Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time (Part Two) – Feature

As we established in our last “Interesting Villains” series, bad guys that really appeal and draw you in can be rather hard to come by in the gaming world.  Conversely, finding villains that fulfil the basics of evil without ever stepping out of their generic, clichéd shell is unfortunately about as easy as pointing at a random game on the shelf at your local EB and playing it for five minutes.

There does exist a third tier of gaming villainy, however, one that is rarer still than the really great fiends like Kane, Irenicus, or even (shudder) John Romero himself.  I am, of course, talking about the villains that are “interesting” for all the wrong reasons; the ones that make you wonder just what the hell the designers were thinking when they put a character this undeniably poorly designed (or just plain stupid) into their multi-million dollar project.

So in order to honour those villains that make gaming audiences around the world sit back and say “What the frick?”, I’d like to present to you this, the first part of my Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time; the games themselves may have been successful, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t spend all our time laughing at the absurdity of our foe.

For our next entry we’re going to leave Mr Beardy’s Star Wars universe behind, and instead head to the sometimes 2D (and fun), sometimes 3D (and rather un-fun), but always interesting world of blocky trees, robotic animals, and peculiarly mutated foxes with dual tails.  If you haven’t guessed it yet, our rather disastrous villain is none other than…

   

Dr Robotnik (AKA: Dr Eggman) – The Sonic the Hedgehog Series, Sega (Various)

 

So you’re an evil genius, right?  I mean a bonafide evil genius, scientific whizz, inventor of whacked out robots, an IQ of 300, secret laboratories in unusual places, comically giant moustache; the whole works.  You apparently have a grasp of technology unheard of anywhere else, access to pretty much unlimited resources, and your main enemies consist of lame anthropomorphic animals that don’t even have weapons; no sword-wielding lions or AK-47 grasping elephants here! Instead it’s just foxes, echidnas, and a Hedgehog that spends most of his time in the foetal position, albeit whilst spinning really fast.

With all that in your favour, wow hard could it be to succeed in your goal of wielding unlimited power?

Harder that you would think apparently, especially when you add in an obsession with convoluted plans (which, admittedly, most villains seem to dig) and the singular inability to create a killer robot that isn’t completely worthless, built around a fluffy bunny core, or both.  Even worse, all your deadly pieces of hedgehog-killing machinery just HAVE to have an inherent weakness (where they aren’t just pathetic in the first place), and there’s the constant struggle with obesity that you don’t really help by riding around in a floating car all day.

Whether known as Doctor Robotnik, or as his Japanese incarnation Doctor Eggman, the fact is that the main villain from the Sonic the Hedgehog games is, quite frankly, just plain freaking weird, and does not translate very well into the more serious tone of the later games in the series; mind you, considering that these later games have been almost universally shite, that isn’t necessarily that bad a deal.

Robotnik attempts to bugger off with the Master Emerald as Super Sonic flies after him…this is going to end well

Robotnik has now assumed his original, Japanese name of Dr Eggman, and the change obviously agrees with him if the weight loss and slightly more badass attire is anything to go by

Doctor Robotnik – because apparently looking like an obese circus performer makes this villain VERY happy

It’s hard to work out where things went so wrong with poor old bloodnut Robotnik. His motives seem pure(ly evil) enough; steal the Chaos Emeralds to become uber-powerful and turn the vibrant, talking-animal rich world into a rusty, metallic haven populated by unthinking machines and random beds of spikes.  But his methods!  I understand that the Sonic games are made in Japan, and the Japanese have rather…unique…ideas when it comes to character design, but seriously, what the hell?

Rich and powerful evil genius decides (repeatedly) that the best way to defeat his constant nemesis is by kidnapping a bunch of his cuddly forest critter friends, and encasing them in robotic forms that are almost completely useless at stopping said enemy; even worse, every time Sonic defeates one of them, the fluffy bunny inside gets to go free with a happy little skip…what’s evil about that?  Why isn’t Robotnik’s mechanical horde powered by being bathed in the blood of cute little duckies and pretty little bluebirds? Now THAT would teach that smug bastard Sonic a thing or two, and make Robotnik a big more palatable to the other villains of the world.

Then there’s the obsession with hiding his valuable belongings in places that are easily accessible by his enemies; why bother collecting all the Emeralds if you’re just going to leave them lying around?  I mean, if you know Sonic needs rings to stay alive (don’t even get me started on THAT one), and he can use said rings to steal your goodies, wouldn’t you instruct your otherwise completely useless minions to, I dunno, maybe collect the rings before Sonic rocks up? Just a thought.

Then there’s the egg obsession, which at least makes a little more sense now that his Japanese origin as Dr Eggman has been revealed; up until then, us Westerners could only assume that Robotnik was a huge Star Wars fan, but didn’t want to be sued by George Lucas for copyright infringement when he ripped off the design for the Death Star (incidentally, didn’t Robotnik see how the movies ended? Giant spacestations tend not to be very cost effective when used against plucky young rebels, don’t you know).

Look I understand that the Sonic games are platformers (or pinball games, or an upcoming RPG, but I digress), and as an old, Japanese platform game, things were always going to be a little illogical in favour of fast gameplay and just plain weirdness that so typifies anything that comes out of the Land of the Rising Sun. But even so the balding, obese, moustachioed, and poultry-obsessed Robotnik is a major head-scratcher, simply because so many elements of his character seem to make no sense whatsoever. 

At least Mario got to fight a giant, fire-breathing lizard-thing; Sonic just gets to beat on a pathetic fat guy with an unhealthy obsession with eggs.

  

 

Robotnik makes Sonic face a mechanical version of himself onboard the Death Egg, before attempting to do the job himself in his rather rotund robot armour…at least he remembered to clean up those damned rings before Sonic arrived!

    

Well that brings us to the end of the second article in this series; who can follow in the waddling footsteps of Doctor Ivo Robotnik? You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?

   

- 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)