A compelling narrative requires conflict, and when it comes to video games, such narratives often involves kidnapped princesses or cartoonishly evil plots for world domination.
There's nothing wrong with a goofy villain. They often steal the spotlight from less-than-enthusing lead characters. That said, these video game ne'er-do-wells take things to a new level and come across as ridiculous when compared to even the most outrageous children's animated special antagonists.
Goldman (House of the Dead 2/Typing of the Dead)
"People of the AMS, I am Goldman!" Perhaps the most notoriously goofy voice acting performance of all time in any medium, Goldman from House of the Dead 2 is supposed to be an imposing puppetmaster ala Oswell Spencer from the Resident Evil games, but it's too difficult to take him the slightest bit seriously. The man sounds like he's doing an overly-sardonic Ben Stein impression, even during the game's climactic final battle.
Beyond that, his motivations make little sense, though that's partly because the game's narrative feels like a total afterthought. He rattles on about restoring the natural lifecycle of the Earth, coming across as a bit Captain Planet villain.
Fatman (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty)
One of the three of Dead Cell, a convoluted counter-terrorism unit that attacked the Big Shell facility in Metal Gear Solid 2, Fatman is a ridiculous, rotund man who rolls around on inline skates and sips vintage wine through a straw while wearing a heavy bomb disposal suit.
Said to be a master bomb maker, Fatman makes a strange entrance, pontificating on the nature of time and divulging that he used to hang around department stores so he could listen to the clocks tick. He's among the Metal Gear series' weirdest baddies, and that's really saying something.
Bob The Killer Goldfish (Earthworm Jim)
An intelligent goldfish featured in the Earthworm Jim series of SNES platformers, Bob the Killer Goldfish is perhaps the easiest boss in video game history; he's totally helpless and can do nothing to prevent Jim from snatching him from his bowl and eating him.
That said, his character was fleshed out a bit more in the Earthworm Jim cartoon series. In that production, he starred as the ruler of a race of muscular cats and hoped to steal Jim's suit so he could use it to take over the universe. Of course, the name Bob the Killer Goldfish doesn't exactly strike fear in the hearts of adversaries.
The Think Tank (Fallout: New Vegas)
Hailed by some as one of the greatest pieces of Fallout content ever released, Old World Blues was one of a number of expansions made for Fallout: New Vegas which saw The Courier tangled up in a wacky sci-fi conspiracy between a bunch of pre-war scientists who survived nuclear armageddon by transferring their brains into machines.
They send The Courier on a mission to counter the apparently-nefarious Dr. Mobius, but it turns out that Mobius was working in the best interests of the Wasteland all along. In the end, while the Think Tank aren't exactly traditional villains, they easily stand among gaming's goofiest.
Mephiles The Dark (Sonic The Hedgehog)
Thecame to the forefront of Sonic games around the turn of the century, it became increasingly obvious that Sonic's Rogue's Gallery was pretty underwhelming.
Case in point being Mephiles the Dark, one of a number of antagonists featured in the terrifically awful Sonic the Hedgehog, known colloquially as Sonic '06. Extremely edgy and overbearing, Mephitis feels like the sketchbook doodles of a bored middle school student brought to life.
Sordward and Shielbert (Pokémon Sword and Shield)
Pokémon games are often heralded for their innovative RPG mechanics and excellent representations of the creatures from the TCG. They do not, however, receive praise for their dynamic villains or intriguing storytelling very often, and at no point in the franchise is that more apparent than 2019's Pokémon Sword and Sheild.
Chairman Rose wasn't a particularly compelling villain, but Sordward and Shielbert, the puppetmasters behind the post-game plot, take things to a new level of silly. Their motivations are ridiculous, their character designs are laughable, and it bears repeating that their names are Sordward and Shielbert.
Ghirahim (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
Released in 2011, Skyward Sword was treated as a black sheep in the Zelda franchise. The game's commitment to motion controls rubbed many the wrong way, and the difficulty associated with emulating the game made the already disparate series all the more inaccessible.
It's also one of the few mainline Zelda titles to feature neither Ganon nor Vaati. Instead, the primary antagonists are Demise and his minion Ghirahim. The latter is encountered multiple times throughout the game, and his boisterous persona and eerily long tongue made him tough to like. That said, opinions have softened over the last decade, and part of that may have to do with the recent re-release of Skyward Sword on the Nintendo Switch.
Senator Armstrong (Metal Gear Rising Revengeance)
The Metal Gear games are notorious for outrageous plots that weave modern-day political issues with far-future technobabble to create narratives that scarcely make sense even after multiple playthroughs. Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, however, takes things to an entirely new level of ridiculous with villains like Senator Armstrong.
A Colorado senator who hoped to instigate further conflict in the middle east in order to instill a Darwinistic society in the United States, Armstrong's motives were odd, but his in-game appearance was what made him so memorable. A Hulk-sized politician with the durability of a terminator rambling on about nanomachines and the "mother of all omelets," he was a laugh and a half.
Wheatley (Portal 2)
GLaDOS, the antagonist of the original Portal game, was one of the most memorable video game antagonists of all time. A sentient, malicious AI masquerading as a thoughtless machine, her sudden betrayal during the game's climax took many players by complete surprise.
While she does play a major role in the 2011 sequel, she becomes the protagonist's reluctant partner once the incompetent AI Wheatley is installed as the overseer of Aperture Laboratories. Voiced by English comedian Stephen Merchant, Wheatley was built expressly to spout nonsense in the hopes of somehow inhibiting GLaDOS' genius. Good or evil, he's one of the most loveable goofballs in gaming.
Albert Wesker (Resident Evil 5)
Debuting in 2005 as a late GameCube exclusive, Resident Evil 4 was a major departure from the series which embraced the slightly goofy tones of its predecessors, culminating in an experience that was as silly as it was scary. Capcom tried to make lightning strike twice with the follow-up, but 2009's Resident Evil 5 wasn't nearly as charming.
Part of the problem stemmed from Wesker, the game's antagonist. Wesker was a well-established Resident Evil villain known for his Legion of Doom levels of evil, but the series' fifth installment took things too far, essentially turning him into a hackneyed version of Agent Smith from The Matrix.