Artemis: The Final Frontier in Star Trek-esque Games

I was at Tower today, planning on getting some work done for my upcoming Amber game, when I got side-tracked by some board games (I say "some", but it was really just me teaching some people how to play King of Tokyo). Anyway, after a few rounds of King of Tokyo, I wander into the cyber cafe to see Don Sherig setting up several networked laptops.

"What's going on here?" I asked, moderately interested.

"Oh, we're setting up to play Artemis," Don replied.

I, of course, inquired about the game. The answer I received, I kid you not, BLEW MY MIND. I'm sure some people out there have already heard about this. If you haven't however, allow me to give you a quick synopsis of what it is.

If you've ever seen an episode of Star Trek, than you're familiar with how the bridge of a typical starship is comprised of several people, each at a post that's essential to the functioning of the ship. Well, that's what Artemis is. Artemis allows a group of people to simulate what it's like to each take a station on the bridge of a Star Trek-esque starship and make it work as they go through missions.

The stations available to fill are:

Weapons: The weapons officer is in charge of, duh, firing the ship's various weapons systems. The game offers "beams" (which, let's be honest, are stand-ins for phasers), mines, torpedoes, and the powerful "nukes". The weapons officer also has the ability to turn ship's power into more torpedoes or torpedoes into more power. The cool thing about the interface for the weapons officer is that, when using the beams, they can target specific parts of the enemy ship to cripple specific systems. THAT is cool.

Helm: The helm officer is, essentially, the pilot. They make the ship go. They make the ship turn. The control speed, direction, etc. This is important because the pilot needs to be sure that, during a fight, the ship maneuvers as much away from enemy fire as possible while, at the same time, making sure the ship's weapons officer can still fire upon them. I didn't get to look in-detail at the helm interface, but it seemed fairly straight-forward.

Science: The science officer in in-charge of a LOT of different aspects. First and foremost, they have control of the scanners and the information they provide. This comes into play when an enemy ship's shield frequency is required to bypass their defenses. They also are the ones that give the bearings for navigation to the helm officer. Essentially, anything scan-related or navigationally supplementary falls under the science officer's control.

Communication: The communication officer is the one that takes incoming calls. They also hail enemy ships to surrender when in combat. Contacting friendly star bases and ally ships also falls within the communication officer's control This is important because the communication officer is the one that communicates the orders to friendly bases and ships to do things like "make us more ammo" or "assist us in battle".

Engineering: The engineering officer (my role) is the one that delegates where the ship's power goes at any given point. They have the option of bumping the beam power, or the engines, or the maneuvering, or any of the other seven systems in the ship. They do this through a careful balance of coolant resources (which keep high-running systems from overheating) and power application to optimize the ship for certain scenarios. To save these settings, the engineering officer is allowed ten presets in which they can record a setting and jump back to it at the click of a button. On top of all that, the engineering officer monitors any damage to the ship and controls the three damage control teams to go and fix them.

Captain: The captain is the only role in the game that does not require an actual computer to play. The captain sits back and gives the other officers orders to follow during the scenarios. We were fortunate to have have our friend Jim be the captain. Initially, I thought the role of captain would be a boring one, but when the game got going and Jim started coordinating the rest of us, it actually felt like a cooperative starship effort.

It took a bit of tweaking and experimenting before we all started to get the hang of our various systems, but once we actually figured out everything we were doing, it got REALLY exciting. We were engaging groups of enemy ships, encountering unknown space entities, saving space bases from attack, and generally hopping about the universe being badasses.

Unfortunately, green women aren't part of the experience.

Honestly, if someone told me that carefully adjusting a starship's power settings would be a blast, I'd probably look at them like the had just asked me to marry them in Klingon.

Again.

But there it was! A game that finally made us nerds feel like we were part of a legitimate starship crew and were actually jaunting about the universe. I got so immersed in the game that I, and several of the other players, didn't realize that hours had flown by and the store was closing. Hopefully, there will be more adventures of the U.S.S. Turris Ludi (tower of games in Latin) to come!

Make it so!

Facebook Games: The Addiction Grows

I never fancied myself a Facebook game player.

Most times I tried playing any Facebook games, I got bored quickly with some aspect or another and uninstalled them.

Well, that was then and this is now.

I've started playing various Facebook games for various reasons and am now thoroughly addicted to them to the point of obsessively checking them every few minutes to see if there's something new I can do or accomplish. It's getting to be rather terrible, honestly. I even bought some of those ridiculous Facebook Coins for one of the games.

Well, here, I'll be talking about them, the ones I play that is, in a bit of detail so that everyone knows what to avoid (or what's good, if you're a glutton for punishment).

Zombie Lane

Ah, Zombie Lane. I got started in this because I am currently, as you may have guessed from some earlier posts, working on an amateur zombie movie. Several of the people involved in the movie started playing this game, no doubt in honor of the movie, and kept sending me TONS OF INVITATIONS. I, as per normal, would reject most requests, but finally relented and added it.

What is the premise, you may ask? Well, it's essentially Farmville with zombies. You rebuild your house, plant crops, build fences, find your spouse and dog, and other such tasks, all the while fending off hordes of zombies.

I have to give this game credit for the sheer variety of...well...everything! There are ten different variety of zombies of varying strength, design, etc. There are at least 12+ different kinds of weapons available with different strengths. Achievements, item collections, crops, decorations, missions, etc. all have different flavors and whatnot.

Now, I say the missions are varied, and they are, but for the most part they boil down to "kill this many zombies", "do this many of a task", or "collect so many of an item". Those three vary on how it's accomplished, who (between yourself, your spouse, or your dog) is performing them, and where (your home or your neighbors' places) they're done.

For the most part, I like Zombie Lane immensely. Or maybe I'm just hopelessly addicted...

Alchemy

The above picture isn't the Facebook version of the game, but it'll do for the purposes of this article. The two (meaning the smart phone version and Facebook version) are essentially the same.

The premise is simple. You start with the four base elements, and start combining two things to get other things and then combine the new things with other things to get more things and so on. This continues until all combinations and items are discovered. 

The game itself is a bit glitchy, often acting up when you try to move some of the elements. Also, like any of the Alchemy games, the combinations can be a bit ridiculous to figure out. For example, I believe the combination I was scratching my head over was "Woman" which required "Human" plus..."Bird"? 

Sometimes I don't even know...

Dungeon Overlord

Dungeon Overlord is a new addition to my addiction to Facebook gaming. I added it at the insistence of my friends who say that it is "awesome". I figured...why the hell not?

The game was a bit complicated at the get-go, but the same friends that suggested it were also kind enough to walk me through the basics. You start off with a simple dungeon and build upon it to create a powerful force of goblins, orcs, warlocks, and possibly other creatures later on. 

Again, I'm new to it. 

It's part strategy, part simulation, and part adventure as you control the various aspects of the dungeon you build. You control food production, the mining of gold, iron, and crystal, arcane research...so many things. You have to decide what items are worthy purchases and balance your pools of resources accordingly to build your own dungeon!

It's pretty fun so far. 

 Bejewled Blitz

The original go-to in casual gaming. I added Bejewled on Facebook because I needed a distraction inbetween sessions of the other games (mostly to wait for energy/resources to accumulate before doing anything else). 

It's actually quite addicting once you get started with it! I found myself playing round after round trying to beat my personal best of 102k, which is NOT easy, let me tell you. There's also some silly leveling system to show others how many games of it of you've played, but it has no real bearing on gameplay as far as I can tell.

And that's about it so far! I've managed to keep my Facebook gaming to a minimum thankfully and hopefully I can stave off any more in the future. I don't think my time can be wasted anymore than it already is so...yeah.

Man...so addicting.

Games that Ruin Friendships: You Don't Know Jack

Ah...here we are again. Back to the land of video games and friendships that ALMOST stood the test of time and trial. In this installment, we'll talk about the ever-maddening You Don't Know Jack.

 

For those of you who don't know about this game, You Don't Know Jack is a long-running series of trivia games that pit players against each other to answer a variety of questions about a variety of topics. I'm not certain how the earlier versions of this game played, but we'll be discussing the most recent X-Box 360 version.

Allow me to paint you the picture. 

It's a Saturday night. I'm at the local game store (Tower of Games, located in Chesapeake, Virginia) waiting for the other players in my weekly Amber game to arrive so we can start playing. One of my other, non-Amber friends, Don, happens to be in the cyber cafe playing You Don't Know Jack. 

He asks me to play. I don't see the harm so I agree. Suddenly, the unspeakable force of rage and friendship destruction swoops in to set the mood and set the bar for my patience: James. Yes, James. The same James from my Lego Star Wars article. 

He wants to play too.

Oh, joy. This should go well.

So the three of us sit down and begin. Now, before I get into the cataclysmic battle of minds and wills that was our couple of rounds playing the game, I have to tell you about the obnoxious manner in which this game presents itself.

This game, I shit you not, sets the tone for wanting to punch people. It's designed in the same style as a game show, where the players are the contestants. The obnoxious part is the disembodied voice host that won't SHUT HIS FUCKING MOUTH EVER. 

I'm not kidding. I hope the goddamn voice actor that read all those fucking lines of dialogue for that goddamn game got paid by the word because he would be fucking RICH after doing You Don't Know Jack. Change questions, he talks. Buzz in, he talks. Answer a question right, he talks. Answer a question wrong, he talks. Screw someone (we'll get to that, I swear), he talks. Pick your nose, he talks. Punch your friend in the junk (we'll get to that too, true story), he talks. Press the start button, he talks. Summon Satan to doom this game to hell forever, he talks.

He NEVER. SHUTS. THE FUCK. UP.

On top of that, the introduction INTO a new round of the game takes fucking forever and he's just talking the whole damn time. So, when the questions actually started getting asked, I was about ready to commit murder on the nearest possible living thing.

Which happened to be James, coincidentally.

Anyway, we begin playing and it acts like a normal trivia game. Get asked a question, buzz in to answer, get points for right answers and lose points for wrong ones. There are different ways questions are asked and whatnot, but it essentially boils down to this:

Right answers good. Wrong answers bad.

In addition to trying to beat your opponents to the right answer, you can literally SCREW them with the "screw" option.

How you do this is simple. When a question is asked, you simply hit the screw button and choose which of your opponents you think doesn't know the answer. When your decision is made, that person gets to pick an answer. If they answer wrong, you lose a LOT of points. If they answer right, the "screwer" loses points. Simple enough.

Except it can be used strategically to not only screw your opponent out of any sort of lead OR hope of winning and simultaneously summon from within that opponent the unbound and unspeakable rage of a thousand exploding suns.

Here's a true story:

Me: Okay guys! Next question.
*question is asked*
James: *hits the screw button*
Don: All right...who do you pick James?
James: Jason, duh. *picks me*
Jason: Ha! I've got this in the bag! *picks the wrong answer and loses the lead*
James: Hahahahaha! You're an idiot!
Jason: *punches James in the junk*

 

Yes, I punched him in the dick. I rendered him unable to act for a couple of minutes, forcing us to pause the game until he was better. Suffice it to say, he wasn't a happy camper. 

But no...the most frustrating and friendship-destroying thing about You Don't Know Jack is the final round of single session of the game. As I stated before, the usual format consists of a question being asked in some form or fashion and the players answer. In the LAST round, however, the game switches it up.

I can't describe it properly but here's the Wikipedia entry:

"After ten questions are completed, the final round of the game is the "Jack Attack" where all players compete against each other. Prior to the round, a brief clue is shown to the players to describe a relationship that they must match, for example "BFF" (Best friends forever). The game then shows one word or phrase, and then cycles through other phrases which the players must match. If players respond to the wrong phrase, they lose money; only the first player to buzz in at the correct time wins and earns money. After seven such phrases, the total scores are added and the winner is determined."
Doesn't seem so bad right? WRONG. Each correct answer is worth like...2000 fucking points. Even the asshole that's in LAST PLACE can win if they get all these questions right. Hell, one time Don was in SEVERE last place and STILL beat us in the last round.

THAT pisses me off. Not just at my friends, but the game itself. The game itself undermines its own system and basically makes it so that everything done up to the last round is meaningless as long as your the fastest trigger finger.

FUCK THAT.

Games that Ruin Friendships: Lego Star Wars

The title of this article says it all.

Simply put, Lego Star Wars destroys friendships. Pure and simple.

I've been told that this video game is preferably played single-player. I've even been told that it's good with two players. However, MY personal experience playing this video with a friend has showed me that it is the devil. It has no redeeming value as a teamwork builder nor does it lend it self to cooperative efforts.

It is, without a doubt, designed to tear apart two buddies. I'll explain...

There I am, at my local game store, Tower of Games.

At the Tower, they allow free play of any video games they happen to have on sale within the boundaries of their well-equipped cyber cafe (I might have mentioned this during my Lost: Via Domus review). One day, I had some time to kill before one of my weekly roleplaying games and decided to thoroughly kill this time by playing a video game. Now, I didn't want a video game that required me to think too much, so I figured some light frivolous fun of one of the many Lego games would suffice. Being a fan of Star Wars (who isn't?), I settled on that one.

My intent was to sit down by myself and play this game alone for an hour or two until all the other players had arrived. One of the players who happened to already be there, James, decided this wasn't going to happen as he sat his obnoxious Marine butt down in the seat next to me, X-Box controller in hand and a goofy grin on his face.

Me - "What are you doing?"
James - "This game has two-player!"
Me - "....and?"
James - "Let's play together! C'mon man, it'll be fun!"
Me - *groan*

So I relented and the game began. Right off the bat, I discovered two of the biggest cooperative flaws in this hellhole of a game:

First, the camera DOESN'T switch to splitscreen when the players get a certain distance from each other.
Second, friendly fire is on. Always.

Normally, this wouldn't be so difficult, except the terrible camera, combined WITH the friendly fire AND normally small spaces in which the characters navigate, equaled countless unnecessary character deaths. And it isn't so bad that each player has only a limited number of lives, but the stupid macguffins that we had to collect got lost every time we fucking died so....add in the frustration of resource loss. The worst part was that it got to the point where James and I were flat-out assuming that we were damaging each other on purpose.

It essentially went something like this:

Me - "Yes! The Stormtroopers are dead!"
James - "Dude, you shot me."
Me - "...it was an accident."
James - "Fuck you, accident!" *proceeds to shoot back*
Me - "Hey! Asshole!" *retaliates*

I'll let this picture of two marmots visualize our feelings toward each other.

Aaaand you can pretty much accurately assume the rest.

 And friendly fire aside, we found other ways of causing each others deaths. The poor camera and lack of split screen specifically caused poor James to be stuck on a ledge that he continually fell off of until I finally got my character back to where he was so the camera wouldn't push him off.

Suffice it to say, he blamed me for that too.

I won't bog you readers down with further examples (especially since I believe those I have provided to be sufficient to understand my point), but instead leave you with these parting words...

Don't let silly games break up a friendship. 

James and I are still friends and never really were angry at each other over Lego Star Wars. However, I have heard stories of friendships being torn asunder over such frivolous reasons. And the point of this article is to serve as a warning to all of you out there...don't let that happen. There are more important things in life than stupid games.

Game Reviews - Lost: Via Domus

Now, I don't normally do video game reviews. This is mainly because...well...I don't really play many video games. However, I was browsing through my local game store (Tower of Games, located conveniently in the heart of Hampton Roads, Virginia) when I stumbled across a copy of Lost: Via Domus.

Now, being a fan of the television program of the same name, I HAD to take this golden opportunity and play this obviously enjoyable interactive experience first-hand. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with this plan of action, right?

Right?

So, I slapped down my hard-earned five bucks to spend the day playing the game in the store's cyber cafe. Somewhere between 6-8 hours later (I seriously lost track of time due to both the immense amount of SUCK and the immense amount of wanting to see the ending) I finally finished the game. That's right, kids, the damn thing was criminally short for ANY video game of this console generation. 

And, as I stated before, the damn thing was a piece of raging, reeking, rancid SUCK. 

Seen here: The game

"But Jason," you may be saying to your computer monitor, "why are you surprised that a game based on a television series sucks?" 

First of all, shut up. 

Second of all, this game isn't just game-based-on-a-television-show bad. Oh no...Lost: Via Domus is BAD. Seriously. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. But, I'll listen to the advice of those that have come before me and begin by listing some of the better qualities of the game.

One thing in particular that I was happy about was the fact that all of the cast members did the voices of their corresponding characters. 

However, my giddiness about this particular bonus was quickly dashed upon the rocks of logic and marketing as I realized that all of the cast members were more-than-likely contractually obligated to provide their voices for this festering pile of aardvark excrement. Don't believe me? Think about it. Lost: Via Domus was realeased in 2008. Lost the show was in the middle of its fourth season and had been given the go-ahead for a fifth, so there was NO WAY that the video game producers were going to let the actors slip away from their dubbing duties. Additionally, and I hate to admit this, but I'm sure the actors weren't begrudging ANOTHER fat paycheck from their cash cow television show. 

Whatever.

Another good aspect of this game was the FIRST time you were chased around by the Smoke Monster. I found this sequence to be both suspenseful and exciting. However, THIS good point is also dashed to hell, only this time upon the rocks of mediocrity and poor design. What I mean is that the first sequence was very good...and then they repeated the sequence, oh, THREE MORE TIMES. Yeah, the game designers were so lazy that they copied the same run-and-hide sequence three more times. 

So, good points? There aren't any. Let's review this fucking thing. 

Long story short, you play one of the miraculously unheard of and unseen survivors of the crash, Elliott, who has plot-driven amnesia. Through running around the island and talking to the other characters, Elliott slowly pieces together who he was and what happened to him before the flight. 

The game itself follows an incredibly boring and predictable cycle. 

First you'll:

Talk to all the available characters!

Then you'll: 

Run to some location on the island!

At which point you'll:

Find something or talk to someone to trigger a flashback!

And from there you rinse and repeat until you finish all seven terrible "episodes". This formula stays pretty solid throughout the game, with only a few minor variations such as "find something and BRING IT BACK to trigger a flashback" or "run to some location on the island WHILE BEING CHASED BY OTHERS". Really, it's just things they tack on to pad the games 6-8 hour playtime. 

And don't get me started about the fucking ridiculous inventory/trading system. Basically it works like this: various things can be used as "money" on the island. Mostly bottles of water, beer, coconuts, etc. that you find lying around. You collect these and trade them to whatever character happens to be acting as the "merchant" at that point in the game to buy useful things, like a gun, bullets, lantern, oil for your lantern, double-handed dildo...you know, the essentials. 

The issue I have with this whole setup is threefold. 

First, you have limited space in your inventory. So, after loading up with valuable boxes of food and cans of beer to trade later on, you find yourself in need of that torch you just discovered. What do you have to do? Get rid of an entire collection of beer or food or whatever you happen to have JUST to open that one slot. This isn't the worst offender, and Resident Evil 5 had the same issue. However, things get worse. 

Let's say you manage your inventory carefully and have all the necessary items you need and have stocked up on other items to trade in for money. Great! Wait...where's the character that you're supposed to trade with? Well...it was Sawyer last episode but Sawyer's gone now. WHO THE HELL DO I TALK TO TO UNLOAD THESE FUCKING COCONUTS GODDAMMIT! So, you end up having to repeat the "Talk to all available characters" portion of the game until you discover who the new "merchant" is. 

But, oh no. Oh there is a much worse offender than those two issues. Oh no no no. The game, in its vast and infinite wisdom, explains to you how important it is to have plenty of oil for your lantern and bullets for you gun. So what, as a good little fucking gamer, do you do? Well OBVIOUSLY you fucking spend an ungodly unnecessary amount of time collecting tradable goods JUST so you can stock up on those things. Because fuck knows you don't want your ass caught in an unwinnable situation because you didn't buy enough fucking LANTERN OIL. And then what do you discover? You have enough bullets to kill a small country and enough lantern oil to give arsonists a wet dream...but you don't need them.

I'll repeat that. You. Don't. Need. Them. 

The game spends it's ENTIRE FIRST HALF WAVING THESE THINGS AROUND FOR YOU TO BUY ONLY TO MAKE THEM ENTIRELY USELESS IN THE END. 

*groan* 

And we still haven't gotten to the worst or dumbest aspects of this game. It's hilarious, I tell you, the lengths I go to warn people...putting my own sanity on the line and all. 

Another feature that particularly bothers me is the camera function. Yes! I forgot to mention that Elliott is photographer and has a camera with him at all times that you can whip out to take pictures of...well anything! What purpose does this serve to the overall game and plot? Why nothing of course! The only reason the camera feature is in the game is...*drumroll*...achievements! That's right, if you take pictures of the right objects, at the right distance, with the right framing, you'll get a stupid achievement! Hoo-fucking-ray!

The manufacturing plate on the hatch is one of the optional "photo opportunities". Fucking bite me, game. 

But wait! We haven't even talked about the WORST aspect of the game. I labored through the entire thing, slaving over the stupid inventory system, strong-arming my way through really contrived and ridiculous puzzles, talking to EVERY character again and again and again...all for the sake of seeing the story to its end. 

And what, dear readers, do you think I was rewarded with? Guess. Go ahead, I'll wait. 

.........................................................................

The most BULLSHIT, CLICHED, "WAS IT ALL A DREAM?", COP OUT ENDING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I mean...I know Lost is known for it's strange twists, unusual premises, and cliffhanger endings but THIS....the show never stooped THIS low. I felt dirty having paid five bucks to play it. I felt dirty for just PLAYING it, five bucks or not. 

I really don't want to tell you guys what the ending was, lest I seize up from stupidity and bite my own tongue, so I recommend just finding some Let's Play on YouTube to see for yourself. 

Man...I just....FUCK.

Top 5 Computer Villains in Video Games

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back!

Last time, we counted down the Top 10 Computer Villains in Film. This time, we're taking a crack at the video game genre. Now, video games have given us some of the most memorable villains in the history of villaindom. Sephiroth, Bowser, that fucking unbeatable smiley face from Berserk...we gamers have fond memories of fighting (and defeating, if we're lucky) some of the toughest baddies. However, there is a serious lack of actual "computer" villains in video games, so I have to cut this list down by five.

No worries, valiant readers, for I shall persevere forward and bring you a satisfying (hopefully) list!

#5 - John Henry Eden (Fallout 3)

John Henry Eden is the President of the United States in Fallout 3. What people DON'T realize until their character actually meets him is that President Eden is, in fact, NOT human. No, President Eden is actually an AI supercomputer that was established, initially, as a monitoring device for a military base. Over time, however, it became self-aware and built itself a personality that is an amalgamation of all former U.S. Presidents.

What makes Eden a great villain is that it not only fools everyone into thinking it's human when it isn't, thus providing such a wonderfully devious surprise to the player, but it also has such a malevolent plan. It requests that the player poison the water so that all radiation-infected individuals are killed, leaving only "pure" citizens left.

Also, Eden is voice by Malcolm McDowell. And Malcolm McDowell instantly makes ANY villain ten times more badass.

#4 - Allied Mastercomputer aka AM (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream)

Now, I know this is cheating, since AM was featured in a book by the marvelous Harlan Ellison prior to being in a video game based on the same book, but it's just so FITTING. AM is a supercomputer created during the Cold War (which escalated into a world war in this story's timeline) to aid in the fighting. Two other supercomputers of the same name were created, one for the U.S.A., China, and Russia. Eventually, one of the three became self-aware (go figure) and absorbed the other two, becoming the AM in the story/game. The now omnipotent AM enacts genocide on all of humankind, save for five individuals. These five individuals suffer 109 years of endless torture and suffering, as AM refuses to let them die.

AM is just EVIL in the game. He twists and manipulates the five individuals in their separate tests to fall upon the weaknesses they showed in their lives prior to being AM's puppets. He torments, goads, insults, horrifies, belittles, and hurts them in unimaginable ways that only a vengeful god could think up. A small example: he has kept the five from eating and drinking for a LONG time and when one of them initially finds water on their journey, he prevents them from even getting near it. Terrible.

#3 - SHODAN (System Shock series)

Ah, SHODAN. SHODAN was an AI in control of Citadel Station in System Shock 1. The player character, a hacker, was hired to enter SHODAN's systems and her ethical restrictions were subsequently removed, making her the monster that many gamers know and fear. The amusing thing about SHODAN is that the player is the one that created her. In System Shock 2, she manipulates a cybernetically modified soldier (modified by SHODAN, amusingly) to destroy her rogue creations and hopefully return to power once more.

Why is SHODAN deserving of a spot on this list? Well, I believe the answer you seek is here:

SHODAN

#2 - GLaDOS (Portal)

 
Who didn't see this one coming? Honestly. GLaDOS was, by far and large, one of the most popular villains to come out of recent gaming culture. Nevermind that she's a computer. That has NOTHING to do with it. GLaDOS is an amazing VILLAIN period. Being the AI in charge of a mysterious Aperture Science facility, GLaDOS is the nice computer AI that assists you in the testing of the portal gun. However, as the game continues, the player will notice certain things...wrong with GLaDOS. Did she just insult me underhandedly? Is she questioning my morality? WHY does she keep talking about cake?! Eventually, it comes down to this great battle between you and your portal gun versus the maniacal computer bent on killing you with rockets or horrible gas.

GlaDos is here because...well, I shouldn't have to explain myself on this one. No villain is more unnerving, no villain is more two-faced, no villain is more underhanded than GLaDOS. She, along with the amazing gameplay and suck-you-in atmosphere, are what made Portal such a perfection of gaming. What's even better is that soon gamers will be blessed with the return of their favorite computerized bitch in Portal 2.

#1 - The Video Game Computer (every game, ever)

 
Don't you DARE question this choice! It is definitely NOT a cop out, and I'll even explain why! Let's begin the lesson, shall we?

How many times have you played a fighting game until the end, only to be cheap-shotted by the boss AI?

How many times in an adventure game did you get stuck in an unwinnable situation because the computer didn't give you the clue you needed??

How many times in an FPS have you started to reload your gun, only to have ten guys with shotguns round the corner and light you up???

How many times have you played a strategy game only to have THE FUCKING ZERGS RUSH YOU FROM NOWHERE?!

The point I'm making is that there is no more evil a computer villain than the processor and AI of every game you ever play. It is DETERMINED to make you lose no matter what the cost. And that is why it beats you.

And THAT is why it tops my list. Period.

FUCK YES! STILL ALIVE BABY!

...you monster.