Gaming Villains Hall of Fame

Computerworld.com has a gallery on the ten ‘baddest’ villains in electronic gaming, with a winner and runner-up in each of five categories, such as Most Memorable, Most Sinister, and Most Persistent. In the Most Terrifying department, the winner is none other than the Nazis that hound Apple II users as they escape from Castle Wolfenstein, the classic game that a decade later spawned a franchise of 3D shooters. The German soldiers’ ability to bark German orders at the player — a technological feat in that early era of computer games — is cited as giving a terrifying voice to what otherwise would’ve been a silent and unremarkable foe.