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The Ten Best Computer Game Villains
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LeChuck
LucasArts
Hear LeChuck speak (lechuck.mp3, 26k)
He's a pirate with a zest for living - despite the fact he's dead. That pretty much sums up the evil charm of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, one of LucasArts' most memorable characters and one of our favorite adventure game foes.
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LeChuck burst onto the scene in 1990 in The Secret of Monkey Island, a classic adventure that demonstrated LucasArts' mastery of the genre more clearly than any game before it. And LeChuck - with his voodoo cult, nefarious schemes, and comic one-liners - was definitely the star of the show. Copious cutscenes and some of the best in-game dialogue ever written gave LeChuck a depth of personality never before seen in a computer game, and the unending desire to explore his twisted genius was one reason why The Secret of Monkey Island mesmerized adventure gamers around the globe.
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Of course, it's impossible to talk about LeChuck without mentioning Guybrush Threepwood, the player-controlled aspiring pirate who battles and ultimately conquers LeChuck in the game. Despite having many fine qualities of his own, Threepwood is in many ways nothing more than a straight man for LeChuck, an awkward, naive foil against which the Ghost Pirate's mystical machinations and otherworldly plans play out for maximum dramatic impact. Indeed, LeChuck's magnetism is so strong that informal research among GameSpot staffers indicates that given the choice, most of us would rather play a Monkey Island game with him as the protagonist than with Threepwood.
The Secret of Monkey Island was only the beginning of LeChuck's career. Though thoroughly destroyed at the end of the game, he would rise again in two sequels. First came the exquisite 1991 release Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, in many ways the pinnacle of LucasArts' "golden age" of game making. And more recently, he appeared in 1997's The Curse of Monkey Island, which was selected as GameSpot's Adventure Game of the Year.
And so, with a history spanning three games and seven years, LeChuck is LucasArts' most enduring original villain.
Next:
The brilliant mutant
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