Haters Gonna Hate: A Brief Look At The Motivations of Villains in Video Games.

In the spirit of Halloween, I've been saving this post for a while and after a few additions, changes and alterations, I feel it's ready for public eyes.

I started Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation a month back while awaiting the return of my computer charger (which was left in SoCal) and like a lot of JRPGs, the game started with the player controlling a teenage boy with spiky hair in a small mountain village.  As was the case with Secret of Mana and Paladin's Quest, I half expected to do something to piss off the town elders that would get me kicked out of town with my so-called close friends abandoning me upon my being exiled.  That was not the case at all thankfully.  There were, however, murmurs of an evil being somewhere out in the world threatening the rest of humanity with destruction/domination/desolation/dismemberment, basically any evil word starting with "D."

This is what I actually wanted to talk about today.  The ultimate bad guy (final boss) in video games and their motivations.  In a lot of JRPGs, the ultimate goal of the main antagonist is world domination either with or without destroying the rest of the world in the process.  This article will not be all encompassing as I have not played against every type of villain ever created, so there is going to be some unintentional bias on my part.  But in the meantime, let us look at a few games and the motivations of the main villains.

Dragon Quest/Warrior:  In the first game, the Dragonlord simply wants to take over the known world.  I do not recall there being much else in the way of motivation.  The Dragonlord hates the Orbs of Light, steals them and you have to get them back.  It is a pretty simple story line, complete with rescuing a princess from a dragon; although that happens about a third of the way through the game.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: In this game, the main antagonist, Ganon, is already dead (spoiler: killed at the end of the first Legend of Zelda), but it is the threat of his return that propels Link forward to complete his quest.  The enemy correctly believes that if they sprinkle/pour the blood of Link over Ganon's ashes, that he will return to continue his plan of ruling over Hyrule that he had began in the first game in the series.  And while not needing to rescue Princess Zelda, she is under a sleeping spell that will only be lifted upon . . . you know I forgot.  I know Shadow Link is the final (pain in the ass) boss and maybe something to do with combining the Triforces together.

Final Fantasy VI: This game has multiple main antagonists with Emperor Gesthal being in the forefront for the first half of the game and Kefka taking over right before the beginning of the second half.  For Emperor Gesthal, he wants unlimited power as a ruler, for every civilization on the planet to be under his rule.  Kefka on the other hand just "want[s] to see the world burn."  He is a true socio/psychopath.  He does not care about ruling the world or enslaving the world population, he simply wants to destroy everything, himself included if need be.

Portal: Moving away from JRPGs (for the moment), Portal changes the role of the main antagonist, GlaDOS, away from world domination to just wanting to continue to do the role she was programmed to do: conduct tests.  Yes, I know there is more to it than all that, but those are the basics.  And yes, it is true that GlaDOS does exhibit some typical sociopathic behaviors.  GlaDOS sees what she is doing is not wrong, but necessary to continue testing of test subjects.  Left to her own devices, she might run out of test subjects, or maybe she will learn how to artificially inseminate her stock of female test subjects and create a constant supply of growing subjects.  This outcome is hinted at in the Portal 2 co-op portion of the game, but it is hard to believe anything that GlaDOS says.

Dead Space:  One thing I love about this game is that there is no official main boss.  Sure there is the hugely giant tentacled Lovecraftian creature that came out of who knows where because why not!?  The majority of the game is spent repairing parts of the USG Ishimura so that you can escape all the horror that is happening on board.  The stereotypical villain here is more of the presence and influence of the Red Marker, but in this case is somewhat similar to Sauron as an overseeing enemy that has no direct contact with the main character but exudes its will against them.  Yes, there is Doctor Whatshisname who keeps trying to unleash the constantly regenerating brutish thing upon Isaac, but that creature functions more as a mini-boss.  The appearance of the final boss at the end seems very rushed and unclear by the end of the game, which is when it makes its first and only appearance.

Super Mario Bros.:  Let us take a step back to 1985 and take a quick look at Bowser and his Koopas.  They have invaded the Mushroom Kingdom, turned all of the citizens into bricks and plants and have kidnapped Princess Toadstool, thereby preventing the Princess from reversing the spell.  So why did Bowser want to invade the Mushroom Kingdom in the first place?  The manual is not clear as to Bowsers motivations and although Wikipedia expounds upon Bowsers frequent kidnapping of Princess Toadstool/Peach, these motivations are never stated.  Sure he wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, but what then?  What are his long term goals?  Marry the Princess (because his first wife died after giving birth to the seven Koopalings?) and rule the Kingdom.  Simple I guess.

Donkey Kong:  I am referring to the original arcade game from 1981 for this, the last character in today's article.  In this game, Donkey Kong is the main villain with Jumpman (aka Mario) attempting to rescue Pauline.  But why does Donkey Kong have Pauline?  The story behind the game states that Donkey Kong belonged to Mario/Jumpman, but Mario mistreated Donkey Kong so DK retaliated by kidnapping Pauline.  So what is DK's endgame then?  I believe that DK does not have a final plan as to what to do with Pauline, although Miyamoto has said that the game originally began as a love triangle Popeye game, but changed the characters when they could not acquire the license.  So maybe Donkey Kong is in love with Pauline but that premise would be absurd, right?  I would like to think that he lashed out at being abused too many times and Pauline was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I am going to leave this painfully short list of villains and main antagonists now as even attempting to do an all encompassing list is the very definition of time consuming.  I also do not get paid enough to take on such an endeavor.  From this abbreviated and biased list, it would appear that the motivation behind the majority of known evil is world domination.  I guess that would be the simplest motivation to write a story around with a clear and cut ending.  Just something to think about.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental

Meanwhile: Portal

I love Portal so much.  I started playing again on my janky mac laptop, and so far things are going pretty well.  I've really been meaning to play through Portal since I played through Portal 2 just over a year ago.    The trouble is that the thing seems to like to overheat while playing portal.  So the going is slow.  maybe 30 mins at a time, if that.  But I managed to make it through the game, and it still holds up.

I notice that the level design is interesting.  The first ten or so levels are pure tutorial.  The next five aren't really much more than that.  But at about level 15, tutorial is left completely behind and the levels start to get longer.  Each level is broken up into several sub-stages which are as long as any of the tutorials from the first half of the game.  Really, they are very tough, but the rewards are much harder to come by.  After every room is another difficult room. Being that this is my second time through Portal, and I've been through Portal II - I was ready for the challenge.  Still, it can be pretty tough.

Simultaneously, as the game transitions from tutorial to actual challenging levels, hints of a more insidious story begin to become more pronounced.  GlaDOS' deadpan voice starts to say increasingly morbid things.  Another thing I've noticed is  that the ambient music, coupled with the isolation of the player and the starkness of the graphic design, lends an eerie sense to the game.  This eerie tone combines with a growing sense of danger, as GlaDOS' sterile voice begins to say stranger and more threatening things.  The overall theme of misanthropic scientific testing is strengthened by the sounds and images and the isolation of the player.

GlaDOS is a pretty awesome villain.  I love the storytelling as her character develops over the course of the game, leading to the excellent climax.  And in the final battle, there is an excellent example of showing, not telling, in the personalities of the three eyeball-things that fall from her machinery.  The first being innocent and curious, the second calculating and cold, and the third savage and aggressive.  GlaDOS' character is perfectly summed up by those three elements. It is implied but never directly stated in-game that these objects represent her personality.  All the while, she is talking to the player, still trying to convince you of her position, and not really acknowledging herself, even as you discover her.  Fantastic, really. Amazing.  I think it is worth pointing out, also, that, despite her attempts to kill you, she is the players constant, and only companion through the course of the game.  This adds a layer, thin, though it may be, of sympathy that you must overcome in order to defeat her and with the game.

I beat the game in 4.8 hours.  I think it went pretty quickly, because I'm an experienced Portal player.  I think it may have taken closer to 10 hours the first time through.  I still really really love that last level.  The twist is so cool.  It really comes across like a final test.  The whole game could just have been sterile lab settings, and I think it would still have been a fun game.  But that last level really made me feel great.  I feel like Valve really took care of me as a player, and I get to show off all my portaling skills Ive been building.

I'm going to try the extra levels just for shits and giggles.  And then I'm going to install Portal 2 and try to get some multiplayer happening.  I have no idea how that works.

-D

Monthly Update: August 2013

Happy August everyone!

I'm playing a couple of games right  now (story of my life), some that I could (and should) be writing about and others that I haven't spent enough time to warrant a sit down and interview.  I have a First Impressions in the work for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind that I haven't actually played in a month or two due to a possible glitch that keeps crashing the game; I've also put some hours into Ace Combat Assault Horizon: Enhanced Edition, Torchlight, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D and Scribblenauts Unlimited.  

Then there's the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter that started off strong and in the last couple of days seems to be slowing down.  It really saddens me that this game might not get made (again).  After seven days the Kickstarter is at 25%, which is still on track, but their gain went up so much in the first couple of days that they've now reached the point where they're going backwards against the daily average needed to reach their goal by Friday August 23rd.  (It started out that they would need $25,000/day and now they have to average $26,700/day).  I guess I'm just ever the pessimist, but I would love, LOVE to see this game made.

This last weekend ( by weekend I mean the last two days I had off, which were Tuesday & Wednesday) Conklederp and I saw Pacific Rim, which initially didn't interest me when I first saw the poster a couple of months back.  Then I saw it was directed by Guillermo del Toro and that Ron Perlman was in the film as well.  That sold me.  Then, I was listening to the Nerdist Podcast #273 and director Guillermo del Toro stated (old news) that he had contacted Valve to see if he could use the voice of GlaDOS in the movie.  Then a former KDVS Metal DJ posted a link to the soundtrack (composed by Game of Thrones fame Ramin Djawadi)  and I knew it had to be seen.  Now, I've never been into Mechs of any kind, so the fact that Pacific Rim was as entertaining as it was says something about it.  Conklederp even liked it and she's not one for loud action movies.  We also saw The Conjuring the week before, which was a solid ghost-ish type movie that takes place in 1971 with excellent kid actors (which is important when there are five of them).

I also haven't forgotten about "Demo Time" either.  Sometimes it can be hard to find time to sit down and play a game I know that is a demo that may take anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes when I have a game right over here (Half-Life, Infinite Space, BIT.TRIP.RUNNER, Torchlight, DKCR 3D) that keeps reminding me to play them.  First World Problems, I know.

And finally, it the time that I have been typing this out, the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter has gained an additional $976, so there's still hope.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Full Review: Amnesia ~Justine~ (PC)

Amnesia ~Justine~ is a free expansion of sorts for Amnesia ~The Dark Descent~ and is included in pretty much any updated version of the game you download.  The game also comes with a 52 page PDF book titled Amnesia ~ Remember.  But, today we're here to talk about The Dark Descent's little sister, Justine.

Instead of a standard "full review" as we've done in the past, because everything that I would normally say "game-wise" I've already covered in my main post about Amnesia ~The Dark Descent~, so here I'll just cover aspects of Justine, and try to not give away any spoilers, but just generalizations.

The atmosphere in Justine is very similar, one might even say "identical," except that it isn't.  Yes, you're in castle-esque surroundings and you start the game in a groggy haze not knowing anything about who or what or where you are.  In the first room, a cell, your door is locked with a rope tied to it.  There's also a phonograph (kind of like a record player for you youngsters....... okay, like an MP3 player) that the rope from the door is tied to via a pulley in the ceiling.  You're first objective: get the door open.  

The game is brilliant in that once you figure out how to open the door, your mind will be ready to solve puzzles.  The "point" of this short (although still equally scary) game is to either "save" a person in a potentially deadly torture device by figuring out a way out of the room, or have them killed and you have an easy way out.  Some of the puzzles are a bit difficult to figure out and require trial and error, although in this case, a failed attempt means either someone else dies or you do.

There's the catch.  Death.  In Justine, you only have one life.  If you die, you're kicked out of the game, no helpful game text to encourage you on.  You have to start a new game now.  This was only somewhat frustrating as there was one particularly wet area that I couldn't figure out how to evade a fast moving monster through waste deep water.  My tactics became too elaborate, such as piling up boxes around doors, climbing up onto machinery only to have the creature hunt and fox guard the area.  Conklederp even freaked out when the creature screamed/growled/garbled "I can see you."  The frustrating part being that I was trying different ways I thought I had to evade the monster and it took me 10 minutes to get to that point in the game each time I failed and died and wanted to try again.

However, once I made it past that area and all the "scary" stuff that I'd been going through was no longer scary, the game gave me the finger and scared the poop out of me all over again.  Justine does a very good job of scaring you, letting you calm down long enough to realize that you're about to be in danger and then you are again and you only have time to run!  There's one puzzle, after completing the game twice that I don't have the balls to figure out what to do as I'm just too frightened.  Too frightened to stop and look behind me, to stop and look about the room, to figure out how to possibly save the man who I've killed each time.  Each time I've said "Sorry dude, you're going to die so I don't have to."  I wonder what that says about me?

I also want to quickly add, that the story in Justine fits into the world of The Dark Descent with a couple of items that connect the two story lines, which is nice and at the same time made me think, "Oh fuck I'm in the same world."  So yes, Justine's a really fun game that will take you maybe 30 minutes to complete, maybe an hour if you're like me and like to look at everything and maybe longer if you're a lot like me and have to inspect, read and ponder over every little thing.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Objects In The Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear