Ten great video games about evil corporations

Squaresoft's environmentalist fable pitches a small group of eco-rebels against the might Shinra Electric Power Company – part energy supplier, part terrifying interplanetary dictatorship. The designers were prescient in their imagining of a multifaceted company equally adept in weapons, genetic engineering and politics, and with its own 24-hour news channel to help with propaganda. Formed and managed by the Ashford family (surely gaming's answer to the Sackler dynasty), Umbrella is the pharmaceutical megacorporation responsible for creating the zombifying T-virus then spreading it around the globe. With a chequered background in grotesque human experimentation and shower curtain sales, Aperture Science is the creator of megalomaniacal artificial intelligence GLaDOS, which traps player character Chell in its labyrinthine laboratory. Founder Cave Johnson is the archetypal techbro entrepreneur: brilliant, ruthless and completely nuts.