Occupy Your Console: 10 Games That Stick It To The 1%

Image via Complex Original

Sure, hanging out in tents for weeks on end may send a powerful message but wouldn’t you love to enforce your own brand of social change with a 12 gauge? Well you can’t, because that’s illegal and not how things are done.

However, there’s nothing in the rulebooks against taking down the 1% in video games. There are plenty of games that feature greedy, evil corporations as the villains but these are the ones that allow you to enact the most economic justice. Whether it’s leveling their profits, redistributing wealth or just burning all the money you can find, these are the games that let you stick it to the 1% the most.

De Blob

Platforms: Nintendo Wii

Crimes Against Humanity: Cultural Control, Slavery

Acts of Rebellion: Graffiti, Vandalism

Who says social reform has to be all serious business? De Blob takes the fight against evil corporations and adds a whimsical spin to it. With the INKT Corporation sucking the color out of life for personal gain, it’s up to De Blob to bounce his big belly across the city, restoring the once-bright palette.

As you roll your tubby self around the city, colorizing the desaturated buildings, parks and people, you can almost hear the pained cries of corporate fat cats as their monochromatic takeover goes down the drain.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Platforms: Sega Genesis

Crimes Against Humanity: Deforestation, Slavery, Animal Abuse

Acts of Rebellion: Eco-terrorism, Property Destruction

Fat, arrogant and sporting a really pretentious mustache, Dr. Robotnik is the definition of excess. His greedy plan to kidnap all the innocent woodland creatures and turn them into robotic slaves is just the sort of malevolent selfishness that deserves to be stomped out.

Thankfully when you’ve got the world’s fastest hedgehog on your side it’s a stomping quickly delivered. It’s a cathartic sensation to pop atop one of Robotnik’s evil animal prisons to send a cascading shower of cute critters scampering out in all directions; it liberates the fat doctor’s impoverished and oppressed creatures, and is just too adorable not to enjoy.

Fable III 

Platforms: Xbox 360, PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Wealth Hoarding, Class Disparity

Acts of Rebellion: Mutiny, Usurp the Throne

When it comes to the rich and arrogant it’s hard to find anyone more Bourgeois than a king, even worse when he happens to also be your brother. As he hoards resources from the impoverished people of his kingdom it’s up to you to stand against his tyranny and liberate the common folk by overthrowing him by spell and sword.

What’s interesting is that the story doesn’t stop once you’ve usurped the throne; it’s now up to you to decide just what your reformed monarchy will do differently. The question from that point remains largely unanswered; will you bring about the socialist utopia you fought for, or will you succumb to the dark side of power like your brother?

The Dishwasher: Vampire Smiles

Platforms: Xbox 360

Crimes Against Humanity: Wealth Hoarding, Pollution, Dictatorship

Acts of Rebellion: Cut Their Heads Off

You’ve been annexed to a prison in space because of a global conspiracy carried out by a banker, a general and a judge to blame you for the destruction of the earth. These pillars of capitalist society have locked you away for a crime you didn’t commit while they atop thrones on the moon, spreading a new world order.

After you free yourself it’s a revenge mission to slaughter every last one of these cowards and get the justice you deserve. With nods to classic, The Count of Monte Cristo, this is a bloody and satisfying way to tear down the keystones of capitalism.

Final Fantasy VII

Platforms: PlayStation, PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Pollution, Wealth Hoarding, Class Disparity

Acts of Rebellion: Eco-terrorism

It’s hard not to hate Shinra Electric Power Company. Single-handedly responsible for the rampant misuse of mako energy, the slum conditions of lower Midgar, and the outright destruction of Mother Nature. The company’s greed led it to suck the planet and population dry in their pursuit of profits and it took a scrappy band of rebels to fight them and deliver some payback.

Taking down SOLDIER agents with a buster sword alongside a gun-armed brute and a perky brawler is the ultimate sort of revenge against the resource hogging, selfish minded regime. Why should 1% of the population control 90% of the Gil?

Jet Set Radio Future

Platforms: Xbox

Crimes Against Humanity: Cultural Control, Censorship

Acts of Rebellion: Graffiti, Loud Music, Vandalism, Mischief

You know things are in dire straits when a private corporation has taken over and renamed the local police force. In addition to being a soul-sucking greedy corporation, The Rokkaku Group has bought up the Tokyo law enforcement and set them against the youth culture of the future city to subdue their creative impulses in order to keep them compliant consumers.

That’s why it feels so good to rage against their machine and tear up the streets on your hyper-powered rollerblades, spreading free expression with a can of spray paint and some killer tunes. Not only do the members of the conformity-fighting GG’s tackle the culture-squashing regime, they do it in tremendous style.

Mirror’s Edge

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Cultural Control, Social Slavery, Class Disparity

Acts of Rebellion: Propaganda, Trespassing

Nothing helps keep totalitarian oppressors in control and able to manipulate society to their will like complacency, and the citizens of the dystopian city of Mirror’s Edge have it in spades. With citizens losing their freedoms and liberties in exchange for a safer and more cohesive society, responsibility for reform falls on Faith and her band of runners.

With free speech monitored and policed in order to keep dissent to a minimum, the greedy overlords are willing to kill to keep the truth of their deception quiet. Using the network of self-aggrandizing skyscrapers and construction against them, the runners wage an information war against their corporate oppressors without weapons and force just like any good protestor.

Beyond Good & Evil

Platforms: PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Slavery, Class Disparity

Acts of Rebellion: Propaganda, Photojournalism

When the invading DomZ aliens attack the peaceful residence of Hillys the Alpha Sections promises to defend the people in exchange for their compliance, creating a military dictatorship.

It takes a group of tree-hugging conspiracy theorists to uncover DomZ operated human trafficking rings sanctioned by the Alpha Sections, proving that sometimes the good guys and bad guys work together to control the little people. Thankfully you’re given control of a photojournalist with a steady hand and an empty memory card. Seek the truth of their corruption and end it.

Red Faction

Platforms:  PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Class Disparity, Wealth Hoarding

Acts of Rebellion: Violent Revolution

Life on Mars is tough, you put your time into your job for menial pay so that you can take care of your space family and save a little more for retirement. Of course without an interstellar healthcare system and no benefits to speak of, times get tough when you get sick from inhaling the Martian moon rocks you mine for 12 hours a day.

The Ultor corporation does everything it can to keep you down, but unlike those sissy Earth-dwelling 99% the #OccupyMars movement involves a few more rocket launchers and a violent misuse of mining equipment.

Payday: The Heist

Platforms: PlayStation 3, PC

Crimes Against Humanity: Wealth Hoarding, Class Disparity

Acts of Rebellion: Robbery

Petitioning and voting for reform has its time and place, but if you really want the 1% to take notice you’re going to have to get your hands dirty to make a difference. Rather than wasting time making signs and pitching tents, the anti-heroes of Payday: The Heist take matters into their own hands by barging into banks, guns blazing, and taking the ill-gotten money back for a private redistribution. Sure, they may injure a few civilians in the process and the 4-man division of funds might not exactly be the sort of equality so many are hoping for, but it’s hard to argue with results.