That would be fight club. Or most werewolf movies.

And yes, I agree. If done well, it shouldn't be obvious that you are the evil person, at least not from the start.

An epic musical theme helps. Was Sephiroth a great villain story wise? Not really. Did he have an awesome image, weapon and song? Yes. That would be why so many people think he's a great villain. Really it wasn't the story, it was Nobou Uematsu.

My idea of a great villian is that he can actually make the player stop and think, " wait, he has a point there..." I mean, I want to have at least a bit of drama while killing him/ joining him.

For example, Kane from CnC series. looking from the GDI standpoint, he would be a villian, causing mass destruction, spreading tiberium, etc etc. From the NOD standpoint however, he is a great leader, helping to fight the tyranny of the GDI that abandoned the people in the yellow zones. To actually make his people that loyal to him proves he's a great leader, not just a stereotyped guy.

Silvertounge:
That would be fight club. Or most werewolf movies.

And yes, I agree. If done well, it shouldn't be obvious that you are the evil person, at least not from the start.

Oh yeah Fight club that was good one.

I'd have to say (and this is in the animated series, mind you) that Mr. Freeze is a good one, of anything, because he has an excellent motive for what he does. One that the viewer will, no question about it, sympathize with.

Russian Redneck:
One thing I forgot to mention: I really like villains who are just the very epitome of malice. Villains who don't have a problem with offing the innocent, or cause mass hysteria without batting an eye, perhaps even revelling in it, really get me going. Villains who can genuinely make me hate to love them and love to hate them earn bonus points from me; like, they're only being evil for evil's sake or are just really deranged, sinister, malevolent works of chaos.

Like The Joker or Clubber Lang.

Of course, I love The Joker with all my heart and soul after seeing The Dark Knight, so I can't loathe him for what he does because he just does it so damn well.

Specifically supervillans:

Cool powers, like Venom or Pyro, that aren't caused by technology or just their power in society, like Kingpin or Scarecrow from the Batman Begins movie.

A cool back story, like being a mutant-alien hybrid who got dosed with experimental drugs and radiation, and that he can only become a villan when it is dark because the ancient tribe of *insert ancient tribe* fears the sun and revels in the glory of the night.

The ability to do really evil things without seeming to care, like slaughtering babies whilst holding the hero's loved ones hostage in a Saw-like torture chamber.

Also, the ability to contend with the hero on a regular basis, instead of just getting owned every time they try to commit a crime, or form a gang with other equally-lame villans so that they can get their asses kicked as a group and not feel like a loner anymore.

A lack or perversion of a human emotion of empathy or restraint, or something taken to extremes like rage or inhuman cunning or planning.

The Best villains are just everyday people gone wrong, superpowers just add to the fun. Who was more evil? Hannibal Lector or the Abomination from Hulk?

Thats right, Hopkins bitches, and all who think otherwise are simply wrong, Lector is more evil and terrifying because he was inhuman.

Abomination looked different, but he was just a big sack of revenge.

Lector was an abomination.

Heath Ledger's Joker.

Also someone/something that actually gives you a sense of menace and scares you. At the moment the best example I can think of in the gaming world is Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2.

jezcentral:
Depth is good though.

I have to agree with this. The best villains are the type with a softer side, when a villain is completely inhuman it really makes everything black and white, but when your bad fellow raises kittens while invading your country it adds new dimensions to the story.

I'm not sure if anyone has said this yet, but The G-man from the Half Life series. The dark, twisted man who controls the war with the combine from behind the scenes, invoking a sense that you have no control over the course of events; that control belongs to him.

Well, to me, the best villain in all my games i have, the best villain would be Galcian from "Skies of arcadia: legends" the reason is because he wanted to rule the world, he kept his true intenctens from the empress of Valua, and he DESTORYED valua with the silver giga, killed that bastard Alfonso and empress teodora and every rich retard in upper city. now, galcian was the Surpreme ruler of the Imperial admada of the Fleets of Valua, killing his own people for contorl, he had a huge sword, pure evil, mustash, but he thought he was doing good, that what makes him evil, and he had Ramirez as a right hand man, and after you kill Galcian, you fight Ramirez, now in MY view, Ramirez is stronger cuz' he's in a Rage. And as the final Boss after you fight the Silver gigas you fight them morfted toghter which is ungodly hard, and you better be prepared.

At any rate, a bad villain is one that acts on pure, sheerly mindless malevolence with no reason of being so but being so. As Yahtzee once said, a villain who's only motivation is total commitment to being a bastard is not good storytelling. Villains shouldn't be evil for the sake of getting an evil character on plot. A villain should have a dark past, or some ulterior motive that impulses him to the dark side. Take the Trauma Center series (in lack of a better immediate example) as starting point. In the first one, Delphi's motives are revealed: to purge humanity of its defects, and whilst this is very fucked up, at least it has sense, and can induce fear in the player, whereas in Trauma Center 2, Patrick Mercers, the bad guy, creates Neo-Guilt to save his comatosic wife, which undoubtedly causes feelings of simpathy for the character. For all means and purposes, a good villainic figure is one that can make the player actually feel like defeating it. Some villains you just cannot take seriously. The dark overlord of chaos, destruction and sorrow archetype worked well for a while, but now, any game that features one of those should be shot (unless it has a dark story and background.).

Two things...

If a villain is going to be simple you need to LOVE to HATE them, they have to be so howling awesome baby eating evil that you want to take them down more than anything.

If a villain is going to be deep you need to find them as interesting and compelling as the heroes, with deep and dark motivations and driving elements that you can understand, if not empathize with.

A good "force of nature" villain also isn't so bad, something unstoppable and uncaring more than outright evil, but still pretty threatening.

Good Examples

Love to Hate: Kefka, Lucca Blight, Liquid Snake, Darth Malak, Colonel Volgin.

Compelling: Jowy Atredies, Vayne Solidor, Arthus (Warcraft 3), The Boss, Revolver Ocelot.

Force of Nature: The Flood, Sin (Final Fantasy X), The Town of Silent Hill.

Wayne Banner: from 'the Hulk', Bruce Banner's Dad. The guy killed his wife and experimented on Bruce which is how he became 'the Hulk' when he got hit by that radiation (movie) nuke (comic). afterwards Wayne constantly made Bruce Life a misery. You have to be pretty evil to do that to ur own flesh and blood.

Fontaine: The more you look into him worse he gets and he does seem 2 tick all the boxes. you could turn out like him *SPOILER* and that's one of the endings *SPOILER FINISHED* he is hard too kill because he is quite skilled, his attacking style seeming too be throw things and then ram you HARD. Also at this point in the game if you die, you really die! Through the whole thing he's made you his Lapdog, and fucked with your head did your really need to see 'Atlas' wife and child Die?' He really f***ed with your head and for no reason other then he could. Plus before you crash in the ocean he made you blow the plane AND he used his 'shelter for the poor' basically as a training ground for his little army.

Justice: From afro samurai who pretty much is like our hero in fact no our hero is trying to become justice. And he is so cool

On an extra Note aren't most villains good villains because of their style?
Sephiroth
The Joker
Adrew Ryan
Number 6 (Afro samurai)

Compare these guys against
The riddler
Bowser
Brothers 1-5 (afro samurai

and you kind of see my point

Parhelion:
Video games largely disappoint me in the villain category. It's too much of an "Oh luk he's sooo evil lol" contest and not about interesting characters.

The two villains who have really struck me have been GLADoS and Dormin. GLADoS was incredible as a villain, not some mere comedic gag. She was ambiguous in her nature, and not in some shallow "mysterious" fashion. It's primarily that her morals and goals are questionable. Is she really evil? Was she really that happy that you "destroyed" her? If she was, it would follow that she's not necessarily evil, just single-minded in her quest for furthering science. Regardless, she's intriguing since there's no clear cut way to explain her motives.

I think you're being a tad bit ridiculous there, friend. If you're questioning Portal that much, you probably didn't enjoy it the same way everyone else did. Glados is a great villain because she's funny. Trying to add any other qualities to her diminishes her greatest strength.

I'm surprised I haven't seen this mentioned yet (I've went through most of the pages, but it's possible I missed it). Kreia from KOTOR II was the definition of a great villain. She was able to see the bigger picture, no, the BIGGEST picture. That life without the Force would be a much better life for all. Sure, everyone in the galaxy might die if the Force was destroyed, but the Exile survived without the Force. Others might do the same. And, if they weren't able to, life would simply restart later down the line. What mortal has had ambitions as big as to restart existence?

Good. Friggin'. Motivation.

Can't be said enough. Without solid motivation a villain is just hollow. Shit needs to happen for a reason. Not just "Blarglgarb, I sure am evil! Think I'll destroy everything now!" - that's just retarded.

And some of the best villains - the truly great ones that stick in your mind - are the ones that don't believe they're evil. The guys who truly believe that, even if what has to be done might be somewhat distasteful at times, that they're really the good guys. They're doing what's right. What has to be done.

Beyond that you start to get into smaller issues. A solid villain has to be strong, so that when you finally defeat them your victory is satisfying. They have to be charismatic, able to genuinely inspire fear in the player and reasonably be at the head of their legions of loyay followers. They have to be smart.. always being proactive rather than reactive, and with lots of contingency plans.

Rather than going through a whole personality description and motivation thing that everyone else seems to be writing about, I'm going to sum this up extremely simply.

What Makes a Great Villain?

A villain who wins.

Sejs Cube:
Good. Friggin'. Motivation.

Not entirely necessary, I mean look at Kefka, half of the fun of him and villains like The Joker is that their motivation is simply chaos, violence and death, that'd not deep, but its menacing. A villain without motivation though needs a hell of a lot of style to be interesting.

I think that the villian needs two attributes over everthing else.

1. A damn good reason.
Revenge doesn't cut it for me; because after one person/group/nation is killed, is the villian supposed to just go back to their job?
Weak.
What use is a planet to you if you just blow it up? I really don't get how the suicidal villans are supposed to work.

2. The ability to harm more than the cat box...but not the entire universe.
What completelly kills any sense of menance in any Genere for me; is saving the universe from the guy with the hotdog. And what completelly destroys any realisim is to fight the giant bit'o doom that will destroy everything you love an cherish. If it can destroy everything, and I can beat IT. What's to stop me from demanding my people to, oh, build me a gigantic temple to rain my evil upon the land?

I personally enjoy villians who have a sense of confidence in what they're doing. This isn't to say that they think what they're doing is right or that they've got bats in the belfry. It means that they have everything under control. With enough confidence, such villians eventually become the monocled mustachios we all seem to love, spouting off monolouges at the tops of their Doom-towers while the hero grits his teeth. It's this sense of assurance that gives them their smug little bastard coating.

Anyway, I can often see how someone who's just a villian and not evil incarnate can fall victim to the innumerable cliches of the antagonist. There's a great sense of glee when I formulate a plan, and I just want to share it with others.... and there's nothing quite as satisfying than a good maniacal laugh (I've fallen to the maniacal giggle, myself)

What Makes a Great Villain?

To me, what makes a great villain isn't what powers they possess, or the amount of damage, evil or destruction they can cause... but simply the the fact that by their presence, they can cause you fear, despair, hopelessness and force you to question yourself at your core.

A great villain challenges you at the belief and 'sense of self' level. How you define the world, and your place in it. Ripping what you believe from you, and leaving you in a strange place, you have no understanding about.

To me, that is what makes a great villain is a character that can threaten to destroy you, from the inside out.

Got another one. The Prophet of Truth. He's supposed to be the Covenant version of the Pope(well, one of three at least), but he pretty much uses every single member of the Covenant for his own purposes, even his fellow Hierarchs. He is an ambiguous villain: Is he misguidedly following the Great Journey, or is he a megalomaniac who uses the theology for his own power, and to hell with those supposedly equal to him?
There are little clues here and there throughout Halo 2 leading up to his abandonment of Mercy: slight boredom/irritation with Mercy's piety and sincerity, the betrayal of Regret, as well as simply his difference in character to the rest of them, cold, calm, and methodical.
In Halo 3, he drops the pretense of calm in favor of a snarling, steadily unstable rant.
It also(when looking at the combined evidence) becomes apparent that he wanted humanity destroyed because he feared what they were: the Descendants of the Forerunners, supposedly those he should be venerating, but a potential threat to his plans.
In short, Machiavellian.

mustaches.... dirty, bushy, profane, mustaches

A black top hat,cape and a thin mustache.

There are two types of good villains:

1: The type that is just evil trough and trough. No symathy whatsoever to noone. No remorse, just plain bad ass son of a bitch. He doesn't have to be strong(often they become), some times they are the ones behind the scene pulling the strings (kefka FF6 anyone?)

2: The tragic villain. Often good guy turned victim turned twisted bad guy. See "two face" in batman, Sepiroth in FF7. You feel for them, though they sometimes cross the line into nr 1.
These are often under the "love to hate" sticker

actually, you have the mix as well. Spandam in one piece is a brilliant villain, because he is just such an annoying fuck-head that doesn't care about anyone but himself, but still quite deviouse and evil.

A COMPELING REASON (One that seems relistic, not evil because they want to, use Joker as base)
Personality
Look the part

I think the best villains are the ones who challenge the Heroe's convictions. This is especially true if the hero is one of those My country tis of thee patriotic dickheads doing unspeakable acts in the name of hearth and home.

This usually only happens early on because once the hero finds out he's actually working for the real villain he usually defects to the opposite side. But in the meantime whoever you were fighting before seems to be evil, is usually powerful, competent and knows that he is right. Only the hero refuses to see it.

Whenever you kill a villain and then later go "Oh shit, he was the good guy." that is a majorly sweet villain.

EDIT: Oh oh, just remembered. I'm not sure what it was from but I remember somewhere facing a very polite and apologetic killing machine. It was big, it was cruel, it was undeniably evil. But it was just doing it's job and was really very sorry about the bother. If a villain apologizes about having to kill you but then tears you limb from limb anyway that is pretty sweet.

"It's for your own good..."
Heheheheh...

What makes a great villain to me is if the character has motivations as to why he would do what he is doing, no matter how sick and twisted he is, i just want a three dimensional character(look at The Joker in The Dark Knight). Opposed to "the bad guy," who you are meant to hate, but all you know about him is that he is evil and must die, the one with no motivations or intentions other than "destroy" and "kill the hero".(Like most other villians.)

Either they need facial hair or to light up a cig whenever they're about to say something really evil...

The quiet villain is always the most dangerous one...

i think they need good motivation and just a slight bit of mental instability to make them completely unpredictable

first of all any self-respecting villain should get himself a ten year old associate to test every plan, scheme and death trap before unfolding his evil plans, mainly to ensure the hero isn't getting away so ridiculously easy.

Next up would be a sense of simplicity when it comes to capturing the hero. How you get your hands on him is not very important, but when you do manage to get him in your control there are always two things that need fixing:
-do NOT tell aforementioned hero your evil dark plan
-do NOT set up any excessive death traps or perilous situations for the hero, just grab the nearest weapon and kill him now that you have him.

Furthermore, if you're planning on using a doomsday device with a timer or just a big bomb, ensure to make it detonate at 0:02 rather then 0, so our hero, if not dead yet, should be fooled into thinking he can get a last second save.

Lastly, capture the hero's girlfriend, as his love for her will give you a great amount of control over the hero, making it much easier to get rid of him.

In every step make sure all actions are tested and approved by your ten year old associate and there ya go, world domination is within reach...

A great villain needs to be confident but silent. Conceiled in a long coat with a mask/hat that covers some of his face whilst leaving his mouth open. Doesn't come out with a speech to everything the protagonist says, but something like a small smirk. Power too, so that he doesn't do things himself, he just flicks a finger and his goons jump in as he slowly walks away into darkness.