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5. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
2003 | PC, Xbox
You are: An amnesiac Jedi who can be good or evil depending on the choices you make throughout the game.
What's his/her deal? If you haven't played this and are the type who hates spoilers, then stop reading RIGHT NOW. Seriously, just skip ahead to the next entry. You'll thank us when you finally get around to playing this four-year-old classic. For the rest of you, the hero/villain of this particular story is eventually revealed to be Darth Revan, KOTOR's rough equivalent of Hitler. As Revan, you've been (unbeknownst to you) captured by the Jedi, stripped of your memory and given a second chance at life. Whether you decide to make good on it or go back to your evil ways is up to you, but if you want to take the latter route, KOTOR provides ample opportunities to be the biggest asshole imaginable to just about everyone you meet.
Moral justification: A survival-of-the-fittest philosophy, combined with a whole lot of Dark Side of the Force corruption.
Defining act of villainy: Slaughtering his/her Jedi companions, raising a vast army of Nazi-like Sith and waging a massive war to destroy the Galactic Republic.
Worst thing you can do: Aside from retaking your throne and leading the jackbooted Sith forces in iron-fisted conquest, the biggest bastard move you can pull comes when you force an overprotective Wookiee to murder his (and your) spunky teenage-girl sidekick.
How evil? So evil, Darth Vader once scrawled the words "Mrs. Anakin Revan" in a notebook over and over during ninth-grade biology.
4. Command & Conquer: Generals
2003 | PC
You are: A huge terrorist network known as the Global Liberation Army.
What's its deal? The next time you go harping about how megapublisher Electronic Arts doesn't take risks, consider that in 2003 - when Americans were still being bombarded daily with color-coded terror alerts and stark reminders of 9/11 - it released a game in which one of the three factions you could play as was a clear stand-in for al-Qaida. We're talking suicide bombers, chemical weapons, Stinger-missile nests, growly Middle Eastern accents and big green turbans, all at your command. The GLA was a little cartoonish and unquestionably evil, but that doesn't change the fact that playing through its storyline enabled you to bring the American and Chinese armed forces to their knees.
Moral justification: Religious fanaticism and vague pretensions about striking a blow for the Third World.
Defining act of villainy: Capturing a Soviet-era nuclear missile, arming it with a chemical payload and launching it into the heart of some nondescript American or European city.
Worst thing you can do: Gun down civilians so you can steal the U.N. supply drops intended for them.
How evil? The kind of evil George W. Bush likes to talk about. Explosive, ruthless, uncomfortably close-to-the-real-world evil.
