Last week, rapper Gucci Mane married Keyisha Ka’oir in a lavish ceremony. As I scrolled through his Instagram, something struck me about the way the couple was dressed. Mr. and Mrs. Gucci Mane, like many rappers and their significant others before them, looked like the villains in a JRPG.
If you follow competitive Melee at all, then you probably know exactly who William “Leffen” Hjelte is. Widely considered to be a “heel” player, Leffen has a reputation for being the bad guy.
(This post has spoilers. Not for the ending of BioShock Infinite, but for things that happen near the end. Proceed with high caution.) The first time you meet him is before you even see him. It’s the shrill call that grabs your attention, a striking pitch that you know can only mean imminent danger.
Mario may be the world's hero, but without Bowser, does he have a purpose?
Most games have bosses—and there are multiple in-game reasons for that. What punctuation does for sentence structure, video game villains do for narrative: namely, pushing the pacing forward.
Like much of America, I saw The Dark Knight Rises last weekend. Like much of America, I left the theater completely enamored with the vicious (and occasionally ridiculous) villain Bane.
Commenter Fuzzymail wonders why the villains we face in video games can't be just as scared and uncertain as the heroes in today's episode of Speak-Up on kotaku.
Hugo Strange is a major bad guy in the next Dark Knight video game, Batman: Arkham City. Who is he? He's a villain who has been around since before the Joker. And he's got an obsession.
Take a look at how classic Spider-Man villains Hammerhead, Kraven the Hunter, and the Goblin fare in the transition to the continuity-crossing Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Every adventure requires an antagonist, someone or something corrupting the world you're in. It's a basic need. Yet why do so many games serve up foes whose evildoing provides more of a chore to be undone than a memorable struggle?
