Colonel Badass / Video Games

• Col. Sawyer from World in Conflict. While we never see him in the field, in that scene where he is shot by sniper (who misses by a few inches), he is just too stoic. And he is fluent in French, too.
  • And the Expansion Pack gives us Soviet Polkovnik Orlovsky.
• The lieutenant colonels in the second Wing Commander were Ace Pilots, without exceptions. Colonel Halcyon, however, acts more as a commander rather than a pilot.
  • There's Colonel Blair himself, from WC3 and WC4. Having killed the most "ace" Kilrathi pilots in the entire three-decade war, and defeating Prince Thrakhath, twice (the second time when Blair's fighter is weighed down with the Temblor Device, which also halved his missile loadout), is one way of earning badass points. He later gets promoted to Four-Star Badass
• Col. Corazon Santiago from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: military genius, knows how to run a police state properly, and hot to boot.
  • Also leader of a faction, and if played right, the entire world. Still, never promotes herself above colonel.
  • In the first of the novelizations by Michael Ely (one of the writers for the game), Santiago personally leads an elite unit of her Myrmidons to storm the UN Headquarters (the Peacekeepers' home base), which has been under Spartan siege for days. Not only does this seal the base's fate, but she also ends up personally killing Pravin Lal's son in revenge for him killing her son.
• Colonel from Mega Man X and his Net Navi counterpart in Mega Man Battle Network are both pretty awesome.
  • It's required for the former, seeing as his Rival is the resident badass...
• Command & Conquer:
  • Colonel Burton, the U.S.' hero unit in Generals and Zero Hour kills enemy soldiers (and aircraft due to a bug in earlier versions) stealthily with his knife, sets demolition charges - he can destroy a base at once with remotes, one at a time with timed ones, and in one case, destroyed a chemical lab with one without even getting close by creating an avalanche -, is hard to see, and totes the most powerful bullet-based weapon of the game, able to kill even tanks.
  • Though he was only a captain during Renegade, Nick "Havoc" Parker was ultimately promoted to colonel before his retirement, in spite of his antics on the battlefield.
• Col. Jade Curtiss from Tales of the Abyss. He starts out approximately 45 levels ahead of the other characters, is far stronger physically than most other black mages, and is 35 years old. In a JRPG. Still kicks the ass of a God-General after getting sealed down to the level of the rest of your party.
  • Even when Jade gets hit with a Fon Slot Seal, he doesn't lose any of his awesomeness. In fact, it's by traveling with the party that he can learn the Meteor Storm spell. And Indignation.
  • He's also the ultimate Deadpan Snarker, and almost completely unflappable, something shown time and time again as a contrast to the other characters. His badassery isn't just in fighting, it's also in the fact that he can stand in the middle of a raging volcano and appears not to sweat. Although that could just be the Convection, Schmonvection in effect.
• Col. Volgin of the GRU from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Yes, he's evil. Doesn't detract one bit from his badassitude.
  • Also from Metal Gear, we have Col. Roy Campbell. Even when he retires, Snake not only continues to respect him, he even refers to him as "Colonel"... over Campbell's explicit objections. And in the original Metal Gear Solid? He gave orders to Solid Snake.
• The King of Fighters has Heidern. He's only appeared in four of the games, and he's a freaking god. Imagine what happens when you give a character similar to Guile absurd priority in attacks, the ability suck the life out of his opponents and give it to himself, and has no "magical" justification for his abilities. SNK developers worried people might think he was an alien or a wizard. His adopted daughter Leona takes after him quite well (and replaces him after '95). He clearly takes a few cues from the Colonel from Fist of the North Star.
  • Technically, Ralf (who's under his command) holds the rank of Colonel as well.
• Rolento from Final Fight (who later appears in Street Fighter Alpha) is quite badass, and also inspired by the Colonel from Fist of the North Star.
• Col. Hoffman from Gears of War, at least in the sequel. Prior to that, he was more of a General Ripper type, at least toward Marcus, until Marcus redeemed himself.
  • Colonel Loomis from the prequel game Judgment is not a great leader, opting to conduct a show trial in the middle of a pitched battle, however, when the Locust invade the courthouse, he's more than willing to head to the front himself, even fighting alongside the trial's defendants against a Giant Spider.
• Maybe to appeal to players' potential Munchkin desires and knowledge of this trope - you are referred to as 'Colonel' for your military rank in EndWar.
• X-COM
  • The abilities of soldiers in the MicroProse games generally improve as they survive more missions, as does their rank depending on the number of soldiers. The rank of colonel is the second-highest in UFO Defense, next to the commander, which you can only get one of at any time. The rank is mostly tied to morale boosts (and losses if a high-ranking soldier gets killed), but to reach Colonel rank, a soldier has to have been through a truckload of missions where they've acted and most likely improved their skills.
  • In the reboot, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, soldiers are promoted based on their experience gain, and gain stat boosts and abilities unlocked as they do so. Colonel is the highest rank attainable, and marks an operative with the highest stats and most abilities within their class. Hell, Colonel-level abilities alone are only not game-breaking because it takes so long to get to them. And unlike in the older games, promotions aren't restricted by a hierarchy system, so all 70 spots of your barracks can be occupied by Colonels.
• Subverted by Captain Price from Modern Warfare, who displays the amount of sheer badassitude commonly seen only in colonels, yet is still inexplicably a "mere" captain. Had he not been held prisoner by the Russians for five years, though, he may have well been promoted to colonel by MW 2.
• Colonel Hyuga from the original Shadow Hearts is playable only briefly, but manages to annihilate a squadron of thugs due to his souped-up stats. He then proceeds to save an old man and befriend a child.
• Another chance for the player to pick up this trope: if you play as the United Earth Federation officer in Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, you're referred to only as the colonel, having been promoted from Major in between the original game and the expansion. The more informal Cybrans only have two ranks that anyone ever hears about, so their player is always just commander, and the Aeon player is either Knight of the Illuminate or the Champion of the Princess, depending on where they are in the storyline. Both Cybran and Aeon players remain every bit as badass as their UEF counterpart, though.
• Colonel Augustus Autumn, Fallout 3. Autumn is not a particularly strong opponent (he is only slightly more durable than the average human, and his only armor is his trench coat), and he doesn't often appear during the game. This would make you think he doesn't qualify for this trope... until you realize that the troops under his command — which form the power-armored, plasma-rifle-wielding striking arm of the Enclave — were so loyal to him that they, to a man, defected with him when he mutinied against the President. The. President. The leader of the Enclave. Either Autumn either has some very impressive leadership skills or everyone really hates bureaucrats.
  • Additionally, he somehow survives a dose of radiation that kills you no matter how many anti-rad meds you take.
    • Just before he falls on the floor, you can see him injecting something into his arm, maybe it's some kind of super-duper high-tech Enclave Rad-X?
• Colonel Cassandra Moore in Fallout: New Vegas. She's the commander of the garrison at Hoover Dam, within spitting distance of a massive enemy troop buildup on the east side of the dam. General Ripper-esque, ball-busting, credentials in the form of four campaigns against the Brotherhood of Steel during the NCR's war with them.
  • She's also an ex-Ranger for added badass points.
• Col. Randall Moore from Universe at War: Earth Assault, although he gets promoted to General by the second mission. It takes a lot of badass to be a powerful hero unit when everyone else in your species is Cannon Fodder or, even worse, resources for the alien invaders.
• Killzone: Colonel Tendon Cobar and Colonel Mael Radec are with the bad guys, but they're both badass enough to show you how they've earned their ranks. Templar, while promoted to colonel in Killzone 2, doesn't quite make the cut.
• Sergei Vladimir from Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, former Soviet colonel and head of Umbrella Corporation's field-oriented Red Umbrella Division. Strangely, he's somewhat Affably Evil and usually lets his bodyguards do most of the actual fighting, but even that doesn't diminish his badassery. The man pulls a gun on Wesker without flinching, transforms into a monster to try and save his employer's company, and has so much presence that his badass status is never in doubt. No one does Undying Loyalty quite like Sergei.
• In Just Cause 2, you get to take down various colonels who carry good firepower and are Made of Iron enough to shrug off bullets to anywhere except the face.
• Ace Combat: Assault Horizon gives us a USAF Colonel for the protagonist and a Russian Colonel for the antagonist.
• BlazBlue:
  • Colonel Relius Clover, puppeteer extraordinare and quite possibly the closest person who can be said to be Hazama's superior other than the Imperator. He's a gigantic scumbag.
  • Chronophantasma introduces Colonel Kagura Mutsuki, who's not only the leader of the highest clan amongst the NOL Duodecim... but also a surprisingly pleasant dude. To fill in the badass part, he curb-stomps Ragna and fights Noel/Mu-12 on equal terms.
• Colonel Sanger Zonvolt of Super Robot Wars fame. Pilot of a giant mech, a German samurai and all-round badass. What's not to like about this guy?
• Lt. Colonel Burns of Vanquish is a massive dude with cybernetics up the wazoo touting a big ol' minigun as his main weapon.
• The Big Bad of Contra: Hard Corps, Colonel Bahamut is a Disgraced war hero who plans to take over the world by using Alien DNA. Perhaps the best example of the Colonel's badassness is the path where he fights the player while wearing a gigantic claw arm.
  • A younger version of him is the star of the prequel Hard Corps: Uprising.
• Jax from the Mortal Kombat series fits this trope to a tee, despite being a Major.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the rank of "Legate" fills a niche that resembles Colonel (in the regard of "highest ranked line officer"). Legate Rikke fits the bill of Legate Badass, and if you side with the Empire in the civil war, you eventually are promoted to Legate as well.
• Pit, as of Kid Icarus: Uprising is the Captain of the Guard for Palutena, and he leads the charge against all of her enemies (and he even points out at one point that he's an officer, not just an enlisted man). The sheer number of foes he rips through (including the top generals of the Forces of Nature and Hades, the god of the underworld himself) cements his badass credentials as well.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles X, Elma was a Colonel of the Coalition forces prior to Earth's destruction. Her combat prowess is nigh-legendary, and the BLADEs that served under her back then still address her by the title out of respect.
• Valkyria Chronicles III has Kurt Irving, leader of the Nameless Squadron.
  • He also ends up becoming the highest ranking soldier in Project × Zone where he leads the party in one stage.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III has Colonel Neithardt, who was promoted between II and III and is the The Ace of the strongest army of the empire, the Fourth Armored Division.
• Colonel Moscardó, a major character in COD 2 Spanish Civil War Mod. Defiantly refuses to surrender the Alcazar despite the enemy having an overwhelming advantage and threatening to murder his son held in their captivity.