You're a BASTARD! - The 10 most villainous games ever

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The lesser of two evils is for chumps - why settle for an anti-hero when you can be a straight-up villain?

3. Tecmo's Deception: Invitation to Darkness (Devil's Deception in the UK)
1996 | PSone

You are: A nameless prince who's sold his soul to the devil.

What's his deal? Unjustly framed for murder and burned at the stake by his brother, the prince is saved at the last second by a demon - for a price, of course. Placed in control of the huge, haunted Castle of the Damned, it's the prince's job to lay traps and murder any would-be heroes who enter the place, all with the ultimate goal of harvesting their souls and awakening Satan - yes, that Satan - so he can begin the very important work of reducing all of existence to a glowing cinder.

Moral justification: Survival and revenge.

Defining act of villainy: Allowing his kind-hearted princess fiancée to be slaughtered, and then reanimating her corpse to attack and terrify invading heroes. Oh, and that whole "awakening Satan" thing.

Worst thing you can do: At one point, two desperate parents enter the Castle of the Damned because the bounty from killing you would pay for an operation for their terminally ill daughter. Guess which lucky little girl gets to DIE ALONE?

How evil? Pretty damn evil, and openly Satanic to boot.

2. Fallout 2
1998 | PC

You are: A descendant of the Vault Dweller from the first Fallout.

What's his/her deal? After your village in post-apocalyptic California suffers a terrible drought, you're sent out into the harsh, dangerous wasteland to locate a "Garden of Eden Creation Kit" by any means necessary. You're free to choose your own methods for surviving in the radioactive desert, but if you've read this far, we're guessing they won't be very nice.

Moral justification: Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Defining act of villainy: The Fallout series is infamous not only for enabling you to kill just about anyone you meet, but enabling you to massacre entire towns, children and all - and living with the consequences of being branded a child-killing maniac afterward.

Worst thing you can do: You mean besides killing children? That would probably be getting married for the sole purpose of taking your new wife/husband far from home and selling her/him into slavery. That's just cold.

How evil? You could tell The Road Warrior's towering, hockey-masked badass Lord Humungus to "just walk away," and he totally would, mostly because just being near you makes him feel dirty.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.