20 Video Game Villains You Couldn’t Wait To Kill

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames perfected the gameplay style established in its predecessor, Playground of Destruction, and gave us a crash course in everything the new generation of consoles (at this time, seventh) were capable of. We hijacked tanks, pitted international forces against each other and, yes, razed buildings with explosives.

World In Flames allows us to choose from uniquely skilled mercenaries Mattias Nilsson, Christopher Jacobs and Jennifer Mui, and set out on a chaotic adventure around Venezuela, completing missions, working for different factions, and having as much fun as possible while doing it. There’s only one problem: Ramon Solano, the billionaire software entrepreneur, who hires us, betrays us, tries to kill us and launches a coup that throws the country into chaos.

Solano is a sly, reptilian character who puts the dick in dictator, and whose initial betrayal provides the impetus for the game, as well as the feelings of righteous vengeance that drive us to enforce the mercenaries’ golden rule: ‘Everybody pays’. After numerous interventions throughout, including detonating a literal nuke over our allies’ HQ, we get to bust his bunker and get up close and personal, executing the arsehole in his own helicopter gunship. The only downside is the actual shot Solano takes to the head is taken off-camera in a cut-scene…