While it's true that mature storytelling often requires moral ambiguity and a lack of distinct borders between good and evil, it's also true that people enjoy rooting for the hero. A great way to make characters heroic is to pit them against an utterly despicable villain. Here are some of gaming's best examples of horrific antagonists, the kinds of villains who make players keep playing in order to end their miserable existences.

10. Zoran Lazarevic, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

Nathan Drake meets plenty of shady characters in the treasure-hunting business, but few were as outright repulsive as Zoran Lazarevic, from Uncharted 2. A ruthless Eastern European war criminal, Lazarevic considered men like Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, and Hitler to be role models for human determination. He killed anyone who stood in his way, be it by fuelling a civil war in Nepal to distract authorities from his own tracks, driving a tank through a Tibetan village with no regard for those in his path, or shooting his own henchman to show that he's immune to hostage tactics. But the most sickening of Lazarevic's deeds was his execution of Elena Fisher's journalist partner Jeff. After Jeff is badly wounded and Nathan valiantly struggles to keep him alive, Lazarevic shows up and shoots the dying man in the head, for no reason other than spite. Thankfully, the game's ending provides a brutally karmic end for the monstrous man that just has to be seen to be believed.

9. The Doctor, Cave Story (3DS, DS, PC, Wii)

The adorable sprites of Cave Story belie an extremely dark story. No character symbolizes this better than the game's antagonist, a depraved mad scientist who goes only by the name "Doctor". The Doctor's plans involve kidnapping, torturing, and brainwashing the cute and cuddly Mimiga into an army he'll send against the surface. He's described as "like a demon" by the supporting characters, and given how his evil plan involves inflicting Nazi-style vivisection and genocide against little rabbit creatures, that's an incredible understatement.

8. Ganondorf, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 3DS)

The number of great things about Ocarina of Time could fill a dozen Top 10 Lists on its own, but for the purpose of this immediate article, we'll focus on the N64 classic's interpretation of Ganondorf. In the old NES and SNES games, Link's archnemesis was a pig-faced brute who idly waited in the final dungeon for the hero to arrive. However, in Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf was a scheming, duplicitous master of the dark arts who actively manipulated Link and Zelda into gathering power for him while dispatching anyone in his way. Nowhere is Ganondorf's callousness more evident than in the world of Adult Link, where the evil mage has taken over the world, utterly obliterated Hyrule Castle, and left monsters around the land to dissuade the people from even considering rebellion. Other games might have the player trying to stop the apocalypse, but Ganondorf actually pulled it off, and the player's first-hand view of his dystopia spurred them on to restore Link's timeline.

7. The Joker, Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)

The Joker is famous across several mediums as the most sadistic of Batman's villains, and Arkham Asylum is a great example of his excesses. The Clown Prince of Crime orchestrates the entire plot, from producing a fire at Blackgate Prison so the surviving felons could join his ranks at Arkham, to holding the hospital staff captive and subjecting them to all manner of torture  and death. His own henchmen weren't free of his wrath, as he'd let any of them die if it were amusing - even his alleged girlfriend, Harley Quinn. And amidst all of this, he tried to poison Gotham's water supply with a formula that would turn every civilian into a hulking, violent brute. The Joker had a reduced role in Batman: Arkham City, on account of his terminal illness - an illness that was completely deserved, given his deeds in the previous game.

6. Andrew Ryan, BioShock (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)

Andrew Ryan's plan to make Rapture a haven free of any government controls backfired, and that was largely his fault. Ryan's creed of absolute freedom wasn't extended to those who disagreed with him, as he sent  dissidents to a secret prison, murdered artists who parodied him, and created an amusement park meant to scare children into never leaving his city. Meanwhile, his own freedom was used to conduct hideous experiments that created the Little Sisters, and he even kidnapped citizens' daughters when the orphanages didn't provide enough of a supply. Rapture had plenty of sick and twisted individuals even before the addiction to ADAM, but Ryan led the way in lack of conscience.

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