He’s green. He’s grumpy. He likes to take happiness away from entire towns.

Dr. Theobold Suess Geisel’s Grinch is a cranky reclusive villain who eventually comes around and embraces all that which he hated. He’s so iconic that, naturally, there are plenty of video game villains who, in one way or another, are like Grinch.

Here’s a few of our staff picks for the Grinch-iest villains – Grinch excluded – in video games…

Ah, villainy. A sacred and necessary vocation. After all, if there’s no antagonist, what’s the protagonist supposed to do all day, stay at home growing crops, raising animals and making friends with the neighbors? Inconceivable! Even when that situation arises, some ill-intentioned individual pops up and turns some earth goddess to stone.

While players typically rejoice after vanquishing a particularly evil and challenging nemesis, it isn’t uncommon to have a soft spot in your heart for the baddie. After all, he’s just doing his job. Maintaining balance and such. Plus, he represents a way of life people don’t get to experience.

Perhaps this is why gamers enjoy games where the villain is the star. For a brief moment, players get to see how the other side lives by vicariously living through an evil-doer who can be bumbling, sympathetic, humorous or down-right nasty.

So today, Gamertell’s going through, in no particular order, 10 games where players get to ditch their consciences and let loose, if only for a little while…

As part of the trickle-out-press-releases ploy now popular with so many game companies, Warner Bros. has released images of Mr.Freeze for the upcoming LegoBatman: The Videogame game. There he is, looking all shades of cool and stuff.

Lego Batman is being developed by Travelers Tales (aka TT Games) and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and is expected to be released September 2008 for current-gen consoles and PC.

Besides Mr. Freeze, other confirmed characters include…

Gamerhelp recently released a list of the ten most pathetic video game villains. These are the guys who are so pitiful, they return game after game in an attempt to finally get things right. They never do though. Its a shame really. The list compiled includes: Bowser (Super Mario), Dr. Willy (Mega Man), Diablo (Diablo), Ganon (Legend of Zelda), Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong), Sephiroth (FFVII), Pacman ghosts, James Bond villains, Dracula (Castlevania) and Mother Brain (Metroid). Most of them are dead on.

I do disagree with the whole Sephiroth theory. I mean after all, he’s the standard for Final Fantasy evil. There’s also a darn good reason why he couldn’t just take out the whole team right away. I’m sure there is. Or if there is, it is a spoiler and shouldn’t be mentioned aloud.