Top 5 Most Interesting Gaming Villains of All Time (Part 1) - Feature

Interesting villains in videogames can be surprisingly hard to come by.  Thanks to the veritable bevy of clones, cheap knockoffs, strange Japanese games, and sheer, unadulterated crap on the market, it’s easy to find one’s attention wandering when pondering which bad guys are actually worthy of the title, and thus your time.

But of course, like moustachioed, beret wearing wheat being sifted from the generic, nuke-possessing, stupid-name-wielding chaff (how’s THAT for a metaphor?), there are a few examples of true, interesting, honest-to-Bill-Gates villains just waiting to receive your worship and adulation…before executing you in true villain style, no doubt.

For you see, complex characters (good or bad) are always about motivation; a bad guy that wants to destroy the world simply because he was christened Baron von Evilpants III is not going to be anywhere near as interesting as a character who wants to destroy the world due to the unbridled torment and infinite pain caused by selling his soul to the Chaos God of Confectionary for immortality and an endless supply of Tiny Teddies.  Even when they’re our enemy, we still want to know why they tick, and we definitely want the ticking to have some sort of significance.   

So in order to honour those villains (or really, the writers behind them) that stimulate our collective minds, and to help you all get your evil on, I’d like to present to you this, the first part of my Top 5 Most Interesting Gaming Villains of All Time; they may not always be the nastiest bad guys you’ve ever come across, but they’re definitely more than just the clichéd, caricatures you see in so many games (and movies, and books, and…).

Onto villain numero uno:

   

Grand Admiral Zaarin - Tie Fighter (PC)

Is a villain really a villain if you are playing a villain on the side of the villains and he betrays the villains (deep breath)?   This is the rather brain-twisting scenario that occurred in the classic Star Wars space sim, Tie Fighter.  As a member of the Imperial Fleet, the player is serving the Emperor and all things nasty in the Star Wars Universe; punching kittens in the face, tipping Banthas, the typical drill. You’re selected for a special mission, which seems to involve shooting inanimate objects while your two squadmates insult you, when suddenly your commanding officer Admiral Zaarin goes rogue, ordering your conveniently placed ‘allies’ to terminate your employment in his fleet rather forcefully.

Unlike many other characters in the Star Wars universe who defected and went ‘good’ by joining the Rebel Alliance, Zaarin does it purely because he wants to take over; he’s a military and scientific genius, has access to the most advanced technology and highly loyal troops, and decides to take a swing at the Emperor himself because, hey, what else is a power-hungry narcissist going to do with his time?

 

Over the course of several campaigns (if you had the Tie Fighter expansion anyway), Zaarin repeatedly throws his forces at the Galactic Empire, and manages challenge (and often defeat) the loyalist forces led by Grand Admiral Thrawn (another military genius in Star Wars lore).  During these missions Zaarin’s motivations and character are explored; he repeatedly outwits the loyalist forces, and spends a great deal of time adding insult to injury through  embarrassing ambushes, theft of Imperial technology, and the inevitable snide remarks delivered in true bad guy style.    

The great thing about Zaarin as a villain is the fact that the player knows that he is, in fact, probably not as bad as the bloke you’re working for anyway! Instead he is something rather different for the classic good versus evil struggle of Star Wars; someone who cares little for politics or sides, but instead simply knows that he lusts for power and is prepared to do whatever is necessary to acquire it.  The fact that he manages this with grace, military flair, and a healthy dose of charisma also helps to differentiate him from the typical, cloak-and-dagger treacherous turncoat you see in pretty much every other game ever.

The duel between Grand Admiral Zaarin and Grand Admiral Thrawn (with the player used as a proxy) is an enthralling one, and it is suitable that the ongoing battle between two military geniuses is one that frequently ends in a stalemate.  When Zaarin is finally undone, it is in a particularly clever way, and takes advantage of all the little character developments which have occurred over the course of the game (particularly his technophillia; Zaarin was the genius behind the TIE Advanced and TIE Defender models of starfighter), culminating in a villain speech and a big explosion in suitably epic style.

Complex, cunning, charismatic, errr….other words starting with ‘C’; Zaarin was a memorably complex villain with interesting motivations in a setting not exactly known for its subtleties or complexity (I’m talking about the original trilogy here, no flaming about the awesomeness of the Expanded Universe please).  Any bad guy that frequently makes the player wish they could change sides has got to have more going for them then just a swanky uniform and a megalomaniacal attitude, right?

Admiral Zaarin showing off the TIE Advance to Darth Vader

    

Stay tuned for tomorrow when the next classic villain is revealed; same wombat time, same wombat channel.

  

- Tim Sweeney

  

(Please note that all images and videos appearing in this article series are not my property, but were instead sourced from Google Images and Youtube for non-commercial purposes; if there is an issue with my making use of these, please contact me and they will be removed immediately)