It's Good to be Bad

It's great to rescue the princess, restore peace, and save the world. You should know -- you've probably done it enough times. But the fact of the matter is that villains, like blondes, have more fun.

So sometimes you just want to break stuff and kill people. Sometimes you feel like kidnapping the princess, wreaking havoc, and destroying the world. Sometimes you want to get in touch with your inner Darth. Sometimes being bad is good. So we present here ten games that let you take a walk on the bad side.

WARNING: This article is so evil that it contains spoilers! You have been warned. Bwhahahaha!

WATCH TRAILER

Black and White 2

The concept of playing god grew from Peter Molyneux's Dungeon Keeper games from the 1990s. Your disembodied hand slapped around the denizens of a cartoon dungeon. But in Black and White, you have more than just your godly hand. You also have a pet creature, such as a giant tiger, cow, or gorilla. Your pet will eventually be as good or evil as you, conditioned by how you treat him and learning from your example. Together, you and your pet will raise a village and eventually take over the ten islands of Eden.

How Bad Can You Be?

If you take the evil route -- and who wouldn't? -- you can do a whole mess of mean things. Start off randomly abusing your pet -- slapping him for no good reason. He'll learn to take it out on the villagers, who will be cowed into submission. An evil god rules by fear, and doesn't need to fuss with benevolence or prosperity as a way to sway new worshippers! Set up villages to breed new villagers quickly, who are then used to form armies that go out and conquer nearby villages. Keep the people in line by feeding them into pits of torture and prisons. Eventually, you'll swarm the map with your armies, and your pet will learn to eat people, kick them, throw them, and even poo on them. If that's not bad behavior, we don't know what is.

Game Page ... Screenshots ... Videos ... Cheats

WATCH TRAILER

Bully

Rockstar's childhood version of Grand Theft Auto turns you loose in Bullworth Academy, where you follow a storyline along the events of the school year. You have to balance going to class with navigating the school's various cliques, decking out your dorm room with trophies, and committing mischief.

How Bad Can You Be?

Bad enough that you'll eventually get expelled. But not before enjoying your moment as Big Man on Campus (even though you're considerably shorter than most of the girls you kiss along the way). The missions in Bully involve plenty of kid-like shenanigans, but you'll also abet some less-than-wholesome adults. You help a drunk English teacher hide his boozing, you secure girls' panties for a perverted coach, and you even assist the ugly cafeteria lady who drugs her unsuspecting date into submission. Along the way, you can give other kids wedgies, pick fights, and make out with girls for a temporary health boost. You know, the usual trappings of childhood.

Game Page ... Screenshots ... Videos ... Cheats

WATCH TRAILER

Burnout 3: Takedown

Like most driving games, Burnout is mostly about using speed to quickly get from point A to point B. But unlike most driving games, you're rewarded for destroying cars in the process. And among the races, you'll find crash events, which are all about trying to inflict the high dollar value of damage to the most cars.

How Bad Can You Be?

Crash events are so unabashedly about the worst possible driving behavior you've ever mustered. You know those times when you turn around on a track and drive the other way? Crash events are that times ten! But races encourage bad driving habits as well. The easiest way to build up the speed boost you need to win races is by veering into the wrong lane and driving though oncoming traffic. Near misses with other cars also help your boost gauge, but not as much as completely taking down an enemy racer by plowing him into a railing, an obstacle, or another car. A lot of the fun is discovering the number of different types of "takedowns" Burnout 3 tracks. But even when you've crashed, you're given a last chance at being bad: the game goes into bullet time and you can steer your twisted burning wreck into another car for an aftertouch takedown. "From the depths of the trip to the junkyard, I stab at thee!"

Game Page ... Screenshots ... Videos ... Cheats

WATCH TRAILER

Evil Genius

This very Austin Powers flavored game is part city builder, part personnel management game, and part puzzle game. Choose among three evil genius, each with his or her own special powers, and then build a secret lair from which you'll conducts Acts of Infamy. Hire twisted henchmen to lend you a hand and raise an army of loyal minions to go out and do your bidding on a World Domination map of the globe.

How Bad Can You Be?

Your first order of business will be to foil the secret agents who try to infiltrate your base. Set traps to main and capture them, and then throw them into holding cells for interrogation and execution. Meanwhile, you'll be sending out minions to implement evil schemes like destroying country music or stealing valuable relics from museums. If you finish all the game's mission, you'll build your own doomsday device, which sucks an entire city into space, devastates the earth, or converts everyone on the planet into a mindless drone. And all in good fun!

Game Page ... Screenshots ... Videos ... Cheats

WATCH TRAILER

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

This is the latest in the ten-year-old series that made a dramatic leap to 3D in 2001 with Grand Theft Auto III. Since then, it's moved from Liberty City (standing in for New York) to Vice City (standing in for Miami) to San Andreas (standing in for Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas). San Andreas is the biggest and best of these free-roaming games.

How Bad Can You Be?

Since the series began, the premise behind Grand Theft Auto has been that if you see a car you want, you take it. Naturally, this sort of lawless disregard for personal property leads to crime-themed storylines. Vice City was an obvious homage to Scarface, and San Andreas owes a lot to rap culture and the movies of John Singleton. Although this latest game follows the main character's attempts to do wholesome things like clean up the neighborhood and avenge his mother's murder, there's plenty of feckless law-breaking along the way. In addition to the now run-of-the-mill auto theft, you'll murder people to keep them from testifying against crooked cops, help the mafia build up its casinos in "Las Venturas", fend off and conduct drive-by shootings, pimp prostitutes, and burgle private residences. You can even eat lots of junk food and get fat, which further stresses the US's already beleaguered health care system. Michael Moore would be very unhappy with you.

Game Page ... Screenshots ... Videos ... Cheats