Bring Back the Bastards

The folks over at Resolution Magazine haven’t been too thrilled about the villains they’ve been up against in recent video games, so they’ve pointed to the likes of Baldur’s Gate II’s Jon Irenicus, System Shock’s SHODAN, BioShock’s Frank Fontaine, Mass Effect’s Sovereign, and Fable II’s Lucien as good examples of bastardly villains.

A good villain can really elevate a game above its peers. Of course, I’m mainly talking about first-person shooters, RPGs and the like: games that follow a good story. Remember characters like Jon Irenicus in Baldur’s Gate 2? Now he was a bastard: someone you developed a real hatred for as he popped up time and time again, doing very mean things to you and your friends.

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That bloke from Fable 2 was quite nasty, but the fact that I can’t even remember his name says it all, really. Saren and the massive bastard (and I mean in size and disposition) Sovereign from Mass Effect were a step in the right direction, and it’s not often that more than one villain sharing the spotlight can work without them both being a little diluted. But they kind of pulled it off in Mass Effect – Saren being a more recognisable pantomime villain offset by the abstract mega-villain of Sovereign, whose eventual revelation pushes the story and pace of the game into overdrive and provides a genuine threat that changes the atmosphere from exciting space adventure to horror, dread and urgency. It ultimately leads to a finale packed with so much adrenaline that it’s burned itself into my memory as one of my all-time classic gaming moments.