60 réponses à ce sujet

[kingtigernz]

MrDizaztar wrote...

BioWare's writers.

LOL to funny.

[Aimi]

Like many others here, I enjoyed GlaDOS, the Illusive Man, Kreia, and Loghain, so I won't go into any particular detail about them. Got a few others, though.

Yellow 13, from Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. Sure, sometimes you get an antagonist who's basically portrayed the way Erwin Rommel's many fanboys portray Rommel (my opinions about Rommel himself would bloat this post beyond saving), but the way Thirteen's story was done, portrayed through the unnamed boy from San Salvacion, and the way he was a distant mirror of yourself, made him one of the most well-written video game characters I've encountered. Plus, his boss fight hit the right tone - difficult without being ridiculously annoying, like the duel against Ilya Pasternak over Gracemeria in Ace Combat 6. While the boss fight isn't made of pure awesome like the one against Pixy at the end of Ace Combat Zero (hell, Thirteen fights in a five-plane element, and isn't even the final boss of the game, that being "the entire Megalith tunnel-flying level"), Thirteen's better characterization puts him over the top.

Eddie "Killbane" Pryor, from Saints Row the Third. One of the problems I had with San Andreas (still one of my favorite games ever) is that Officer Tenpenny, while obviously the primary antagonist, and while he is a well-acted and -written character when he appears (for the most part), he doesn't really appear that much, and if you step back and look at the plot, it seems prima facie ridiculous that he's the main foe when CJ can summon the resources of the crime syndicates ruling two separate major cities, and gangs running key segments of a third. Tenpenny's just one cop, and not a particularly powerful one, at that. It was the most egregious instance of where sticking to the Boyz N the Hood plot got ridiculous.

Killbane was a more worthy primary antagonist in a game that's more like San Andreas than any other (that endearingly silly and self-aware factor that made Rockstar games so much more fun back in the day). He actually runs the most powerful of the Steelport gangs, and is the chief enforcer of the Syndicate before the Boss attacks Syndicate Tower and slays Philippe Loren, after which he seizes control of the whole thing in a slowly spiraling orgy of destruction. Depending on your choices during the story, watching Killbane's descent from grinning, preening Caesar of Steelport to an unmasked and powerless fool whose belief in his own propaganda is all that sustains him is enormously satisfying. And honestly, as a grad student in history, seeing Killbane and Oleg Kirrlov throw around classical references that don't totally suck (unlike most of the ones in video games) was also pretty damn awesome.

Modifié par daqs, 29 mars 2012 - 11:31 .

[Seagloom]

I question if Killbane ever actually held control. It was not long after his ascension that the Syndicate was down to just his Luchadores. He kills Kiki and shatters Viola's loyalty soon after taking command. Then STAG rolls in and he spends the rest of the story as a second fiddle antagonist. I think it is very telling that you fight Kia or Cyrus Temple in the last canonical boss fight of either path. No, I'm not counting the Gangstas in Space battle.

Killbane was a very weak villain compared to Maero, Akuji, or the General in Saints Row 2. The only victory he managed against the Saints was framing them; and that was mostly Matt Miller's work. Miller also saved his butt from being sniped by Shaundi. I do admit he was a fun antagonist to take down, and I enjoyed the banter with him in that last fight, though. It was particularly poignant if you thought about how the Boss has changed since Saints Row; and how Julius Little was proven right.

Anyway, apologies. I couldn't resist putting in my two cents after reading your writeup. Killbane was a disappointment for me.

[Aimi]

Seagloom wrote...

I question if Killbane ever actually held control. It was not long after his ascension that the Syndicate was down to just his Luchadores. He kills Kiki and shatters Viola's loyalty soon after taking command. Then STAG rolls in and he spends the rest of the story as a second fiddle antagonist. I think it is very telling that you fight Kia or Cyrus Temple in the last canonical boss fight of either path. No, I'm not counting the Gangstas in Space battle.

Killbane was a very weak villain compared to Maero, Akuji, or the General in Saints Row 2. The only victory he managed against the Saints was framing them; and that was mostly Matt Miller's work. Miller also saved his butt from being sniped by Shaundi. I do admit he was a fun antagonist to take down, and I enjoyed the banter with him in that last fight, though. It was particularly poignant if you thought about how the Boss has changed since Saints Row; and how Julius Little was proven right.

Anyway, apologies. I couldn't resist putting in my two cents after reading your writeup. Killbane was a disappointment for me.

No apologies necessary...

I guess for me, it's less about establishing that the antagonist is a real serious threat that you should be worried about and more like meeting a minimum threshold of 'threat' that doesn't relegate him or her to being a laughingstock. I mean, it's a video game. Killbane - or the General, who I agree was another excellent antagonist - isn't going to actually beat you without some sort of cheap forced crap that eliminates any sense of player skill contributing to the outcome of the fight (see: Saren, Kai Leng). None of these guys are really a "worthy adversary", especially in SRtT, which goes out of its way to mock most of them in various ways and generally strip away most of the sort of mystique that you kind of need for a really threatening character. Mostly I was trying to differentiate him from Tenpenny, who just didn't cut the mustard at all, as far as "why the hell am I even dealing with this guy". The change in emphasis from the heist sequence, the battles with the Leone Family, and Mike Toreno's national security and alien invaders missions to mundane Ganton gang slugfests was just too jarring.

I sort of hinted at it in the original post, but what made Killbane for me was definitely how he reacts as you dismantle the Syndicate around him. His bouts of rage, his painfully forced attempts to be normal ("Use me as a reference anytime!", for instance, or his Valderrama interview), his desperate scrabbles at figuring out some way, any way, to counter the Saints' inexorable march towards victory, his refusal to stop drinking his own Kool-Aid even as his last-ditch actions belied his own words...all that was more important to me than any effort to establish him as some sort of stereotypical badass or Magnificent Bastard. On one level, it's a sort of ego-massage for the player - you're so freaking awesome that you're psychologically, militarily, and comprehensively destroying this crime boss, and you get to watch. But on the other hand, this is one of the only sane reactions to the kind of power the player wields in most video game worlds.

This is, I admit, one attraction of Ace Combat Zero and Ace Combat 04 to me - the point where the player's destructive power reaches such levels of fame that enemy radio chatter eventually becomes almost wholly about their terror at encountering the Demon Lord of the Round Table, the Grim Reaper, the Ghosts of Razgriz, and so on. Because, you know, you are effectively a superhuman in their world, somebody who can win a war by herself, full stop. Hell, they even addressed this in KotOR 2: the Jedi Exile wipes out huge numbers of enemies and only grows stronger as she goes, convincing the Masters that she is the wound in the Force and that only her destruction will save it. It would've been nice if Shepard had gotten some kind of similar recognition from her enemies, you know, having personally slaughtered thousands of troops, saved galactic civilization, and so on. Instead, you're treated with insulting condescension by virtually all of your enemies, except possibly TIM, who never totally counts Shepard out (see the Cronos Station videos of TIM's conversations with Leng), even if he doesn't admits it to her face until the very end. Leng's arrogance by comparison was merely contemptible, the sort of the way the Schofield Kid might talk to William Munny.

If you can't walk the walk - and virtually no video game antagonists actually can - at least don't talk the talk, otherwise, it looks freaking stupid.

Modifié par daqs, 30 mars 2012 - 04:36 .

[s17tabris]

Irenicus
Sebastian LaCroix
GLaDOS
The Boss

[horacethegrey]

Jon Irenicus (Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn)



Sun Li the Glorious Strategist (Jade Empire)



Kreia (Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords)



Sovereign (Mass Effect)



Desann (Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast)



Ray Bulgarin (Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony)



Satan (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow)



Rodrigo Borgia aka Pope Alexander VI (Assassin's Creed II)



Ahriman (Prince of Persia 2008)



The Joker (Batman: Arkham Asylum)



Mr. Freeze (Batman: Arkham City)



Teyrn Loghain MacTir (Dragon Age: Origins)



Baron Friedrich Von Glower (Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within)



Hector LeMans (Grim Fandango)

[N7 samus aran]

Dark Samus from Metroid Prime Trilogy or SAX from Metroid Fusion Eliphas or Kyras,Hivemind from Warhammer 40K series Saren from ME Sarah Kerrigan from SC Prophet Of Truth or Didact from Halo Arthas or Illidan from Warcraft Kane or Cabal from CNC Queen Myrrah from Gears Of War

[King KvT I]

Loghain Mac Tir (DA:O)
The Illusive Man (ME2 & 3)
Sovereign (ME)
Myrrah (GOW)
The Didact (Halo 4)
Dr. Breen (HL2)
Saren (ME)
Darth Malak (SWKOTOR)
Gargarensis (AOM)
President Eden (FO3)

[sabientje67]

The Illusive Man, Mass effect
Sovereign, Mass Effect
Ganondorf, The Legend of Zelda series
Andros, Starfox 64
Handsome Jack, Borderlands II

[MingWolf]

Domino (Grim Fandango)
The Illusive Man (Mass Effect)
Irenicus (Baldur's Gate)
Sarah Kerrigan (Star Craft)