But, the ass kicking is done with such style, such panache… you actually kind of respect it… and it strengthens your resolve. And when… or sometimes even IF you beat that boss, the victory is that much sweeter. Here’s a list, in no particular order, of some of the greatest villains and major fights in console gaming history.

Bionic Commando: Killing Hitler… I mean, Master-D

You’ve fought long and hard to get this far, using your bionic arm to swing to and fro while blasting hordes of enemies who are trying to resurrect a Hitler-looking knock-off called Master-D. You’ve infiltrated their fortress, and obtained the final, greatest weapon… the one thing that can kill the resurrected Hitl… Master-D: The Hyper Bazooka. You’ve got just one shot, so you’ve got to make it count. Hitler-D’s about to make his escape. You have to time your shot just right to shoot the cockpit and obliterate him. If you miss, the second you hit the ground, he guns you down. Make the shot, however, and witness Der Fuhrer cry out, “AH!!” before he buys the farm. For an impressionable 10 year old, watching someone’s head explode on an NES game was pretty badass. 

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out

Say what you will about Mike Tyson, but back in the day he was untouchable and damn near unbeatable. The video game was no exception. After fighting your way through a bizarre list of “boxers,” you finally get to see Tyson’s gap-toothed visage… and you’ve got to be on your A-game or else Little Mac’ll be done in all of two punches. Back in those days, if you could actually beat Tyson, you were a god in your neighborhood.

Mortal Kombat: Goro and Shang Tsung

You’ve ripped out spines, torn out hearts, incinerated foes, and uppercutted off heads. You’ve ascended the ladder of the Mortal Kombat tournament and finally reach a really strange looking foe, obviously not of this world. The match starts, and the first thing you notice is that you’re in a dungeon, and there’s a 10 foot tall ridiculously overmuscled guy in front of you with… 1, 2, 3, 4… sets of… arms… holy crap. The beast, whose name you’ve discovered is Goro (because that’s what it says under his life bar) is now lumbering toward you, shaking the ground with each step… you fight for your life, but you get too close, and he grabs you with his lower arms and beats the shit out of your chest with the top set of arms before casting you aside like a sack of dead kittens. You strengthen your resolve and go after the bastard, and when you pull off that uppercut, it’s so freakin’ sweet. When you finally beat him, the old man that was watching the fight is now your next opponent, changing into every foe you’ve just beaten, complete with their powers… and a few tricks of his own. Beating Shang Tsung and Goro was a brag fest all its own.

Street Fighter II: Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M.Bison

You’ve beaten all the World Warriors and have finally made it to the last four guys:  M.Bison and his trio of killers. Balrog, the Mike Tyson knock off with the same bad haircut and complete ignorance of the word “kick”; Vega, the pretty boy with the Wolverine claws who could climb the fence in the background and suplex you in midair; Sagat, Ryu’s rival (and boss of the original Street Fighter) who bears the scar from their last meeting and who comes out of nowhere with his Tiger Knee; and, finally, M.Bison, that bat-shit crazy dictator who's like twice your size and can FLY while generating a field of psycho-electric-energy around him, frying your ass like bacon. Back in the day, beating these four in a row was the stuff of legend in the arcades.

Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth

Sephiroth’s the epitome of the badass anime villain. He’s cold. He’s calculating. Oh, and he’s INSANE. He’s also a little too pretty, leaving that weird “he sure looks like a chick with long flowing hair” feeling as he proceeds to kill everyone and everything in sight. He burns down an entire village, slaying all of its inhabitants, stands in the fire looking right at you, smirks, and walks INTO THE FLAMES. He later proceeds to gut your character’s love interest (though personally I was kinda glad to see her go… the other chick was much hotter, as game chicks go), turning your guy into an even more whiny emo bitch than he was to begin with. You go through a minimum of 40 hours of game time to finally get this guy, and what does he do? He calls down a fucking METEOR from the other end of the solar system and drops it on your ass… repeatedly! Killing Sephiroth’s one of the most satisfying Final Fantasy moments.

Metal Gear Solid: Sniper Wolf and Psycho Mantis

In MGS, all of Foxhound was pretty badass, but the craziest two had to be Sniper Wolf and Psycho Mantis. With Sniper Wolf, you found yourself facing off against the world’s best known sniper in the middle of a snowfield, which was just insanely cool. There was an actual feeling of tension as you ran from snow bank to snow bank, breaking out your rifle, searching for your adversary, popping a diazepam pill and trying to quickly squeeze off a round from your PSG-1 sniper rifle before she had a chance to. Upon finally killing her, the story was so well written that you actually felt a little sorry for popping a cap in her ass. Then there’s Psycho Mantis. Before you even see him, he’s already messing with your head. He’s taken over your girl, Meryl, and made her make advances toward you that are both inappropriate and pretty hilarious… and then he questions your sexuality for not taking the bait (“What’s the matter? Don’t like GIRLS?”) It is then that you’re introduced to Psycho Mantis. The cool thing about his intro is that he “reads” your mind, telling you how often you’ve saved, what games you like to play, etc… and then when you start the actual fight, he’s literally untouchable! The fight gave an odd feeling of outside-the-box interactivity when it forced you to switch your controller to the second port, and was even more interesting when he starts screaming, “WHY CAN’T I READ YOUR MIIIIIIIIND?!?” I think I enjoyed killing him just a little too much. I definitely remember getting a bit of sadistic pleasure when I got that last shot and he went down.

Silent Hill: Pyramid Head…Guy…Thing…?

I don’t know what the makers of Silent Hill were on when they created this game, but it must’ve been some good shit. Or bad shit. Either way, Silent Hill had some of the most twisted imagery to make it into a game, and the epitome of that was the Pyramid Head… Guy. You’re minding your own business, running through a rusted, roach infested building with already bizarre undead zombie-esque creatures trying to eat you, and your character has all the fighting ability of Corky from Life Goes On, and all of a sudden there’s a cut scene. What is the player treated to? An image of Pyramid Head… munging. Yes, that’s right, DV’ers, Pyramid Head is ACTUALLY munging. And if he’s not, he damn sure appears to be. So now you’re really freaked out, because that was just disturbing, and then the game resumes. Pyramid Head comes out, dragging a big ass Halberd (or maybe it was just an insanely huge butcher knife?), and even though he’s walking slowly, if he “sees” you (because I don’t know where his eyes are, he’s got a pyramid for a head) all of a sudden he’s like the friggin’ Road Runner, moving fast as hell toward you. It’s like all of those Friday the 13^th movies… Jason is chasing the victim, but he’s just walking after them, and yet somehow he always manages to catch up.

God of War: Hydra

In my humble opinion, God of War (1 and 2) is one of the greatest games ever made. It’s visceral, it actually makes you feel like a badass god who can take on an insurmountable number of warriors -- yet it never gets boring -- and it gives you enough challenge to be difficult, yet never frustrating. And the bosses are so well thought out and well done that you can’t wait to get at the next one. The hook of the game for me was, like many others, the Hydra fight. It was so incredibly well done that I was sold. Everything else in this game is badass as well, but the Hydra was the defining “Holy-shit-this-is-bad-ASS” moment for me. 

Ninja Gaiden: Alma, Murai

First, let me just start off by saying that if you’ve never played Ninja Gaiden on XBOX, it is one of the best games ever made, and also one of the most pants-pissingly, controller-breakingly hard games ever made. Every character, from the lowliest ninja to the strongest boss, is hardcore. This is one of the few games that really makes you feel like you’re working hard to get through all of these evil minions and that makes it much more satisfying to progress. With that being said, the two bosses that made most gamers break their controllers were Alma, a purple scaled demon bitch, and Murai, your former Master and mastermind behind the whole damn thing. Both of them are so jaw-droppingly hard that IF you manage to defeat them, you actually feel like you yourself were using your ninja skills to save the world from the evil Dragon Blade.

Honorable Mentions:

Resident Evil: Tyrant, Nemesis

The Legend of Zelda: Ganon(dorf)

Super Mario Bros.: Bowser

Metroid: Mother Brain, Ridley, Meta Ridley 

Add to the list… who else was a badass or hard to defeat villain? DISCUSS!