as an effective videogame antagonist?

 

For me personally:

 

Anachronox - Vendelin Detta

Fallout - The Master

Grand Theft Auto 4 -

Dimitri Rascalov

 

Grim Fandango - Domino Hurley

Jade Empire -

Master Li

 

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow - Norman Soth (might need to explain this one)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords -

Kreia

 

System Shock 2 - SHODAN

Tales of Vesperia -

Duke

 

Thief II: The Metal Age - Karras

 

I've had to spoiler tag some because I'm not sure when the expiration date for these spoilers is...

Edited May 27, 2010 by Tel Aviv

[Pidesco]

Dmitri Volkov

[WorstUsernameEver]

Haven't played Mass Effect 2, but seeing the Geth higher than some pretty well-known and well-regarded villains is rather jarring.

Maybe the sequel added a new layer of depth to those mooks?

[Oner]

Hmm, my guess was wrong and the Bowser was only second.

Pretty bad list, but which one isn't?

 

Worst: actually yes, it did.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Worst: actually yes, it did.

 

 

Interesting. I'm probably going to get ME2 after I've finished Alpha Protocol a couple of times and I finally manage to finish my exams (at least 'til September).

[Gorgon]

'Predator in AVP' - No, they are the other team.

 

'Zombies'. No Zombies are not the end of level monster, the real villain, they are the wallpaper.

 

'Nazis' They are everyone's favourite villain, with no specific ties to computer games.

 

As an experiment I flipped through the list and noted the villains I could remember more about than their names . 14.

 

Hell, I take pride in not knowing anything about the Super Mario universe.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Strange to see that they find Bioshock 2's villain superior to the first one, I've always thought the consensus was that Bioshock had the better plot and characters while Bioshock 2 was the better shooter.

[Malcador]

In addition to ones mentioned, I liked Javed and the Doctor from The Witcher.

[Tel Aviv]

Strange to see that they find Bioshock 2's villain superior to the first one, I've always thought the consensus was that Bioshock had the better plot and characters while Bioshock 2 was the better shooter.

I'd have thought the same thing. It's a pretty fruity list, to be honest. Eurogamer makes a little more sense of it. ...and page 3 is a love letter to MCA!

[WorstUsernameEver]

In addition to ones mentioned, I liked Javed and the Doctor from The Witcher.

 

By the Doctor you mean the Professor? I liked his smugness but Javed felt unimportant and the end.

Yes he was threatening but he was also shallow and basically a scary arabian man with piercings without much personality.

 

The leader of the Order, and most probably a time-traveling Alvin

while a bit rushed in his presentation felt quite cool though.

[entrerix]

that ign list is absolutely ****ing awful.

 

any list that doesnt have shodan at least in the top 10 is just flat out stupid imo, and that is not even the most idiotic thing about that list. i'd say more but reading it just made me angry.

 

 

gorgon is spot on too about nazis zombies etc

 

those are settings, not "villains"

 

and glados is awesome, but higher than shodan? really? ok maybe 1 spot higher cause she's funnier but 90 spots higher??? gimme a ****ing break, thats like saying that the remake of dawn of the dead is 90 places better than the original. both are good, but one CLEARLY preceded the other in a meaningful way and deserves recognition for breaking ground in addition to being flat out awesome.

[Malcador]

By the Doctor you mean the Professor? I liked his smugness but Javed felt unimportant and the end.

Yes he was threatening but he was also shallow and basically a scary arabian man with piercings without much personality.

 

The leader of the Order, and most probably a time-traveling Alvin

while a bit rushed in his presentation felt quite cool though.

 

 

Oh right yeah the Professor. Javed and Salamandra are pretty irrelevant towards the end, makes sense as the true "villian/misunderstood whacko" becomes apparent. Javed was crafty with Marlowe though, I can't believe I missed that the first time I played.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Oh right yeah the Professor. Javed and Salamandra are pretty irrelevant towards the end, makes sense as the true "villian/misunderstood whacko" becomes apparent. Javed was crafty with Marlowe though, I can't believe I missed that the first time I played.

 

The Marlowe ploy was indeed particularly good, especially since it took me 2 playthroughs to understand exactly WHEN he made the switch (and to be honest there are hints, both subtle and not subtle.. the subtle hints being the change of his tone in dialogue, the less subtle being your witcher pendant vibrating as with monsters and threats...).

Even will all its flaw, The Witcher was a pretty memorable experience.

[HoonDing]

I agree with Dagoth Ur.

 

Glad not to see that Irenicus on #1. Most overrated villain ever.

[WorstUsernameEver]

John Henry Eden is a better villain than Shodan? WUT?

Even I, a man who still hasn't played System Shock, after having seen the reveal on a YouTube video bow before Shodan.

Come on, President Eden wasn't even threatening!

[Oner]

And his logic loop was lame.

[WorstUsernameEver]

And his logic loop was lame.

 

I never perceived it as a logic loop.

More as a

'Plz, blow up'

'Lulz, nice, ok. BOOM'

 

I think they felt they add to add that option since it's Fallout-y but couldn't write it properly and gave up on it.

[HoonDing]

Dagoth Ur is brilliant because depending on which in-game account one wants to believe, he's either a selfish, one-dimensional BioWare-like villain, or a loyal friend that got betrayed, or a victim of circumstances. There should have been an in-game option to join him.

 

Lord Tyler from Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 is obscure and unknown, but a great villain. Big, bad and very evil. And a pretty epic end fight with quite a few twists. The famous Jabberwock from American McGee's Alice is in the same mold, and another pretty cool fight. Jacqueline Natla from Tomb Raider cannot be excluded from any villain lists, since she was the first in a 3D game.

 

As far as adventure games go, Death from Loom was pretty memorable - since one needed to beat him with music. For the rest, Purple Tentacle from Day of the Tentacle & LeChuck from Monkey Island are my favourites.

[Oner]

Shwing Shwang anyone?

[Rostere]

It's more like a list of the 100 worst video game villains, with a few exceptions such as SHODAN and Bob the Killer Goldfish.

 

And it also seems they are strangely obsessed with the MGS series

[Niten_Ryu]

Here's my picks from that list.

 

SHODAN ("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?" with female Max Headroom style of voice)

Prince Arthas / Lich King (only in context of the whole Warcraft saga, as per any single game he's rather boring)

Andrew Ryan (thanks to my pure hatered towards objectivism)

Nazis (now there's a easy target to hate )

GlaDOS (another great female robot)

[Calax]

It's more like a list of the 100 worst video game villains, with a few exceptions such as SHODAN and Bob the Killer Goldfish.

 

And it also seems they are strangely obsessed with the MGS series

There were a couple of good ones in there. I'm always gonna be an Alma fanboy simply because she was so justified in the first one and friggin freaky. Also Kane is in there.

Here's my picks from that list.

 

SHODAN ("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?" with female Max Headroom style of voice)

Prince Arthas / Lich King (only in context of the whole Warcraft saga, as per any single game he's rather boring)

Andrew Ryan (thanks to my pure hatered towards objectivism)

Nazis (now there's a easy target to hate )

GlaDOS (another great female robot)

I do gotta say, Arthas is a beast. When you fight him in WoW you're goal is basically to get him to 10% hp, then he snaps his fingers and kills your entire party (thinking he'll rez them as his generals and turn them back on their former friends). Problem is that spirits from Frostmourn appear and hold him while King Terenas resurrects the entire group to go basically execute Arthas. Also this is being done on a the very top of Icecrown Citadel, with some of Arthas abilities blasting things apart (Scripted unfortunately, still seeing him slam frostmourn into the ground so hard that the edges of his pillar fall away while you're desperately trying to stay up there is awesome)

[CoM_Solaufein]

The list must have been made up by mentally unstable individuals. No Jon Irenicus, The Master, Kreia or Sarevok. Especially Kreia being the manipulator that she is.

[Volourn]

You mean a rather poor one that could be found out before she even joined the party? L0LZ

[Walsingham]

I think that princess out of Mario should qualify as an evil supervillain.