We all love being the hero in video games, going around saving people, the world, maybe even the universe, but it’s always a welcome change whenever we get the chance to be the villains that we usually hate. Here are the seven times that being the bad guy was the best:
GTA Series
There are quite a few games that cut you loose in a massive open sandbox to wreak havoc on all the poor unsuspecting AI (Saints Row, for example), but no one does it as good as Rockstar Games. The guys at Rockstar are incredibly good at developing games in which you can play as evil incarnate, if you so desire. I mean, you’re able to literally rob banks and kill civilians with almost no repercussions other than a wanted level that depletes with time. Seriously, someone should go and check on the Rockstar staff. Sure, a lot of the evilness is optional, but come on, where else are you going to kill people with a ridiculously overpowered P-996 Laser?
Injustice Series
The DC universe is famously dark; that’s why we love it. DC gives us a massive roster of heroes and villains with many different powers and abilities. It seems like the perfect setting for a Mortal Kombat-esque fighting game. No, I’m not talking about Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, calm down, I’m talking about Injustice. Both Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 feature many great characters, but the villains are by far the best. Take the Joker, for example; in Injustice: God’s Among Us, his Super involves throwing an explosive cream pie into your opponent’s face! Tell me that isn’t amazing.
Star Wars: Battlefront Series
We are all familiar with Star Wars, right? If you aren’t, you should be, as the series has given us some amazing books, movies and, most importantly for the sake of this article, games, with some of the best being the Star Wars: Battlefront series. Throughout the series, we have been able to play as characters from all three movie trilogies, including the bad guys. Running around popular Star Wars locations as some of your favourite Star Wars villains is immensely entertaining and massively enjoyable. However, the real villain in the latest entry in the franchise is developer EA. Those damn loot boxes still haunt us…
Infamous Series
The Infamous series is centred around the player’s preference of good or evil and, if your anything like me, you’ll go for evil without a second thought, it’s much more fun. Who is going to try and be adored by the world when you can be feared by it? However, the choice to be good was pretty much thrown out of the window when the infamous 2 DLC, Festival of Blood, was released in which you walked the streets as a vampire with an extra dose of lightning powers. Overkill? Nah.
Batman Arkham Series
As mentioned before, the DC universe has some amazing villains, so it is only natural that developer Rocksteady gave you the chance to play as a select few of them in its much loved Arkham series. In Arkham Asylum, you got to take on stealth and combat challenges as the Joker, using his various infamous gadgets at your disposal, from chattering teeth to 3D glasses that acted like Batman’s Detective Vision. However, the most fun I had playing as a Batman villain was the Harley Quinn story expansion from Arkham Knight. This DLC saw you flipping around in a surprisingly elegant way while smashing enemies’ heads in an unsurprisingly noisy way.
Friday the 13th
If you have seen any of the (too) many Friday the 13th movies, you’ll probably know how this game will pan out. You either play as a huge, scary guy wearing a hockey mask or a physically naff camp counselor. Obviously, playing as Jason Voorhees is the better of the two options. You can take advantage of his super human abilities and kill young counselors in the most gruesome ways possible. What’s not to love?
Prototype Series
There are many words I could use to describe Prototype; the one I decided on was CARNAGE. In the Prototype series, it becomes apparent that human lives mean nothing to the playable antagonist, as you take out the innocent members of the public by the hundreds with just the press of a button. Add in some mutated knife arms, and there you have it. The nightmarish experience that is Prototype.