The Top 7 Worst videogame presidents

2. President Huffman

From: Destroy All Humans!

As leaders go, President Huffman is barely fit to drive a bus. Cruel, buffoonish and insanely corrupt even before Destroy All Humans! begins, he’s little more than a shill for a shadowy, anti-alien organization known as Majestic, the ultimate plans of which involve world domination. And yet even with all their help, he stupidly ignores and covers up the actions of DAH’s invading alien "hero," Crypto, until it’s far too late.

After burning a laser-etched swath across America, Crypto’s bid to destroy the American Dream culminates in Huffman’s assassination on the steps of the Capitol Building. Then, just when it seems the U.S. has been brought to its knees before the unstoppable might of one… lone… invader (you know, the kind you've effortlessly killed scores of in, oh, every other game), we find out that Majestic has one last surprise up its sleeve: Huffman’s brain was preserved, and put in control of the colossal RoboPrez.

Above: Wave hello to your robot messiah, America!

Too bad for Majestic, the secret society learned too late what any gamer could have told them: if you’re going to build a giant robot, you don’t stick a flabby, middle-aged, corrupt public servant behind the controls. RoboPrez was defeated in short order, and Huffman went down in history as the first world leader who was totally unable to stop a single tiny alien from completely subjugating his country even after having his brain stuffed into a giant robot.

Or he would have, if Crypto hadn’t stolen his identity, become president in his place and herded his new constituents into DNA-harvesting machines.

Above: Still a more competent option, all things considered

1. President Max

From: Sam & Max Save the World

Where the rest of the presidents on this list are incompetent, conniving or just plain ineffectual, Max the hyperkinetic rabbity thing is an outright sociopath, and he makes no attempt to hide this. Also, where other presidents tend to be semi-inaccessible, mostly behind-the-scenes figures, Max is one of the two heroes of his series, and that doesn’t change after he gets elected.

Max became president just four episodes into the first Sam & Max “season,” when he and his anthropomorphic-dog partner Sam were summoned to the White House to look into the incumbent president’s erratic behavior. This included (among other things) federally mandated group hugs before, during and after all major sporting events, and failing to understand unaccented English. Unsurprisingly, the guy turned out to be a robot made to hypnotize Americans during televised speeches.

Above: GEE I WONDER WHICH PRESIDENT THIS GUY IS BASED ON

This revelation (which came after the president was accidentally decapitated) prompted an emergency election between a towering robot Abraham Lincoln and the nearest available contender, which turned out to be Max. Representing the Random Violence and Destruction Party, Max won an underhanded victory by tampering with Lincoln’s cue cards.

He subsequently attempted to solve all national problems by building an army of giant battle robots, and then almost single-handedly destroyed the Internet. God help us all.