Mad scientists have been a staple of video games almost since the beginning, right alongside other villainous groups, such as space aliens and Nazis. Hey, someone has to create all those legions of robots and mutants for the hero to fight. Luckily there seem to be plenty of guys with more smarts than sanity who are willing to offer a challenge along with scores of enemies. Over the years though, there have been a few such individuals who have distinguished themselves as being much crazier than their counterparts. Here are six of the maddest mad scientists to ever bring their insanity to video games.

6. Andross (Star Fox)

Andross has been the main antagonist for most of the Star Fox games, and his story is pretty typical for mad scientists. He was a successful researcher whose experiments were intended to help mankind, but somewhere along the way he went a little wacko. He ended up accidentally unleashing a weapon on his home planet of Corneria, which resulted in him being banished to a wasteland planet called Venom. There, he built up an army of space ships with flashing yellow weak spots and tried to invade the galaxy several times. Then he got his ass handed to him by a team of petting zoo creatures over and over again. Unfortunately, none of that really explains why he's a monkey whose "true form" is a brain with two floating eyeballs.

5. Umbrella Corporation (Resident Evil series)

In the Resident Evil series, the Umbrella Corporation is the main enemy (though it's kind of hard to notice it with all those blood-thirsty zombies shambling around). They're the group that created the T-Virus, which is what turns a whole city into the walking undead; and they actually did that on purpose. When your main goal is to bring the dead back to life as flesh-eating killers, you have officially boarded the train to Crazyville. That would be bad enough, but then the Umbrella Corporation kept tweaking and mutating the T-Virus to make different varieties of zombies that were faster and more deadly. So to summarize: they effed up, realized they had effed up, and then conciously tried to eff up even more. Yeah, it may seem ridiculous, but if Pfizer or Merck ever decide to get into the zombie making business, we're screwed.

4. Dr. Fred Edison (Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle)

Both Maniac Mansion and its sequel, Day of the Tentacle, were meant to pay homage to cheesy, sci-fi films. That's probably what best explains about 50% of Dr. Fred Edison, such as his creepy mansion, his laboratory filled all manner of pulsing electric arcs, and his penchant for snatching people's girlfriends. The rest though is just pure weirdness even for a B-movie. For instance, there's his family, which includes a military nut obsessed with hamsters and stamps, an elderly nurse who seems to have a thing for S&M, and a mummy who gets his own gym and pornography collection. His inventions include a port-o-potty that travels through time, a mind-control machine, and a couple of man-sized, sentient tentacles. In Day of the Tentacle, one of those things actually succeeds in conquering the world and turning humans into pets for the tentacle race. Yeah, when you are directly responsible for a giant, talking appendage taking over the world, I think it's safe to say you went off the deep end a long time ago.

3. Space Pirates (Metroid)

You don't really notice this in the early Metroid games, but most of those baddies you're shooting are actually part of an advanced race of scientists. Yeah, it's kind of hard to pick up on that when they're jumping at you with giant claws and lasers. The Space Pirates are actually central to the whole game series since they're the group who keep snatching up the Metroid species to try and use them as a weapon. In the midst of this though, the Space Pirates also have a nasty habit of experimenting on other species as well as themselves, which lead to many of the nasty critters you have to destroy in the games. It's a little understandable that they might try and turn themselves into big hulking death machines, but why do that to other creatures too? It's no wonder they end up being defeated by their own creations half the time.

 2. All the Scientists Who Designed Metal Gear (Metal Gear series)

The Metal Gear series has taken on an increasingly convoluted storyline over the years, so there are a number of people who could be called the "creator" of the titular machine. But all these people had one thing in common: they must've been out of their freakin' minds. At what point during the production of a walking robot that shoots nuclear warheads do you ask yourself if this is even a good idea? Is it when you're designing a way for the nukes to be untraceable? Is it when you're outfitting it with enough weapons and armor to take out a city? Is it when you're giving the damn thing the ability to roar like an animal? Aside from all that though, you'd think someone might realize this sort of project tends to attract a whole lot of terrorists, seeing as every single Metal Gear has ended up stolen and used to threaten the world at large. Seriously, scientists, are you crazy or just stupid?

1. Dr. Wily (Mega Man series)

In the Mega Man universe, there are two reigning geniuses: Dr. Wily and Dr. Light. With names like that, you can guess which one is the evil one. The two were actually friends at one point, until Light starting getting all the credit for building several advanced robots. So he did what any mad scientist would do and began constructing robots to help him conquer the world. The fact that he uses an army of robots to try and enslave the world would be enough to earn him a spot on this list, but what about the robots he comes up with? Over the course of several schemes, Wily has sent out robots that spin in place (Top Man), throw boomerangs (Quick Man), conjure up leaves (Wood Man), and shoot tiny robot snakes (Snake Man), among many others. Maybe the reason Mega Man keeps beating them all is because he shows up with a laser cannon while they all come prepared with whatever crap Wily found stuck on his roof that day.